Blossoming: Learning How To Fly

by nanashi_jones

Cell Phone Reception Is Surprisingly Good Up In The Clouds

Being a pony was all about education. Learning how to use your hooves, when to use your teeth, how to walk, how to canter, all kinds of experience. Adding on being a pegasus and wings and you have a whole other course load to take on.

Case in point, how long can you fly?

Maybe the fact that Blossomforth’s name is, well, Blossomforth should have clued me in that the distances we were going to be covering were outside her comfort zone. Maybe the fact that she thought of herself as a weekend flier should have also occurred to me.

Either way, after an hour of steady flying, I was laying on Suzy, feeling embarrassed as I caught my breath.

“How you doing?” Jess called back to me.

She was hitched to Suzy by a cirrus stream and hauling our luggage and me without sweating too hard.

“Finding new levels of embarrassment,” I sighed. “Even as a pony, I’m out of shape.”

“You’re not out of shape,” Jess called back. “You flew too hard in the beginning. What did I say back when we started hiking?”

“‘Measure effort, not distance,’” I quoted.

“Bingo.”

Sorry, Blossomforth said. I thought I could handle the distances you laid out.

I mentally waved my hoof in dismissal.

Not your fault. I didn’t stick to your pace and winded myself. Once I get our breath back- gonna be... Gonna be a thing.

That tired, huh?

I’m beset on all sides, I grumbled.

Don’t feel too bad, Cloud’s a bit of a fitness nut. Not as intense as Rainbow Dash, but she works out more than most of us in Ponyville.

Intrigued at the information, I rolled sideways on Suzy to look at Jess/Cloud from behind with an eye to more pegasus details than general pony-ness. The beat of her wings, the muscle beneath her haunches and flank- yep, she was definitely in hardier shape than Blossom. No wonder Jess was getting a handle on the physical aspects quicker than I was. Now, Cloud couldn’t take apart a steam engine and had to ring my doorbell over any of the littlest mechanical thing, so I didn’t feel too bad. Though, if she had Jess, who I knew was mechanically inclined... No. Cloud doesn’t just like me for my mechanical prowess. I’m her friend.

“Lookin’ good, Jess. Lookin’ real good,” I called.

“Cloud Kicker works out, that’s for sure,” Jess replied.

“Just adds to her Amazonian appeal,” I said.

“Eh?”

“You’re bigger than me now, love,” I said.

That stopped her. Suzy’s steady pace slowed as Jess looped over me to stand on the cloud.

I rose to the question in her face and as we came eye to eye, she saw it. She had a good inch or so over me.

“I didn’t even...”

“We float most of the time, and it’s slight. You’re the Amazon now love.”

Jess smirked, then turned primly to trot off the cloud as if she were a lipizzaner horse, then resumed flying.

“How’s it feel being tall?” I asked.

“Pretty frickin’ great,” she replied with a haughty laugh.

Isn’t she technically shorter? Blossom asked.

Shh, I thought. This is her moment.

Another hour and a half later, we checked Jess’s phone to confirm our location.

“I love that you have that,” I said.

“It is useful,” she affirmed, flicking her hoof against the screen. Frowning she did the same motion again. “Not very pony friendly though.”

“Hence why I’ve given up texting,” I said.

My phone was not smart or i-Whatever. Just an old slider that had buttons that I could actually push. Unfortunately, they were small buttons that had been tricky enough with my own fingers. They were a lost cause for my hooves, so the phone was being a regular old cell phone for the time being.

I wasn’t totally defeated though. I was making headway with my wings as spare fingers. I’d managed to hit one key. It was a very big moment for me.

“We’re nearby,” Jess confirmed.

“I’ll put in the call then,” I said, my mouth a tight line.

Picking up my just-a-phone, I hooved through the contact list and hit call.

“Cuz?” came a familiar faint Southern drawl.

“Hi Michelle,” I said, politely chipper.

She squealed.

“Wow, is that you? Your voice is so...”

I smiled stiffly. Jess placed a comforting hoof on my shoulder.

“Cute,” Michelle said.

“I’m going through some changes, yeah.”

She snorted. “I bet. So where are ya?”

“Couple hundred feet in the air over the Kroger next to the Dunkin Donuts,” I replied.

She went quiet.

“Michelle?” I asked. Cell phone reception was good at the height I was at, but I didn’t doubt I was giving my carrier one hell of a satellite image and might get cut off for new random reasons.

“Dang. Okay. Sure. This is a bit to take in. You still up for it?”

“You asked me. Here I am.”

“Alright!” she said, pleased as punch. “How do you want to do this?”

“Let’s go somewhere public. Do you have a favorite park?”

“Bet I do. Hang on...” I heard some paper ruffle then there was tapping. “Okay, ready?”

She rattled off an address that I parroted to Jess, who tapped it out on her iPad.

“Alright. Meet you there in...” I looked over at my navigator. Jess finished telling her smartphone where she was going and reported back. “Twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Looking forward to it! Oh and Jane?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. This means a lot.”

“No problem.”

I hung up and slumped into the cloud.

“You sure about this, love?” Jess asked, rubbing a hoof along my back where my wing muscles bunched in tension.

“Yes. No. Blossom wants to meet my extended family. I’m being a polite host.”

“Doesn’t she know how you feel?”

“Yes.”

“And...?”

“I said yes.” I rubbed my face tiredly, already expecting stress and my brain wanting to jump off a cliff. “I’m sticking by this. Besides, it’s just her and her daughter. How many kids will get to say they met an official pony, right?”

Jess cocked her head, her blond mane drifting into the high breeze.

“Okay. But only as long as you’re okay.”

I nodded. Stars above and below, did I not do family.

The last time I’d seen any of my extended family, it had been at my grandfather’s funeral. It was before Jess and I started dating, but she wanted to be there for me. I didn’t question it since it meant I had company on the trip up and we were pretty close at that point.

Michelle had been the cousin who commented that Jess was clearly more than a friend. I was out to most of my family, but the cousins in my peer group were the only ones who approached the subject with any clarity.

That clarity would fall by the wayside when they’d snipe over how foolish their parents were. Or in the one particular cousin’s case, get loaded up on expensive liquor and call everyone in the family out on a litany of charges, my life “choices” being among the offenses.

After the funeral, Michelle had offered to stay in touch and I thought it might work. That, or I had finally caved to the guilt of them asking about me since I didn’t come to family anythings if I could avoid it. Either way, I shot a general life update e-mail and as I read her response, I realized I wanted nothing to do with these people. Any of them. I pretty much went radio quiet and only surfaced if my presence was requested directly.

Till she noticed my Facebook group and called in a favor.

Her daughter was a big fan of the show. Blossomforth, an orphan who grew up in the pegasus official care system, had perked up at the notion that, in a way, she now had an extended family.

The feeling had been fleeting, and brief, and Blossom had asserted that she was more intrigued at the idea than the reality. Yet, as I read Michelle’s request to have Jess and I detour up to Tennessee, I caught the longing that came off her. I knew that longing feeling. I wasn’t about to stand in the way of this opportunity of Blossom’s just because I didn’t like these people.

I took a deep breath, spread my wings and re-hitched to Suzy. Once Jess was by my side, we winged to the nearby park where I’d meet up with my cousin and her daughter so the pony whose body I used could get a taste of family.

Ah. Good life choices.

Comments

[Pinklestia]

Hard life choices.

[Chrome Masquerade]

She was hitched to Suzy by a cirrus stream and hauling I and our luggage without sweating too hard.

Uh... that would be "me and our luggage".