//------------------------------// // Upside Down // Story: Bloodlines // by SleepIsforTheWeak //------------------------------//     He is well over one summer old, and we take him to a specialist in Cloudsdale. The specialist runs some tests, pokes around his wings for a while, and he sits there quietly and unmoving, partially curious and partially cautious.     He is strangely timid for being our son, all our friends joke, and it is true. He has been easy to raise, very attentive and obedient; we tell him no once, and we usually don't have to again.     The specialist comes out and tells us what countless others have told us before: He's just a late bloomer, there's nothing wrong with him.     We thank Dr. Fade and leave, and on the way home, he inquires timidly about why we went there in the first place. The look on his face is that of uncertainty and nervousness, no doubt picking up on your stressed mood. He's good at picking up on emotion.     When we get home, he starts to trot off before turning his blue eyes back to us, as if asking if we would be okay without him. We smile at him to show that he doesn't need to worry, but we know he sees how fake our smiles are. He nuzzles us both, still worried, and then he disappears into the den.     You flop down on the couch with an impatient sigh, running a hoof through your mane.     "Late bloomer," you snarl in a low voice, making sure he doesn't hear you. "My son, a 'late bloomer'. Does this Dr. Fade know who I am?"     I sit beside you. "I'm sure she does. But maybe she's right; maybe Lightning really is a late bloomer."     You growl at the suggestion, and I raise my hoof to stroke you in comfort. We sit in silence for a while, listening to our foal play in the adjacent room, mimicking different voices as he creates a dialogue between his toys.     He started speaking very early, to the amusement of our friends, who had a field day teasing me about his verboseness. As a result of his early development in the field, he has an unnaturally advanced vocabulary for a yearling, and it had been suggested more than once to us that we should enroll him in school early.     Ponyville's school, that is. A school where he won't be expected to fly.     "Dashie?"     "I don't love him any less because he can't fly, Pinkie. I swear to Celestia I don't. He's still everything I could ever hope for."     Sometimes it amazed me how in-tune with each other we are. I didn't even need to ask the question that was on my mind.     "He's so perfect,” you continue, “I just... I want him to experience it, experience everything I did when I discovered flying."     "We'll get through this, Dashie," I say and stroke you again. "It’s just a bump in the road. He'll fly. He'll experience the things you did. I promise. He'll just be a bit older than you were."     You sniff and nod, and together we speak no more, choosing to listen to his passionate speech from the next room as he continues to play.          He is three summers, and he is joined by her. He cautiously walks into the room and he sees Momma in bed. He follows Auntie Fluttershy as she walks to the bed and she helps him crawl up on the blankets.     Mommy is there to greet him. She smiles at him. She looks really happy. He likes it when she is happy.     Momma is holding something, a bundle of blankets, and he feels his curiosity bloom, but he doesn't touch the blankets she is holding even after he hears a pleasant cooing noise coming from them. You were not supposed to touch things that were not yours, and that blanket bundle was obviously Momma's.     Momma looks at Mommy and Mommy nods at her and then Momma looks at him.     "Lightning, come closer. I want you to meet somepony," Momma says. He likes the voice Momma is using. She sounds really happy, like Mommy.     He crawls forward towards Momma and she lowers the blanket she is holding and inside is... is...     He doesn't exactly know what it is. He looks at Momma for guidance.     "This is your sister, Lightning. This is Cloudy," Momma says     "Cloudy?" he repeats after Momma. Momma gives him a big smile and nods at him. He likes Momma's smile, so he repeats the word. He likes words. Words make ponies happy and his mommies tell him he's good at words.     "Yes, that's right, Lightning Dash. Cloudy Quartz. She's your sister."     He knows what a sister is. Pound told him that Pumpkin is his sister and that means that he has to love her and protect her. He doesn't know what the word protect means, but he does know what the word love means. Love is the word Mommy and Momma use when they are putting him to bed. They tell him 'I love you, Lightning' and then they kiss his face.     Lightly, he leans to Cloudy and presses his lips to her cheek.     "I love you, Cloudy," he says.          His fifth summer has just ended, and Q (as she has demanded to be called) is one and a half, and we welcome not one, but two more into our family. Pinkamena Diane Pie II and Skylar Igneous Dash. Twins. Neither of us could believe it, even though Twilight tells me logically that the probability of a twin like me to have twins is almost doubled. I doubt Twilight would be so smug after fifteen hours of labor and the reality of actually birthing twins.     Neither of the twins look like us and I don’t know why you decided to name one of them after me if she doesn’t even look like me. In fact, out of all of our foals, only Lightning looks anything like us. Or rather, like you.     Q, you claim, looks like your father. Light lavender coat and golden eyes, but with my mane.     The twins, however, are entirely products of my side of the family. Diane, as we decide to call her, looks like Marble. Gray body, darker gray mane, and violet eyes.     Skylar resembles my mother, and I felt my heart split open along the scar lines when I first saw him. Mom’s death was a long time ago, but it still hurt unexpectedly sometimes.     "Momma?"     He's home from school, grinning my smile right back at me as he practically skips to the bed. He's small for his age, like you, and, also like you, scruffy and uncombed. He still can't fly very well, but he's not entirely grounded, either. You say he reminds you a lot of Scootaloo.     The last year or so saw him come out of his shell quite a bit. He's growing up to be like you, something our friends love to point out to us. He's a ticking time bomb of energy, rambunctious and headstrong and fearless. A whirling tornado of affection and clumsy destruction. He's still obedient, but not to a fault. We have to speak a bit more sharply when we tell him he can't do something.     He climbs up on the bed and kisses the twins and then me, and then he pulls out his homework and starts humming as he does it. He's not the honor roll foal by far, but he does not shy away from learning and never hesitates to ask questions. You say you wished you were more like him when you were his age.     You arrive with Q, carrying some snacks. Q immediately latches onto him, asking what he is doing. He patiently explains to her that he is doing homework, and she nods like she understands what he is talking about. You gently steer her away from her working brother with a snack. I sigh, exhausted, but happy with our growing family and the joy that they bring to me.          He is seven, almost eight, Q is four, and the twins are both just turning two, and you swear up and down, left to right, and every other angle in between that this will be our last foal. Five is enough, you say. More than enough.     When I give the news to my father that I was pregnant again, he simply sighed and muttered that he had this coming, handing over my hoof in marriage to Rainbow Dash.     The magical sonography reveals a pegasus female, and you are over the moon at the news, though I see that you try to hide it. Skylar was supposed to be a pegasus, according to the ultrasound, but he wasn't.     We sit Lightning down first and explain that he was going to get another sister, and he nods distractedly. Already I feel the years slipping away. He's growing up really fast, no longer excited that he will get another sibling like he was when the twins came.     He's a wonderful big brother, for being eight summers old. Caring and informative, the first to share his snacks and to break up little squabbles between his siblings—of which there are many because the twins don't really get along amazingly.     He is vibrating in his seat right now, looking around the room. Every year he gets more and more rambunctious, and more and more energized. Your parents tease that you were exactly the same way, and they never really learned how to get a hold of you.     You clear your throat and tell him that his new sister will have wings like him, and instantly he snaps his head to you in attention, engaged to the idea. All the things everypony said about him being a late bloomer was true. He did not actually start flying until he was almost six, but once he started, he didn't stop. He caught up to, matched, and surpassed his pegasi classmates, leaving them in the dust.     By now, our friends have donned a new pet name on him, 'Little Dash', for his likeness to you. Sometimes I get a bit discouraged about his complete lack of likeness to me, but those thoughts are quickly brushed away. Our colt is everything I could possibly want.     After we let him go, you turn to me and grin. You have been so much happier since he started flying and I can't really blame you. It’s fun to sit outside and watch while you take him step by step through all of your famous tricks. Your grace in the sky was one of the reasons I fell in love with you.          He is twelve and a letter comes in the mail. I pay it no mind at first, but then I see that it's addressed to him, with specialized writing, and that the envelope is thick and cream colored instead of thin, cheap, white paper. I show it to you and as soon as you see it, you snarl.     "Cloudsdale Flight Academy. I knew sooner or later those flank holes would..."     He wanders into the kitchen right then, no doubt hearing your outburst. He is still small and has retained his coltish looks while going through the beginning stages of puberty.     He walks with a swagger and passes his eyes over everything as if it is beneath him, and our friends had been taking bets for years trying to pinpoint when he would get the famous Rainbow Dash ego. Fluttershy won.     "What's going on?" he asks lazily. He wanders over to the fridge and rummages through it for no apparent reason, because a second later he closes it without having retrieved anything.     "Um, a letter came for you, Lightning," I start.     "Really? What's it say? Who's it from?"     I open my mouth to speak but you cut me off.     "Cloudsdale Flight Academy," you inform him gruffly.     "Oh." He tried for cool, but his excitement kept him from reaching that point.     You never spoke about what happened to get you kicked out of the academy, not even to me, but everypony caught on to the fact that there was bad blood between the administration and you.     I open the letter carefully, fully aware of our excitable son practically vibrating in the air next to me, looking over my shoulder.          Dear Lightning Tempest Dash,     It is our most sincere pleasure to extend you the invitation to attend the most prestigious flight academy in Equestria, Cloudsdale Flight Academy. Our scouts have been watching you for a while and think you would be a perfect fit in our school. This is a great honor, and we are excited to offer our advanced training facility to nourish your blooming talent further. If you accept, you will be entered into the graduating class of 5131 E.R. and made into a legendary flier upon graduation. We sincerely hope you accept our offer.     Sincerely,     Cloudsdale Flight Academy Administrators     "Do you want to go, Lightning?" I ask him, praying that you would not influence his decision. The letter got me excited, and I wasn't even the one being invited.     To my surprise, you stay silent, fuming next to me and staring at the letter with enough hate to burn it.     "Yes!" Lightning yelps, face splitting into a large grin. "Omigosh, I gotta tell everypony!"     He is gone in the blink of an eye, leaving air currents behind him and a faint zigzagged rainbow trail.     I turn to you once he is gone. "I'm proud of you for not saying anything," I say in a low voice, a part of me ashamed that I doubted you.     You sigh, nuzzling me. "Yeah, well. Maybe he'll have a better time there than I did. We are two different ponies, after all."          He is thirteen and we stand in his empty room. The bed is made, an unheard of occurrence. The walls are mostly bare, stripped of their posters. The desk is clean, absent of the half-filled cups of sarsaparilla that always seemed to occupy it along with crumpled homework and many pictures, and the chair is neatly tucked under the desk.     I hear a sniff next to me and turn towards you. Your eyes are overflowing with tears.     "He'll be home in a couple of months, Dashie," I reassure you, gently tugging you into a hug. You shake against me with small sobs, not making a sound.     Eventually, I feel a nod against my shoulder, and you pull back, dry-eyed. Your break-downs never last long. "I know. I know," you sigh. "I just... his thirteenth summer was two dances ago, and now he's already leaving us.”     And it did hurt. It was scary. I try to stay strong for you, but find myself unable as a few tears run down my own cheeks.     Soundlessly, I take your hoof and lead you to our colt's bed and lay down with you, crying alongside you at the bittersweet reality of it all. And when the tears dry, we fall asleep together, surrounded by sheets that smell like him.