If you’re a human visiting Equestria, and you’ve managed to keep yourself inconspicuous enough to avoid creating mass panic amongst the locals, you probably already know what a pegasus is. If not, they’re the ponies that have a pair of large feathery wings sprouting from their midsections. Pegasi, or pegasuses (depending on how smart and highfalutin you are) mostly live up in the clouds and employ themselves in flight-related occupations such as speedy package delivery, weather control, and getting stuff off of roofs. Anything involving flying. They’re not suited for back breaking manual labor like earth ponies or detailed technical work like unicorns, but if the task at hand requires flying, they’re the ponies to call.
Actually, flying isn’t unique to pegasus ponies. Unicorns have been known to effectively fly by directing magical force at the ground and “pushing” themselves through the air. It may not be flight per se, but it was enough for Flyers’ Union Local #31 to take to the streets and egg the houses of suspected unicorn scabs. It was this small act of mild vandalism that ushered in Celestia’s Fairness and Tolerance Program that brought about the scarcity-free utopia that Equestria is today.
But we’re not here to discuss the brutal history of Equestrian labor politics.
Now, there’re these two particular pegasus ponies named Flitter and Cloud Chaser, and they look pretty similar to one another. Both have gray coats with silvery manes and tails, so most other ponies assume they’re related. They’re not, but they were always placed next to each other throughout school and put on the same sports teams so they ended up as BFF’s and eventually they moved in together. If you ever meet them, Flitter’s the one with the bow in her mane. Cloud Chaser wears hers in a mullet. I’m serious--a goddamn mullet.
Anyway, there was this time when Cloud Chaser had been feeling out of sorts. Of course she tried to hide it, but it was pretty obvious to all the other pegasi. She’d been sleeping real late, not eating enough, and keeping to herself. In itself, that’s not a big deal--occasional sudden bouts of ennui are common to pegasi. One minute they can be chasing one another through the air or playing hide-and-seek behind clouds, then the next minute, locked in their room moping. Wild mood swings are common and considered normal. Also, there’s no such thing as ‘too much sleep’ to a Pegasus. Visit Cloudsdale, or any place where pegasi congregate, and at least a third of them will be asleep-on the ground, on a park bench, or on a passing cloud. Flying tires a pony out and anything soft will eventually have a pegasus fast asleep on it.
Not eating is a big deal, though. Flying uses up a lot of energy, and a healthy pegasus eats almost twice as much as an earth pony or unicorn of the same mass. It’s for this reason that all-you-can-eat buffets don’t last long in Equestria. They go broke in a month because of all the hungry pegasi. Some of the less scrupulous ones will camp out in the bathroom and eat for days.
So, with pegasi, not eating enough is a sign that something is seriously wrong. Also pegasi, like any other kind of pony, are very social creatures and need to be around other ponies. Otherwise, they get very lonely and depressed. Cloud Chaser tried to keep up a cheerful front, but she wasn’t fooling anypony. When a pegasus finds itself in a funk, it usually gets over it quickly. Sometimes in a matter of minutes. But Cloud Chaser had been depressed for days. Well, maybe not depressed. Just sort of distant. Either way, something was definitely wrong. Rumors immediately circulated that Cloud Chaser was suffering from some previously unheard-of disease. Living up in the clouds, away from most other ponies, animals, and insects, pegasi tend to have relatively weak immune systems. As a result, they panic at even the mildest hint of disease or sickness. When Cloud Chaser went outside, other pegasi bolted away and donned gas masks and NBC suits.
Flitter, on the other hoof, wouldn’t let the threat of debilitating illness keep her away from her best friend. Besides, if CeeCee was really sick, she would know about it. Whatever was wrong was psychological in nature, like an early onset mid-life crisis. Nothing good ‘ole magic of friendship couldn’t drag her out of.
So Flitter got up early one day (which, for a pegasus, is about ten o’clock) and went all-out on the afternoon meal. She prepared her best friend’s favorite lunch—honeyed peanut butter oats and lemon vapor-infused chamomile tea. She was just done setting the places when Cloud Chaser ambled out of the bedroom. She still had bags under eyes in spite of a ten-hour sleep. Flitter put on a smile.
“Hello, sleepyhead.”
“Mmm.”
“Lunch is ready. I made your favorite!”
Cloud Chaser sat down and sipped at the tea. But she just stared at the oats for a while. She swirled them with her hoof, piling them up on one side of the bowl, then on the other.
Flitter was starting to get annoyed. She’d been putting this meal together since she got up! “You know, if you just want to play in the mud, I’ll fly down and gather some for you.”
“Mmm.”
“Dammit, CeeCee! Will you come out of it already? It’s been a week! At least tell me what’s wrong.”
Cloud Chaser took a long, heavy sigh. “It’s…”
“What?”
“It’s just…I’m sorry. I want to be alone.”
Cloud Chaser stood up and made her way over to the front door, her wings drooping and trailing on the floor. At the threshold she looked over her shoulder at her friend. After a moment, she stepped out the door, spread her wings and took off. Flitter had never felt so helpless in her life. Should she follow, or did her friend really want to be alone? No…she had to find out what was wrong! She hopped over the table and ran to the door where she could still see Cloud Chaser as she disappeared into the sky. Flitter spread her own wings and took off after her. She followed Cloud Chaser past the edge of Cloudsdale, past the outlying suburbs, and finally to a tiny wandering cloud formation that hovered just over the edge of the…
What the hay is she doing here?
Flitter found her friend lying on her stomach, her hooves neatly tucked under her. She was staring down over the edge of the cloud, into the chaotic darkness of the Everfree Forest.
“CeeCee! Get away from there!”
“Have you ever wondered what it’s like to die?”
Flitter gulped. She wasn’t prepared for this, and the question frightened her. “Well, sure. Everypony does.” There was an uncomfortable pause as Cloud Chaser just looked off in the distance. Flitter felt a tinge of panic she quickly shook off. She placed her hoof on her friend’s back. “Cee-cee, are you…sick?”
She shook her head. “No…it’s not that.”
Flitter was relived. “Then why the talk about dying? You’re still young!”
Cloud Chaser slowly fluttered her wings, studying them as they rose and fell. Finally, they fell, and she folded them against her body. She looked down. “I almost died once.”
“When? What happened? I don’t remember…”
Cloud Chaser wasn’t listening. Instead, she lay down with her front hooves hanging over the edge of the cloud. She looked down. “Have you ever been down there?”
“On the ground? Lots of times! Who hasn’t?”
Cloud Chaser shook her head. “No. Down there.” She stuck her hoof down over the edge of the cloud. “There.”
Was she serious? “The Everfree forest? Celestia’s ass, NO! Who the hay ever would?” The place was unnatural. Unnatural and dangerous. All kinds of strange and frightening creatures lived down there. She had heard that light from the sun didn’t even reach the ground. The idea of being down there made her shudder. Earth ponies and unicorns avoided it altogether. Even pegasi avoided flying over it unless they absolutely had to.
“I was…once.”
“Why in the name of Celestia would you go down there?”
“I didn’t mean to. It was kind of an accident. Remember that time—right after we graduated from Flyers’ College—we were flying drunk and daring each other to do things?”
Flitter fluffed her mane. “Yeah. It took, like, a year for my hair to grow back. That was NOT cool!” She had passed out in the bottom branches of an enormous pine. Cloud Chaser pulled a piece of bark from the tree and let the sap dribble down over her friend’s mane. As Flitter slept, the sap hardened. The results were pretty bad. A pony with a shaved mane is NOT a thing to behold. Flitter was pretty pissed off at the memory, but she was glad her friend was finally talking.
“While you were sleeping—you were out for a long time—I thought I’d do some exploring. The booze made me braver than I should’ve been.”
Flitter snorted. “Yeah! You told me you ran straight into a cloud!” This only makes sense with respect to pegasi.
“Not exactly. I decided to check out the Forest.”
Flitter stopped laughing. “The Everfree Forrest?” Anything involving the Everfree Forest is serious business.
“Yeah. Like I said, the liquor made me braver—and a lot dumber—than I should’ve been. I did a few passes over it and nothing happened. I began to wonder what the big deal was, but with no pegasi to control the wind, all kinds of crazy air currents pass over it. I wish I knew that at the time.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure, but it was a warm and I was riding the rising currents all day, but as soon as I was over the forest, the currents just went dead. It was still warm, so I must have been under an inversion layer.
“Right. Inversion layer.” Cloud Chaser had majored in meteorology where Flitter had studied pony sociology. She knew enough to fulfill her duties as a pegasus, but the technical details about weather and stuff were a mystery to her.
“I was being real careful to stay under it, flying low, studying the forest. It didn’t look like such a big deal from high up. But something happened. Something broke the inversion layer and I got caught in a massive updraft. It was huge! Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I lost control and bounced around and tumbled I don’t know how long. It was over as fast as it happened, but I was dropping like rock, straight down towards the forest. I flapped my wings and tried to get some air under them, but it was too late. I hit a tree, bounced off and hit another. I was going down, branches were smacking me and cutting into me.”
“Yowzer! How far did you fall?”
“Far. I went down, crashing through branches, my feathers getting torn out. All these birds and animals were watching me as I fell, screaming my tail off. Kinda pisses me off.”
“What does?”
“Well…I mean I’m falling. I’m hurt and I’m screaming and all these guys are doing is staring at me. Nobody did anything.”
A whiff of cloud vapor floated by. Flitter sucked it in and swirled it around in her mouth before swallowing it. It was dense with moisture. It would rain soon unless the weather patrol came by and broke it up. “Well, what could they have done?”
“Nothing. But still, you see a gal in trouble, you oughtta at least try to help. Or say ‘Hey! That lady’s in trouble!’ Acknowledge things, you know? But all they did was sit there and watch like idiots.”
“Anyway, hitting all those branches slowed my fall enough so I wasn’t too badly hurt when I hit the ground. Sure, I was scratched and bruised and a lot of my feathers were torn out. It felt like everything inside was busted, but I was pretty okay, considering.”
“Wowee!” It was all Flitter could muster. She had never known any of this.
“I just lay there for a while. I was in pain all over and I just wanted to catch my breath. It was dark down there, but it was just the middle of the afternoon. My wing feathers were still falling and landing all around me. I wiggled my hooves, then my legs. They hurt but at least they weren’t broken. I wiggled my back and it seemed supple enough. I got up and jumped around a bit. I was sore, but I was alright. My wings were a different story. Not only were they missing a lot of feathers, but my left one was bent at an odd angle. Maybe adrenaline was keeping me from feeling it, but it was obviously broken.”
“Oh no!” Flitter was horrified. A pegasus without wings was like a unicorn with a broken horn, or an earth pony without…whatever it is earth ponies have going for them.
Cloud Chaser continued. “But the forest was so dense that flying would’ve been impossible anyway. I couldn’t even see the sky! The only out was on hoof. Since I couldn’t see the sky and I had no idea which way I was going. But I figured that if I kept going in a straight line, I’d get out of the forest eventually and I could circle around it and find a road or something. So I gathered some vines and bound my wing as best I could and hoofed it.”
Cloud Chaser paused and took a deep breath before continuing.
“It was slow going. I must’ve walked for hours. Actually, I spent most of my time crawling under branches. I couldn’t go in a straight line and I kept doubling back. There were all these sounds around me. Bugs, mostly, but every so often I heard a bark or a shriek followed by a squeal. They were scary, but hey seemed far enough away. Finally, I found something I thought was impossible—feathers! There were feathers scattered on the ground all around me. I thought maybe there was another Pegasus around. I was going to call out until I looked closer and saw they were mine. I had been walking in circles!
“I didn’t know what to do so I just flopped down on my flank. I was starting to cry when I noticed the tree I was leaning against. It was the same one I had flown into earlier. It was tall, higher than all the others, and plenty of thick branches. Flying was out of the question, and walking was taking too long, so I figured maybe I could climb my way out. If I got high enough and with a little luck, maybe another pegasus would spot me, or I could hop a ride on a passing cloud.”
“You were going to climb? Pegasi don’t climb!”
“I know, but what choice did I have? Anything was better than being stuck down there.”
“I’ve never climbed anything before.” She remembered back to grammar school, when the pegasi students would tease and make fun of the others when they tried to climb trees and rocks and other things. “Maybe it’s something they should teach in school. Just in case.”
“Neither had I, but I learn quickly—especially when I’m motivated like I was. I’ll tell you. We are NOT meant for climbing. I mean, take a pegasus’s wings away and what do you have? An earth pony. Only we’re not even half as strong.”
“So what happened?”
Cloud Chaser paused, like she was trying to remember, or figuring out how to put it into words. “I found a branch low enough to pull myself onto when I sensed this…presence…around me. I can’t describe it, but it was something I’d never felt before. There was someone…something…down there with me. And it wasn’t any pony, that was for sure. It was coming closer.”
Flitter’s eyes went wide. “What was it?”
“I didn’t know. It was like a sound almost beyond the edge of my hearing, and when I stopped to concentrate on it, it stopped. I…had this feeling--I can’t really describe it. And a thought came to me out of nowhere. I remember thinking to myself ‘I’m gonna die down here.’”
Flitter felt her legs weaken, and she lied down next to her friend. Cloud Chaser continued to talk while looking down into the forest.
“And finally I hear something come at me through the bushes. It was still a long way off, but whatever it was, it was big and making a lot of noise like it didn’t even care if I knew it was there or not. I knew I wouldn’t make it far enough up the tree before it got to me so I dragged myself under a pile of dead grass, and shoved my face into the ground and flattened myself as best I could.”
There was a pause, and Flitter felt as if she should say something, but couldn’t think of anything. Cloud Chaser continued.
“Well, whoever this guy was, he came crashing out of the bushes making these snapping and growling noises like he was on a tear. I couldn’t get a look at the guy because I was hiding under all that grass and my eyes were closed and my face was to the ground, but I’m telling you, he was huge. I could hear him sniffing the ground around me and I knew he was looking for me, but I didn’t want him to find me because I knew something real bad would happen if he did. He keeps sniffing the ground and the air and he keeps making these damn-awful growling noises and he’s coming closer and closer. I knew he could smell me but just couldn’t see me. I wanted to scream out or make a break for it, but I knew that guy would catch me and do who-knows-what to me when he did. So all I could do was hide in the grass and keep quiet. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it seemed like forever. At one point he came real close, and I mean REAL close--like he was almost standing on top of me. I could smell the guy’s breath and it was awful! I don’t know how I knew this, but he could smell my fear.”
“What did his breath smell like?”
“Like dead animals. Like death. Remember Bulk Bicep’s cousin?”
“Oooooh. Yeah. That’s stanky.”
A few years ago, Bulk Bicep’s cousin Thicke ingested an amount of Flim Flam Bros. miracle muscle growth formula that was way beyond the recommended dosage. He worked out in the gym for twelve hours straight and then went on an extended wind sprint in the dead of night. He suffered a fatal heart attack in mid-flight and crashed into the side of Canterlot Castle Mountain at full speed. It took more than two weeks to find him. By that time, the scavengers had helped themselves to most of him. The rest was badly putrefied. The recovery ponies had to work with masks over their faces. At the funeral, Bulk Bicep delivered the eulogy himself. “Better to burn out than to fade away, cousin Pump! Yeeeah!”
Flitter shuddered and started to nervously pluck at her feathers with her mouth. “Did you ever get a look at the guy?”
“No. Not then. But get this--he just stops, and things get all still and quiet. I could hear my heart beating and I remember thinking that if I could hear it, then he can hear it too and that’s why he stopped sniffing--because he could hear my heart.”
“No way, dude!”
“I’m thinking ‘shut up shut up shut up’ and trying to somehow get my heart to stop. I knew that I’d die anyway if that happened but I’d rather die from my heart stopping than from whatever this guy was going to do to me.” Cloud Chaser stopped talking for a bit and stared off towards the horizon.
Flitter took the moment to smooth over her feathers she had mussed.
“I really thought it was over. Hell, I knew it. I knew that I was going to die there. And all the sudden, I wasn’t scared anymore. I felt kind of calm and I started wondering what being dead was going to be like, but I stopped wondering because I knew I was going to find out in a few minutes anyway. So I just lay there and waited, listening to my heart beat.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m not sure why, but the guy let out a snort and went away.”
Flitter started feeling better. “So he left you alone?”
“Well…I waited a while more before poking my head out of the grass I was hiding in. I didn’t see anything so I started making my way to that big tree again. It seemed a lot farther away than before. Girl, I was tired. And hungry. Being scared takes a lot out of you, but I knew I better get my flank high off the ground before taking a nap. I went real slow and kept as quiet as I could…dragging myself along on my tummy, holding my breath. It took a long time, but I finally made it and started to climb. It was hard, hooking my hooves around branches and pulling myself up. I got myself a good distance from the ground when the dude comes back.”
“Oh no! He came back?”
“Yeah! He comes zooming out of the same bushes he came from before. I look down and I finally get to see this guy. He’s huge and he’s got all this black fur and he’s moving himself around on all four of his feet. Got these thick legs and he’s built real low. I’m telling you, this guy was built to move around on the ground and he was built for speed. Got this tail whipping back and forth. I swear I could feel the wind it made. Without my wings, I felt all but worthless but this guy was cruising fast as hell! And he's got these eyes—yellow, with this black slit down the middle.”
Flitter swallowed. “Oh man.”
“Yeah! And he’s going around snapping his mouth open and closed again, and he’s got these huge teeth and those eyes, and he’s making that growling noise like he’s gonna kick the ass of the first pony he meets. Then he looks up and stares right at me. He sees me this time. I didn’t know what to do, but I’m pretty high up so I wrapped my hooves around the branch I was on and look down at him. I think I’m safe up there, but that dude comes racing straight at this tree. And get this—he jumps straight at me. It was like he was flying and he didn’t even have wings!
Flitter blinked. She couldn’t imagine. She had never been in and real danger.
And he’s got these monstrous claws out there, got his mouth open, and he’s letting go with this roar that swear I could feel. And I saw those eyes, man, those slits opened up and became round and he grabbed at me.”
“Zowie!”
“Yeah. He flies straight at me but I guess I’m just a little too high for him. He comes this close to me.” Cloud Chaser holds her front hooves out in front of her, maybe an inch apart.
“So you were safe?”
“I guess, but I’m scared out of my mind again so I start climbing like mad. I’m not even being careful. I’m practically jumping between branches. I didn’t look down, but I could hear him leaping up at me and tearing at me and clawing the bark off the tree. After a while of this, I had a few more feet between him and me. He stopped trying to get at me but I knew he was still down there. So I turn my head around and look down. There he is, his tail’s going back and forth and he’s looking up at me all pissed off looking.”
“Monkeybutts! What happened next?””
“We sat like that for a while, him looking up at me and me looking down at him, and neither of us says anything for a long time. He’s pacing back and forth growling and snapping at the air. His eyes narrow back into slits. Finally, he stops and starts to talk to me and he’s got this voice—deep and loud--and he says ‘get down here, you fucking pegasus!’ like he knew me or something. So I’m like, ‘why?’ And he says, ’cuz I’m hungry and I’m gonna eat you!’”
“Said he’s gonna eat you?”
“Yeah! But I’m that stupid, so I say to him ‘You want to eat me that’s fine, but you’re gonna have to come up here!’”
“You said that to him?”
“Bet your flank I did!”
“Damn!”
“But that just pissed him off even more and he leaps onto the tree and digs his claws in. He tried crawling up after me but all he does is claw all the bark off the tree and he lands flat on his back. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Flitter snorted. “That’s awesome!”
“It WAS awesome! There were these mushrooms and loose pieces of bark on the tree near me. So I start pulling these mushrooms and pieces of bark off with my teeth and throwing them at him. And I yell, ‘eat this, you mulefucker!’ He either didn’t see it or didn’t believe it but a big piece of bark hits him right on the nose!”
“Dude!”
“So that piece of bark his him on the nose, and he shakes his head and screams at me. Man, I never heard anything like it my life. The dude was pissed! He keeps glaring at me and chomping up and down and shaking his head so I keep laughing and I do this.” Cloud Chaser pulls the corners of her mouth back with her hooves and sticks her tongue out. “BLEAH!”
Flitter can’t help it. She rolls onto her back, clutching her tummy with her forelegs. Tears streaming down her face from laughter. “Nu-uh you didn’t!”
“Damn yeah! I do that and the guy stares at me with his mouth twitching, and I could’ve sworn the guy’s eyes had turned red, and he says, ‘don’t ever come down here again, sister!’ and he disappears into the forest.”
“So it was over?”
“Yeah. It was over, but I still had a long way to climb. I slept for a while in that branch. It was night when I woke up. I spend the rest of the night climbing, getting more and more careful the higher I got. Remember, I couldn’t fly and I doubted I’d survive another fall. It was dawn when I finally found myself above the forest.”
“Did somepony rescue you?”
“Yeah. I was up there a long time, afraid that an unscrupulous gryphon or dragon might spot me and make a meal of me. But it was better than where I came from. I finally got lucky and couple of pegasi spotted me and gave me a lift back to Cloudsdale, carrying me by my arms.”
“Sounds humiliating.”
“It was, but my options were pretty limited. Anyway, they knew a unicorn healer and brought me to her. Some healing spells and a couple days rest and I was as right as rain!”
Flitter twirled her mane with her hoof. “My mane took, like, six months to grow back.”
“Yeah…I never apologized for that. Sorry.”
Flitter smiled. “S’okay! Are you feeling better?”
Cloud Chaser smiled back. “Yeah…yeah, I do. Do you think those oats are still warm?”