//------------------------------// // Monsoon // Story: Thunderheads // by Marcus Centurian //------------------------------// I opened my eyes to find myself still standing on the balcony gazing out over the suburban landscape. Curse you imagination and your flights of fancy, if you’ll pardon the pun. “That is a long way down.” Cloud stated flatly. I gulped before shakily adding, “Yes, yes it is.” “So, Miss ‘Let’s Go Jump Off a Ledge and Fly,’ let’s see you do it.” Cloud said, with almost a tease in her voice. “Maybe we ought to no go flying.” “Come on, you are going to get cold hooves now? After all it was you who pushed so hard to go use those wings of yours.” “Yeah, but that was before looking down.” “Don’t you know that you should never look down when climbing over a ledge or up a mountain. You’ll never fall until you do.” “I think I need to wean you off those cartoons you’ve been watching. That isn’t how real life works.” “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we are cartoon characters. We can totally survive a fall and walk away from it.” “You don’t know that. For all we know, our physiology is similar to a horse and such a fall could mean instant death or paralysis.” “I am willing to try it. Stand back.” “Wait! What if someone sees you?” “So, someone will see me. No big deal.” “It could be a huge deal. We could be in trouble with the law or some psycho will want to kill us or even some crazy obsessed fanatic will capture us and submit us to his or her whims.” “You know, not everyone is crazy or messed up as you claim.” “But what if you’re wrong and you do get hurt. I cannot exactly call the police or paramedics. Could you imagine what that’d call be like? I mimed talking into a phone with my forehoof while saying, "Hello? My friend, who is a pegasus by the way, just hurt herself after jumping off the balcony of our apartment. No, this isn’t a prank call, I’m serious. No, I’m not on any drugs. No I haven’t shipped on my medication because I don’t take any. Look, I’m not crazy, ok. Please listen, she is bleeding out all over the place and… hello? Hello? Officer?" “Sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith and trust in your friends to catch you. I remember you saying something to that effect earlier to me. Everything will work out.” “I just…. can’t. I cannot just leave things to faith and not look before I leap.” “That attitude reminds me of a certain human I used to know. It took a pony transformation, a leap of faith and the trust in a friend to bring him to a much happier state. I guess we are going to have to resort to extreme measures, Cloud Kicker style.” With that, my muscular friend wrapped me in her forehooves and dragged me to the edge of the balcony, with myself first in utter shock. The gall of Cloud amazed me that she could do what I thought she was about to do, but then the realization hit me that she was indeed going to push me over the edge caused my once catatonic limbs to spring into action as I fought against Cloud with every ounce of strength I had, but that wasn’t enough as she catapulted me over the edge as I began to fall. With a scream of unintelligible curses that were no doubt not as satisfying as they could have been if I could swear; I began to fall. I thought back to all of the good times I had experienced in my two lives: meeting my biological mother, making my good friends, the sweet love I shared with Cloud Kicker. I thought back to some of the bad times as well: Heartbreak in my initial rocky stages with Cloud, the loss of my orphanmarm, my listless loneliness in college. I wondered how could a pony I knew so well betray me in such a way, killing the only true friend she shared in this world. Was Cloud nothing more than Discord in disguise, here to torment me a second time? He had possessed her before and he could no doubt do it again. So this is it, how it all ends. A grease splatter on the sidewalk in the rough outline of a pony. All of a sudden a singular thought came to me. ‘You have wings, idiot. Use them.’ I opened my wings in a breath of panic and desperation as they began to fill with air. I was suddenly overtaken with déjà vu as I remembered my fall from Cloudsdale as a child and how this exact same scenario had played out to failure. With sheer willpower and maybe my larger physique as an adult, I overcame the memory and opened my wings for my first real flight as my hooves skipped along the tops of blades of grass and I began to slowly but surely gain altitude. First, I was overwhelmed with a sigh of relief as I gulped in air from a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. Extreme excitement came over me in a wash of passion, after I realized I was indeed alive but not only that, but flying. I did it! I was flying! Gravity, I defy you! Oh, Universe, I have to thank you. This is sort of worth putting up all of the stuff of the past few days. On second thought, maybe not, but this development is pretty feathering sweet. My happiness began to wane as I realized the reason I was almost dead was due to my idiotic, crazy, stupid excuse for a roommate. My blood began to boil and I put on speed to find my so called friend to give her a piece of my mind, but as I returned to our apartment, I couldn’t find her anywhere. This only brought me to a higher state of agitation as I began angrily searching for her in the nearby airspace and on the roof to vent on how angry I was with her lack of judgment. My anger began to fade into fear as I started more and more frantically looking for her. What if she tried to jump and fly, but failed? What sort of friend and companion would I be if I was to leave her to die? What if she got captured by somebody or even somepony? She neglected to hear my warnings of the twisted designs of people and what they might do with a pony like her. What if…? I began to hyperventilate as I became more and more desperate when all of a sudden I sensed a shadow near me. “Augh!” A blur of lavender yelled at me as Cloud swooped in from above me from a strangely low hanging cloud bank. “Ahh!” I shouted in stark terror as all the blood drained from my face and my wings collapsed to my side and whumped hard on the roof of our apartment to a thump and whinny. Cloud began to laugh as my brain came back online. “Scare you me, Cloud fiddlesticks! Crazy it is!” I said in a state of confounded confusion, anger and gratefulness. Cloud only began to laugh harder at my attempt to speak. Slowly but surely my brain kicked into gear as I overcame my shock and began to think cognitively in complete thoughts. “Cloud, you scared me in more ways than one. You lack of judgment and your pranks are not becoming of you. I had feared you dead, compromised or paralyzed and with no way to allay my fears, my mind made the worst scenarios of the fate that befell you. Not to mention, you could have killed me with your antics,” I stated in the most clear way I could. Cloud began to tone down her mirth, “Well, I know I’m in trouble when you start talking like a Canterlotian. Sorry about that Blossom. No harm done, so we are cool, right?” “Cloud, I cannot just forgive such a transgression so easily. Pranks and jokes are alright to a degree, but rein it in. There could be dire consequences for failure.” Her look became downright pitiful, “Blossom, you should know that I have your best interest at heart and that I do look out for you and me, even if I don’t show it in the most obvious fashion. You are the best friend I’ve ever had and the only friend I have now. Nothing should impede that and I’m willing to forgo the banging talk and the pranks, because I don’t want a rift to come between us.” I sighed and looked back at her with a wan smile, “Although I appreciate the offer, I like you for who you are, all of you: your faults and your strengths. You will always be the banging obsessed pony who gets more tail than a ‘pin the tail on the pony’ game, who sometimes gets lost in herself, is passion driven, sometimes a sweet sentimentalist, but at other times a tough as nails, no nonsense pony who gets stuff done. Cloud, be who you are, just think a little bit more about what your actions will do.” She flashed me a grin a mile wide and wrapped me in a hug, “Blossom, where would I be without you?” I felt a drip of salty water land on my shoulder as I saw a single tear come from her eye. I could help but squeeze her tighter and release a couple of my own as we held each other for a bit. We broke the hug and wiped away our tears as we regained our composure. Cloud began to start snickering, then giggling. “What’s so funny?” I asked. “Oh, nothing,” she responded as she looked at me, after which her laughing intensified. “It most certainly is something, and that something has to deal with me,” I said flatly. “It’s just; your face was so priceless. I should have kept a photo.” “It wasn’t funny.” I protested. “Of course it wasn’t…” as she tried to hold in in by putting a hoof across her mouth, but even that failed to stop the stream, “It was… hilarious!” “Cloud Kicker!” “I was all like Argh! And you were all like Ahh! and…” as she collapsed in fits of gasping laughter. “We you were all like, ‘I’m so tough, but you go first, just to be safe.' ” I chided in my best imitation of Cloud’s voice. “I don’t sound like that, Ms ‘Oh! Let’s go jump off a cliff ‘cuz we have wings, ’ ” she said in a very poor imitation of my voice, more akin to that of a prepubescent teenage girl. I couldn’t help but smile and stifle a giggle at her poor voice acting skills. So I countered with, “Oh, you are one to talk Ms ‘I’m trapped here in a cage of my own legs.’ ” “Oh don’t sound so high and mighty Ms ‘I can’t make a breakfast of toast without assistance.’ “ “I don’t sound like that!” “You do!” “Do not!” “Do too!” “When did we became grade school fillies?” At that the dam broke as we both rolled around in laughter at each other antics, taking several more to regain our composures to something more akin to normalcy. Gosh, it felt so good to laugh again. This week has been crazy enough, but at least I know Cloud has my back and she knows that I have hers. Deciding it best that we don’t push our luck, we headed back to our apartment, by air of course. The landing for both of us was by no means ideal with our wicker furniture that graces the patio taking a couple of beatings as we landed not quite so gracefully. With some mouth work, they were set back up and we trotted inside and had a couple of pops as we sat on the couch, tired from the ordeal. Although it wasn’t unexpected, flying does take a toll on your energy level. There is a good reason birds consume most of their weight in food to maintain flight. Although I don’t think us pegasi are as extreme as that, it did explain our feeling of lethargy. Maybe some more research needs to be done on the subject. Speaking of research, Twilight Sparkle ought to know something about this; after all she is the most knowledgeable pony in Ponyville and Celestia’s prized pupil and she ought to know something about all of this. Pinkie’s, albeit brief and unhelpful, appearance proves Twilight’s existence, but upon inspection, she most likely is also a human who is now a pony just like us and thus not quite Twilight Sparkle. But maybe…. “What’cha thinking about over there?” “Huh?” “You’ve been staring off into space for the past few minutes. I know you well enough to know when something is on your mind.” “Just, stuff.” “With you, it is rarely mere ‘stuff.’ “ “I was just thinking out our next course of action.” “Yeah, so what are you thinking?” “Well, as pegasi we have weather sense and we could be meteorologists.” “Yeah, that’ll go over well. The TV station will be laughed out existence if they got their weather from ponies.” She retorted sarcastically. “And besides, how would be convince any sane person to listen to us.” “You sell yourself to short. You are one of the smoothest talkers and charismatic people I know.” “Except that I’m not a person. On second thought, ponydom could be the fastrack to fame and success and a new life. We could be the darling of the world and rich and famous.” “Or, this could be a one way trip to some messed up person’s prison or government experiment and exploitation.” “Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.” All of a sudden, we heard a knock at the door. “Did you hear that?” “A knock at the door?” “Maybe, you heard it too?” A second time the knocker knocked. “What are we going to do now?” I whispered. “Answer it, I guess.” Cloud whispered back. “Are you crazy? We don’t know what’s out there.” A voice called out from the door, "Open up, CIA aka Dad." “See? It’s Dad. We can trust him, ” Cloud said positively. “I’m not sure about that. He does work for the government, ” I said reservedly. “Yes, but he is my father.” “Well, I’m not sure how he’ll take the news that his son is now his daughter and a lavender pony to boot.” “I already told him. It is rude to keep him waiting.” “But…” “No more buts, I’m going for it.” At that, Cloud trotted over to the door and opened it to his father. Cloud or I guess Jessie’s dad, as Cloud’s parentage is now more equine in nature, is a tall fellow, even by human standards and towered well over us. With my childlike height, I found him even more massive than expected and thus all the more intimidating. Like Cloud as a human, he shared the same sharp features and physique to scare those of weak constitutions and seemed to have and expression permanently in a slight disapproving scowl. He was dressed in a smart suit with red power tie that all the more accented his features. Clearly this was a man you wanted on your team if you wanted something pressure-forced from somebody. “So, which one of you two are my son?” the man asked in a rich baritone. “Um, hey Dad. Long time, no see, huh?” Cloud meekly answered. “So, um, hello, um, son. Should I call you that?” “If you’d like. I’m technically a female now.” “I noticed that. A lack of proper equipment is pretty obvious in your current, shall we say, state.” I piped up, “Cloud, where are your manners? Please come in sir. We don’t want to waste air conditioning on such a sweltering day.” “Thank you, ma’am.” With that the man shut the door and walked over to the kitchen table were we both joined him in an awkward attempt at sitting in a human fashion. I’ll never know how Lyra not only manages to sit like this so easily, but actually prefers it. Picking up on our slight discomfort the agent asked, “Horse bodies are not meant to sit like humans, it would seem. Please adopt a more comfortable pose if that’ll help.” “I’m fine, Dad.” Cloud spoke up, “Right Blossom?” I was just about to leave the table to lie on the ground when I caught Cloud’s thousand yard stare. “Um, no I’m just peachy. Need anything?” “Information,” he said flatly. “If you’d like. What do you want to know?” Cloud answered. “What are you?” “Ponies.” “Ponies don’t talk, think or have natural pink and green hair. So I reiterate, what are you?” “Ponies in the style of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” “What is that?” “A TV show about pastel ponies.” “OK, now we are getting somewhere. How are you here and where did you come from?” “We are not sure.” “Are you aliens?” “Not sure.” “From another dimension?” “Not sure.” “What are you sure about?” “That I like scrambled eggs and salsa in the morning.” The man’s concentration broke for a second, then he returned to his questioning, “How about a more complete answer than that to the same question.” “Up until our twenty-fifth birthdays we were regular humans and on the advent of the hour of our birth, we suffered a flashback then began a slow transformative process, finding us as full ponies as of this morning.” “Well, that about wraps it up then. Send them in.” The room suddenly exploded in sound and light as flash bangs flew into the windows and though the door as paramilitary men marched into the room with guns aimed at us. As quick as thought, Cloud lunged towards the attackers, only to find herself tased. As she convulsed in uncontrollable spasms, the look of pure hatred emoted from her eyes as she stared at her once ‘father.’ A large syringe with sickly bright green substance was injected into her thigh as she began to fall under the power of a sedative. I fought to join her as several guards grabbed me as I felt another syringe force its way into my leg as I slowly lost consciousness as I muttered Cloud Kicker’s name until I passed out from the sedative.