It was the middle of the week and Light Seeker was bored out of his mind. Apprenticing at the Cloudsdale machine shop was a real chore. Despite its name there weren’t even that many machines in the machine shop. All that ever happened was once in a while ponies would bring in a damaged fireworks launcher or fog machine to be repaired, outside of that there didn’t seem to be many other machines in Cloudsdale. Save maybe the occasional pegasus chariot, but that was just two wheals and an axle, fixing those didn’t even count as ‘engineering’ in his mind. While Light could fix up the firework launchers blindfolded, the more complicated stuff seemed to elude his understanding and the apprentice was forced to constantly get his master to show him what he was overlooking.
Today however, the only thing that his master had ready for him was another fireworks launcher and judging from the paint job it too had come from a wonderbolts performance. That seemed to be the case for most fireworks used in Cloudsdale. To make matters worse, it had been days and Light Seeker still had a heavy heart from his conversation with his dad. He hadn’t ordered him to give up on the wing pack but it was clear that his dad was discouraging the idea of continuing. So despite being bored out of his mind only four fireworks sat beside the colt as he stared blankly into space, pointlessly rolling an empty cardboard tube back and forth between his hooves.
“Light, I thought I told you to fix the fireworks launcher, not fix fireworks.” A Stallion’s voice brought Light Seeker’s mind out of its daze.
“Launcher works fine, only two igniters needed to be swapped out and the timing mechanism only needed a small tweak to get back in sync.” Light Seeker reported, doing nothing more then bat the cardboard tube over to the other hoof.
“What’s wrong? I haven’t seen you this depressed before.”
“I’m close to finishing a wing pack.” The colt answered only because his master had asked. Considering that said master had always discouraged his efforts to make rocket wings packs, Light Seeker didn’t see how this conversation could possibly help him out of his sour mood.
“Could’ve fooled me, you usually get this look in your eye and start making fireworks by the ton when that happens.”
“You’re the second pony to tell me that recently. Anyway up until now my dad’s always helped me chase my dream. But last weekend he practically told me to stop.”
“Did he actually tell you to stop?”
“No, but it was clear he wanted me to.”
“Hmm… can’t say I know much about parenting but an old stallion like me does know a thing or two about chasing dreams.”
“You’re middle age at best.”
“Beside the point. Thing is, I chased many dreams in my youth, didn’t really expect to survive the attempts either. They all told me I had a hero complex or something, wanted to get myself killed going something worth while. They were wrong of course, not too far off, but wrong none the less. Dying was never the point, just an acceptable risk to do something worth while. In the end I failed to achieve any of my dreams, but I do know the attempts alone were worth it. I’ve seen too many ponies that saw how impossible their dreams seemed and never even tried, they all carry so much regret in their eyes. So my advice, as long as you’re sure you’re doing what’s right, chase the dream anyway. Just be ready to live with the consequences of the attempt. And good luck.”
“Why are you saying all this? You’ve been as bad as my mom in discouraging my wing pack flights before.”
With a laugh the stallion tried to make light of the situation, “Because you’re a good apprentice and I’ll miss you after you blow yourself up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pony in Cloudsdale who cares about these newfangled machines? Now seeing as you’ve made fireworks what do you say we put your work to the test and you show me the launcher is in working order?”
The thought of setting off the colorful explosives did perk Light Seeker up, even with the dismal vote of confidence. He hopped up but caught himself before he fell for an old trap. “I just cleaned it, if we test it you’re cleaning it this time.”
“Deal, now let’s go set off some fireworks you little pyro.”
* * * * * * *
Saturday morning saw Light Seeking flying back to the hanger early. Much to his surprise he spotted an orange filly waiting for him when he arrive. He noticed that there was only a scooter with her, no sign of the wagon or her friends.
Presuming that she had taken the lesson of his earlier question to heart, once he landed, he asked, “Just here to deliver a message?”
“Naw, there’s a harvest at sweet apple acres so Apple Bloom’s busy with that. And Sweetie Belle has her own chores to do. Had nothing better to do then see if I could help you.” Scootaloo answered.
“You any good with a wrench?”
“I’ve been fixing up my scooter with one as long as I can remember,” She declared with a flash of pride on her face.
Light Seeker looked down at the scooter next to the filly. It showed a fair amount of ware and tare. He gave the scooter a nudge, the wheels and axles were perfectly aligned, and they rolled freely without giving the slightest wobble. “Sure, you can help me install the control switches.”
The task was doable, though annoyingly time consuming, alone but with two ponies able to work on both sides of the frame at once the task was completed in short order. Looking over to the open access panel and the wires hanging out of it, Light Seeker knew that the last remaining task to complete the wing pack was similar to the one they had just finished. While he could run the wires through the wings support frame alone, it would take a lot less trial and error to do with a pony on both sides of each section.
“You any good a wiring?” he asked.
“Have you ever wired a kitchen timer to a moving mechanism?” Scootaloo answered with a sly smirk.
“Dare I ask, why would you do that?” Light Seeker responded truly intrigued by the idea, while motioning to the wires that needed to be threaded through the wings.
Scootaloo then told him a story of an unruly apple family cousin, bullying, a parade float, a booby trap, a change of heart and earning a new friend, all while the two ran the wires connecting the control board to the rocket mount points. “…I’m happy it turned out the way it did. But I still think she deserved it, I mean the whole trap relied on Babs stealing our float, how did she not deserved a dunking in the lake? But like I said, I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to prove the crusaders are the good ponies.” She finished.
Perhaps fillies can be reasonable. Light Seeker thought to himself, though merely saying, “I agree, not wanting to be bullied is no excuse to bully others. It sounds like playing the saint worked out okay for you in the end. But in my experience being overly forgiving like that only encouraged them to pick on me more.”
“So how do you deal with them?”
“I ignored the ones I could, and fought the ones I couldn’t.”
“How do you tell the difference?”
“I used my dad’s rule ‘Never start a fight, always finish them.’ So basically if they didn’t attack me I left them alone, if they did I made sure we both went home bruised.”
“Sounds like me before I met Apple Bloom.”
“Really? You sounded so restrained in your story just now.” Light Seeker asked, raising an eyebrow in mild surprise.
“Yeah. Before I met Apple Bloom I was teased a lot, so I got in fights to stand up for myself and even Sweetie Belle. But once I met Apple Bloom and we became the cutie mark crusaders my friends stood up for me. Good thing to, they always wanted to settle it with words and I’m no good at fighting with words.”
“Me nether.”
“Really? With those saying you picked up from your dad you sound like those ‘wise old ponies’ in the kung foo comics. Don’t they usually win when they fight with words?” Scootaloo asked, sounding a little surprised.
Light Seeker laughed, “Perhaps you didn’t notice, I’m not a ‘wise old pony kung foo master’, I’m a young, foolish engineer that only understands things that fly or go boom,” he then tried to make a silly face as he finished.
After a moment of giggles Scootaloo asked a serious question, “What now?”
At first Light Seeker was caught off guard by the question. Until he looked around and realized they had just tested the last of the electric igniters. The wing pack was done and a glance out the door told him that it was still morning. As he thought the question over he went through his mental checklist. Wing pack, check. Pressure suit, out of my hooves. Launch ramp… He was sure that the ramp would need reinforcing to accommodate the heavier design of this newest wing pack. But since he had to wait on the suit there was no rush.
Light Seeker had already managed to let one weekend slip by without any real fun, so at that moment all he wanted to do was play. However he had a guest so he couldn’t just leave, but this was a workshop and he didn’t have any toys here, he usually did his playing back home in Cloudsdale. Then he stepped outside and noticed Scootaloo’s scooter. A scooter was a toy, an earth pony toy sure, but still a toy.
There were moments when Light Seeker cursed his curiosity. This was one of those moments. Why did a pegasus filly come here on a scooter? It made since when she was towing her friends around, but… “Scootaloo, can I ask you something?”
“What’s up?”
“What’s with the scooter, wouldn’t it have been faster to fly?”
Scootaloo turned her head down and away, clearly embarrassed, “If I tell you, you have to promise not to laugh.”
Light Seeker was surprised, he was expecting something along the lines of ‘because I wanted to’ not embarrassment, “I promise.”
“I haven’t learned to fly yet.”
A single giggle escaped Light Seeker’s mouth before he slapped himself hard enough to shock himself into keeping his promise.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash is teaching me and I can get a fair ways down the practice field… it’s just more like gliding… I just can’t go up and stuff on my own,” a saddened look appeared on Scootaloo’s face as she defended her flying abilities.
“I’m sorry…” Stupid, stupid Light Seeker, you really blow it now, good ponies are suppose to make others happy, now you’ve gone and made her sad. Along with his inner chastisement he closed his eyes and tried to think of anything he had in the hanger to help him fix his mistake. In his mind’s eye a wire-frame of the hanger and everything in it appeared. Instantly one object lit up, then two more and his mind combined the three into something that had potential. “Would you like to?”
“Like to what?” Scootaloo answered as the confusion overwrought the sadness in her eyes.
“Fly on your own.”
“How would you do that? Rainbow Dash is already teaching me, what do you know about flying that the most awesome flyer in all Equestria doesn’t?”
Light Seeker led her back inside and pointed his hoof at his very first wing pack, “I didn’t say you’d fly like a pegasus, but I could help you fly like an engineer. I didn’t strip it down that much and everything we’d need to get it air worthy again is in this hanger, so I bet we could have it working in a few hours.”
An adventurous grin graced the filly’s face, “Let’s do it.”
* * * * * * *
A few hours and splitting the lunch in Light Seeker’s saddlebag later, and the two foals stepped back to admire their second collaboration of the day. With it’s newly remade frame, as it turned out Light had been even smaller than Scootaloo when he first made it, the restored wing pack doubled the filly’s wingspan.
Scootaloo looked at the rocket tube on the end of each wing, tilted her head a little and asked, “Isn’t there suppose to be something in the rockets?”
“Yeah, propellant,” Light Seeker said, as he walked over to a metal case and opened the lid to reveal a small cache of fireworks.
“Are those fireworks? Cool! Wait? How do fireworks help us?”
“Easy,” Light ripped the top cone off one of the fire works, tipped the wing pack nose down and drained the propellant from the firework tube into the rocket casing on the wing pack. Once his mouth was free he finished, “Fireworks are just rockets with a small charge at the top.”
Once the rockets were loaded Light Seeker salvaged the harness off his most recent failed wing pack and put it on. Then he took a high strength cable and used it to tether himself to the wing pack.
“What are you doing that for?” Scootaloo asked.
“If you didn’t notice all the grass outside, we’d start a fire if we tried to launch you from the ground. So I’m going to tow you high enough off the ground before we fire the rockets. So if you’re ready, suit up.” Light Seeker motioned to the harness in the restored wing pack.
A few moments later Light was towing Scootaloo skyward. While the filly was also flapping her wings hard, he could feel that she was only canceling out most of her weight at best, leaving him to carry himself, the wing pack and the remainder of her weight.
Looking down he figured they had a good thousand feet, figuring that to be more than enough fall time for Scootaloo to do what she needed to get the rocket pack up to speed and flying he addressed her, “Okay here’s how we’re going to do this. You have the quick release side of the tether so you’ll have to release it from your end, then you flip the switch to light the rockets.”
“Light, I come down hard even when I’m not weighed down. How do I land with this thing strapped to my back?”
“Just aim for a cloud, or if all else fails a lake to splash down in.” Truth was he hadn’t really thought about how she was to land as he had always been able to just fly normally with his first wing pack on. He hoped his improvised plan was good enough.
“Okay, no problem.” Scootaloo answered. Apparently she thought the plan was doable, although her voice sounded a little shaky.
A moment of pause later and Light Seeker began to wonder what she was waiting for. “Fire when ready,” he said, just incase she was waiting for permission from him.
Scootaloo flipped the switch and the twin rockets of the wing pack flared to life. “Wooo Hooo!” she shouted to the wind.
“Tether! Release the tether!” Light Seeker shouted, only to realize that if he could hardly hear himself over the roar of the wind and rockets, the filly dragging him through the sky had no real chance of hearing him. He grabbed the tether line and pulled as hard as he could, but he couldn’t pull hard enough to get the needed slack to get the tether off the hook.
Accepting that the thrust of the rockets was too strong to fight, Light Seeker saw no choice but to wait out Scootaloo’s mistake and let his mind wander. No big deal right? The rockets have what, fifty seconds of burn time tops? Wow, it’s kinda hot back here. Did they always burn this hot? Why does it feel like we’re going so fast? I don’t remember my first wing pack being this fast. He took note that Scootaloo was flapping her wings but knew there was no way that would account for the extra speed. Gravity! I always fired them pointed up, but she’s just flying sideways so the rockets aren’t fighting gravity. Wait was that Canterlot? A sudden double take and Light Seeker confirmed that they had indeed passed the mountainside-city.
Were did that filly think she was going? Why hadn’t she turned around? Didn’t she realize that if she kept flying straight the flight wouldn’t end anywhere near where they started? Those thoughts and more filled Light Seeker’s mind until he heard what he was waiting for. The rockets burned out, with the last of their fuel gone Light scanned the area and realized that Cloudsdale was in fact the closest cloud around.
“Keep going, give it everything you got!” He shouted to Scootaloo, as he pumped his wings like mad and overtook her.
The rockets had burned out a few miles short of Cloudsdale and once they did the speed they had given began to bleed off. But with extraordinary effort and five minutes of hard flying the two young pegasi managed to make the remainder of the distance. Though his wings were crying out for rest, Light Seeker got one final surge out of his wings and pulled them up just enough to grab onto the edge of the lowest cloud. With his hooves able to help, he clawed his way up the side and soon felt the tension on the tether let up as Scootaloo got enough of a hold to do the same. Together they scrambled up to firmer cloud before they collapsed in exhaustion.
Nothing about that flight had gone as planed and now they were lying on their backs, hot, sweaty, tired, with every muscle in their wings crying out for rest, and for some reason the two young pegasi couldn’t help but laugh.
When the fits of laughter faded Scootaloo was the first to speak, “That was soo much fun! Oh… wait, I was suppose to fly solo huh?” she blushed upon realizing her mistake.
“Yes, I expected you to circle around and come down near Ponyville, not drag me across the sky shooting for Cloudsdale. Which begs the question, what now?” Light Seeker asked, though he could improvise just fine on his own he wasn’t sure what to do when ‘hanging out’ with somepony.
“Can we look around? When Rainbow Dash brings me here it’s always just to use the practice field, I’d love to see what else is here.”
Look around huh? That sounded easy enough to Light Seeker, “Not sure what there is that would be interesting, but sure.” Maybe it was just because he lived here that he hadn’t really thought of what looked cool enough to show off. He quickly put together a mental list of the places that had impressed him at some point in time.
Light reached up to release the tether from the rocket pack, intending to just wrap it around himself for now, but an orange hoof stopped him. “Can, we leave that on for now?” Scootaloo sounded slightly worried as she asked.
“Okay… Why?” Light Seeker asked truly confused as to why she’d want to remain tethered to him.
“It’s just, that I’ve never been here without Rainbow Dash before. And well, I know she’d catch me if I fell. And well…” Scootaloo seemed hesitant to finish what she was saying, so Light Seeker did it for her.
“I’m no Rainbow Dash, fair enough.” Light Seeker saw no reason not to humor her request, even though he was fairly certain that her concerns were unfounded, but if it made her feel safer why not? So he left the tether be and led the way into Cloudsdale.
* * * * * * *
Scootaloo looked out over the edge of the cloud-bridge and down into the prismatic fluid flowing beneath. It was the fourth place Light Seeker had shown her, and so far the tour seemed to consist of rainbow fountains and streams surrounded by fancy cloud building, like this bridge. “This looks cool,” then with a sigh she added, “But sightseeing just isn’t as fun without the wind in your mane and a scooter under your hooves. Is there anything fun to do around here?”
Light Seeker pondered the question for a moment then answered, “I suppose we could go to one of the city parks and throw a ball around, or maybe find somepony to play team cloud ball with, or even build a cloud fort and play siege.”
“Cloud ball? What’s that?” the filly’s eyes seemed to light up at the name of an unknown game.
“Hmm… I think there’s an earth pony game like it called tennis. Same basic idea, the playing field is cut in half and you have to stay on your side of the field while trying to get the ball past your opponent’s side. Usually it’s played horizontally with both sides flying, but I’ve seen it played vertically when one side has a weak flyer. So if we could find somepony willing to play against us, we can just call ground team.” Light Seeker explained.
Scootaloo enthusiastically supported the idea, even after Light Seeker warned her he wasn’t very good at it, so he led her to the nearest park. Much to the colt’s surprise it didn’t prove hard at all to find a couple of ponies their age willing to play against a team self-handicapped by being tethered together.
* * * * * * *
“You seem awful happy considering we got clobbered seven games to two.” Light Seeker observed as they walked away from the park. He also took notice that the sun was getting low on the horizon.
“I’ve always lived in Ponyville so I’ve never had the chance to play pegasus games like that before.” Scootaloo answered practically beaming.
“How late can you stay up?” Light asked, pointing to the growing shadows coming off a nearby cloud building.
“Latter then you,” she answered as if issuing a dare.
“I’m sure your folks won’t be happy if you come home super late, so we should probably get you back to Ponyville.”
“Fine, how? It’s kinda far to walk,” Scootaloo sighed.
“I guess we’ll just have to get…” Light seeker paused mid-thought before a grin appeared, “Actually, we might not need help, I have plenty of fireworks at home we can refuel the wing pack with.”
“Light, why do you have fireworks stashed everywhere?”
“Hmm? Oh I make them when I’m bored.”
“You can make your own fireworks? That’s so cool! That must be so nice to be able to put on a fireworks show whenever you want.”
“If you don’t mind visiting the Cloudsdale burn treatment center every time you make a mistake. Or being teased with names like pyro or firebug all the time.” Light Seeker pointed out the downsides of his favored hobby.
“I’ll take pyro over dodo any day.” Scootaloo gave a weak laugh.
He couldn’t argue with that so he showed her the way to his place and the two foals made idle chat off and on as they went.
* * * * * * *
Light Seeker walked in the front door of his home, followed closely by Scootaloo. Across the living room his father looked up from his newspaper just long enough to take note of his son, the harness he had on, a tether, and the orange filly in a wing pack on the other end of said tether. “You know that’s not what they mean when they say ‘getting hitched’ right?” The stallion commented, before returning his attention to the paper.
“What? No! it’s…” Light Seeker stumbled over his thoughts as he realized what his father’s joke meant. All the while he and Scootaloo blushed, “Oh forget it! Come on Scootaloo let’s just refuel those rockets and get out of here before I have to die of embarrassment.”
“And send your friend home without dinner this late in the afternoon? Not on my watch young colt.” The voice drew everyponies attention to the kitchen doorway, where the speaker was standing.
“Mom! She’s from Ponyville and we weren’t even planning on coming to Cloudsdale, there’s no way she has permission to eat dinner here.” Light Seeker pleaded for a little common sense.
“Actually, I was just planing on making my own dinner when I got home, nopony would notice if I ate here instead.” Scootaloo responded, ending the stare down between mother and colt.
“Perfect! I’ll do what I can to speed dinner along so you can get her home before sunset. Now you two go get washed up, it won’t take long,” the mare said, as she returned to the kitchen. Judging from the aroma of pasta she had already started dinner even before they had arrived.
As Light Seeker led the way to the bathroom to wash up he couldn’t help but ask, “You cook?”
“No, throwing a few things between two pieces of bread and calling it a sandwich isn’t what I’d call cooking. That would be like calling throwing milk and cereal in a bowl cooking.” Scootaloo paused for a moment and looked around quizzically. “Okay… where’s the faucet?”
Light Seeker looked above the sink to the small gray cloud hovering over a funnel, everything seemed to be in order to him. Then it dawned on him that his new friend was used to homes on the ground with water pipes and such. “Oh right.” He said, as he flew up next to the small rain cloud above the sink. “You may want to stand back, I tend to bring lightning down on my head as often as I do rain.”
Scootaloo stepped back into doorway to the hall, Light Seeker pulled his hoof back and prayed. Please be rain, please be rain, please be rain. Then he closed his eyes and gave the small dark puff of cloud a jab. The sound of rain pouring though the funnel greeted his ears so he opened his eyes and smiled. Ha! First try even! He cheered in his head. As if refusing to be completely tamed by the young pegasus a weak bolt of lightning arched into his hoof and sent him tumbling to the floor.
“You okay?” A shout came from the living room.
“I’m fine dad, we’re fine!” Light called back, “Owww… oh, it’s safe now, go ahead, I… I think I’ll just lay here for a sec before I wash up,” He adding quietly to Scootaloo, as he lay there trying to rub the pain away.
Once washed up, the two young pegasi helped set the table for dinner and were promptly severed pasta. Though it seemed Light Seeker’s mother had skipped making a sauce in favor of sprinkling herbs, spices and grated cheese over the noodles as a quicker alternative. During dinner Light Seeker’s parents took the time to volunteer stories of his life, that he’d rather not be told, and ask Scootaloo a myriad of questions. Oddly enough by dinner’s end the colt figured he’d learned more about Rainbow Dash than he had Scootaloo, as she seemed to like speaking of the record holding mare more than herself.
With dinner out of the way the two foals proceeded to Light Seeker’s room where he set about dismantling some of his fireworks to refuel the rockets on the wing pack. With the rocket tubes refueled and the igniters reset Light took one last look over the rocket wing pack to make sure everything was as it should be. “Okay the wing pack’s hot, don’t hit the switch by mistake.”
Scootaloo nodded, and looked longingly at the remaining fireworks in the launcher, “I guess we should get going then. Huh?”
For once the look in Scootaloo’s eyes wasn’t lost on Light Seeker. He too looked to the remaining fireworks, “You know, it only took us something like five minutes to get here. It won’t be as cool in the daylight like this but we could getaway with a quick fireworks show and still have time to get back to Ponyville before sunset.”
A grin and grabbing the handle opposite Light Seeker was all the response she gave and that was all the colt needed to take the other end of the launcher and guide her to the roof to set it up. With the set up complete he made one last check to ensure the skies above them were clear of pegasi. Then he lifted the guard panel and gestured to the small button behind it, “Would you care to do the honors?”
Scootaloo pushed the button without hesitation and the two watched as the first firework shot out of its tube in the launcher, exploding seconds latter high over head. As expected the light of evening was still strong enough to dull the colors of the fireworks, though that did little to dull the joy the two felt watching them anyway.
Light Seeker knew the show would only last a few minutes before the launcher fired the last of the colorful rockets, he’d even just set the delay timers himself. That made this seem to be the last chance of the day to satisfy his curiosity. And a perfectly good moment to curse his curiosity, he didn’t want to risk hurting the filly’s feelings but he asked anyway, “Scootaloo, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“The day we first met, why were you and your friends so insistent on helping me? Was it just because we’re all black flanks?”
“Hmm, for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle I’d bet it’s just about the cutie mark, we’ve been trying so long to get our own, I think they really want to help somepony earn one and you seem to know what you need to do to earn yours.”
“What about you? You didn’t seem that interested until you insisted I keep chasing an impossible dream.”
“That’s just it. I want to be an awesome pegasus daredevil just like Rainbow Dash someday. You’ve seen how weak of a flyer I am. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told my dream is impossible. That’s why you have to make you’re dream come true. I have to know it’s possible to make dreams like that come true if you just work hard enough… I have to.”
Light Seeker looked away from the fireworks and found Scootaloo was staring at him, with a determination that had few rivals burning in her eyes. He knew the filly before him was a pony determined to forge her own destiny no matter what fate had in store for her. Much as he had been when he first set out making his wing packs. “With determination like that you will be an awesome daredevil someday, I can promise you that.” He said.
A volley of rockets from the launch announced the end of the display as the last twenty fireworks went off within two seconds. When the last firework exploded a stallion’s voice distracted the two foals, “Shouldn’t you have left by now? The sun’s practically touching the horizon and it’s dangerous to fly at night. Especially a night like tonight.”
“Don’t worry dad, with the wing pack it’ll only take five minutes or so to get her back to Ponyville.”
“And that’s about how long it will take the sun to set.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just sleep at the workshop.”
“Fine, now get going,” the father said, as he pushed the colt toward the edge of the roof.
* * * * * * *
With in moments Light Seeker and Scootaloo were standing at the south edge of Cloudsdale, the orange filly pointed at her hometown. Light backed up until there wasn’t any slack left on the tether. Signaled by a nod Scootaloo fired the rockets and the two were off.
A miscalculation in Light Seeker’s plan made itself known on the return trip. It had indeed taken about six minutes to return, but that was to the skies above his workshop, and while it only took a few extra minutes to reach Ponyville that was enough time for the sun to finish setting and dusk to start growing truly dark.
They had landed somewhere in the north end of Ponyville and while Light Seeker would have been lost Scootaloo seemed content with parting ways here, with one caveat, “Light, I’m going to need a favor from you. My scooter is still at your workshop, can you bring it back into town some time tomorrow? I really don’t like being without it.”
“Sure I’ll do that first thing in the morning. Umm, just, where am I bringing it?”
“The crusaders’ clubhouse is at sweet apple acres, big apple farm on the south end of town, you can’t miss it,” Scootaloo said, as she released the last of the straps and freed herself from the wing pack.
“Sure thing, good night and sorry if you get in trouble for coming home so late!” Light Seeker called out as he took to the air, still hauling the now empty wing pack with his harness and tether.
While starting at Cloudsdale had given them the advantage of sacrificing altitude for speed and thus distance the longer than expected flight had still left Light Seeker feeling almost as tired as their final sprint to Cloudsdale. He was in no shape to lug the wing pack all the way back to the workshop. Though it occurred to him that if he was coming into town to being Scootaloo’s scooter back he could just pick up the wing pack on his way back out tomorrow. It was a perfect plan, too simple to fail, he just needed a place to stash the wing pack for the night out of everypony’s way.
The lights were coming on as Light Seeker scanned the town for someplace to hide the wing pack, then he spotted one place he knew he could find again, Rarity’s boutique. He zipped over to a tree next to the boutique and wedged the wing pack firmly in its branches, took off his own harness and took back to the skies. A moment of panic set in when it took him a full five seconds just to find north again in the growing darkness.
* * * * * * *
Dang just another hill. Light Seeker thought to himself as he buzzed yet another shadow he thought might be his workshop. Night was in full force now and as he pulled up from his dive he noticed that not only had the ground lost all since of color, it now became a field of infinite darkness below him. He looked back to the lights of Ponyville that seemed to be the only marker of were the ground was.
The young pegasus certainly didn’t want to sleep out in the open but he couldn’t find the hanger so what other choices did he have? He pondered the idea of following the lights back to Ponyville but the idea of sleeping in the streets wasn’t appealing either. Why was it so dark? Shouldn’t the light of the moon be enough to see? A glance at the moon answered the riddle. The moon was little more than a sliver of a crescent moon. Light Seeker recalled his father’s warning ‘a night like tonight’ this was exactly what his dad had been worried about.
The colt’s eyes fell to the north, Cloudsdale glowed like a gray ghost amid the sea of darkness that the land had become. Between it’s own lights and the fact that it was a city if clouds, even the darkness of this night couldn’t hide it from view. With a heavy sigh Light Seeker flew towards the cloud city and his home, knowing full well that he was going to get an ear full for flying at night when he got back.