I’m hovering in a field, out near a long paved strip. There’s a crowd gathered, and a man’s voice comes up over the loudspeakers:
“And now, ladies and gentleman, direct your attention to the Southeast for the US Navy’s BLUE ANGELS!” The crowd erupts into cheers as the thundering of fighter jet engines grows louder. In the direction indicated by the man on the PA, a glint of blue with gold trim flashes on the horizon; in the blink of an eye, the 6-wing formation becomes perfectly visible. The highly-trained pilots wobble their wings, all except the formation leader getting ready to break the formation and begin their routine. Five of the half-dozen F/A-18 Hornets split off while triggering a switch on their control panels to force their aircraft to emit smoke-oil trails, resulting in a flower-like shape in the sky; the Fleur-de-lis maneuver. The lead wing, with the number 1 emblazoned on the tail of his aircraft, buzzes the crowd before pulling up and igniting his afterburners over the airstrip- “scorching the pavement” for sheer effect.
It takes me a moment to realize what I’m watching, and when and where I am; this is the Hillsboro Air Show, summer of 2029. I’m reliving a memory, from outside my body of the time. I begin to panic- am I dead? Comatose? What happened? How…
I feel a foreleg over my shoulder, and look over to see Princess Luna hovering to my right. From my left, I can hear a soft voice.
“This is what inspired you to become a pilot?” I look over, and I see Celestia tracking the jets’ every movement in awe. “Your story does this spectacle no justice,” she comments, without looking away. I can’t help but chuckle under my breath; Celestia seems to be as excited as a little filly. “No need to worry, Steve. You’re being taken care of at the hospital in Ponyville as we speak…” I look back to Luna, an expression of alarm on my face.
“You had an accident,” Luna begins, her voice gentle. “You crashed into the Ponyville Reservoir during your lesson with Rainbow Dash. Your friends will have a more detailed explanation than I’m comfortable giving you in this situation, but you’ve been out for a day or so now… we decided it was time to check in on you.” She looks up at the jets, an admiring twinkle in her eye. “At least you’ve been seeing a happy memory. But right now, it’s time for you to return to the realm of the living, Steve. Your friends are worried for your well being…”
Celestia and Luna disappear, and the memory fades away.
Pain. Unimaginable pain emanates from nearly everywhere at once. I groan, and roll onto my side, opening my eyes to find the room is full of ponies; Twilight and the gang, Spitfire and 2 of the Wonderbolts, the princesses, and a trio nurses who seem to be tending to some injury of mine or another. All of these ponies, here for me… but why?
“Wha- what happened?” My words are slurred; I must be on some kind of anesthetic spell to dull the pain. “I remember some kind of explosion, then losing control…” I trail off. Spitfire picks up for me, though.
“You pulled off a sonic rainboom, Steve. Lucky for you Soarin, Fleetfoot and I were close enough by to notice you tumbling out of the sky. We pulled you out of the reservoir…” she looks at me, undoubtedly evaluating my performance. I’m just going to ignore the fact that she had said the words ‘you pulled off’ and ‘sonic rainboom’ in the same sentence; I refuse to believe that’s possible. “That cloudtrail, though. Where did you learn that? We don’t teach it to just anypony, you know.” I look at the floor, and then back at Spitfire. However, before I can say anything, Twilight is whispering in Spitfire’s ear. Twilight pulls back, and Spitfire looks back and forth between Twilight and myself repeatedly. “Huh… didn’t see that one coming.” And then, not another word from the overbearing golden pegasus. Soarin dips his head to me; I do the same in return.
“So… how long was I out?” My question seems to catch the ponies off guard, and this time it’s Fluttershy that picks up the slack.
“You’ve been unconscious for a day and a half now; we were worried that you wouldn’t make it.” The other ponies nod, and express agreement. A day and a half? It feels like it happened only 5 minutes ago. Fluttershy isn’t done yet, though. “I liked the way your rainboom looks; the colors would make a really pretty flower blossom.” I just stare at her. Fluttershy says I performed a sonic rainboom, too? That’s just not possible. Not in the slightest. I open my mouth to ask why everypony keeps insinuating that I’ve done something that’s not in my skillset, but before I can get a word off, the same doctor that had treated me last time I was in the hospital walks in.
“Oh, would you look at that? Our favorite human-gone-pony is here. Again. Of course, given his mentor, I’m not terribly surprised…” He glares at Rainbow Dash, who has a bashful expression for the first time that I can remember. I notice that his horn has 2 layers of overglow, rather than just one for the clipboard; looking up, I can see what the other layer is holding. There’s a stack of pillows against the ceiling, directly above my head. He’s learned from last time, and all I can do is smile sheepishly. “Unlike her, though, you seem to have some basic understanding of the forces involved in crashing, because the only reason you didn’t shatter every bone in your wings is that you at least thought to tuck them away. Likewise for crossing your hind legs and bracing your neck with your forelegs; that’s not a technique we see very often, but it seems to have saved you from worse than a few hairline fractures here and there, as well as some minor internal injuries. Regardless, just a few spells should finish fixing you right up-”
Before he can finish, my wings fire on autopilot and I’m sent careening into the line of pillows before falling back to the bed with yet another thud. Celestia stifles a giggle at my recurring nightmare, which I desperately wish would just stop happening. Annoyed at the interruption, the doctor continues, “- to being almost brand new. The ones we have left to perform we’ve been waiting on for you to be awake; they’re too risky to perform on a patient who is unconcious.”
“When am I looking at being discharged?” I ask the doc, not expecting an answer. However, he’s already figured out the timeline.
“We’ll want to keep you overnight for observation, and then you’ll be free to go in the morning after breakfast. And please, for the love of Celestia, don’t find yourself here for the third time in 2 weeks; that’d be more than even your mentor has managed, and we’d tie your wings down until you’d completely healed,” I don’t know if he’s joking about that last part, but I don’t care to find out. Furthermore, Celestia seems surprised that she’s also a phrase, which only makes the situation that much more awkward. I quickly thank him and he’s out the door. One of the nurses takes over levitating the pillows. Glancing over at Rainbow Dash and Spitfire, I can see that the latter is nudging Rainbow and giving her a bad time.
“3 times in as many weeks? That’s an academy record!” Spitfire teases, referring to Rainbow’s string of records at the Wonderbolts Academy. THAT part of the history I had known was at least accurate… Rainbow Dash just groans, and turns a shade of red that makes her fur appear to be close to Twilight’s lavender without closer inspection.
“Well, I guess you lot don’t call me ‘Rainbow Crash’ for nothing… there wasn’t much that was off limits back when I was trying to impress you.” Rainbow Dash turns my way, and addresses me. “Hey, Steve… try to roll back on the habit of getting laid up, okay? That’s kinda MY gig…” I can’t help it. I begin to chuckle, which evolves into snickering, finally growing into full-blown laughter.
“They actually call you that? What, is that your callsign, or something?” Everyone in the room gives me a blank stare, which only leaves me laughing harder. My ribs are starting to hurt. “Aviators… aviators never change.” I quickly explain to them that on earth, a military pilot gets his call sign based on the most embarrassing thing to happen to them during training. “It seems that the line between our worlds’ elite fliers blurs more every day!” I guess I’ve said enough, because soon the entire room is laughing.
Eventually, the only ponies left in the room aside from myself are Princess Celestia and Rainbow Dash. The Wonderbolts had a patrol to return to, and had bid me farewell before thundering off from outside the front of the building, taking off in the loudest, flashiest way possible. I guess they don’t do subtle- not as a unit, anyway. Twilight had left to crack the books, promising to drop off my pilot’s bag before visiting hours end. I want the booklet that has my charts; there’s a set of photos in there that I want to pull out. Rainbow Dash has shown me her world of flight, and before I leave I want to do the same; but there are preparations that will have to be made first. I don’t know where the others went, nor why; only that they had to leave, and I respected that. Luna had preparations to make for the night, and had returned to Canterlot.
“Princess Celestia?” She turns to me, a questioning look in her eye. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to cause you any grief when I went along with this plan.” Celestia lifts a gold-clad hoof, and puts it on my shoulder.
“Has the experience been worth it?” she asks gently. I nod, words failing me. “Then there’s no need to apologize, my little pony.” Celestia pauses, realizing the epithet she’d just used to describe me. She opens her mouth to apologize, but I cut her off.
“Don’t- it’s fine.” In all honesty, the epithet had felt meaningful… and, for some reason, fitting. I liked it. Celestia relaxes visibly. “And thank you- for everything.” The princess dips her head, non verbally accepting my thanks. The doctor walks in, ready to cast the last few healing spells to repair the injuries I had sustained. As he passes Celestia, who is on her way out to return to Canterlot, she bends over to whisper something in his ear. He doesn’t seem to appreciate whatever she’s asked of him, but he agrees and bows. Her work done, she leaves the room.
“Rainbow Dash,” the doc addresses my companion. “You can return to the room after I’ve finished my work here. I’ve also been asked to waive the ending of visiting hours; if you so wish, you may stay with Steve tonight.” Rainbow and I react simultaneously.
“-Squee!-”
“Well, then. I guess I know the answer to that one…” the doc grumbles as Rainbow leaves the room in a flash. Looking me in the eyes, my doctor deadpans a warning. “I’m not going to lie; this is going to hurt. Just try not to kick me in the process, okay?” Then, his horn flares as he casts the first spell. The agony begins once more…
I poke at my breakfast, trying to comprehend Rainbow Dash’s accounting of my crash. Apparently, I had, indeed, performed a sonic rainboom. As she had explained it, the colors that emanate from the location of the sonic boom are unique to an individual pegasus, thus why mine looks the way it does while hers is a true rainbow. I’m still hung up on the fact that I’d even reached that speed in the first place; for a pegasus with my lack of flying ability, it shouldn’t have been possible… but Rainbow Dash seems so proud of me, that I can’t bring myself to burst her bubble and tell her that it was a complete accident.
Regardless, I can’t wait to be cleared to get the fuck out of this hospital. I’ve figured out exactly how I want to repay Rainbow for the gift that she’s given me by opening my eyes to true flight, and that means that I need to make arrangements. In the meantime, my companion can’t get enough of reliving her view of my improvised acrobatics from the other day, and I’m not going to stop her. She’s happy, and it makes me feel… content. For the first time in many, many years, I feel content.
It isn’t long before we get the good news that I’m free to go, and I bid Rainbow Dash farewell… until later, at least. In the meantime, I’m going to need some help…