"I'm going now!"
...
"Ok, I will."
...
"They’re... I mean we live out of their way."
...
"We'll meet up later."
...
"Bye mom!"
...
The clouds had been made extra wispy that morning. They billowed around Fluttershy, robing her in silver.
Pegasi dotted the sky, they surrounded her. Just like the day before, funneling into the school.
Unlike the day before, these pegasi were in packs. Tightly knit and loud, these groups of friends mocked the solitary.
Fluttershy felt the tugs of their questions. "Hey, did you hear?" they said. No, she had not. "Do you see that?" She did not see, but sometimes the ponies pointed, and then Fluttershy could look with them, discreetly. Though she did not know what was so noteworthy about the fence.
She prodded the border between the cloud-walk and some pony's lawn. Boring.
The school loomed overhead. Should she choose to enter, there was the high probability of being squashed, terrified, and meeting Spit Shine. Fluttershy made to turn around, because she was a fast learner.
Startled by the wall of ponies, she tried to hold her ground. After being body checked by the first two ponies the relentless current of bodies took her up again.
There was still a distance to the school. Fluttershy hung low and scurried under foot, tripping up a few ponies. The rush still pulled her towards the red double doors of the school, but she cut her way sideways. Emerging out of the side of the crowd.
Heaving for air, her mane askew, and her coat dirty, Fluttershy swelled. All was well.
She showed the school her tongue, then turned her flank on it. This time there were no ponies to kidnap her. She bounced away from the scene humming a merry tune.
la lala la la lala lala lala
Her hooves took herself all the way to the park. It had a lot of stuff, that park. A swing set, a seesaw, and a slide. She wiggled off her bags and bounced into the playing grounds.
Fluttershy used half of the swing set first. She straddled it with her belly and started kicking with all of her might. Eventually motion was created, a slow shift forward and back. The other half of the swing set got a turn too, though much shorter.
Then there was the slide. No, first were the stairs. The fall from the top of the slide to the bottom was over far too quickly. Walk around to have it end too soon once more. Run around, and then the slide almost lasted longer. But the running was exhausting, and the loop was dizzying.
The seesaw was a puzzle. One look at it told all there was. It was a plank on an axle. It was unbearably unimpressive and underwhelming.
Fluttershy continued staring at the seesaw. Then she tried sniffing it. She reached up to the raised end and pulled it down to the clouds. This she could work with. One hoof in front of the other, she walked up the plank. At a certain point, the slope reversed, and Fluttershy rolled down the other end.
Hahahaha
She turned around and ran up the plank the other way. At the same point as last time she started tumbling. The sloped fall into the clouds made Fluttershy’s head swim. This was nothing like how Spitfire played, or how the hallway ponies played. It was soft and controlled,
This time she walked up the plank delicately, balancing on her hoof tips and fluttering her wings softly. She watched carefully for where her hooves landed and waited for the tipping. There it was! A more powerful stroke of her wings brought Fluttershy to a float above the plank and for an instant it stopped moving. The moment ended ended when hooves touched back down on the plank and tumbling down went the pegasus.
Picking herself up, she paced around the plank. There was a pointed mound made of clouds holding it up. She would bet her... she would bet that this is where she had stepped last time. She bit the plank beside the pointed mound. This time would be perfect.
Fluttershy prepared to jump. She started with a bounce, then a larger bounce. Then she sprang up high and tapped her hoof near her toothmarks. She landed on the other side and turned around expectantly. Her ears flopped down. The plank was still half up and half down. She tried again to no avail. Hitting hard with her hoof on the next attempt only served to make he hoof numb. Frustration took hold. This time she landed bang on the centre of the plank.
“Why is nothing happening?!” She yelled,positive that she was right where she should be. Two hooves on one side and two on the other side of the pointed mound.
Tired, Fluttershy decided to lay down. As she did so the plank started to move again. She stood up and returned to her standing position. Hooves evenly apart from her tooth marks. The plank slowed before it began to fall back down. She twisted around to see the rising end, but then it started to fall down instead. Hooves stationary, her head slowly shifted toward the now rising end, which began to fall.
“Wow!”
Fluttershy knew what to do. She bent over the side of the plank so that her head did not belong to either side. The pegasus tipped and fell into the clouds. The plank had finally decided on a direction. It was up and down again, stubbornly refusing to co-operate.
“What is wrong with you.” She muttered to the seesaw.
`````~~~~lll~~~~`````
Fluttershy bounced home the same time as she had yesterday. She had been at school after all, it would not be very good to have left early. She completely bypassed her route to school, who knows what unsavory face she would meet the
“I’m home!”
…
“No I didn’t, why?”
…
“Who was it?”
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“You have to answer the door sometimes mommy.”
…
…
…
“I know. I’m sorry.”
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“My friends?”
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“I made one today. He was really nice.”
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“Um... See Saw.”
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“He is teaching me to fly! Isn’t that great?”
…
“Thanks mommy.”
`````~~~~lll~~~~`````
Fluttershy stayed away from the big red building for the second day in a row.
She shrugged off her bags in mid gallop. The seesaw was ready and waiting for her. It had been all she had been thinking about the night before. She even had a dream, but she could not remember it well enough to tell if the seesaw had been the theme. The plan had stuck though. She knew for certain that she would figure out its secrets today.
She dug into the clouds around the seesaw, heaping them up into great lumps. She had just started her third when she was interrupted.
“This is what you were doing yesterday? Making cloud castles!” Shouted a pony from above.
Startled would be an understatement, Fluttershy was spooked! She loosed a high pitched whinny and stuffed herself as far inside her mound of cloud as she could. She heard flapping and the puffy sounds she associated with falling on clouds. Then she heard an awful lot of scoffs, huffs, puffs, and grunts.
“Though I’ll admit, it takes guts to skip school on your second day.” Said the unknown pony.
Fluttershy poked her face out of the cloud mound. “I’m at school. But a dummy like you wouldn’t see that.”
Indeed, in front of her was the rainbow maned dummy. She was sitting down, her gaze shifted from mound to mound before settling on Fluttershy’s face. “This isn’t school!”
“It’s my school though.” Said Fluttershy defensively.
“Nuh uh. A school is a place where you learn things.” The rainbow pony squeaked on the word, learn.
“That’s what mommy said too. But that big red place didn’t teach me anything. And I’ve been learning a lot here.”
“Ya, like what?”
“How to fly.” She said simply.
The rainbow pony’s laughter was relentless. She laughed when Fluttershy retreated fully back into the cloud. Even as Fluttershy left her mound and started patting it down to make it dense again. The hard working pony was accompanied by the laughter as she sized up the three cloud balls. She then made a fourth.
The park grew quiet as Fluttershy rolled all of the balls into position, three and one on each side of the seesaw. She rolled the first two balls onto the plank, and then took a wedge of cloud from the ground and stuck it in between the middle-most ball and the outer-most ball. A second wedge was placed between the outer ball and the end of the plank.
Under the raised end of the plank she placed the third ball. Then she returned to the lowered end. Fumbling with her hooves, Fluttershy tried to roll the middle-most ball up the slope. After a minute of struggling, the rainbow pony offered her aid. The ball was rushed up and past the toothmarks. It was brought to rest on the other side. The plank was now parallel with the clouds beneath. A wedge was used to secure the ball in place.
The fourth ball was wedged under the plank, forming a symmetrical structure. A ball on top and under each end of the see saw.
“Thanks.” Gasped Fluttershy in between heavy breaths.
“No problem.” Said the rainbow pony. “But I don’t get it, what is this?”
“This plank can fly.”
“Huh?”
“Watch this.” Said Fluttershy, she tried to mimic the confident swagger of Spitfire as she walked over to the seesaw. “What do you think will happen when I move this ball?” She gestured towards one of the supporting cloud balls.
“Don’t do it, it’ll fall!” Shouted the rainbow pony.
Too late. Fluttershy pushed the ball out from its supporting position. She patiently waited for the rainbow pony to uncover her eyes. Very patiently.
When the rainbow pony opened her eyes, she could not believe them. “How by thunder?” The plank was still steady. Fluttershy walked over and pushed the other ball out of the way too. “No! Uh... are you a unicorn?” The plank remained level. A cloud ball on each side, but it did not fall.
“This,” said Fluttershy. She bounced three times then jumped to the familiar position at the toothmarks. “...is what I learned.” The plank remained still.
Fluttershy beamed, the rainbow pony’s expression was fantastic. Slack jawed, with dinner plate eyes, her eyebrows creased together. She seemed to be trying to speak, issuing broken syllables punctuated by twitches in her wings and tail.
Eventually words came out. “It’s flying! How? You made it fly! I can’t... I don’t even.”
“I know, I didn’t even either!” Said Fluttershy. But she was losing herself, and more importantly her footing. The plank tipped ever so slowly...
`````~~~~lll~~~~`````
“Mommy guess what!”
…
“I made a friend. Her name is Rainbow Dash. She looks like the sky except with a rainbow. She came to my school today. Well, she was at the school the past two days. But anyway, we made a seesaw fly! It was so exciting, but then it fell. It’s ok though because Rainbow Dash showed me how to play on it. I never knew that it took two ponies! I can’t wait to go to school tomorrow!”
…
“I’m glad too!”
…
“I love you too, mommy.”
`````~~~~lll~~~~`````