I highly dislike dull, uninspired buildings. Anything that is going to be seen by many and be around for a long time should project feeling, not just be there. Dislike is not the same as hate. There are only three things that I actually hate. I hate mean people that take pleasure in causing others misery. I also hate things having a predetermined destiny, although it took time for me to find I hated that one. When I was younger I believed that having a destiny must be great. I'm not ready to say how I came to believe differently, but I can give a memory of me dealing with the third thing I hate, something so vile I would feel like if I was able to rid the world of it I would have done enough good to last a hundred lifetimes.
This was back in that same time period my step dad and I were getting things ready for our move to Skytree. All the way up to the final week I had regular visits from a flying coach, to try to help me with my flying. This day was a little different, this time my teacher brought along a crystal pony mare to watch me as I flew.
"Okay, Rebecca, we'll start today with a simple hover, maybe four or five feet off the ground," Pinion, my flight coach-- a grey furred stallion with a blue mane, instructed. "Just try to keep yourself as steady in the air as you can."
I stretched my wings, and took a deep breath. Keeping myself steady in the air was easier said than done. To that point, I hadn't done it. Every single time I took to the air I dipped and wobbled about. This was normal for a younger filly, just starting to fly, but I had been flying for several years at this point, without showing much improvement. Most pegasus foals two or three years younger than me flew better than I did, and every filly and colt my own age definitely flew better. My stamina was up from when I was younger, but my skills were still as fledgling as my first day. I sometimes worried I upset my coach, because I never seemed to get better, no matter how much time he spent with me.
"Don't stress yourself too much. Just let your instincts flow," David called out from the back porch. Our lessons always happened at the house.
I flicked my tail at an imaginary bug. Instinct, every pegasus was supposed to be able to do this stuff on natural instinct. Ponies on Earth had far more hard-wired instincts about using their abilities than Equestrian ponies. The spell that had turned us into ponies had laid those instincts on hard, so we could quickly adjust and function as ponies. My instinct should have been enough to get me flying right. It didn't help at all. I did what I felt was right, and no one ever said I was doing anything wrong, but the results were always bad. Flight coaches were supposed to help turn average flyers into great flyers, not try to make cruddy flyers into passable ones.
There wasn't any wind blowing at the moment, or anything that should throw me off course. I was well away from the trees, so no chance of colliding with them. I was also well away from the patio, so there was no chance of coming down hard on the concrete. Everything was safe for me to take to the air.
I wiggled my rump, and beat my wings as I jumped. It didn't take much effort to reach the height Pinion had told me to do, but the steady part immediately became a problem. My left side started to dip, so I flapped the corresponding wing even harder, this made the right side start to dip instead, and I beat that wing harder to compensate. This went back and forth, and I tried to focus on applying the same wing-power to each side. It took a few seconds, but that part steadied out. The new problem that arose was trying to stay in one place. Hovering in a stationary position is much harder than my fellow winged ponies make it out to be. They might think it's the easiest thing in the world, but my body was determined to be propelled somewhere; whether that was further up, forward, backward, or straight back down to the ground. Staying still was not an option my wings were giving me.
Unable to just hold myself where I was, I settled into alternating between letting myself be pushed forward then backward. This had its own struggles. I had to constantly think about what I was doing, and if I jerked one way or another too fast I ran the risk of flipping myself. I'd seen some skilled flyers show off flying upside down, like they were doing backstrokes in the air. I wasn't in any way, shape, or form a skilled flyer, and if I flipped it would be followed quickly by me hitting the ground face first.
"Just keep doing the best you can," Pinion called out. "How are your wings feeling? Are they getting tired?"
"No!" I yelled, unable to say much else, for fear of losing my concentration. It was true, my wings felt fine. The problem wasn't them wearing out. The problem was trying to keep focus on making them do what I wanted them to do. Other winged ponies didn't have to even think about this to do it, it was just instinct, but it was like I had no instinct whatsoever.
"I've never seen a healthy pegasus struggle so much while flying," the crystal pony said, loud enough for me to hear. I decided to take the positive out of what she said. I was healthy; healthy was better than sick or hurt.
"She has improved in the last few months," Pinion replied. "She had far less control before. Four months ago she'd have smacked into either the ground or her house by this point, or gotten tangled in the tree branches. I've had to fetch her out of the tree more than once." I hadn't actually gotten tangled in the branches for a while, at the point of this demonstration, but that was mainly because I'd broken most of the branches that I could get tangled up in. What happened more often was just colluding with the tree trunk, and then having Pinion rush to catch me as I fell. It was always hard for me to focus on flying after smacking my poor nose into some rough bark.
The mare gave me an appraising look. "It's hard to make sense of what I'm reading with her magic. It doesn't feel completely pegasus-like, it feels faintly like a night pony, but not like that either. It also feels as if she should have far more magic available than what she's putting into her flight, but it's kinda throttled. It's almost like she is having to force it to act, instead of it naturally flowing. Flight magic isn't completely passive in nature, but it has large passive elements to it. She has no passive flow happening at all."
"So, is it some sort of mental block?" Pinion asked. I wished they would tell me to either land or do something other than hover. Hovering took too much concentration, and that was hard to do when trying to listen into a conversation.
The mare shook her head in bewilderment. "I'm not even sure how you would mentally block those kinds of magic flows. It's like saying you have a mental block on breathing, or will stop breathing if you forget to. It just doesn't work that way."
"Can I land now?" I called out in frustration.
Pinion flattened his ears, and turned to the crystal pony for direction. The mare frowned and shook her head again. "Not yet. How about you try pushing yourself as much as you can. Maybe do a large circular flight around the house? Go as fast as you're able. You may gain a bit of altitude if you need to. I can read you well from about fifty yards away."
As fast as I was able? In a circle? This was going to end in disaster. If I wanted to go fast, then it was better to go in a straight line. Going in a straight line meant less thinking about changing directions and other complex things. Going in a circle needed me to go slow, because I couldn't think fast enough to adjust direction at higher speeds, even if just trying to maintain the same loop.
I'll cut to the chase; I picked up what I considered an okay amount of speed. Sure, it wasn't going to win me any races, but it would have been enough to keep up with another pegasus that was lightly pushing themselves, the equivalent of a human jogging. That ended up being too much to control, and I ended up hitting the roof, doing a few bounces across it, smashing into the chimney, and then getting grabbed in the air by Pinion-- right after falling off the roof. I wasn't too hurt, just a headache and some bruised hooves (pegasi were built to survive such crashes), but it was embarrassing.
The results from the crystal pony's readings were inconclusive. She said that whatever was wrong with my flying, it had to do with my magic, not my weight. She also said it wasn't that my magic was inherently weak, only that it wasn't acting the way it should. She wanted to do some follow-up visits to further observe me, but the fact the move to Skytree was coming up in just days prevented that.
They left, and David took me back inside. I climbed up on the couch in order to get off my sore hoofsies. David gave me a sympathetic pat on the back. "Hey, at least we learned part of what's going on, and you didn't damage the roof or yourself at all. We'll find a doctor to follow up on your magic after we get settled into our new house."
"I suppose," I mumbled. I was a young teen, and young teens have a fragile ego. I've gotten over worrying about embarrassing myself with my clumsiness since then, but at the time embarrassing myself hurt worse than the crash did.
He stood up. "How about some milk and cookies? I made a special batch for you, earlier today."
My ears perked up, and so did the corners of my mouth. "Milk and cookies sounds great!"
David walked off to the kitchen, and I sat up and got myself ready to chow down. Yes, my hooves were sore, but not so sore they couldn't hold cookies or lift a cup of milk. There was nothing better than a treat to improve my mood.
He came back with a full plate of delicious looking chocolate chip cookies, and a big cup of milk with a straw in it. He set the milk down on the end table next to me, and the plate of cookies beside me. My mouth watered as I looked the cookies over, trying to decide which to be the first to devour. I made my decision, and just grabbed it up directly with my mouth to scarf down in one mighty bite. My eyes bulged as I bit down into it, and I promptly spit it out. It was disgusting! I quickly turned to take a sip from the milk straw, and no sooner had I inhaled the milk did I start choking and gagging on the equally disgusting beverage.
"What's wrong?" David asked worriedly.
When I finished coughing I laid my ears back. "What did you do to the milk and cookies?!"
He flinched back at my outburst. "I, um, tried using skim milk this time around."
I blinked in confusion. "Skim milk?"
He gave me an apologetic look. "It doesn't have the same milk fat as regular milk. You've been worried about your weight, so I was trying to help out. I know it messes with the taste and texture a little, but I didn't think it would be that bad."
I looked at the cookies and then back at him. "I think I'd rather be fat! That's not real milk. How could you do that to milk and cookies?!"
"Sorry."
And that is when I swore my undying hatred for skim milk. It was some nastiness, masquerading as milk. Worse, it ruined my comfort food! Skim milk was the most horrible thing ever to be done to baked goods! So now you know the three things I hate: mean people, destiny, and the crime against all that is good called skim milk.
My mom waved me goodbye, as I hopped into Maggie's car. Maggie smirked at me as I started trying to determine which was the belt buckle and which was the pony harness. "So… have your medication so you can have sex all year long?"
I squinted one eye at her. "I've got my birth control prescription, but I'm not going to be having any sex. I'm a good filly."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so those of us who want to experiment a bit are all bad then?"
That made me flatten my ears to the sides. "I didn't mean it that way. There's nothing wrong with you doing that if you want to. I just don't want to."
"Bec, I've seen your eyes glued to a stallion or two before, you get horny just like everyone else. Aren't you good friends with the literal Dreamwarden of sex?"
I finally got myself harnessed into my seat. "She's about more things than sex."
Maggie was unconvinced. "But sex is what she's really known best for. You say you've been friends with her since you were just a little filly. I'm not sure how a pony gets to be friends with a Dreamwarden like that, but you can't tell me in all that time you've never taken advantage of the fact that you're friends with the premier expert on sex in order to ask questions or have her help create some fantasies."
My face heated up, and I glanced away. "That isn't the same thing as actually having sex. It doesn't even really help those urges. It just gives me an idea what it's like."
She laughed loud enough it hurt my ears. "You have had sex dreams!"
I crossed my forelegs. "So? Almost everybody does. I'm just not interested in making those fantasies a reality."
She gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, since she is literally in everything in the dream realm. Having a sex fantasy is almost like you had sex with her, since she's in everything when you're dreaming."
"Okay, you just made my dreams feel really weird and awkward, thanks for that." It also made me think of what it meant if I became a Dreamwarden. I technically would be in everything in the dream realm too, even if I would only be able to be aware of small parts of it at a time, because I was living. So did that mean every time anyone had any sort of dream fantasy that whatever was happening was on some level happening to me? That was a scary thought. One that made my stomach feel queasy.
"Anytime," Maggie giggled, and she put the car into drive. "Hey, Bec. I always wanted to ask you. Why do ponies insist on saying mare, stallion, filly, colt, foals, and things like that, even if they don't use any other pony pronouns?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. It just feels more exact, I guess. I don't really think about it. To tell the truth, I sometimes catch myself almost saying things like anypony or everypony, and I wasn't brought up with those words."
"So, that pony brainwashing is a real thing."
"I don't consider myself brainwashed. I've been a pony since I was four, that's as long as I can remember anything. I might as well have always been a pony."
She glanced my way briefly, before turning back to the road. "You don't remember anything from being human? I know four years old is not going to have a lot of memories left at this point, but you must remember something. There's lots of things from after that you seem to remember in extreme detail, at least the way you tell it."
I chewed on my lip, but went back to smiling right after. "Miss Seapony helps with that. She says she stores away memories from people that interest her, at least for a while. She can't store all the memories from everyone, because she'd run out of places to put them. It's like the dream realm has only so much memory to store things with, and it has a lot of stuff stored away already. She stores my memories though, and let's me see them sometimes. That way I can remember events that are important to me."
"I have so many questions about how that even works, or why they do that, but she never stored any memories of when you were human?" Maggie asked in confusion.
"I didn't have any left by the time Miss Seapony first met me. She can't store what she never found," I replied. I wasn't much concerned about it. "Mom has tried to stir up memories from me before, by showing old pictures of me back when I was human. She'll tell me stories, and ask if I remember any of that. I never do. I think it makes her a little sad, but I can't help it. They just aren't there."
"That sucks," Maggie said glumly.
"It's not so bad, other than my mom getting a little sad," I said. I then gave a big grin. "You know what doesn't suck? The fact we're going to be signed up with a sorority before today is out! I'm sure that will lead to some more memories Miss Seapony will want to store away."
That got her laughing again. "Good point. Hopefully they don't haze you too much."
I shrugged again. "Nah, I can take it."