His first flying lesson began bright and early Monday morning.
"Alright recruit," said Flight Formation in a crisp, authoritative tone.
The middle-aged stallion wore what Silver recognized from the books as a Wonderbolt uniform, drawing stares from all pegasi students in the field except himself. Silver wasn't staring per se, just looking.
"Today, we're going to cover the basics. But first, a warm-up. Four laps around the field. One mile. Go, go, go!"
Might as well play along, thought Silver. He'd never been in a boot camp scenario.
"Sir, yes, sir!"
One lap later...
"Come on, recruit, pick up the pace! I said warm-up, not a relaxing stroll through the air. And stop dragging your hooves!"
Silver, panting, said, "Yes, sir!"
Another lap later...
"Keep it going, recruit! Get off the ground! Don't tell me you're winded already?"
Silver, panting heavily, said, "No, sir."
Yet another lap later...
"Just one more lap to go. Don't slow down now! Keep those wings pumping!"
Silver didn't say anything. He didn't have the air to say anything.
After the fourth lap...
He fell face down into the clouds, limbs splayed out like he was being drawn and quartered.
"Thirty minutes," said Flight Formation, frowning at his stopwatch. "With about half the distance covered on hoof."
Silver heard distant laughter and discovered, to his annoyance, that his emotions were harder to control in his current state. The term 'hot and bothered' came to mind, and he realized he'd never gotten coldly angry after a long length of physical exertion. Maybe that could have been a countermeasure?
In any case, it's not like he had the energy to do anything with his emotions. His face was staying in the cloud for at least a minute.
"Blitz was right, this isn't good."
Silver couldn't respond.
"I'm going to get the school physician. Your muscles might be underdeveloped, or something else might be going on. Wait here until I get back."
As if he could do anything else.
When Flight was out of sight, Silver lifted his head from the 'ground' and glanced around. No pegasi were paying attention to him now that the Wonderbolt was gone and the show was over. He surreptitiously whispered, "Emergo."
He was no Hermione Granger, but he'd still been in the 99th percentile of his class. One day was the record for learning Emergo. Three days was how long it had actually taken him: Thursday and the weekend.
When he felt his wand in his right hoof, he raised his other hoof to his mane, found a filament, then said "Diffindo". He pushed his front hooves as far as he could into the clouds to obscure them, put his wand to the snipped strand of hair, transfigured it into a small bowl, carefully spoke the word "Aguamenti," and began drinking.
Aguamenti was typically learned in sixth year for Charms N.E.W.T.s. However, in terms of magical intensity, it could be learned as early as third year. It was taught late due to the extremely precise pronunciation. It had been a part of yesterday's lesson plan for the reason of utility, and for confirming Mr. Book's theory about their increased magical strength. Whether that was due to the new pony forms, or the ambient magic in the world around them, remained to be seen.
By the time Flight returned, Silver was sitting upright, watching the other class. He'd already said "Finite Incantatum" at the bowl and "Vajinus" to dismiss his wand.
"Silver Wing?" asked a female pegasus with a band-aide on her flank. "I'm Nurse Aide. Flight says you're having trouble flying?"
What followed was a close examination of his wings that involved prodding, flexing, stretching, and many 'hmm's and 'haw's from the school physician.
"I don't think it's a muscle problem," said Ms. Aide after about five minutes. "Let's go inside for a deeper scan."
"Hm..." Bright Aide looked hard at the screen of her scanning equipment. "I think I see the problem."
"Is it physical?" Flight Formation asked.
He feared this would be a case of land-locked syndrome. Sometimes, a pegasus is born in an earth pony town, to earth pony parents. They never get the proper introduction to flight, never try it themselves, and by the time they do finally try it, it's too late. Their muscles and bones haven't developed properly and they'll never be able to fly normally, if at all. He'd never seen it himself, only heard of it, but he's been thinking about that possibility ever since Silver said he grew up on the ground.
"I don't think so," said Ms. Aide. "His muscles and wings and bones are all fine. It's his magic. It's... how do I put this... it's all over the place?"
"All over the place?"
"Here, let me show you." She pulled up a picture of a pony-shaped collage of colors. "This is what a normal scan would look like. Magic is supposed to concentrate in the hooves, the wings, the fur, and the eyes. But sometimes there isn't enough magic in certain places, which leads to flight problems. I was afraid that would be the case here. You see, there's this condition that keeps magic from getting to the wings, which would've explained why he had so much trouble getting airborne-"
"He'll never be able to fly normally?" asked Flight Formation, now worried.
"Oh, no no no!" said the nurse. "I was afraid of that, but this... well to be honest, I have no idea what's going on."
She turned the screen of her device to face Flight. He could immediately see the difference from the 'normal' scan. The colors were much brighter, and the brightest area was the head of the pony silhouette, not the wings.
"He's at the very highest percentile of his age group when it comes to the amount of magic in his system," Ms. Aide explained. "But the problem is the location. His magic is spread out across his entire body, not just the normal places I mentioned... and much of it is concentrated in his forehead. Honestly, it's almost like a scan of a unicorn. Only... not really. Unicorns only have magic in their heads, for the most part. His magic is everywhere, with pockets of concentration in strange places. Like here," she pointed at a hoof, "in his right forehoof, and here," she pointed at a leg, "in his back left fetlock. Well, all his fetlocks, but that one in particular."
Silver paid close attention to every word.
Occlumency might explain the forehead thing, and the fact that he'd been casting spells monodextrously for most of his wizarding career could explain the concentration in his right forehoof... but that was just speculation.
If he made significant progress on ambidextrous casting and the magical chart didn't change, then it was something else. For the Occlumency hypothesis, he could try dropping his barriers. He should also probably remove the portkeys the next time he gets a scan so his 'fetlocks' aren't anomalous.
But for now, the scan had already been taken.
"What about his wings?" Flight Formation asked, ignoring the parts that didn't concern him. "Are they getting enough magic?"
"His wings are getting some magic," the nurse said. "Just not as much as they're supposed to have."
"Is there a method I can use to direct more magic to my wings?" Silver asked, drawing the gazes of both adults to himself.
The nurse shook her head. "Not artificially. Magic is like a muscle. It gets better with use. I've only seen it in textbooks before, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is a case of magic atrophy. And the only thing that can help with that is conditioning, just like you'd do for atrophied muscles."
"That means more laps, doesn't it?"
Flight Formation nodded firmly. "Every day."
He groaned.
It took all of three days for Silver Wing to get fed up with just flying laps each lesson.
He knew it was necessary. He knew it would get better with time, that he would get to the more complicated maneuvers later. He even knew the importance of conscientiousness and hard work for achieving success.
But doing the same thing over and over again is just so boring.
It feels like insanity even if he knows it isn't. Incremental improvement isn't insanity. It's not technically doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It's expecting the same result: slow gains over time. But that knowledge isn't stopping his brain from complaining.
Maybe he wouldn't have minded if he had a way to entertain himself, like a magical way to listen to books while he exercised. He asked Twilight about that. She became incredibly excited at the idea, meaning she'd never heard of it before and it didn't exist yet.
As Silver laid face-down in a cloud for the third day in a row, one phrase came to his exhausted mind. It had never been said aloud, but that didn't make it any less real.
I hate hard work! Silver had told the sorting hat. Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts! That's what I'm about!
And so, on this day, in this moment, Silver Wing decided that he would find a clever shortcut to his current problem:
Laps.
Silver Wing was given two hours of "Independent Study" each day.
Yesterday and the day before he'd explored Cloudsdale High/Elementary (the two schools were located on the same campus), seeing what they had to offer a wayward student, if anything. Only two places caught his interest: the school libraries (naturally) and a room called the Cloud Center, a place where pegasi could practice weather manipulation.
On the third day, Silver Wing's Independent Study had purpose. It had direction. It had goal-orientation.
Silver Wing sat in the library, looking over a sheet of loose-leaf he'd taken from the 'spare paper' bin. Written at the top was the question, How can I fly laps without getting winded?
What followed were potential angles of attack.
Solution 1: Practice
Problem: I don't know how long it will take for my magic to develop. It might take months. It might take years. If I'm currently worse than a baby pegasus in the air, it could be that my development will take eleven years to reach the point of my peers. And by that point, I'll be eleven years behind again.
Silver looked at the first answer and accompanying analyses, then put a line through it. He would practice, but only after he figured out what to practice.
He moved on.
Solution 2: Cheat. Get the flight enchantments cast on my bones.
Problem: The procedure is dangerous, and it might not be possible to brew the necessary potions. Ask at next meeting.
Silver looked at the second solution with a frown. And not a thoughtful one.
He didn't like this particular cheat because he wouldn't be flying under his own power. It's something he's always wanted to do, to the point where he'd wanted to become a falcon animagus just so he could, though becoming a pegasus made that ambition redundant. This solution also meant he wouldn't be learning pegasus magic, like he originally wanted to do.
But at the end of the day, it was better than suffering through eleven years of catch-up and endless sessions of laps.
He put a Maybe next to that solution.
Solution 3: Clever shortcuts.
Problem: Laps are difficult.
Angles of attack: Find way to train/improve magic of wings quickly.
Find way to bolster wing magic temporarily. (Food? Sugar? Stimulants?)
Find way to bypass wing magic entirely and use pegasus magic some other way.
Silver stared what he'd written for a long moment, then crossed out the second angle of attack. He wasn't about to take drugs.
That left one and three.
At the end of the day, if he wanted to fly those laps, he'd either have to get to the point where his wing magic was up to snuff, or he'd have to find some other way to fly the laps that didn't rely heavily on wing magic. The nurse had said Pegasi were supposed to have magic in their hooves and fur. Maybe that could help.
Silver stood from his desk and began browsing the library.
"I think it's time to move on to weather, recruit," said Flight Formation.
Silver, panting, only nodded. It was the last day of school before the weekend, and he was glad to be done with flight class for the day. He hadn't made much progress on clever shortcuts after three weeks, so he'd had to suffer through many long hours of grueling laps.
For the most part, his research had turned up all the ways he wouldn't be able to bypass the problem of wing magic. By now he'd learned just about everything you could learn from a book – which might sound like a lot, but since unicorns weren't overly interested in pegasus magic, they hadn't done that much research into the subject. And it was mostly unicorns who wrote books.
From those books, Silver summarised the most important parts.
1. Wing magic affects thrust and lift, the two things he was having trouble generating, though he was mostly having trouble with thrust. Lift wasn't too hard to maintain in the form of a glide, but without any thrust he slowed down and dropped to the ground soon enough.
2. Fur magic is supposed to help with drag and/or weight, but Silver didn't know how to measure that, or how to implement it.
3. Hoof magic helps with weather manipulation.
4. Eye magic helps pegasi see where they're going – and possibly also explained why he didn't need glasses anymore.
That was the extent of research that unicorns had done into pegasus magic.
No methods on how to improve magic in certain areas had been explored.
No case studies of pegasi successfully overcoming handicaps through clever use of body mechanics had been examined.
No explanations as to how the magic even worked in the first place were given.
There weren't even any experiments to prove the four theories in the first place. Or if experiments had been run, they hadn't been referenced in any of the books he'd read.
Wonderful.
"Today," said Flight Formation, "you'll learn how to spot the difference between a normal cloud and a thundercloud. You'll also buck your first cloud. You will not buck a thundercloud yet. You never, ever want to buck a thundercloud without training. Do I make myself clear, recruit?"
"Yes sir," Silver said with little enthusiasm. The fantasy of boot camp had run its course long ago, and he didn't feel like keeping up the pretense anymore. "Wouldn't want to get myself electrocuted."
"The problem isn't that you'll electrocute yourself," said Flight Formation. "Bucking a cloud will always push it and whatever's inside it away from you. The lightning if it's a thundercloud, the snow if it's a snowcloud, the rain if it's a... well, you get the idea. If you don't know what you're doing and you try to buck a thundercloud, the lightning could strike something. Or somepony."
"Yes sir," said Silver. "How do I spot the difference?"
Silver breezed through the next part of the lesson. Theory was easy for him. It was practice that was the problem.
"Now," said Flight, drawing a relatively small cloud from a stack to the left. "Today, you're going to be bucking your first cloud. I want you to anchor your front hooves firmly in the clouds in front of you, then buck this cloud as hard as you can."
"Can you demonstrate the motions, sir?" Silver asked politely.
"Sure, recruit."
Flight Formation placed his front hooves firmly in the clouds, wound up his rear legs like a compressed coil, then bucked them backwards like a released rubber band, all in one smooth motion. The cloud soared up and away.
Silver tried to memorise the movements, to keep them visualised.
"Your turn, recruit," said Flight, getting another cloud.
Silver nodded. He closed his eyes, Flight's demonstration at the forefront of his mind. He planted his front hooves firmly in the clouds, lifted his back hooves off the ground-
Then fell forward onto his face.
He heard some laughter from the other side of the field.
"If you're used to bucking from solid ground," said Flight in a voice loud enough to be heard by the students, "remember: clouds are soft, so they have more give. Don't lean so far forward until you get the hang of it."
"Yes sir," said Silver, standing up and planting his hooves in the clouds again.
Keep his center of mass further back. Got it.
But the problem wasn't the clouds. He'd never tried bucking at all before – something he imagined was a common thing for ponies to learn at much younger ages than himself – and he now had to try to pretend like he was only having trouble because of the cloud surface, rather than a complete and utter lack of experience.
This time, rather than trying to do everything at once, he compartmentalised the movements and went through a few practice runs. It was reductionism at it's most practical level: reducing a complex task to simpler parts so you can understand it better. He held firmly to the image of Flight Formation's demonstration as he went through his small practice motions, trying to impose those movements onto his own body like he'd impose form on substance during a Transfiguration.
When he was ready, he glanced over his shoulder at the cloud, snorted, put all the movements together in a single motion, and-
Fell flat on his face.
Although this time, there wasn't the laughter.
Maybe that had something to do with the fact that he had successfully managed to buck the cloud. The only problem was that the force of the buck had been too much for his left forehoof, even though his right forehoof had handled it just fine, and that sent him spiraling forward
Stupid uneven magical distribution, he thought as he picked himself up. I am going to practice ambidextrous casting for AT LEAST four of my six Time-Turned hours. He'd only been practicing two hours each day. Progress was present, but slow. He needed to ramp it up. And I'm going to ask Mr. Book for tips. He won't give me the answer, but he might offer a hint. I am not going to let myself get flung forward... by...
"Hmm," he heard from Flight Formation. "About a hundred yards. Not bad, recruit. Not bad at all. Your form could use work, but that's a good start." Flight's voice rose. "Certainly better than those slackers over there. Why aren't you doing your loops? Go, go, go!"
But Silver's own mind wasn't thinking about the cloud he'd just bucked, or the students he was ignoring. It wasn't even thinking about his unbalanced hooves anymore.
It was thinking about the fact that he'd just generated a significant amount of forward force – of forward thrust – just then.
A grin spread across his face.
He might have just found his shortcut.
He hadn't just found his shortcut.
Not directly, anyway, he thought.
He sat in Independent Study, which was an hour longer than usual because Friday was a free day. No creative classes.
He had the same set-up as last time.
Problem: Forward Thrust
Solution: Bucking Clouds?
Problem: Placement.
Silver didn't have a way of delivering clouds to his rear hooves whenever he slowed down in his laps. The closest thing to that was dropping to the cloud track below and kicking off, but Flight Formation had made it abundantly clear that he was only allowing Silver do it because Silver literally couldn't stay in the air long enough to do four laps in a single sitting, even after three weeks of practice. Silver simply didn't have the stamina. But as soon as he did, he'd be airborne the entire lesson. So bucking clouds for forward thrust was a no-go.
Silver crossed out the word 'clouds' and brainstormed the problem of pegasus magic as a whole. He wrote down relevant questions as he thought of them.
If walking on a cloud is like walking on water, why can't I walk on water?
They'd gone swimming in gym class yesterday, and although he had tried to walk on water a few times (yes, his mind had immediately gone there), he was unable to do it.
Why is it that Pegasi can stand on clouds in the first place?
The nurse had said it was the magic in their hooves. So had all the books. Hooves deal with weather, wings dealt with thrust/lift, fur dealt with drag/weight, eyes dealt with sight.
But if only hoof magic was supposed to interact with clouds, why could that cyan pegasus, Rainbow something, sleep on clouds with her whole body? Why could he sleep on clouds with his whole body?
Why doesn't the rest of my body sink through the clouds whenever I collapse in exhaustion?
According to the literature on pegasus magic, hoof magic interacts with weather. His entire body except his hooves should be sinking through the clouds under that theory, but it didn't. And that reminded him of another problem.
Why are the clouds here so unusually vivid?
Clouds on the other side of the mirror were more like mist when you were right up next to them. He knew this because he was both a muggleborn who had been in the window seat of a plane and a wizard who had flown at high altitudes. Here, clouds weren't misty, they were almost like literal big plush pillows.
At a guess, 'magic' was probably the answer.
Like back in his old world, this world seemed to run on the normal physical laws except wherever magic was concerned. Any anomalies were usually best explained by 'magic' until proven otherwise. His mind even generated the hypothesis that, since clouds were made by the local Weather Factory (which supplied weather for all of Equestria), it could be that magic-infusion was part of the cloud-creation process, and that natural weather was just as misty as always.
If these clouds were magical, that would explain both the vividness and why he could walk on them but not water. Maybe his magic could only interact with other magic.
But where magic was concerned, things didn't have to be that sensible. There was another possibility. Actually, there were thousands of possibilities, but at the moment, Silver was focused on the one his mind had suggested.
This possibility was that pegasus magic might interact with air, not water or magic. Clouds, i.e. clumps of condensed water vapor, were a mix between a liquid and a gas. It was liquid in a gaseous state. Sort-of. So maybe it wasn't the liquid his magic was interacting with, but the gas. That would also explain why he couldn't walk on liquid water.
But if standing on a cloud is actually standing on the air inside a cloud, or the air represented by the cloud, why couldn't he just... stand on the air itself? Did it have to do with the fact that clouds were clearly visible here, and thus easy to visualise as something touchable? But he had quite literally run into clouds that he wasn't visualising at the time, falling down during flight lessons and hitting the cloud ground even though he wasn't looking at it, which should disprove that hypothesis.
Then again, he had known the clouds were there. His mind might have been imagining them as solid on some level.
Silver looked at his hoof, flexing it a few times.
A thought occurred to him.
Has any pegasus ever tried to walk on air?
Silver glanced around his quiet nook in the library. Nopony was around. From what he gathered, the other students spent their free periods playing in the gym or doing tricks in the flight stadium.
Silver looked at his hoof again.
He slowly stood from his chair.
He raised his hoof in front of himself and imagined he was about to take a step on a staircase of clouds.
...
Well, now at least one pegasus in the world has tried to walk on air.
Question was, would a pegasus ever succeed in walking on air?
Silver, on the other side of the mirror, had once made an original discovery in Transfiguration by applying a certain mindset about the world when he was casting. The only way – well, not the only way – the fastest way he might pioneer a similar discovery on this side of the mirror was if pegasus magic, or at least cloud manipulation, was influenced by a pony's state of mind. And cloud manipulation was certainly influenced by state of mind. In one of the earliest lessons, Flight Formation had warned Silver that he had to control his emotions before he could manipulate weather. Emotions had a direct impact on clouds. There was a saying that you never let an angry pony near a thundercloud.
And if emotions affected weather magic... if clouds could be influenced by the mind, the same might hold true for other aspects of pegasus magic.
Silver nodded to himself, then scoured the library for all books he could find about the fundamental theories behind weather manipulation.
"Twilight?"
"Yes, Silver?"
"Do you have any books on the fundamental theories of weather manipulation? I couldn't find any in the school library."
"I'm... not sure if they would be in a library," Twilight said. "The Cloudsdale Cloud Factory keeps its methods very close to heart. They don't share their trade secrets with anypony, even most pegasi."
Silver waved a hoof. "I'm not asking for engineering or design. If I wanted to know that I'd do more research on Swift Flight." That being the name of the architect who'd pioneered many modern weather manipulation practices. "I want to know the fundamental principles behind why pegasi can touch clouds in the first place. The best I've found is 'the magic in our hooves lets us interact with clouds', but that isn't all that specific. Are there any books in the library that go into more detail?"
"Hm..." said Twilight. "I know we don't have any books like that in the library. I would have read them by now. Oh! I know! I'll ask Princess Celestia. If anypony knows where I could get a book on pegasus magic, she will!"
Twilight slumped as she read the response letter. "She doesn't know."
"Does that mean nopony knows?" Silver asked curiously.
"I'm sure somepony knows, Silver," said Twilight. "It's too important not to know. I'll send a letter to Canterlot University. I bet there's a lot of professors there who know all about pegasus magic!"
Silver didn't voice his skepticism. Instead, he thought back to what he'd read and what he'd seen.
Silver Wing had read that pegasus hooves have magic to help them interact with clouds. Silver Wing had seen that his body, his wings, his elbows, and his face could all interact with clouds just as easily as his hooves.
He had read that clouds acted like pliable, solid objects to pegasi.
He had seen, on rare occasions, extremely young pegasi giggling to themselves as they sank through the clouds of Cloudsdale, only to get severely reprimanded by nearby adults – usually parents – for damaging the architecture and endangering themselves.
He thought of the long-term psychological effects that sort of thing might have on pegasi.
He formed his hypothesis.
"You seem anxious," observed Mr. Book.
"Just dying to test a theory." One which was best tested during the day instead of the night, when visibility wasn't low. Last night he'd had to settle for merely writing it down. "Can we make today's lesson a quick one? Oh, and do you have any hints on how to improve at ambidextrous casting?"
Mr. Book tilted his head. "Yes, and yes. Once you can, abandon your dominant arm. Cast only with your left hoof, except in emergencies, and practice as many aspects of magic as you can imagine. When one aspect gets difficult or tedious, switch to another. Offense, defense, charms, jinxes, hexes, curses, aim, transfiguration, potions-making. There are plenty of disciplines to choose from."
"Potions-making?" Silver repeated.
"Yes. I have already gathered a number of ingredients and brewed a few potions as a proof of concept. Potions-brewing will be done under my supervision until further notice."
"And... how am I meant to do that ambidextrously?"
"You are used to stirring with your right arm and adding ingredients with your left. You will not be allowed to make potions that way until you have told me why ambidexterity helps one to learn wandless magic."
One grueling potions-session later...
He failed the potion two times before getting it on the third try. Mr. Book hadn't chosen an easy one. It didn't help that Silver was using hooves instead of hands, reversing dominances, and hadn't had the time to study the recipe in advance.
"I was expecting more mockery," Mr. Silver said at the end of it.
"If a baby is taking its first steps, do you mock it for being unable to walk?"
"Not the best analogy. You laughed plenty of times back when I was learning how to walk in this body."
"I did. There is something inherently funny about that sort of failure. I suppose it is a matter of magnitude then. Some potions accidents can be humorous, but they should always be taken seriously. As tragedies, not comedies. In some recipes, a single stirring error can result in death."
Silver shuddered. Why hadn't Snape ever said that? Was it too much for eleven-year-olds? But McGonagall hadn't held back...
"Do you sspeak true?"
"Yess. Sschool ssupervissorss forbid Potionss Masster from sspeaking of deadliesst recipess, which are outlawed in any casse."
Silver nodded. "Got it."
"Then you are dismissed."
"Before I go, can you re-attach those broomstick rods to my limbs? And weakly enough that I can finite the sticking charm afterwards?"
"Does the theory you were dying to test upon arrival pertain to pegasus magic?" the thestral asked as he retrieved the rods, put them in place, and disillusioned them.
"Yup."
Idea-generation is fundamentally optimistic brain behavior. Your brain wouldn’t be suggesting ideas if it didn’t think they could work. From your BRAIN’S perspective, it only suggests good ideas.
Reality, on the other hand, is fundamentally pessimistic, again from your brain’s perspective. Reality is constantly throwing your ideas back in your face, calling them stupid, and laughing at you.
Silver knew this. He fully expected many of his guesses to fail. But he also fully expected to figure it out eventually if he kept generating new guesses based on how his old ones failed.
Silver flew up to the lowest nearby cloud. Thankfully, clouds hung very low in this world's atmosphere, and although he was completely exhausted when he reached it, he could at least reach it. He had thought to use the broomstick enchantments, but if this theory didn't work out, then at least he had gotten in some flying practice.
He rested on the cloud for a moment, much like he would after a morning of laps. When he had caught his breath well enough to be confident that he could catch himself – that is, he'd have wing strength to glide to safety if, say, he was suddenly no longer able to touch the cloud – he began testing his theory.
For many minutes, he put himself into various states of mind, trying and falsifying idea after idea.
Happiness wasn't possible.
Hope didn't work.
Anger didn't work.
Determination didn't work – in fact, it seemed to have the opposite of the desired effect.
Sadness (why, Professor?) didn't work.
Hate didn't work.
Disgust didn't work.
Guilt didn't work.
When he'd run the gamut of all the basic emotions he could remember, he tried other feelings.
Hunger, the desire for food, didn't work.
Paranoia, the feeling of persecution, the desire for security, didn't work.
Fear, the instinct to avoid immediate predation, didn't work. Again, it seemed to have the opposite effect.
Restlessness, the desire not to be bored... wait, did the clouds just get softer?
Hmm... the change was so small that it could've just been his imagination. Then again, maybe he was on the right track. What was similar to restlessness?
The desire not to be stuck in one place? Again, that barely noticeable change...
How about excitement? No, that wasn't it.
The desire to do things? No...
The desire to be able to do things? Possibly...
The desire not to be caged? Oh, that was a big yes.
How about... the desire to be free.
He fell through the cloud.
Glided to safety.
Smiled.
Well, that was a rather fitting answer.
Freedom, it would seem, guides a fundamental part of pegasus magic.
Of course, it would be freedom, wouldn't it? Pegasus magic largely deals with air – an "element" commonly used to symbolise freedom.
The freedom of will to overcome obstacles. The freedom of mind that gets dampened by scolding parents and disapproving eyes. The freedom of body that's hampered by things like obesity and muscle atrophy.
Freedom of body, freedom of mind, freedom of magic... freedom of thought.
Observation: Some pegasi can pass through clouds.
Hypothesis: With the right state of mind, it might be possible for me to do the same.
Result: When I think of freedom, I pass through clouds. See if it's possible to replicate at will, at a moment's notice. Also see if this has an effect on air in general, not just clouds. Is THIS how to reduce drag and air resistance? Do other pegasi do it instinctively?
Side Note: New Observation – some emotions made clouds feel firmer. Fear and determination. Might be useful later.