"Are you some kind of lunatic?!"
I looked down in horror. I was atop a large cliff on the edge of Ponyville, with Rainbow Dash hovering closely above me. It was the day that she had promised to give me lessons on how to use my wings and she wasted no time in bringing me to what she believed was the ideal spot to learn how to fly. She had told me that it was quite the steep drop, but I wasn't anticipating it to be THIS massive. As I looked over the cliff, down at the flat and grassy land below, I figured that it was somewhere close to 10 stories high, but I was hoping that was just my imagination. I've never really been too afraid of heights, but I found himself being intimidated by the death drop. It was almost like a big mouth, eagerly awaiting its prey.
"Aw, come on, Morgan. Don't tell me you're scared of little drop like that," Rainbow Dash said as she landed on the ground next to me.
"You call this a SMALL drop?" I asked with wide eyes. "If I were to hit the ground from up here, I'd die!"
"Maybe in your world you would, but a drop like this wouldn't kill you here in Equestria," she responded, making me breathe a sigh of relief. "I'd say it would just break a bone or two."
I paled as I drank in Rainbow Dash's assertion.
"But that would probably only happen in the worst case scenario," Dash added. "You'd probably just be sore for a couple of weeks if you hit the ground."
"Ok, there is no way I'm doing this." I turned to leave.
"Morgan, you're worrying too much. You want to learn how to fly, don't you?"
"Yeah, but I'd rather not put myself in the hospital in the process," I said. "What if Twilight ended up figuring out how to get me home? It would sure as heck be hard trying to get home when I'm stuck in a hospital bed for weeks."
"Weeks? It only takes a few days to fix up broken bones," she responded, confused.
"A couple of days? How does that make any sense at-" I cut himself off and facehoofed. "Oh yeah, I'm in a cartoon. I keep forgetting that part."
As I looked over this candy-colored world of sunshine and sugar, I suddenly felt… lonely. I felt myself wondering if any time had really passed back home, and if my friends and family were worried. Even though everything here hadn't been as bad as I’d thought they'd be, the familiar taste of home was slowly slinking away from me, and I didn't know when I’d ever find it again.
Or even IF I’d ever find it again. I blinked, and suddenly, my eyes felt wet and hot.
Rainbow Dash looked at me, probably feeling my mood suddenly change. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
I wiped away my tear and hid my face. “I-It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
The cyan pegasus dropped from her position above, sitting down in front of me. “It doesn't sound like nothing,” she said. She examined me a little more closely as I looked away. “You’re feeling homesick, aren't you?”
I shifted, my eyes darting aside. “…A little,” I admitted.
At this, Rainbow Dash gave me something I thought I’d never receive from someone like her: a genuine, warm smile. Her rosy eyes seemed to lose their attitude and instead became like a warm fireplace at home. She rested a hoof on my shoulder.
“I know the feeling, bro. Being so far away from home hurts like nothin’ else. But you’ll go home eventually.” After a second, her hoof fell away. “If there’s a way to bring you to Ponyville, then there’s a way to get you back home. Y’just gotta hang in there.”
I paused. “Thanks,” I finally said, at a loss for anything else to say. “That was, um…”
I felt a playful punch at my shoulder. “Hey, I’m not the Element of Loyalty for nothing, y’know! I’m here for ya!” Suddenly, she scowled as she leaned into my face. “But anymore of that sappy stuff, and I’mma wreck you. Deal?”
A slow smile spread across my face. I chuckled—and suddenly erupted into a relieved laugh. Rainbow Dash joined in. It took a few minutes for the both of us to recover ourselves.
"Alright, so what's the first thing that I need to know?" I finally asked.
"First, you need to learn how to move your wings," Rainbow Dash said. I nodded and started flexing the muscles that controlled my wings, causing them to flap around. "And by move your wings, I mean how to actually flap them. Not make them look like you're trying to jerk off."
"Wait, what?"
"Eh, it's a pegasus thing."
"Right," I said as I stopped messing with my wings. "Well, at least now I know which muscles control my wings...So how do I 'control" them, exactly?"
"It's actually easier than you think. All you got to do is get the hang of moving your wings in the way you want them to. If you move the muscles up, the wings will come up." Rainbow demonstrated by bringing up her wings until they were fully stretched out. "Then you bring the muscles back down to bring down the wings." Once again, she brought down her wings and tucked them away to illustrate what she said.
"It's really that easy?" I asked, skeptically.
"Yep! Give it a try."
I nodded and focused on my wings. Slowly, I flexed my right wing’s muscles until it stood up straight. Just as carefully as before, I did the same for my left wing. I, being satisfied with this modest success, wore an ear-to-ear grin.
"Wow, that was pretty easy." I quickly dropped his wings and suddenly felt myself lifting off the ground a bit. Being shocked by being in midair, I wasn't able to react in time and fell as I came back to the ground. "Ow."
Rainbow Dash giggled to herself as I lifted myself from off the ground.
"Well, ya didn't do it too gracefully, but that's a good enough way to bring me to the next lesson: Lifting off the ground. If you lightly flap your wings up and down, you can hover above the ground." Dash started to flap her wings and lifted slightly off the ground. "And if you flap them harder, like how you did, then you can go higher." After increasing the quickness of her wing movements, the pegasus began to go higher in the air until she was nearly the height of a house above me. Finally, she brought herself back down to the ground.
"Since you're just starting out, we're not going to have you go too high."
"If that's the case, why the heck did you bring me to this cliff?" I asked.
"Not really patient, are you?" The mare asked. "Just be cool. We'll get to that in a bit. For now, I just want you to get the hang of flapping your wings and staying in the air. Remember, just lightly move your wings."
"Got it." I firmly planted my hooves on the ground and prepared myself. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and began to lightly move my wings in unison. Slowly, I felt myself beginning to lift in the air and hover above the ground. I opened my eyes and looked down. When I saw that I was successfully hovering, a wide grin spread across my face.
"Woo! Check me out," I exclaimed as I kept lightly flapping my wings to stay airborne. "This is awesome."
"Impressive," Dash said. "Just keep it up so that you can get the hang of it. If you want to move around, just lean in the direction you want to go."
I began moving around in different directions, making sure to keep up my wing movements as I did so. I started out with very slight movements to get the hang of it, then moved up to more dramatic movements as I grew more confident with my hovering. Soon enough, I found myself hovering with ease.
"Oh man, this is so cool," I said as I moved backwards in midair, trying to moonwalk as I did so. A wide grin was spreading across myself from how much I was enjoying myself.
"Not bad, Morgan," Dash complimented. "Now I want you to land."
"How do I do that?" I asked, looking down at the ground with a puzzled look.
"Just bring your wings down and stop flapping. Duh."
I nodded and did as I was told. As I began to descend, I tried to brace myself for the landing, but I landed with a solid thud anyways. Rainbow chuckled. "Nicely done. When you're high in the air, you'll want to get close to the ground and slow down before you land. Otherwise, you'll crash, and it don't feel too good. Trust me, I know."
"Yes, because I did so swimmingly at landing from the small hovering distance," I sarcastically commented as I stood back up.
"Don't worry about it," Dash replied. "Just work on your landing a bit more and you'll get the hang of it. All you need to do is make sure that all your hooves are ready for the landing. They can't be swung out somewhere, they need to be facing the ground. Do that, and landing should be a breeze."
I gave Dash a nod and began flapping my wings once again so that I would lift off of the ground. Once I made sure all four of my hooves were facing the ground correctly, I tucked my wings down and fell. This time, I stuck the landing and avoided falling down.
"You're catching on pretty quick, Morgan. I think you're ready for the next phase," the cyan pegasus said, motioning to the edge of the cliff that we were on. I gulped.
"Oh joy," I said. "What is the next phase exactly?"
"Gliding," Rainbow Dash replied. She brought her wings up and galloped off the edge of the cliff. After flapping her wings for a bit, she bent them back and leaned forward, causing her to glide through the air. She circled around and flew back up to me.
"You want me to do that?" I asked with my mouth agape. "I'll repeat my earlier question: Are you some kind of lunatic?"
"You don't have to circle back up to here," Dash responded. "I just want you to glide down to the ground."
"What, and break my skull in the process?"
"You're worrying too much, Morgan. There's nothing to it, all you got to do to glide is bring your wings back and lean forward. If you lean up and flap, then you can go up, and if you lean down, you go down. It's easier than it sounds, trust me," she said trying to assure me.
"I don't know," I hesitantly replied.
"Listen, nothing bad will happen. I won't let you get hurt, I promise."
Rainbow Dash gave me a comforting smile. After thinking about it for a bit, I sighed.
"Fine. What's the worst thing that could happen." I slowly walked up to the edge of cliff. I looked down at the long fall in terror. "You know, besides getting put in the hospital."
I tried to clear my mind and breathed in and out. Once I was as calm as I could manage, I slowly started walking back.
"Well, it's now or never." I galloped forward and began flapping his wings. Not looking directly down, I lifted into the air and soared over the edge. Once I knew that I was over, I brought my wings back and leaned forward. I could hear Rainbow Dash cheering for me back on the cliff.
"Great job, Morgan," she yelled out.
I smiled as he focused on the flying. The sensation of soaring through the air felt amazing. The wind pushed by me as if it was afraid to get in my path. As I flew, the world around me became a playset: I could go anywhere and do anything. There’s a reason why man has always dreamed of flying… and this, I decided, THIS is that reason.
I felt like he could do anything. Every other worry, my cares, my homesickness—everything… just melted away. I was flying away from those burdens, and didn’t care to look back.
"Just don't look down."
As soon as Rainbow Dash had said this, I suddenly looked down and my eyes grew wide. I had almost forgotten about how high I was off the ground and now there was no cliff to land on. All that was below me was a humongous drop. I began to panic and all of a sudden lost control of my wings. Unable to react in time, I felt himself plummeting to the ground.
"Oh shit!" I flailed his arms in terror as I rocketed down. I wanted to move my wings, but my body seemed too terrified to respond. As I looked down, the ground was approaching fast. Giving up hope, I shut my eyes tightly, readying myself for the impact. All I could do is hope that I wasn't seriously hurt when I hit the-
"Gotcha," I heard Rainbow say, interrupting my train of thought.
I felt myself land, but not on the ground. It felt like I had landed in a soft pile of marshmallows. I slowly opened my eyes and looked down in curiosity. When I looked down, I was shocked to see that not only was I not splattered on the ground, I was laying on a cloud.
"I'm...on a cloud?" I asked, incredibly puzzled.
"You sure are," Rainbow Dash replied as she stuck her head out from below the cloud. "Caught you with it just in time."
"Huh?"
Rainbow giggled at my dumbfounded look.
"Another cool thing about being a pegasus is that we can walk on clouds. Since we're able to be airborne, it's another thing that we can do, along with controlling the weather," she explained.
I looked from Rainbow Dash, to the cloud, confused. As what she had said began to sink in, I, too, began to laugh.
"Heh, so being a pegasus means I can walk on clouds, eh? I don't remember any animals back home being able to do that. This is pretty cool." I stared off as I began to think. "So unicorns and regular ponies can't walk on clouds?"
"Nope," Dash replied. "I mean, unicorns can cast a spell that allows unicorns and earth ponies to walk on clouds temporarily, but pegasi can do it naturally and all the time. Heck, we even have an entire city in the clouds." She pointed her hooves up to the sky. When I looked at where she was pointing, I saw a gigantic city of clouds up in the air. My jaw dropped as I looked at the impressive sight.
"Coooool," I said.
"Yep, that's Cloudsdale," Dash replied. "Completely made out of clouds and 100% awesome."
"Neat," I said. "So you can just move them around and stand on them however you want?"
"Pretty much. Moving clouds is part of how we're able to control the weather."
"Yeah, you guys even make the rainbows, don't you?" I asked. "I think my friend back home wanted me to read a story about it. Something about a factory."
"Cool, I could tell you about how we pegasi control the weather and what not later, but I think we should finish your flying lessons first."
"Oh yeah," I said. "And if I mess up, you'll just catch me in the cloud?"
"Right," Dash replied. "Just try to get the hang of gliding and you'll be in good shape. Try leaning different directions while you're gliding like how you did when you hovered. Just glide down to the ground. I'll be ready to catch you if something goes wrong."
"Right then." I began flapping his wings and lifted himself back up to the top of the cliff. Once there, I attempted to glide again. Taking Dash’s advice, I moved through the air in different directions, taking care to not again become drunk with the sensation of flight. I breathed in sharply as I began to full-circle in mid-air, relieved that I didn’t mess it up and have to be rescued again.
"Alright, time to land." I took a deep breath and focused. "You can do this, Morgan."
I looked down at the ground in front of me and began to lean downwards. As expected, I felt myself starting to go down, although I seemed to be increasing in speed as I went.
"Morgan, you got to have your wings out to slow down," Rainbow yelled up at the stallion as he flew down. He did as she said and stuck out his wings. Suddenly, the wind pushed against his wings, decelerating his speed. Soon enough, I was back at a comfortable speed right as I was nearing the ground. Once I was close to the bottom, I folded down my wings and safely landed.
"I did it!" I pumped my front hoof in victory. "Soared through the air like a pro. Batman ain't got crap on me!"
"Morgan, you did awesome," Rainbow Dash said as she came over to congratulate me. "That was fantastic."
"It was, wasn't it?" I confidently boasted. "I'm now on par with the pegasi in Equestria and it only took about an hour!"
"Somepony's getting a bit full of themselves, aren't they?" Rainbow Dash chuckled to herself. "Actually, you're closer to being on the same level as fillies that have just started to learn how to fly. You've got a ways to go before you reach the levels of most stallions your age."
The confident look on my face faded a bit and I began to pout.
"Of course, I could teach you some more stuff today that might get you close to where you need to be," Dash added as she nudged me. I looked up and grinned.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to learning!"
"I've got to admit, Morgan, you're learning pretty well."
Rainbow Dash watched as I flew above her, flying around in circles and giggling to myself like a school girl.
"This is so sweet!" I kept laughing as I flew up and landed on a cloud. "Only a couple of hours and I'm flying like it's second nature to me!"
"Well, you're no Wonderbolt," Dash said as she flew up to join me. "But I'd say you're in pretty good shape for a human. Thanks to my radical teaching, that is. You're welcome, by the way."
"Now who's the cocky one?" I replied with a chuckle. "And, yeah, thanks for teaching me all of this. It's been fun."
"Fun, eh? Bet you didn't think you'd be using that word when you got here, did you?" Dash asked.
"I'll admit, you cartoon horses have pleasantly surprised me with some things, but I do need to get home. Actually, I think it's about time to go check on Twilight to see if she's made an progress on finding me a way home."
"Then I guess you should be heading on back to the library. I think it's about time to call it a day, anyway. You keep practicing your flying. Never hurts to try and learn some more stuff," Dash said.
"I will. Thanks again for the lessons," I said as I exchanged a hoof bump with Dash. Suddenly, I felt himself getting swept up in a tight hug. My eyes widened as Rainbow Dash pulled herself away and patted me on the back, that warm-fireplace look returning to her eyes.
"Don't mention it. See you around."
Rainbow quickly took off and dashed through the air at high speeds, becoming out of my eyesight within seconds. With her gone, I began to fly back to Ponyville. As I soared through the air, feeling the wind bend all around me, feeling so very free… I smacked right into another pegasus and fell to the ground.
"Ow. Sorry about that, wasn't watching where I was going." I looked up and saw that the pegasus that I had bumped into was a familiar one. "Derpy?"
"Huh?" Derpy looked up to see me and smiled. "Oh, hey Morgan. Don't worry about it, I wasn't really watching where I was going, either. It may sound hard to believe, but I actually bump into ponies all the time too. By the way, nice flying out there today."
"You saw that?" I asked.
"Yeah! I was on my way to deliver some mail to Ponyville when I saw Rainbow Dash and you flying. It was pretty cool."
"I see. Well, thanks," I replied. "So, you just getting done with your Ponyville mail delivery?"
"Yep, was just on my way back home when I bumped into you." Derpy's face scrunched up as she seemed to think about something. "Oh, I've been meaning to ask you, what was up with you and Lyra the other day?"
"Lyra?" I asked. "You mean that green unicorn?"
"Yeah! She was watching you the other day while you were at the arcade," Derpy replied.
"Really? Why would she be doing that?" I wondered.
"Not sure." Derpy suddenly got a look of excitement. "Ooo, what is she's like your secret admirer or something? I bet she has a crush on you!"
"Wait, what?" I asked.
"You know, you guys should totally get together. I think the two of you would make a cute couple," Derpy said.
"Uhh..."
"Heck, I bet you guys would make cute kids, too!"
"UHHH..."
"Actually, I just saw Lyra a few minutes ago near town hall. You should go make a move," Derpy suggested.
"You did?" I thought about what a pony could be doing secretly watching me and found something unsettling about it. Even though the very idea of a cartoon pony lusting after me creeped me out, I decided it was best to confront her about it. "Actually, I think I will pay her a visit."
"Oh my gosh, you two are totally going to hook up aren't you?" Derpy jumped up and down in excitement. "I can't wait to tell everypony!"
"Huh? No, Derpy wait!"
My plea was too late as Derpy had already taken off at speeds that I couldn't manage to keep up with due to my inexperience with flying. I facehoofed as my cross-eyed quarry shot for Ponyville.
“Oh great! Now they’re all gonna think I’m dating some other pony! This day was going so well, too."
I sighed and looked up at Ponyville. I narrowed my eyes as I spotted town hall.
"Oh well, what's done is done. Might as well go see what's up with this Lyra character."