“Fuck him,” Storm let out a small, dejected mutter as he finished packing his clothes into a small suitcase, mentally preparing himself to go to Vanhoover against his own will. High had managed to pull the last straw today, and Storm believed that while he was still here it would be for the best if they stayed as far away from one another as possible. A tear rolled out of his left eye, and although Storm tried to ignore it and suppress his emotions, soon more followed suit, and eventually he broke down as everything he felt that day came through to the surface.
The zipper on his suitcase becoming stuck, he fought the resistance it offered in a moment of tearful frustration, before collapsing onto the case in a tidal wave of emotion. He felt betrayed, betrayed by his own stepfather no less, a pony he knew and trusted for the past eight years, and after what happened today he did not want to even know the stallion.
His ears perked up to the sound of the front door downstairs screeching open. Still crying into the suitcase, Storm could overhear the sound of furious hoofsteps marching towards the base of the stairs, no doubt his parents having just returned from the graduation ceremony. These were soon replaced by the sound of an argument, making him feel even more horrible.
“High, you asshole, go speak to him! He’s upstairs!”
“I am not talking to him again!”
“He’s your SON! You did this, put your ego aside and talk this through with him!”
“Goddamn it, Equinox, fine!”
The hoofsteps resumed a seeming split-second later, and got louder and louder as their source lumbered up the stairs. Storm glanced over to the right, eyes red and bloodshot from all the crying, and took note of High skimming and scanning the hallway as the steps creaked under his weight. Extending his hoof outward, he slammed the door shut the moment he made eye contact with his stepfather and quickly heaved himself up off the case, headrush ensuing for a brief moment as he took in the sight of his bedroom for what felt like the last time. He felt sickened to the bone by the day’s events, and knowing that High Wind would enter his bedroom shortly he made his way to the window in his room and drew back the curtains. Opening the window, he quickly climbed out onto the porch roof and took off from there onto the roof of the house.
This was his zone, so to speak, when things weren’t looking up for him. The view the property offered of Cloudsdale’s downtown was truly spectacular, no doubt a big selling point for High when he bought it all those years ago, and that view was so much better from the roof, laying out in the open and being embraced by the chilly evening air.
For Storm there was nothing better. It was such a simple experience, just lying down here and watching the stars at night, or the Mare on the Moon for that matter, but to him it truly meant a lot. He could go out there anytime he pleased if he wanted some time to himself, and nobody would fault him for it.
He was a Pegasus, after all. He was made for flying.
Landing on the roof adjacent to the chimney, Storm laid down on the tiles and made himself as comfortable as he could on them, resting his head on his hooves and sighing in despair.
His life dream of becoming a royal guard crushed, at least for the time being, Storm gazed at the sprawling city before him from his vantage point, feeling as if he was truly dead inside.
This was one of the last times he’d be here, in his adopted hometown, at least for quite some time. How long it was going to be for, Storm had no idea, but he wanted to savor the moment while he could, while he was still able to.
“Storm, where are you?” High’s voice called out from his room below, but Storm chose to ignore it. “Look, I’m sorry, but it's way too late to back out of this now. You're up there, aren't you?”
“What do you want?” Storm groaned out, watching as High flew out of the room and landed right next to him a moment later. “I heard everything, by the way. So much for a sincere apology.”
“Hey sport,” High offered a light yet uneasy smile, a seeming attempt at lightening the mood.
“Oh, so first you tell me how much you hate me and how little I mean to you and now you’re calling me ‘sport’?” Storm quickly turned away from him in utter disdain, hooves resting atop the shingles. “You know what? Piss off, I don’t want to speak to you at all.”
“Storm, look,” High sighed in audible despair, somewhat insulted by Storm's response. “I'm sorry I didn't get your permission for this, but it's way too late to back out of this now.”
“Dad, how many times do I have to tell you that I don't want to be a weather pony?” Storm groaned tersely, cradling his head in frustration as if nursing a migraine. “How long does it take for it to go through your thick skull? Oh, and you're sorry? You're fucking sorry? After the things you said to me today I don’t think ‘sorry’ is enough.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Just leave me alone, alright? I’m sick and tired of this.”
“Storm, I just...I really am sorry.”
“Why would you be? You're right. I’m a bad kid, I need discipline,” Storm sighed dejectedly. “I mean, what does it matter if I graduated on the honor roll? Apparently I ‘failed’ a single class in your eyes so I guess it means jack shit.”
“No, Storm, you’re not,” High replied, audibly frustrated also as none of his words appeared to be getting through to Storm. It was like speaking to a wall, but was he really that surprised? "What I said today wasn’t right. It was nowhere near right, especially not to someone like you, but you gotta realize that it's much too late for me to pull you out of this. All the necessary paperwork has been signed, everything's been done. I've already found you a place to live.”
“I’m not ready to go,” Storm turned back towards him, seemingly staring into his very soul with red, tear-stained eyes. “Have you thought about the fact that I might not be ready to leave Cloudsdale yet? I don't know shit about how to lead an adult life, and yet you expect me to go out into the world on my own and live in an unfamiliar city I know next to nothing about hundreds of miles away from home? What about my marefriend? What about my family?”
“I guess you’ll just find a new marefriend in Vanhoover. As for us, you can just write home, or call…at least for the time being,” High explained, tripping over his words and drawing Storm’s immediate ire. “I’ll try and figure something out.”
“No High, I'm not giving up on Blue just because you want me to,” Storm growled at him. “She means the world to me, and I would never leave her alone like this.”
“Well, shit…,” High sighed in frustration, mentally slapping himself for making such a blunt and tone-deaf statement. "Why don't you write to her?"
“It won't be the same as actually seeing her,” Storm sighed, turning away from High and towards the distant skyline. “She's the most amazing mare I have ever met, High.”
“Dad would be good.”
“No, High right now is perfect,” Storm suddenly stared daggers right at High, who flinched backward in response. “I haven't forgiven you, and after what happened today I probably won't for a long time.”
“Storm, you can't keep being angry at me forever,” he sighed in defeat, before also shifting his gaze to the wild, red sunset in the distance, illuminating the horizon in an ambient reddish glow as the city skyline before them lit up in a seeming instant. “If I could turn back time…and think twice about going through with this, then I’d do that a million times over. Then again, this isn’t a permanent arrangement, you’ll just be interning over there”
“I realize that,” Storm shrugged his shoulders without turning to look at his estranged stepfather, and instead continued to stare off into the distance, his outward calm masking an inner torment. “I'm gonna tell her tomorrow about everything.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” High smirked somewhat, without noticing Storm turning towards him once more. “I mean—”
“You really don't seem that regretful, you know?” Storm sneered all of a sudden, having noticed the small smile creeping onto his face. “You seem pretty pleased with yourself, High Wind...you know, I might have been born over there but I'm as much of an Equestrian as you are.”
“I know, I know, I said something incredibly stupid.”
“How dare you call me and my mother 'refugees'?!” Storm roared out all of a sudden, catching High completely unaware. “My father—my actual father!—served in the Army, and died fighting for this country. I never even met him! And what did you do back then aside from flying through clouds all day, High? You aren’t even half the stallion he was!”
“You’re right, I’m not,” High exhaled remorsefully, tears forming in his eyes also as he brought Storm into a tight vice of an embrace, even as he tried to push him away.
“How fucking dare you?” Storm spat in absolute contempt and disdain, locking eyes with High and tearfully staring him down once more. “I didn’t ask to be born there! You’re the one who brought us here, if it wasn’t for you then we would’ve been screwed from the get-go! Is this me repaying you for that?!”
“Storm...I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” he scoffed as he abruptly broke the embrace, his anger being replaced by a restless, overbearing sorrow that swallowed him whole. Breaking eye contact, he turned back to face the city and sat down on the roof, High Wind sitting down next to him immediately. “None of it makes any difference at this point.”
“I'm being honest!” High yelled, futilely attempting to salvage the father-son bond that once was between them. “I'm sorry for insulting you, for transferring you without your knowledge. Please just give me another chance, I’ll make it up to you…somehow.”
“Just go away,” Storm got up off the roof, letting out a pained sigh as he did so. He was in too much pain to even try and listen to his stepfather, and although he got over much of his initial anger towards the stallion in the minutes before he wasn't ready to forgive him. He didn't know if he would ever be ready to forgive High, and instead outstretched his wings and flew back into his room, slamming the window shut behind him.
Forlorn and remorseful, High remained on the roof and overlooked the street, engrossed deep in solitary thought. His methods of keeping Storm in the family business had proven futile, and there was nothing he could do now except to wait until the Vanhoover contract expired.
He wanted to turn back time, but there was no way. No magic in the world could ever undo his rash decisions, nothing could change the past.
Now it was his turn to ruminate on the roof. Seconds turned to minutes; minutes slowly turned to hours. The night crept in ever so gently, and the longer he sat there the more he began to lose any hope of ever rekindling the father and son bond that used to be.
“What do you mean you're leaving, Stormy?” Blue inquired as she cuddled up against the taller stallion’s side, sitting alongside him on a bench in a park near her home. She watched in pity and slight confusion as he stared off into the distance, an expression on his face indicating both sadness but also some degree of acceptance of his situation.
Earlier that day, after tying up loose ends for the time being at the Cloudsdale factory and saying goodbye to Tornado, Storm had come to terms with his departure, just hoping and praying that he wouldn’t be there for long. He slowly said his goodbyes to his family as well, savoring every remaining moment he had with them and promising to remain in contact in whatever way he could. Gust and Mist both promised to visit him, as did his mother, but High remained unsurprisingly distant.
It was now time to relay this information to Blue, and while Storm knew exactly how she would respond he still didn’t want to do this to her.
“I'm sorry, Blue. I have to,” Storm sighed as he turned towards her. “I wish this never happened but I can’t pull out now. I might find it difficult to contact you while I’m there but I promise that I’ll try and work something out–”
“I'm coming with you,” she replied, her voice sorrowful yet filled with determination as she locked eyes with the stallion she loved.
“What? Blue, what about weather work here? What about your degree?” Storm asked her, his heart literally shattering.
“I could ask to get transferred with you?” she suggested, although it was evident in Storm’s eyes at least that she knew the answer to her own question. No. “And as for college...I’m not sure.”
“No, you can't,” Storm sighed, inching slightly closer to her. "I wish you could but at the moment that’s impossible. It takes weeks to arrange something like this, and we’re both at different ranks as well. I'm a junior storm maker, and you…you're still on the cloud-busting team.”
“Yeah, I know,” Blue let out a solemn sigh, resting her head on her hooves as Storm wrapped his wing around her body. She tilted her head into his side and lay there against him, watching listlessly as the sky clouded before them. “I just don't want to see you leave, we grew up together… it’s just kind of a weird feeling to see you go.”
“Don’t worry,” Storm gave her a reassuring smile, masking his sadness and incredible sense of doubt. “Whatever happens, I'll always be there for you. We can write letters to one another, we can visit each other, and one day, I will come back…as soon as I’m back I’m leaving this life for good and doing what I’m meant to be doing.”
“I hope so,” she glanced up at him. “I hope so. Either way we’ll figure this out, I know we will.”
“I mean, you have a life of your own here,” Storm sighed, once more confronted with the reality of leaving home and the mare he adored so soon. “You've got a job here, you’re about to go into college...you've got friends, family...I can't keep you away from all that.”
“Storm, you are my life.”
“And you are mine,” he gently stroked her mane with his hoof, coming to grips with the fact that they would soon part ways for the foreseeable future. “I will be back, I promise. No matter what it takes, I'll be back...and when I return, we'll always be together. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Storm,” Blue closed her eyes as they welled up with tears, the memories of the times they spent together playing back in her mind in successive order. “Hey.”
“Yeah?” he turned towards her, his overbearing sadness easing as their eyes locked, her beautiful emerald-green gaze rippling with tears.
“I don't know how you'd react to this, but–”
“Go on.”
“I...want to start a family with you,” she smiled, cheeks reddening slightly as she let those very words out of her mouth. “Like, once you come back..and we're both a bit older..of course.”
“Oh, y-you do?”
“Yeah,” Blue nuzzled him, her eyes watering up once more. “I've thought about it for a while now, and I know it's a bit sudden...I mean, we've only just graduated from school, and I don't know if you feel the same way–”
“Funny you should say that,” Storm suddenly interjected, a sudden warmth radiating through his body even as a cool, evening breeze whipped past them. “Because I feel exactly the same way.”
“You do?” her pupils shrank.
“Yeah,” Storm smiled down at her. “We’ll give it some time but I'd love to start a family with you one day, and...Blue?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you maybe like to..marry me someday?”
“Yes,” after a few moments Blue nodded with a smile on her face, her tearful eyes glimmering beneath the light of a nearby street lamp which had just turned on. “I'd love that, very much.”
“Yeah, me too,” Storm nuzzled her tenderly, bringing her in as close as possible into a tight embrace with the clock slowly ticking away to his departure. “I just wish I didn't have to go.”
“Good evening, mares and gentlecolts, and welcome aboard Equestrian Airlines Flight 722 to Vanhoover,” announced the voice of the captain over the loudspeaker as ponies shuffled along the aisle in an attempt to find and squeeze into their designated seats. Stormfire included. His allocated seat was in a row in the rear of the aircraft, next to an elderly mare and her husband, but getting there was so far a nightmare.
It was a surprisingly busy flight, all things considered. He was caught off-guard by the number of ponies shuttling between Cloudsdale and Vanhoover, the plane seemingly filled to the brim with travelers of all sorts, be it businessponies, families, or quite literally anybody else. Whatever the reason for it was, this looked to be a bustling air route, and Storm was just glad that the suitcase he brought with him was now nestled safely in the cargo hold below the deck, lest he ran over a couple of hooves with it. It wasn’t like it’d fit on board anyway, especially not with the atrocious lack of hoof room available, but at least he had his possessions there with him to keep him sane on the other side.
“Tonight’s flight will take approximately three hours and thirty-five minutes, during which you will get to see the spectacularly mountainous landscapes of Western Equestria, a mountain pony’s paradise. Upon landing, the weather will be a pleasant 63 degrees…”
After squeezing into his window seat Storm stared out of the window at the expansive airfield before him in a stoic, emotionless fashion, with another beautiful sunset shrouding the distant downtown in orange. Despite a slight tinge of optimism in his heart and soul, Storm felt lonely and depressed. This was his first taster session of what adulthood was truly like, but he never expected it to happen like this. To him, it felt as if he was forcefully evicted, evicted from the home he grew up in by his own stepfather.
No matter his threats and protests, it didn’t seem like anything could be done. Tonight was the night he left everypony behind, everypony he knew and loved; especially the mare he held the closest to his heart—Blue. Just half an hour before, he bid her farewell and they shared a final kiss in the park before he left for the airport, his belongings in tow.
Clothes, toothbrushes, laptop, and phone. Several framed photos. Everything he cared enough about to take with him to his new life on the other side of the country, a new chapter he had no idea how to approach but was now facing head-on with no backing out.
He did not know how long he had to go for, but what was obvious was that this was no holiday.
Whether Storm liked it or not he was going there to work, and to work hard. This was not the direction he was hoping to take with his life but at the moment it didn’t matter. He was starting everything from a clean slate.
He’d known for years that leaving home was inevitable, he just didn't expect that it would be so soon; and out of all ponies, he didn't expect his own stepfather, High Wind, to be the harbinger of bad luck. The more he thought about him the more his despair began to morph into tangible anger, a rage he couldn’t be bothered suppressing and one that was increasingly obvious to the strangers sitting next to him.
He hated High for what he did just there, he absolutely hated the father that he once loved, and at that moment he never wanted to see him again. If he had to spend the rest of his life in Vanhoover just to stay away from him, then so be it.
At that moment the engines of the aircraft, including the tail engine, whirred to life, and the lights inside dimmed, snapping him out of his furious stupor and instead alerting him to his fellow passengers.
“Are you alright, son?” the elderly mare sat next to him inquired with some concern, fixing the thick-rimmed glasses on her muzzle with her hoof as she squinted her eyes at Storm.
“I'm fine,” Storm responded, trying desperately to conceal his emotions as the airplane slowly pulled off from its gate, beginning to make its way toward the runway.
“You scared of flying, boy?” her husband cocked an eyebrow, looking at Storm with a stoic countenance.
“No, I love flying,” Storm explained. “I do it every single day in the weather factory.”
“I don't mean that kind of flying.”
“No, it isn’t that,” Storm sighed as his stomach churned somewhat, the aircraft picking up speed while taxiing towards the runway. He wasn’t a fan of this kind of flying, but it wasn’t the first thing on his mind at the moment. “And I'm sorry, but it's not something I wanna talk about.”
“We get it,” the mare cooed maternally. “If it's something personal we won't pry.”
“It's fine,” Storm shrugged in apathy, looking out the window as the terminal slowly receded into the distance, the airport’s logotype pulsating a bright red atop the terminal roof, welcoming new arrivals as they came from what seemed like all the corners of the world. “Sorry if I'm being awkward, I haven’t been on a plane in so long; that, and I'm going through a really tough time at the moment.”
“It's alright, son,” the stallion offered a reassuring smile, raising Storm’s spirits for a brief gasp of a second before misery set in once more. “We’re here if you want to talk.”
“Is Vanhoover a nice place?”
“It sure is,” the mare smiled as she fixed her glasses. “We’re from there in fact.”
“What are you doing over here?”
“Just visiting family,” replied the stallion. “Our kids live out in these parts, just thought we’d drop by, see the grandkids as well…and yourself?”
“Oh, I'm actually moving there,” Storm explained, just as the aircraft suddenly jolted to a halt on the taxiway. Once again that nauseous sensation set in but subsided moments later. “I got transferred there a few days back.”
“That's great,” the mare continued to grin. “You'll really enjoy it. It may not be as big as Cloudsdale but it has just as much to offer.”
I just hope I'll fit in there, Storm thought to himself, turning away from them once more to stare out the window. The captain of the aircraft then spoke through the plane’s PA system, his voice crackling over the airwaves.
“Mares and gentlecolts, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of our flight crew I would like to welcome you all aboard this Equestrian Airlines flight to Vanhoover International Airport. Before we take off, I’d like you all to fold your tray-tables in their upright position to avoid any potential injuries during takeoff, and keep them that way until we are in mid-air. Our flight is scheduled to arrive at Vanhoover International in three hours and thirty-five minutes, weather dependent of course but it is expected to be lovely upon landing. As we begin our takeoff, I would like to go through the safety features and protocols of the aircraft...”
As the captain spoke the aircraft's three engines whirred to life again and the plane suddenly lurched forward, Storm watching as a flight attendant demonstrated the aircraft’s safety features should anything go wrong. Once again he turned to look out the window, watching the sunset as the aircraft continued its journey to its designated runway.
“...thank you for choosing to fly with Equestrian Airlines.”
The aircraft came to another halt at the start of the runway, but before Storm was able to catch his breath the engines kicked into overdrive, with brief sputters of radio static signifying that the plane was good to go. It surged forward and raced down the runway like a silver bullet, reaching speeds faster than any Pegasus could ever hope to attain, Storm included.
Forced into the back of his seat Storm quickly whipped around and watched as the plane pulled up over a suburban neighborhood, a neighborhood he passed through frequently on his many trips to visit Blue these past couple of years. He was unable to make her house out amid all the sprawl, but what he saw instead he’d only seen a couple of times in his life.
The illuminated, grid-like streets of the city he called home, the fifth-largest in Equestria, spread out over several banks of clouds that stretched uninterrupted for miles and miles. Myriad lights shone like jewels in the darkness of the twilight, buildings soared over bustling streets, and the city teemed with life like a vast organism, even this late into the night.
The cloud deck atop which the city sat began to fall away into the distance, and a thick and dark forest started to take its place, interrupted only by the lights of the westbound railroad or the occasional town or village.
For as long as he could, though, Storm continued to marvel at the view, but as the ambient glow of the city lights finally vanished reality hit him like a brick. He turned away from the window and exhaled a sorrowful sigh. Thoughts of home filled his mind, vivid memories of the most amazing ponies he’d ever met, the friends he grew up with and graduated alongside just a few days prior.
His lovely marefriend Blue.
Being brought up here was truly the best experience he could have ever hoped for, but sooner or later everypony must grow up and leave the nest.