Perhaps I should introduce myself before I get too far. My name is Sky Bolt. I am a Pegasus with a sky-blue coat, golden mane, and—as of yet—no cutie mark. I was born and raised in Cloudsdale, where my father worked as a Cloud Crafter. He was quite the architect. My mother usually stayed at home, selling little trinkets she made on occasion from things she found on her excursions.
I was an average colt growing up. I wasn’t the smartest, the fastest, or the strongest. In fact, I didn’t even particularly enjoy school. It was just a place I stayed when my parents were at work. I met some other colts, particularly Thunderstorm. He was sometimes mean, but he seemed nice to me. We grew close, even after he got his cutie mark. It was a lightning bolt, golden contrast to his dark gray coat and deep blue mane. He began teasing me about not having mine, but I constantly reminded him that a cutie mark only appears when one realizes their true destiny. I simply hadn’t discovered mine yet.
I grew self conscious about missing my cutie mark. Certainly, there was something to be said that every other pony in my class had theirs, but my parents told me not to worry, that there was no such thing as a pony without a cutie mark. I worried anyway, though.
The last school year was over, and I was anxious awaiting the arrival of the one thing I had wanted to do since I first heard about it: Flight Camp. My father said that only when I completed elementary school could I go, and that was this summer. When it came to flying, my father was a great teacher, I knew how to fly, how to kick clouds, and I had varying amounts of luck in getting clouds to rain. I just wanted to go to the Flight Camp, meet new people outside of my block. Sure, there was an interesting group of colts, but Thunderstorm couldn’t possibly be the only colt there was. Sure, he was my best friend—well, to be specific, he was my only friend—but he tended to be a little… rude, especially when around his other friends.
The trip to Flight Camp took maybe all of five minutes, but it felt like so much longer with all the anticipation and the excitement I had. I could barely keep my wings in check. I bounced around in the carriage so much that my mother threatened me about stopping the cart and returning home. I just couldn't help my excitement, though. After all, it was Flight Camp.
When we rounded the last bank of clouds, I saw it. It was magnificent! It was built around the top of an old mountain. There were cabins, a large hall with the words ‘Mess Hall’ written on it. I figured it would be so messy and unkempt that they just slapped the sign on it instead of trying to clean it up. Then there were all sorts of fillies and colts roaming around. My excitement was about to froth over. I had been standing still for the past half a minute when I couldn’t take it anymore.
I began bouncing around in the carriage again, and my father gave me a small chuckle. “Calm down so I can land.”
We pulled up to the front of the camp, before us was a large wooden sign that read ‘Cloudsdale Flight Camp.’ I had a smile so wide my cheek muscles were beginning to hurt, but I was simply that happy about where I was.
“Welcome to Cloudsdale Flight Camp,” said a mare in an unmistakable blue uniform. This could be none other than the current captain of the Wonderbolts. She had a fiery red-and-orange mane and a sun-yellow coat, and beside her sat almost a miniature version of her. The filly, who was dressed in a Wonderbolt Nightmare Night costume, had a smile as wide as mine.
“My name’s Spitfire!” she spoke enthusiastically. “I’m gonna be captain of the Wonderbolts like my mother!” Her wings were fluttering too. A colt of a dark blue coat and an even darker blue mane, who I just noticed sitting next to her, gave her a smirk.
“You’re gonna have to beat me to it!”
“Oh, please, Soarin’! I’m going to be the captain of the Wonderbolts and you know it!”
“Oh stop, you two,” the current Captain said.
“Yes, mommy,” Spitfire responded and acquiesced, but not before blowing Soarin’ a raspberry.
“The nice mares over at that table will check you in, and you’re free to explore until dinner,” the Captain pointed us to the row of tables with all sorts of Pegasi behind them, filing paperwork.
My parents took care of the mundane stuff while I let my eyes wander across the camp that I would be staying at for the summer. In the middle of the mountain was a lake, there were all kinds of things built into the clouds that surrounded the mountain. Green grass coated the surface, and the walls of the buildings were made out of some kind of metal. My parents beckoned me to follow them past the wooden sign. I could hardly wait to explore. My dad put down my saddle bags and held out his forelegs for a hug, which I gladly accepted.
“We’re going to miss you, sweetie,” mom said as she wrapped her hooves around me. “Have fun and stay out of trouble!” The pair of them walked back to the gate, and I saw the tear in my mom’s eye. This would be the longest I would ever be away from home.
“Love you, Mom!” I shouted.
They waved back, and I turned before I could hear them respond. I started investigating my surroundings when I ran smack into a colt. It was none other than Thunderstorm.
“Well, well, Sky Bolt. I didn’t think they let Blank Flanks into Flight Camp.”
“It’s just because I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life yet, Thunderstorm. Do you really think that just because you already know what you’re doing the rest of your life means that you’re better than me?”
“Strictly speaking, yes.” He held such an egotistical demeanor, and I was beginning to resent being his friend. It wasn’t that I really had any choice, though. Back home, the colts would ignore me—they would give me a hard time for being a blank flank, or for not excelling in school, or even once, when I forgot money for lunch. That was a horrible day.
I tried to shake those memories from my head. It wasn’t a pleasant thing for me to be thinking about, and I had all of these fellow campers here to erase those thoughts. Perhaps I would find a couple of other blank flanks and become instant best friends. Perhaps we could go on a bunch of adventures and come up with some cool name for ourselves…
That was an idea.
Things could really only go up from here. That much I was sure of. As for now, I needed to get Thunderstorm off my tail so I could meet some of these new ponies. “I really appreciate your concern, Thunderstorm, I really do, but I’d like to move on now.”
“Fine with me, blank flank.” Thunderstorm trotted off. How could he be my only friend? Was I seriously that desperate for friends that I chose perhaps the worst of them all to actually be one? Perhaps I was better off alone, with no friends. It certainly wasn’t an improvement to my life to have Thunderstorm poking fun at my blank flank every time he could.
And what was the basis of a good friendship anyway? What constituted friendship? As I pondered, I walked about the camp. There were some of the ponies I recognized from Cloudsdale, but most of them I had never seen before. And this was a good thing. It meant there was no one that would know all the troubles I faced in school; it meant there was no one that would know just who I was. I could define myself as I saw fit here.
I tried talking to a couple of colts I saw hanging out by the ‘Mess Hall.’ They seemed creeped out by me, so I backed off and set out to meet someone else. I flapped my wings and went up to one of the cloud structures. It had a tall perch with along staircase leading up to it, and a long stretch of cloud, presumably it was to practice jumping, diving, and swooping while having a soft place to land if you failed. Not that Pegasi were easily hurt.
I remembered one time watching a Wonderbolt performance at the Cloudesium. It was amazing, and reaffirmed my belief that Wonderbolts were the greatest fliers in Equestria. They flew with grace, but when one went flying, head first, into a bleacher after some pony thought it funny to throw popcorn at her; all she managed to hurt was her wing.
I watched as some of the foals before me jumped off the board and dove with such great speed that when they didn’t pull up, they ended up half buried in the clouds. Some of the instructors came to their aid, and I fought back the urge to snicker; particularly, because I knew that I would do the same thing when I tried.
I backed up from the line and went to explore some more of the camp. There were these rings positioned all over camp made out of cloud. I could only assume they were made for flying through as part of an obstacle course. I was affirmed when I saw a couple of fillies make a lap through them.
I continued trotting on, admiring all the many different constructions and beginning to wonder if my father had anything to do with their design. There was a device to practice agility in the form of an awkwardly shaped set of clouds to fly through, and across the way there was practice crafting with clouds. I figured that was where I would spend a lot of time. Straight above me there was a place to cloud bust. There was another area built specifically to make rainclouds give up their water, and another area with the more dangerous thunderclouds. I noticed one brave foal try to shake the water out of it only to get a lightning strike that scared her so much that she went flying into the next cloud.
The sun was about three quarters of the way through the sky, and I knew that dinner was coming soon. I wondered where they would serve it; I hadn’t seen anything marked ‘Dining.’ I watched as all the other colts and fillies filed over toward the ‘Mess Hall.’ I began to wonder why until I caught the scent of the food drifting over from that building. I wondered why there was food being cooked in the ‘Mess Hall.’ Mother always got mad at me if I made a mess in the kitchen—something about cleanliness was needed for proper food service.
When I finally got into line, I realized that ‘Mess Hall’ wasn’t what I originally thought it was. Instead, it was a well organized cafeteria. I went up to the line, got some hay fries, a daisy sandwich, and a muffin. This seemed like it would be a typical meal here, and I wasn’t complaining. It was comfort food for me. I was used to having daisy sandwiches every day when I was back home. I wasn’t sure how they would compare to the ones my mother made. She had this special kind of daisy that she said came from the fields in central Equestria… near a place she called Ponyville.
Either way, the dinner, which I took much pleasure from, was interrupted by an announcement by the Captain of the Wonderbolts I had seen earlier in front of the camp. She stood regal and proud. Her filly, who seemed a little young for the camp anyway, shadowed her close. Soarin’ was right beside her.
“Welcome campers! Flight Camp is Cloudsdale’s annual tradition since its founding in the old days. I will be looking forward to meeting each of you during your stay, but I must attend to my other duties as Wonderbolt Captain. If you would all find the first letter of your last name, there will be your counselor while you’re here. They will guide you through everything and if you’re ever having any difficulties, you should talk to them.
“Tomorrow, you will be given your first activities to learn how to fly.” She waved her hoof out over the crowd, and there appeared four mares holding signs with various groups of letters on them. The first group was A to H, which was obviously my group. Then there was I to M, N to S, and finally T to Z. I wandered over to the first mare, who had a storm gray coat and a periwinkle mane and tail. This mare I recognized as none other than Mrs. Storm, Thunderstorm’s mother.
“Well, hello there, Sky Bolt,” she said with a caring tone. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I reply.
“That’s good to hear, dear.” She greeted other foals that came up to her. I looked anxiously for any other foal that didn’t have a cutie mark, but I didn’t see any. There was quite the assortment of fillies and colts. I tried to talk to some of them, but once that caught a glimpse of my blank flank, they turned on me. I was called blank flank so many times in a matter of five minutes that I began losing grasp on what the words really meant. It was a weird sensation in my head; I knew it was a word, and I could explain what it meant, but it didn’t feel like a word. I suppose that was my brain trying to keep me from losing my cool while listening to the teasing.
It wasn’t for a while before Mrs. Storm realized what was going on. She stepped in and pushed the offending foals to one side. “Are you okay?” she asked me.
“I’m perfectly fine. It’s nothing I haven’t gone through for the last year or so.”
“Whatever do you mean, dear?”
“Well, ever since Thunderstorm got his cutie mark, the other foals in my class have been poking fun at me since I’m still a blank flank.”
“Don’t let it get to you, dear. There was a pony in Canterlot once that told me that blank flanks were something special. They were full of so much potential; they’re not limited to one thing for the rest of their life.” That was certainly a nice sentiment, but I didn’t really see how it would stop the torment that came from every pony I ever seemed to meet. “I think his name was Mr. Sparkle…”
“Thank you, Mrs. Storm. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Sure thing, dear,” she said, tending to another group of bullies that were picking on another foal. When she shepherded the other bullies away from the filly, I felt something in my chest. Out of the seven of us that were standing around Mrs. Storm, she was the only one that caught my eye.
What stood before me was a filly with a blond mane and gray coat. Her eyes were closed, and she stood a little taller than I did. On her flank was a cutie mark, but I didn’t understand it. It was a cluster of several bubbles. She finally opened her eyes, revealing eyes the color of her hair and one significant trait about them: they didn’t point the same way. To any other pony, that seemed strange, but it added character to her for me. It was a something that made her different, and that is what something the other foals were poking fun at. I held out a hoof.
“Hi there, my name is Sky Bolt.”
She looked at my hoof, then looked at me. When she refocused on another object, her eyes, even for just a second, focused together. But it was when she stayed looking at something that the right one drifted off toward whatever other thing it seemed to want to. She seemed to contemplate me, trying to figure out if I was a bully like all the rest, or if I was genuinely trying to be her friend.
“My name is Ditzy Doo, but I prefer to be called Derpy Hooves,” she said, meeting my hoof with hers and giving it a vigorous shake.
“Do you… do you want to be friends?” I asked, nervously. I generally had little confidence talking to ponies, and less when talking to fillies. It was this one in particular that caught my tongue. It wasn’t a bad feeling—the sense I got in my chest, which I still didn’t understand, was a good one.
She contemplated me again, glancing over her shoulder at the other foals behind her that seemed to still be snickering at her. It was evident in the way she looked at them that it upset her. This had the same effect on me, somehow. A tear welled up in her eye.
“Do you really want to be… friends?”
“Of course!”
“But… everypony here is so mean!”
Without another word, I turn my flank toward her. She gasped when she saw my flank. She looked between it and in my eyes. It was clear that she was connecting the dots in her head. It took her a bit, as I suppose it would anypony who was in a bit of distress. There was almost a flash in her eyes when she realized that we had something in common: we were both teased vehemently by the other foals.
“I think we’re going to be great friends, Sky Bolt,” she said, wrapping me in a large hug. This was a great improvement on the way my life was before Flight Camp, and though it was at the cost of all these new people trying to chip away at me, I had actually made a new friend.
It was a significant event for me, though most ponies would probably say that it was a matter of everyday life. I had really only one friend before, and I was seriously beginning to doubt the true motives behind him being my ‘friend.’ At least Derpy and I were on the same side of the fight.
Mrs. Storm called the foals around her to order, and read off a long list of names, most of which I don’t remember. She assigned us all to cabins before leading us to them. The fillies were housed in the first five and the colts in the other three. I was happy that Derpy was assigned to the one next to mine. We each looked out our windows at each other and waved. This was going to be a good night, harbored from the usual dismay I had trying to sleep.
I turned from the window only when Derpy had disappeared from hers. I slip into the bed, a nice pillow and warm blankets. I reach out to turn off the light only to see Thunderstorm in the bed next to mine.
“Well, well, Sky Bolt. I see we’re neighbors once again.” He had a horrible smirk on his face. “This is certainly going to be fun.”
“I’m not going to pay attention to you from here on out, Thunderstorm. I have a real friend now.”
“And what’s its name. Can I see it—oh wait, that’s right. I’m your only friend, Sky Bolt. That’s how it’s always going to be.”
“That’s not true,” I say, more to myself than to anyone else, “it just can’t be true.” I continue to mutter this to myself until I fall asleep.