It took a long few minuets to gain my composure back, a feat made none easier, due to the fact this same nightmare had cost me the past several nights of sleep; a pattern that was becoming quite irritable. As now even my last sanctuary of sleep was being stolen from me...
After taking a moment, or maybe it was several, to get my head straight I wrestled my body, which was still lazily clinging to my bed, to finally roll out and onto the floor; forcing my legs to stumble across the ground like a drunkard deep into their stupor, to try and catch my balance. When I had finally managed to keep my hooves firmly planted in place, I fumbled my way towards the dorm’s exit and to the cafeteria to wait for breakfast. While a bit of a chore at first, as I was forced to relearn basic hoof eye coordination, I slowly but surely regained my balance. Though it was still notably more sluggish and less coordinated than the average creature here.
At least on the bright side of having my sleep repeatedly interrupted so early in the morning, I was first to breakfast. Unfortunately, the opposite side of this coin also meant the dining facility wasn't open yet and so, like the past several days, I was forced to sit outside and wait. Which wasn’t all that bad I suppose, as it at least provided me a reprieve from the noisy busy work that was going about my day here. Better still, it also allowed me to watch as the heavenly bodies that were the sun and moon, quite literally, trade places in the sky. It was a brilliant heavenly dance that would have brought a tear to the most hardened of hearts; it also left any being unfortunate enough to be looking up at that moment temporarily blinded by the sun's radiance. A misfortune I've had the displeasure of experiencing every dawn so far… And today was no expedition.
By the time I fully regained my vision from the divine white glow that ensnared it, a queue had already started to form behind me; meaning, at the very least, breakfast was soon. Though admittedly today I was far too tired to really be hungry. Anytime I attempted to hone my hone in on the fresh smell of fruits inside my mind instead drifted back to the thought of bed. Then whenever I tried to focus my mind back in, it would drag its heels and quickly meander its way back to the thought of bed whenever I let go of it. Put simply, it felt like a game of tug of war between myself and my sub conscious and the latter was winning.
Because of this, most everything past that point was a groggy blur. My focus was so strained on trying to keep my mind awake that everything else around me was just an incompressible blur of information. Creatures were in and out of sight in a blink and just a fuzzy blob even when they were still. The normal high energy conversation talks around the table were even more high energy than usual. Combined with the fact that the mid winter light of the sun coming in blinded me most of the time; making breakfast even less bearable than usual. Though I was still vaguely aware of the twins and co egging me forward through the line and towards our normal table, or least I think it was our normal table. As I was to preoccupied still ebbing off my lingering grogginess to know for sure.
Carapace, to her credit, however seemed to pick up on all of this. As when breakfast had concluded she suggested maybe taking the day off instead of practicing again. Sound advice to a more cognizant individual, unfortunately for us both I was anything but that. So instead I waved away her worries, saying I'd be fine between tired yawns; insisting that grogginess was starting to finally wear off. In truth, the tired edge of my mind was slowly starting to fall off into a faint dull calling, but not nearly as much as I may have suggested. Even if that were a lie though, I had to do this, I needed to do this. As the sooner I could lay this need to fly to sleep, the sooner I could be free of this nightmare, the sooner I may rest as well. Though that latter half of my reasoning was something I kept closer to my chest than the prior. Partly because that was a thought process too complicated for my tied mind to coherently spout out and partly because it wasn’t something I felt practically keen on sharing. It was the hand I had drawn, My problem to deal with, no one else's; it would be me who'd have to deal with it.
Despite my insistence and reassurance however Carapace still seemed unsure. Though I’m pretty sure my insistence must have won out given the next thing I clearly remember was the two of us standing out in the courtyard or it was just me. I couldn't quite recollect if Carapace had been at my side like usual or not. Though whatever the case was, it was fine by me as it gave me another chance to finally put down this beast that had been snatching my dreams from me. The very beast that looked to a sky full of hunger and yearning. A yearning that demanded to not only clear the unobtainable, infinite, blue horizons of the sky, but to reach out past its limits, reach out past crystalline blue appearance and graze the black pool of infinity that lay just beyond it. To soar, to climb and to be free. That was what it yearned for me to do.
The thought left my body heavy and inert, but not from the fatigue that gripped it, but from the knowledge I couldn't. I was far too weak; even in my dreams I knew that. It was only a favorable updraft that kept me aloft after all. A favorable condition I would most certainly not find here, and I doubt I'd even be able to use it provided it was. My wings were little more than a fancy show dog. All appearances and no substance. Even when fully extended they provided no glide to my heavy body. They should be a royal flush in this circumstance. Able to meet and beat that yearning and yet they weren't even a pair of twos.
Supposedly this is because magic is needed if one wishes to keep their, otherwise incapable, body afloat. So given the fact I was not a pony, rather a human stuck in a filly’s, no less, body I could never achieve this feat. The thought left a knot in my stomach that pulled in so many different ways I swiftly lost count. It was however at that moment on which my mind decided to act upon a whim. A whim hell bent on breaking this knot by brute force if need be. No matter how foolhardy the idea. Anything to beat the yearning beast inside of me. It was going to play my hand against the odds; determined to win it all or... Not.
Maybe it was my tired mind unable to think right in the heat of the moment. Maybe it was because I was a fool whom, at that moment, couldn't recognize when I’d been dealt an unwinnable hand. Or maybe it was something far more self-destructive that possessed me… Though in truth I think it was probably a mixture of all three to some extent or another. Regardless of the reasoning my mind was determined to end this nightmare that had plagued me relentlessly like a rabid dog.
I would fly, one way or another.
Then without my input my right forehoof struck the ground with a mix of nervous trepidation, and foolish determinism as my wings definitely shot out to their full length. My eyes locked forward towards, not just the edge but towards the horizon beyond that with an almost unearthly drive. Suddenly my hooves galloped towards it; pounding the ground with all my resolve to bet my hand against the odds.
It wasn't long after that I had the vaguest sense of someone shouting something behind me, though I don't know what it was or who it was. In hindsight however, I'm sure it was someone like Carapace trying to tell me to disregard my current bets. I was uninterested in their pleas however; even if I was, it didn't matter I had too much momentum to stop myself before I reached the end of the cloud layer. Then just like that I cast my hand. I was all in now and all my cards were on the table. All that was left was to await how they stacked up.
Suddenly there was nothing for my resolve to stand on anymore. There was nothing holding me down, no one holding me back. But there was also nothing to hold me up anymore and nothing to push off against. I was weightless in every sense of the word. For a moment the world was frozen around me. Gravity did not pull on me but nor did I move on. Instead I was left there mid air. Not married to the ground but not free either.
After what felt like an eternity my mind finally caught up with what it had done and just in time it seemed. As by the time this dawned on me the world around me began slowly ticking forward again. Revealing just how my hand fared.
In a blink of an eye I was in free fall. My hand was truly a bust…