Fly
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Nothing but you and the air. The city of Canterlot stretches before you, gleaming gold and white, towers and plazas basking in the glare of the sun. It’s ancient. It’s majestic.
It’s home.
You know this city. You know the ponies that live here, strutting about with their noses in the air, pretending to be better than the rest of the kingdom. You know that they have to convince themselves of that before they can convince anypony else, and even then it's hollow.
You also know that they are chained, and you are free.
Oh, how you know this city.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
They don't even notice you up here, poised on the edge of a rooftop. On the ground, they would look down on you, a simple earth pony. Scoff at your lack of what they call style, or class. On the ground, they see you as a commoner.
But up here?
Up here you’re untouchable.
You are the ruler, and this cityscape is your domain.
Far below you, Equestria’s elite carry on with their wealthy, lavish and utterly lonely lives.
Breathe in, breathe out.
With a smile on your face, you step off the edge.
Your hooves take the brunt of the fall as you land on the rooftop below. You sink down with the impact, going into a crouch, and then spring forward, using the jump to gain momentum in your run. As you reach the edge of the roof, you once again see the sprawling capital of Equestria, but no longer is it just a city. It is a path. Over smokestacks, across rooftops, running, jumping, climbing, laughing and living, all in a blur of motion and freedom.
It’s not a perfect run. You slip and you stumble and you knock your knees against the white stone of the buildings beneath you. You couldn’t care less. After all, nopony was watching you. Their heads were held too high to see you up here, too absorbed in the luxuries of life to remember to actually live.
The wonderful irony of this strikes you, and you burst out laughing, not caring who hears. Leaping off a chimney, you land on an elegant balcony, the corner of the next stretch of buildings just visible around the bend of this one.
Hopping forward, you turn the corner.
The laughter dies in your throat.
At the far end of the block, there lies a chasm. A jump farther than any of the others on your run.
A jump you know well.
Time and time again, you’ve attempted that jump, and time and time again, you fall. Bruises, cuts, the odd broken bone. It taunts you from a distance, daring you to try and fail again. You’re not even sure why you still try. There’s nothing particularly special about it. It’s merely a street where the distance between the buildings is wider than normal.
But that’s how life goes, isn’t it? The jump you don’t make, the test you don’t pass, the girl you don’t meet. There are some things in this world that just aren’t meant to be.
The question presents itself again. Why do you try? Why do you get up after every humiliating fall, brushing yourself off and wanting to jump once more?
What makes you think you’ll make it now, when you’ve failed every time before?
You don’t know.
You start running.
The white marble flies under your hooves as you pick up speed, barreling across the rooftops. Vaulting over a chimney, sliding under an overhang, you become one with the air. You don’t see the next jumps and ducks as much as you feel them. Your heart pounds in your chest, and the breath tears from your throat. You feel each ragged exhale being whipped from you, left behind in the wake of your speed.
You see the chasm yawning ahead, and a cold determination comes over you.
Determination...
...and fear.
Your mind is desperately warring with itself. You know that the jump is possible, but you also know that it isn’t. You can make it, and you can’t. You will and you won’t.
In the end, you come to the decision that you always do.
You can’t decide whether to jump or not, so you just concentrate on running. One hoof in front of the other, propelling you ever closer to your fate, whatever it may be.
The gap draws near.
Ten steps.
Six.
Three.
One.
You finally make up your mind, and decide to turn around and go home.
And then you jump.
You soar through the air, mind reeling, your heart in your throat and your mouth open in a silent shout.
At the apex of your leap, time slows to a crawl.
All your insecurities, all your failures come crashing down on you, pulling you toward the unforgiving street below.
Your brain tells you that you can’t.
You tell yourself that you can’t.
The world, harsh and unforgiving, tells you that you can’t.
Your heart tells you something different.
Legs outstretched, eyes closed, you plummet toward the ground...
...and land with a thud onto the opposite side of the chasm.
The pain is immediate; there’s a crunching sound as your face is slammed into the cold marble of the rooftop. Rolling and tumbling, you finally come to a stop, your broken snout staining the white stone a crimson red. You must have landed on your ankle wrong, a sharp pain is shooting up your leg. Gasping and panting, you silently try assess the damage to your body.
It hurts like hell.
But you’re alive.
Struggling to your hooves, you stumble to the edge of the roof to look at the building from which you leaped. The realization hits you like a ton of bricks.
You made it. You made the jump. The impossible jump, the jump that can’t be done, the one that’s seen you plummeting onto the hard pavement below time and time again. On this day, no different from any other, you suddenly do the impossible.
A broad smile grows across your face, and a sudden pain causes you to spit out a single tooth from your aching mouth.
You did the impossible, and nopony was around to see it.
At least, that’s what you thought.
A slight movement draws your gaze downward, towards the street beneath you. There, a lone figure stares up at you.
She couldn’t have been older than eight, maybe six or seven years old. She didn’t even have her cutie mark yet. It makes you wonder what the tiny lavender unicorn was doing out by herself, this close to dusk, with only a raggedy doll floating by her side. Her mane was a rich purple, with an adorable pinkish stripe running down it. Closer inspection revealed the same for her tail, and both were in the same clean, straight cut. Her eyes strike you the most, though. A deep, majestic indigo, they sparkled with a desire for...what? Knowledge? Power? You can’t be sure. They’re the eyes of a dreamer, the eyes of a student.
You wonder if she will be destined for great things one day.
Whatever the case, those twinkling eyes are still gazing up in awe at you. She must’ve seen the whole thing, from the jump to the fall.
She stares at you, and you stare right back.
Slowly, she lifts her right hoof.
Clip
Then the left one.
Clop
Again and again, she beats her hooves onto the ground, faster and faster, until you can recognize for what it is.
Applause.
In the age old pony tradition, this little filly is clapping for you. For what you’ve accomplished. She is alone in doing so. The sound of her hooves echo around the empty street, the sound of bones rattling against the rock.
You’ve never heard a more beautiful sound in your life.
Your eyes shimmering slightly, you turn your head, and you see the glorious sunset, painting the sky with vivid reds and oranges, setting the clouds aflame.
You may not have been blessed with the gift of wings.
But you’ll be damned if you won’t fly.
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After a long day of swimming at a Disney resort pool, I finally got back to the hotel room. My little brother was sitting on the couch with a tablet in front of him.
"Hey bro," he said, "I just had an idea. I'm gonna try to write a parkour pony fic."
"Wow. That's....pretty dumb, actually."
"You're dumb."
"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I'm gonna hit the shower. Need to wash all this chlorine off me."
15 minutes and a lot of mulling things over in my head later, I stepped back into the living room wearing nothing but a towel.
"Hey, dude, can I see the iPad after you're done? I got an idea I wanted to write down."
Nice!
FIST PUMP OF VICTORY.
Seriously. That was brilliant. And little!Twilight was worked in really well, even though the identity wasn't all that important in comparison to the act of leaping the chasm. Symbolism? Only a little.
1524570
Exactly. Only a little symbolism. Just a tad. One tiny smidge-o-meter of it.
(Seriously though thanks for the praise.
)
Well done
1525141
Glad you think so!
Hopefully other people will as well, that way there's a chance my story could get f-feature-snktpfft Bwahahahaha!
Sorry. Couldn't say that with a straight face.
You've got six straight upvotes. That's a good sign, if nothing else.
1525337
Hmm. I suppose that's true....
Perhaps.
Very well done, my good friend, very well indeed. I continue to be astonished with your writing, for how low those English grades are. Also, I liked your somewhat subtle reference to your previous story. It gave me a small chuckle. As always, keep up the extraordinary work and you'll bring "f-yeah I'm such a badass" grins to the faces of many ponies. That feel.
1525492
That feel.
Excellent work, Iago. ;3
Cool,very interesting.
1761819
Pfft. That's nothing. When this was first posted, I actually watched it get less attention than a fic entitled "Spongebob's Adventures in Equestria".
*Grins* From the mouths of our own no?:P
Very nicely written. I loved the long pauses in the text, it really helped give emphasis to the actions.
I'm not a big fan of second person so this had less effect on me than it might have and I kind of didn't like Twilight being included. That said this is still a beautiful piece.
This is a really REALLY bad fic. Lllliterally the worst thing i have ever read. I hated the ending the msot.fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/020/b/0/new_canvas_20_by_silvadruid-d5s6uyt.png
That last sentence made me smile, and caused tinglies down my spine. Very very few fics do that. Probably because i dont read very many....But of the 8 i HAVE read, this one made me feel chilly in a really good way!
So, as I'm doing my routine check of my notifications, I see this story and the second one, being added to the group I'm in, "The Writer's Group".
Out of sheer boredom, I click, fully expecting some 100k+ behemoth of an epic.
Instead I find a 1k one shot. And it damn well was epic.
I applaud you. I fave, and I follow.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2726179
Huzzah! I've been rather desperate for more opinions on these stories. Hell, I'm not even picky about whether they like it or not, I just want to know what they think.
So thanks and junk.
2726397
I'm impressed that not that many have seen this. It's REALLY good.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2726407
Eh. You'd be surprised. As I mentioned in one of the comments above, when this fic was first published it got less attention than "Spongebob's Adventures in Equestria".
I didn't know exactly what you meant by "substance", so I decided to check out your writing.
I now know. Like some of the other commenters, I got chills reading it, especially at the last line.
You've created a very *real* aspect to your story, which is a pleasure to read.
Thank you for reading and commenting on my little fic. I hope that you will continue to keep an eye on it. Or two.
Excellent. Gave me chills.
Long live the unknown literary geniuses!
Simple and sweet.
Very inspiring.
Wow, I am pleasantly surprised. The story was brief, but that's what made it great. you conveyed your idea in an organic concise way, and it felt very real. Usually, I jump for longer stories, but you have demonstrated quite clearly here that length is unnecessary. Definitely the best short fic I've read, this literally sent chills down my spine. Well done.
3572360
Well...thanks! To be perfectly honest this isn't my favorite work, but everyone seems to like it well enough, so I won't complain.
The parkour bit is excellent, and I enjoy the idea of the "audience" at the end, but the filly being Twilight Sparkle specifically? I don't know, it just ruins the vibe for me. There really seems to be no reason to have her there specifically, not to mention she sounds like the pony who would run for help after seeing a pony break their face on a rooftop, instead of clapping in approval.
I'm assuming there's supposed to be a message there, but it doesn't work for me. The one I get I don't like, and if it's something else, then I don't see it...