Wind and Sky · 9:52pm Jun 29th, 2015
The air was that was so cold that it stung Cloudchaser’s lungs, and so thin that even gasping hard enough to dry out the back of her throat still left her feeling light-headed. Her wings ached, her injured shoulder throbbed, her muscles were seizing in the cold—the moment of transformation was ending. Cloudchaser was a pony again, and the rage of the wind was finally taking its toll on her pony body.
High-altitude flying was a lot like deep-sea diving: a brief foray into a place where ponies were not meant to be. Cloudchaser’s time was running out, and it was time for her to to return to the world below.
And so Cloudchaser closed her eyes, sucked in one last breath of howling wind, and pulled her wings from the air to hold them tight against her sides. She fell into the overcast immediately, then carved a vertical path through it, shedding flecks of ice from her mane and coat as she plummeted into the sky below. With her wings folded, Cloudchaser flew straight down with the aerodynamics of a high-velocity rock for several seconds, then threw her body into a head-over-hooves front tuck, somersaulting one-two-three-four-five-STOP!
She flared her wings when she was a single pounding heartbeat away from landing like an earth pony who had fallen from a hot air balloon. A cloud of dirt and grass bloomed rapidly around her landing site as she flapped with her full might, pushing the ground away before it could crush her.
She touched down with a three-point landing with one hoof curled to her chest, and then she fell to her side, crashing into the grass with a throaty “Rrrgh!”
Clouduchaser squeezed her eyes shut, rested her head against the hillside’s flattened grass, and tried to suppress the pounding hurt with deep breathing. It didn’t work, at least not for the first—felt like a full minute, but probably only because of the pain. The gut-tremor of adrenaline burned itself out quickly, because stunt fliers weren’t supposed to know there was such a thing as a close call. The limpness of exertion was going to take a little longer, though.
Beneath the sound of her own blood and breath, Cloudchaser could hear rapidly approaching hoofbeats. She greeted the incoming mare without opening her eyes.
“Hey. ‘d’ya enjoy the show?”
“Bet your tail I did! That was somethin’, even for you! I mean, I lost sight of you above the clouds for a while there, but still…”
Gala Apple had a tart soprano with a sweet drawl, and her excitement was as cute as it was infectious. Cloudchaser didn’t have enough air in her lungs for a proper laugh, but she did start to grin despite the pain.
“What’s that thing called? The upside-down spin? Or that long spinnin' fall?"
“Doesn’t have a name. ‘m the only one stupid enough.”
That was only half true. Officially they were called “inertial techniques,” but Cloudchaser called them “gravity chicken.” Pulling into a ninety degree climb, stalling, and then turning a half-somersaut to point your forehooves toward the ground—that was an inertial stunt. But building horizontal speed and then snapping your wings shut and whipping a 360 lateral drift with a double twist—well, that probably belonged in its own category. And even that wasn’t as unthinkably dangerous as the full-on, wings-shut, terminal velocity plunge with a quadruple front that had been today’s finale.
“Does that mean you get to call it the Cloudchaser?” Gala Apple said.
Cloudchaser chuckled as her panting breath started to even out. “Girl, they can’t decide which one to call the Cloudchaser.”
That, too, was only half true. Truth be told, it was a toss-up between whether they would settle on ‘The Cloudchaser’ or ‘illegal endangerment.’ Either way, it would be worth it to see the look on the judges’ faces next year…
Nice.
Is this particularly connected to the story, or is it just something you got inspiration for?