//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Bliss and Bitz // by PlayBitz //------------------------------// The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon as a lone Pegasus stood on the clouds edge, stretching his wings for the day. He peered over the edge looking to see the best path to follow, his feathers rubbing against each other. His gaze pauses on the lush valley that laid a ways off. He smiles as he “locks” in his destination. With a final wing stretch, he extends his wings, crouches then with a mighty leap, he speeds off into the sky. In a town in the valley below, the inhabitants begin to stir. Many shops begin to start their daily routines as one unicorn makes her way to grab her morning coffee before she officially starts her day. She sips her coffee carefully with her magic aiding her, while she makes her way to her own shop, blissfully singing to herself as she readies for yet another day in her little part of the town. The pegasus skillfully sways between the clouds as he continues to go high into the sky. Just as he is about to push his limits in heights to finally finish what he planned so long ago, he hears his stomach growl in protest from being empty. “Shoot! Well, can’t really expect to do to well without having something to burn.” he said as he gently banked to glide toward the valley town. “I wonder what sounds good this morning” he said to himself as his stomach growled back at him louder. “Alright I hear you, sheesh. It’s like you have a mind of your own or something.” The unicorn had set her half-drunk coffee down on her counter as she continues with her daily morning routine of opening her record store. “Ah, just a few little bits of minor cleaning here, a bit of organizing there, and Voila! And were ready to open.” She went to the main door to flip the hanging sign from closed to open. She gave her head a bit of a nod to a passing pony outside as she continued to smile. She starts to hum to herself as she makes her way to her counter, thinking of what music to play in the store for her customers . The winds start to pick up slightly, tossing the Pegasus around a little bit as he nears the little town. He glides down to a near picture perfect style landing, gracefully going from a slowed glide to a quick to slower stride then finally a nice soft stop. “Hmm, not bad. Dad always said the softer the landing the easier the takeoff.” He was referring to when his father would teach him the best way to fly was knowing the basics of takeoff and landing. The pegasus closed his eyes and using one of his front legs to emphasize what he’s saying to himself “Because if you can’t land, you’re better off grounded.” He stops for a second as a few earth ponies and unicorns around him stop to gaze at him talking to himself. He gives off a nervous chuckle smiling. “Whoops, sorry, bit too loud.” He then made his way to a small cafe to get his favorite sandwich with a cold glass of orange juice. After his morning meal, he smiles to the waitress, pays then makes his way out trotting past a few shops. One shop caught his eye as he went by, a little music shop with a sole unicorn at the counter looking as she was singing to herself. “seems fitting.” As he nears the end of the town, he picks up a bit more speed, spreads out his wings and takes off into the sky again. “Today's the day!” The day had carried on a bit slower than usual but not unanticipated. The light brown colored unicorn made her way to the door, flipped over a sign to let possible customers know that she was away on lunch and will be back soon. “Who would have thought that just running a shop would make a pony THIS hungry? I’m starving!” she muttered to herself as she made her way to the small cafe. After she finished lunch, she made her way back to her shop, a funny song popping into her head which she gladly sang aloud quietly. The winds were getting a bit fiercer the higher up he went. The Pegasus was having a bit of trouble with both the stronger winds and dropping temperature at this high of an altitude. He wasn’t going to give in though; no wind was going to stop him from trying out his new trick he thought of. “Come on… just a little… more….that’s it!” he yelled to himself as he folded in his wings, leaned back and allowed himself to fall back down to the ground. The wind rushing through his black hair and tail, fighting the nearly uncontrollable urge to thrust out his wings to catch himself, he continued to let himself fall. The ground was getting ever closer. “Just a little… more….. !!!” his wings were just begging to catch him, the ground was getting closer and the little voice in his head was screaming at him to stop before it was too late, until he finally gave in, and opened his wings as far as they could stretch. His wings cupping the air as if to act like a parachute, only stopping when he realized what he was doing, to make them go flat, point himself angled to the ground, then sharply shoot up shouting loudly “Whoa YEAH!” He had used the momentum of his free fall to get a tremendous amount of speed to only wait till the last moment that he could to open his wings to catch him and allow him to use the momentum to fly faster than he ever had before. He decided to use the momentum to get him back up to where he was before, only to find that he was actually going up a bit higher than the first time. He felt the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach when he started to notice that ice was starting to form on his legs and his wings. “Oh no… this is far enough! Elevator going… DOWN!!!” he yelled as he folded his wings yet again and started his free fall. Though as he started to fall, he closed his eyes to keep them from watering up as the speeds he was reaching was far past the norm. just as soon as he closed his eyes, he felt himself slip into a spinning free-fall. The unicorn had finished her lunch and had made her way back to her shop and was feeling rather content. Though it had been a slow day so far, she still had that feeling that it was going to pick up rather soon. She turned to close the front door and flip the sign back to open when something in the sky caught her eye. She rubbed her eyes a bit then looked again to see a speck in the sky that looked to be…. Falling? She turned the sign back over to away again as she closed it and trotted to the outskirts of the town, keeping an eye fixated on the “falling” speck. “Could be anything really, some Pegasus could have dropped something mid-flight” she said to herself as she kept looking up at the falling speck, then down to where she believed it would fall. “If they did drop something, it’d be the right thing to do to keep it safe so when they come looking for it” she stopped just as she finished her sentence when she looked up again only to start seeing the outlines of a much larger figure than just a speck. She looked around to see where she was at. She was a little ways outside of the town near the hills of the valley. She looked up again to see the figure with a bit more detail…. though, what she saw was no object. She saw what looked like a tail….”Are…are those WINGS?! Oh Celestia, it’s a pegasus… and they’re falling!!” She started to run to where it was falling, thinking of what could have possibly happened to have knocked a pegasus out of the sky. He was feeling rather comfortable, feeling like he was floating. No, wait, something was very wrong. “I was just flying a moment ago… where” he started to say to himself when he heard a voice yell out to him “WAKE UP!!!!!” He opened his eyes to see that the ground was impossibly too close to catch himself when he opened his wings, still in spin. He looked down to see a light brown unicorn directly in his path. He looked up and around the unicorn and saw what he had to do. He stretched out his wings, cupped them hard to narrowly miss a direct impact with the unicorn, just grazing her hair with his back as he leveled out enough to crash into the ground, up into a hill. “GAH… ahhh…. Oooh, ouch… Ugh! What.... was I thinking?” he said out loud as he heard a very feminine voice respond “That… That was just what I was thinking!! What in the name of Celestia were you doing!? What happened? Are you ok?” He let out a little sigh as he opened his eyes once again to fall upon a rather concerned looking unicorn with a light brown color, and piercing emerald green eyes. “I… Uh…. Uh yes, I’m alright. What about you, are you ok? I didn’t hurt you did I?” “Oh no no, I’m alright… what happened? “ He then rights himself slowly, as she sits in front of him while he explains the last few moments of his trick. He tells her what he had learned and that he did it once and thought about doing it again but even higher but something went wrong and now here they are. “What on Equestria…. are you insane? You know you could have gotten seriously injured or killed?” she said with a bit of deep concern in her voice. “Well, no but I..” he was cut off, “And somehow I don’t believe that your cutie mark shows you burying yourself into a valley at the speed of sound.” She stops and looks at it a bit more intensely “Uhm, what is it supposed to be anyway?” The Pegasus looks to his flank then back to her. “Well… Uhm… sorry I didn’t catch your name uhm?” he said as he gestured with his front leg. “Bliss… Siren Bliss” He then continued “Well, miss Bliss, you would be right. I enjoy designing new types of activities and games. I guess that it was my destiny to be a designer so I got what you see there…. Whats yours supposed to be?” he asked as she walked around him, still trying to see if he had any wounds. She stopped and put her hooves on his wings, stretching them out then turning to him again “I love music. I even run a small record shop in town. Hmm… I gave you my name, what’s yours?” she said as she continued to move his wings up and down, in and out. “Uhm heh, my name is Play Bitz. Though a lot of my friends either just call me Bitz or PB for short. HahaHA! Um what are you doing?“ “I’m checking to make sure you’re not injured, you did just land on your back and wings.” He smiled a bit slightly blushing some “heh, that tickles.” She smiled back at him “well that’s good, it means nothing is broken.” He smiled again then internally he told himself to take a chance. “Well, seeing as I scared you into coming out this way and got you all concerned for my well-being and all… would you like to, I dunno…. grab some lunch?” Bliss smiled and shook her head. “Well, your little falling act got me just as I finished eating lunch, but I’m free this evening if you are.” He smiled and stood stretching his wings then tucking them back onto him “I’m most definitely free. So … it’s a date then!”