The next morning, I woke up with a jot as I realized that I smelt something burning. At first, I thought something was on fire there was no smoke anywhere in the house. For a while, I had no idea what it was as there was something sickly sweet burning. However, my nose led me towards the front door where the scent was strongest. When I opened the door, a smoke screen of the stuff stung my vision, unleashed a coughing fit and set up the smoke alarm.
“He has awakened!” a voice called out before a cheer was heard. After flapping my wings to clear the smoke, I was able to see what was on my cloud lawn. While there wasn’t a lot of them, they did take up most of my clouds in which they all wore white sheets and horseshoes on their heads with only a headband to hold them up. Looking down on the porch, I found the two jars that have been making the smoke bombs.
“Put those out,” I told them, “are you trying to smoke me out?”
“Our Lord has awakened from his slumber.” The first of these crazies to come up to me was a yellow guy who had a dreadlock blue mane and a smiley face as a cutie mark. “A blessed morning, Your Holiness, I am Euphoria. The designated prophet of your newly born religion.”
I blinked. “I have been an alicorn for less than a day and already you guys formed a cult over me?”
“Oh, these are your local disciples,” he waved to the other loony toons, “they were the ones to witness your ascension so they’re the first to join. But fear not, we shall gather more to spread the good word that a new god is among us!”
The cult cheered at this.
With a frown on my face, I only said, “Nope,” before swiftly turning around, slamming the door and going about my morning routine.
Of course, the wackos kept knocking on my door. “Your Holiness? What’s wrong? Are you not pleased with us? Should have we gotten you sacrifice or an offering?”
Hearing that, I had to open a window to stick my head out. “Don’t think about doing anything blood-related, the neighbors will call the cops if it happened on my property,” I said before shutting and locking the window.
“But most anointed one,” I hear Prophet Grass-for-Brains plead, “if you are angry at us, then give us a commandment to cleanse ourselves for whatever sin we’ve committed.”
“How about getting off my lawn?” I said aloud. “I didn’t invite any of you guys to invade.”
Then… silence. Before I could fix breakfast, I had to stop and listen as there was nothing coming from the outside. At first, I thought they did the smart thing and leave me in peace. That was until I peeked through the curtain to find the Children of the Cornfield simply moved their communion towards the sidewalk. All staring directly at my house.
“Exiting through the backyard it is,” I said to myself as I returned to showering, putting on my orange vest and eating some eggs on toast before locking everything except the back door to quietly slip away through the clouds. Essentially, trying to dig a tunnel all the way to my work.
So after poking my head out a few times to make sure I didn’t make a wrong turn at Albuquerque, I popped out near the landing area. So after dusting off some cloud, I went up to the check-in office to punch my card in. However, before I could get my sticks and step out, I heard my boss’s voice say in a calm voice, “Air Marshal, can I see you before you get to work?”
As weird as it may sound, that professional toned voice actually scares me. Remember how I say that he communicates by shouting? The only time my boss wouldn’t shout is if either something really serious has happened – or that he’s about to fire you. So with dread, I walked into his cramped office of filing cabinets and a tiny desk, that he sat behind walls of paperwork and stamps like a hoarding rat. “Close the door on the way in,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you.”
With dread, I did before taking a seat in the coffin of a room. “Am I in trouble, sir?”
“Far from it.” He said, without looking up from the mountains of paperwork. “How are you feeling? They said that you walked out of the hospital last night.”
“I’m doing fine. Is there a problem?”
With a snort, he pulled up a newspaper. “I’d say it’s the opposite. Have you seen this?”
Flopping it in front of me, I saw my picture with the headline: Alicorn of Las Pegasus. Along with its subtitle: Celestia Makes First Male Alicorn.
“It says that you refused Celestia’s offer for a royal position.” My boss said.
“So?”
Now, he looked up from the mountain range of paper. “So? I’m a little puzzled why you of all ponies just said ‘No’ to Celestia with a once in a lifetime offer. I mean, what gives? You got a horn sticking out now and you turn down the highest position in the land?”
“And why not? I didn’t think I’ve earned it.” Now, staring me in the eye, he looked stern for a moment before he… laughs. That was even more unnerving. “W-What’s so funny?”
“You’re rich,” he said between fits of laughter, “You just became the first male alicorn in Equestrian history, and you don’t think you’ve earned being a prince!”
“But it’s true. What happened back there was an accident, you can’t make me a prince or anything if I don’t… ya know… deserve to be.”
He managed to calm down, “But… you’re an alicorn. Everypony knows that alicorns always become royalty. That’s just… common sense.”
“Oh really?” I raised an eyebrow. “So because you’re a Pegasus, it should be common sense to me to think that you should be a cloud pusher.”
Now his expression changed to realization. “Hey, I didn’t mean like-”
“Yes, you did.” I narrowed my eyes. “In fact, why did you want me here? Are you going to fire me or something.”
For a moment, he looked like he tasted plot. “I… What? Air, are you insane? Me firing you? If anypony found out that I fired an alicorn that’s part of my staff, Las Pegasus would demand my head on a silver plate.”
“Okay, fine.” I folded my forelegs. “So what do you want anyway? I’ve got to get to the landing area.”
“Well hold on, I just wanna ask ya if you’d… like a raise or something?”
I spent a good minute staring at him. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my boss?”
“Hey, I’m being serious here.”
“So am I.” I narrowed my eyes. “The real Traffic Control wouldn’t give you a raise or a different position unless you bust your flank ten times over while carrying Prince Blueblood across Equestria while enduring his whiny complaints.”
A flash of anger was on his face before he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “I’m just gonna ignore that. But I am serious, would you like to have a raise at least?”
“Why? What have I done for a raise? Just let Celestia zap me for a horn to appear from my forehead?”
“Uh…”
“Ya know what?” I stood up. “While you can sit there claiming that you don’t assume or aren’t tribalist all you want, I on the other hoof, still got a job to do. If I deserved special treatment, then I have to have done something that’s worthy of it. So, if you excuse me, Boss, I have to get to work.”
With that, I turned tail and headed out to the landing area to trade out the sleepy gal waving the sticks around. As expected, she’s almost asleep as I tapped her awake on the shoulder. “It’s my shift now,” I said to her as she nervously nodded, and I took her place. But as I did so, I couldn’t help but notice that from the corner of my eye, she gave a bow before backing away. As much as it irked me, I still have a job to do.
Since at the time I had no idea how to use my magic yet, I still held the sticks, one in each wing to guide the balloons to safety. Almost immediately, I fell into my usual routine as my eyes scanned the sky for arrivals into the city. As soon as one of the team catches hold of one of the balloons and it’s up to me to get them to where they needed to be. Since the wind wasn’t blowing that hard, the job was easier to do.
The first balloon to land had these old ladies, four of them, with a red stallion. I noticed as they were leaning over the side, I spotted they were wearing the t-shirts that had a golden horseshoe on it. Now, during my years in doing this job, these ladies always came to Las Pegasus like clockwork. It’s something to expect to see the Golden Horseshoe Gals, one of the most exclusive groups in town to arrive. Always at the end of July, always with the red stallion guy, and always land here excited to come to the city.
However, as soon as they spotted me, even after I guided their ride to the landing area, they all stared at me. Especially this one old lady that looked at me like how a starved kid would at an ice cream cake. When they landed, she came up to me as they unloaded their luggage.
“Are you new, handsome?” She asked, lowering her eyes to bedroom eyes mode.
“Uh… no?” I answered awkwardly. “I’ve been doing this for a long time now.”
“Funny, I never noticed an alicorn like yourself working here, out here, when things get hot.”
‘Oh Celestia, is she…?’ I thought to myself, my face in disgust. “Ma’am, I’ve got a job to do, so why don’t you and your friends just enjoy Las Pegasus for a while.”
“What? We don’t have many plans anyway.” She said, placing her ancient, wrinkly than a rotten apple hoof on my vest. “Mind telling us when you get off? I’m sure that I and the gals could show ya a good time.”
I, on my part, gave her a flat look. “Not even if you try to pay me.”
“Hey, you bed hopping relic.” one of the other ladies, a much older one with a white mane tied up with a light green coat called out. “Leave the fella alone! Let’s go to our hotel so we could catch the ten o’clock show.”
As much as I wanted to thank that angel of mercy, the temptress slid a card into my vest pocket and said, “Just come by to the hotel if you want some sugar,” before hobbling off. Even after all of that, I still felt dirty. And I did keep the card, only to make sure I get a restraining order. While I don’t know if that was sexual harassment or not, but Luna’s moonlit plot… that made me want to retch.
At least I could count my blessings that the other arrivals only bowed to me at a distance. That none of them tried to flirt with me after… whatever that was.
Hours later when it was time for me to leave, I had to think of a way to figure out how to get home without repeating the previous night. So, this left me with the only option of calling for a taxi. It was there that I quickly found that there was an advantage to being an alicorn, that even in the world’s worst traffic where it’s all bumper to bumper with sky carriages, just me lifting a wing was able to get fifteen taxies to be pulled up to me.
“Need a ride?” The one nearest me asked. I raised an eyebrow to the fact that his taxi was already occupied with a mare in a cheap, white wedding gown and a stallion in a t-shirt of a tuxedo.
“Aren’t you a little full?” I questioned.
The driver, without looking behind, flipped the carriage over in which the newlyweds fell off screaming through the clouds. “Not right now, it isn’t.”
In concern, I peeked my head through the clouds to see the bride’s dress had puffed up like a parachute while the husband screamed like a filly in the arms of the mare. While they drifted down safely, the lady looked up with a death glare before I returned my attention towards the driver.
“So, where do you need to go?” The attempted murder of a driver asked me.
“Do you do that to all of your…”
He waved a hoof. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Still, Your Highness, where did you need to go?”
Instead of answering him, I went to the next taxi that his carriage was empty when it got here. “1993 Cloudline Way,” I told him, “and I’d like to be there before any weirdos show up.”
My saner driver nodded and starts to head into traffic as I pulled some blinds down so I wouldn’t be seen in public. Luckily for me, the ride wasn’t that long as he took to the air and flew me to my house. Suspiciously empty of any trace of evidence of the cult from that morning.
I was about to pay the driver when I realized that I didn’t have any bits on me. The guy told me to not to worry about it as it was apparently in honor of him to give me a ride. But frankly, I think it’s because I was an alicorn.
So anyway, I trotted up to my front door, opening it to find that the room beyond wasn’t empty. It still smelled of that smoke stuff from earlier, everything inside was strangely clean, there were offerings of horseshoes on the couch and the cult from earlier was in the kitchen worshipping my toaster.
In fact, that prophet guy, Euphoria, held up said toaster like it was a sacred artifact. “Behold! The contraption in which toasted our Lord’s bread until it was a golden brown.”
As the nutcases said their oohs and aahs, I marched in screaming. “WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK YOU’RE DOING?! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
“He has returned!” One of them said before stampeding over to the living room. “We were worried you may not come back.”
“That’s it, stop it!” I shouted. “All of you! Just stop! You all got five seconds to tell me what all of you think you’re doing in my house before I call the police.”
“Oh, it’s quite simple.” Prophet Fruitcake pushed his way towards the front. “You didn’t answer us as we said our prayers to you, that, and you gave no commandment about going into the backyard to see if you were still there. Besides, the back door was unlocked.”
I facehoofed. I can’t believe that I’ve forgotten about that. But he continued.
“We have cleaned this sacred temple from ceiling to floor and arranged these sacred items to their preordained places.”
My ears went straight up in alarm. “You mean you guys went through my stuff?!”
“What? You don’t expect these sacred items to be on the floor.” The cult murmured in agreement. “Especially in the chamber in which you rest. But don’t worry, we’ve cleared all the clutter, and blessed all the rest from the cotton sheets to the magazine that was tucked between the mattresses.”
Now my coat went white.
“Really, Your Holiness,” one of them said, “We didn’t think you were into-”
“OUT!!!” I roared, flying behind all of them and shoving them out of the front door.
“But my Lord,” Euphoria protested, “we didn’t get the chance to bless the shampoo-”
“Get out of my house!” I yelled as I pushed them all through the door and slamming it.
After making sure all the locks were secured and the blinds were drawn, I sat down for dinner for a quiet evening of listening to the radio and the cult trying to repent from the sidewalk.