The Adventures of Jake in Equestria

by Sky Hawk

Returning to the Sky

Jake awoke early one morning at the sound of the wind outside. It had only been a couple of days since his exam with Luna, and Celestia was still sleeping peacefully beside him. He got out of bed trying not to wake her and went to the balcony. The moon was gorgeous and stars shone brightly. The horizon was getting lighter in anticipation of the sunrise and a cool wind blew. Jake looked to the sky. He closed his eyes and spread his wings as the wind ran over him. He imaged what it would feel like to fly again, to soar above the clouds, and look down at the earth below. Jake had known the freedom of flight as only any human could but this was going to be different. There would be no airplane this time, just him and the wind in his face. At the thought, he stretched his wings to their full extension as if he were already flying.

He was so lost in his thoughts of flight; he didn’t hear Celestia walk up from behind. “It’s a beautiful early morning; Luna has out done herself again.” She looked into the sky admiring her sister’s work. “You’re usually not up this early. What’s on your mind?”

Jake opened his eyes and folded his wings. “Sorry, couldn’t sleep. I heard the wind and had to come out here. Of everything I left back on Earth, I miss flying the most. It was what I did and I need to get back in the air soon, or I’m gonna go nuts.”

A warm smile spread across Celestia’s face. “Then the next lessons will be flying. I was starting to wonder when you were going to ask about that. It was a big part of your life back on Earth. I still remember you taking me up in an airplane.”

He smiled at the memory. “It was a lot of fun.”

“Um hum,” Celestia nodded in agreement. “Give me just a minute I have to raise the sun.” Her horn began to glow golden and a point of light illuminated the tip. Then the sun blazed forth over the horizon.”

“Amazing, I mean wow,” Jake marveled. “Is that difficult at all for you?”

“Not at all, it’s just a spell. Unicorns used to do this all the time. However, it did take many unicorns to do what I just did.”

For the first time it hit Jake how powerful Celestia really was. He knew it was her job to raise the sun but to see her do it was another matter entirely. “I wonder if I’ll ever be that good?”
“With practice yes. You have great power but all things come with time.”

“Yeah, practice, a lot of practice and a few miracles thrown in for good measure.” Jake was staring at the sun and back to his now blushing love.

“Well if you want to fly you aren’t going to get very far on an empty stomach. Let’s grab some quick breakfast from the kitchen and then go out to the courtyard.”

“Ok but first,” Jake walked up and kissed her. “Good morning. Now we can start the day.”

She returned the kiss and the two trotted down to the kitchen where the staff were already at work preparing breakfast for the castle. The kitchen was enormous. Massive ovens lined one wall alone. In another corner were stoves and in another corner sinks. There pots and pans and dishes of all kinds hanging from the ceiling or in massive cupboards. There were tables in the center of the room with ponies mixing or rolling dough. It was controlled chaos. At the sight of Celestia and Jake they all stopped and bowed. “Good morning your highness, how may we serve you today?”

“I would just like a couple of muffins to go please and some water as well.” Celestia said to one of the cooks. Immediately some muffins and two thermoses of water were produced and put into saddle bags. One of the servants went to put the saddle bags on when Jake interrupted them.

“Don’t worry I will take that.”

“As you wish, your majesty.” She smiled and set the bags on Jake’s back. Jake winced internally at the servant’s response. He knew what he was supposed to be but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He was used to doing things on his own and being waited on all the time was getting annoying. The two alicorns thanked the staff and continued to the courtyard. After eating and enjoying the beautiful morning, it was time to begin.
“Now I know you have been running almost every day, which is good. You will need your stamina for flying. So let’s try you flapping your wings and kicking off the ground.”

“Oh, you mean hovering like a chopper, got it.” Jake took a few steps back and looked at the tops of the trees.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m finding out where my head wind is. It is always easier to take off and land with a head wind verses a tail wind.”

“Jake, don’t try anything more than just hovering.”

Jake smiled and held up a hoof. “I promise, scouts honor.”

“I didn’t know you were in the scouts.”

Jake winked at Celestia. “I wasn’t.” With that he spread his wings and began to pump them as he kicked off the ground hard. At first it was difficult to get stable. He would move around and couldn’t control his altitude. Jake landed to catch his breath. “This is a little harder than I thought.”

“It’s about timing and developing the feel for your body,” Celestia replied. “Try again. This is the most important basic skill of all pegasi.”

Jake took his position. This time he jumped first then started to flap his wings. In his mind he counted to keep a beat one, two, one, two. He would have one down stroke, which pushed his body up and then as he felt himself descend, he would come back with a second down stroke. This time he did much better in staying in the air. It almost felt like running, having to keep breathing and a steady rhythm.

“That’s it, you’re doing it, YOU’RE DOING IT! Keep it up!” Celestia cheered from the ground.

Since he had never used his wings before it wasn’t long before he started to feel the burning sensation from his back. He set back down as gently as he could. “Wow.” He was catching his breath again. “See, huh, no problem.”

“You did great! Did you know how to hover back on Earth?”

“No, I was a fixed wing pilot. Airplanes can’t hover normally.” Jake said wiping the sweat from his brow. He grabbed his thermos and took a big gulp of water.

“I kinda figured flying would come easier to you than magic. You had past experience in this area after all. Why don’t you stretch your wings a bit and practice some more.”

Jake was already way ahead of her. He was stretching out and going to his practice position again. The courtyard was huge…plenty of room for him to take-off. Celestia saw a look in his eye she didn’t like. “Now I think you just need to work on hovering before we move on to-“

Jake reared up on his hind legs and took off like a shot before Celestia could finish her sentence. He pumped his wings hard and kicked off from the ground. He was instantly in the air and gaining altitude. He had no intensions of taking flying slow. Magic he may not get but this was all too familiar to him.

Celestia called after him, “Jake where are you going?”

“Just up to traffic pattern altitude,” was the response she got.

“What is traffic pattern altitude?” Celestia called out.

“It’s just 1000ft up, it’ll be alright.” Once he reached the altitude he just glided on the wind. “This is great! Ha, ha!” He banked as he made a box pattern around the courtyard. The castle grounds looked great from the air. Jake could see statues in one part, a small lake in another area, and a hedge maze in another. If there was a heaven on Equestria, Jake had just discovered it. Suddenly Jake realized he wasn’t alone in the sky anymore. Celestia had decided to join him in his traffic pattern.

“Well, you certainly took to this rather quickly.”

“I am a pilot after all. Now I’m going to bring it in. Let’s see if I can grease this one on the first try.”

“Grease what? I don’t understand. Listen please be careful on landing. They not only are mandatory but can be dangerous.”

“Do you remember who you’re talking to? I’ve got this. Besides, sometime you have to run before you can walk.” Jake had confidence written all over his face. He didn’t need Celestia to tell him the old pilot saying, takeoffs are optional but landing are mandatory. He started his mental checklist for landing. Flaps, don’t have any. Airspeed, slowing down. Jake slowly pitched up to slow his forward glide. He felt himself losing altitude. As he turned in for his final approach he was looking good. Alrighty Jake, easy does it. You’ve got this made, no prob. He descended down to the ground. When he was close enough he lowered his legs and the ground came up fast. He found himself running, and all was looking good until he hit a rut in the ground. Jake found himself tumbling head over hooves to come to a complete stop on his back.

Celestia dove and landed with speed and grace right next to him. “Jake! Are you alright?” She looked scared.

Jake looked up at her dazed and started to laugh. “That was awesome! If I didn’t trip that would have been perfect, ha ha.” He rolled over and got up slowly, a little shaky from his crash. He checked to make sure he was alright as Celestia did the same. Other than some bumps and scraps he was fine.

“Why don’t we call it a day? You don’t want to strain your body. I also want to check your wings out.” She still had a worried look on her face.

He leaned over and kissed her. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to fuss over me so much.”

“You could have broken your neck and you scared the life out of me.” She was almost glaring at Jake.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. As for hurting myself, well, that could happen at anytime. I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt to be in the air again. I’m a guy and we don’t think about too many things all the time. For me flying has been one of them. To have that back or at least roughly so, is liberating.”

“What else do stallions think about all the time?” Celestia said as her expression softened and a smirk crossed her face.

“I don’t wanna tell you.”

Celestia took on a mock shocked look. “I’m the ruler of Equestia and goddess of the day. I command you to tell me.”

“Make me.”

“Wait a minute. You almost kill yourself and I was mad at you. Now you’re here flirting with me and I’m not mad…stop that.”

“Stop what?” Jake said with a fake look of innocence. “I’m not doing anything.”

Celestia pushed him away with a hoof. “No, I’m mad at you for being reckless. I’m going to leave before you try to kill yourself again.”

“Not if I don’t let you leave.” Jake jumped at her.

“EEK,” Celestia took off running and the two chased each other around the courtyard like a couple of love struck ponies. Jake almost had her when there was a sharp pain that shot through his right leg.

“AH! Ok, that’s not good.” He came to a complete stop as he lifted his right leg carefully.

“So you really did hurt yourself. Come on, let’s get back to the room so I can fix you up.”

Jake hobbled back to the room where Celestia tended to his sprained leg. She then preened Jake’s wings, which turned out to be very relaxing for him.

“I’m sorry for scaring you today. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s alright. I’m sorry for sounding like a nag towards you. I don’t want to see you hurt but I forget you must be going crazy here all the time. I know you want more out of life…”

“I do want more but I had a blast today. Today was the first time we had fun together instead of you teaching me. It’s been too long. I’ve missed your laugh.”

She leaned forward and nuzzled him. “I just want you to feel whole again.”

“I’m getting there, thanks in no small part to your help. There is however something that has been on my mind. I’m worried about your royal image.”

Celestia wasn’t sure where Jake was going with this. “I don’t understand?”

“Well, I’ve been staying here with you in your room for over 2 weeks. Aren’t you worried what ponies might think or say? It’s not like you’re just some mare. You’re the princess and one of their gods. I guess where I’m going with this is I don’t want to cause you any trouble. Maybe I should get my own room?”

She gave Jake a calm look. “First of all, these are my chambers. I will keep whomever I want here. Second, ponies will always talk, there is no escaping that. Third, you will be getting your own room for the next phase of your training, but this will always be your room.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough. These are just the basics but I will send you to others for more advanced training. When you’re done there, you will come back. For now just work on your landings a bit more.”

“Come on, like you could keep me out of the air.”

“No, I seriously doubt anypony could,” she said with a smile.

The next few days Jake was forced to take it easy. He worked on basic magic and reading. He tried to explore the castle but the aching in his leg limited to what he could do. Where ever he went in the castle he could still hear the servants whispering about him. He decided instead of letting it bother him to have fun with it. Most people try to draw their own conclusions and no one really knew him so it was funny. Some of the servants were wondering when he was going to leave. Others thought he was secretly courting the princess. Some wished he would court them. No pony seemed to have a problem with him though.

Finally his leg was better and he was back to flying. The injury hadn’t been so bad. It gave the muscle in his back time to recover. It turned out he had been pretty sore and once again pushed himself a little harder than planned. Flying came really fast for him. It was an escape from the castle. His landings improved, especially when Celestia taught him how to hover and then fly forward and back again. No more long take-offs and landings for him.

The next day Celestia ordered some small fluffy clouds put into the sky above the castle. “Today Jake, we are going to cloud walk.”

“I don’t understand. How can you guys fly through clouds one minute and sit on them the next?”

“Like most everything else, magic. The pegasi have this ability. They choose when the cloud is solid or just water vapor. Just like the unicorns can pick objects up with their magic if they want to. Follow me to the first cloud and you will see.”

Jake did as she asked, and watched as she set down on the cloud as if it were solid earth. “See, it’s easy. Now you try it. Just remember that you want the cloud solid.”

I want the cloud solid, was all that was running through his mind as he plopped down on the cloud. “I did it! This is amazing.” The cloud felt soft to walk on yet firm at the sametime. He could see for miles in every direction. “It’s like a rest stop in the sky. So if I think it isn’t solid then it—aaaaahhhhh!”

“JAKE!”, Celestia called after him as he fell through the cloud he was standing on.

Jake came hovering back up through the cloud. “I’m ok. I just have to keep my focus. Do pegasi have problems with this in the beginning?”

“No, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it happen. Just remember the cloud is solid.”

“Right, the cloud is solid, got it,” he said as he landed once again on the cloud.

After a few hours of flight training and walking on clouds, it was time to call it a day. Jake couldn’t help but notice that once again Celestia looked more worn out than usual.

“Are you ok? You look more tired than you should be.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not sleeping well.”

Celestia lowered the sun and the two joined Luna for dinner. Luna looked a little tired herself but that was to be expected since this was her morning. Luna asked about the day and got a big laugh about Jake falling through the cloud. Then she was off for her nightly patrol and Celestia and Jake retired to the room. She had taught him how to preen his own feathers but he decided to preen hers that night. As he worked on her wings she started to write a letter.

“Who are you writing to? Is it Twilight?”

“As a matter of fact it is. I’m giving her another assignment. This is part of her training and she always loves a new challenge.”

“So what is she going to have to do this time?” Jake asked as he moved from one wing to the other.

“She is going to be your new magic instructor.”

Jake stopped what he was doing. “So it’s time to move on already? Am I really doing that well?”

“Yes you are in fact. I will arrange for accommodations in Ponyville. You will do well under Twilight. She is the best student I’ve had, not to mention she is an element bearer.

Jake couldn’t believe it. He was actually going to meet Twilight Sparkle, which meant he was going be meeting the rest of the gang as well. There was another plus side: no more being waiting on and the privacy of his own place. Now if he could just bring Celestia with him it would be perfect. At that last thought his face became a little less bright. “When would I get to see you?”

Celestia smiled, “Don’t worry, it isn’t that far away. You didn’t think I would send you off and not come and see you. I have to attend to royal business and Twilight can give you more attention as a teacher than I can. Although I will warn you, she is tough. She takes education very seriously.”

“Don’t worry, I remember from the show. You had to send her to Ponyville just so she could make some friends.”

“Yes, she was quite the bookworm. I say that in a loving manner of course. We will meet her tomorrow. In the meantime, could you please finish my other wing? You really are good at preening.” She smiled and with those eyes of hers, how could Jake say no?

Comments

[PickleSurprise]

It's good to see this story have a sequel. I have a serious soft spot for CelestiaxOC fics and the previous one was done well, as is this one too.

[Sky Hawk]

Thanks for the comment PickleSurprise. More to come stay tuned. The reason I even wrote this was for the fans who loved the last story so much.

[Sky Hooves]

"YEEEEHHHAAAA!!!"

*YAY*

"Awesome!"

"Wonderful."

"Interesting..."

"That calls for a 'WELCOME-TO-EQUESTRIA-AND-BE-OUR-NEW-PRINCE-AND-FRIEND-DISTANT-STAR' PARTY"

"hey, he has no Cutiemark, too. We can be the 'CUTIE-MARK-CRUSADERS-PRINCE-HELPERS!' YAY!"

"eeyup"

[Sky Hawk]

Thanks Sky Hooves. I'm glad you like it so far. I should be posting more chapters soon.

[Sky Hawk]

Hey guys Sky Hawk here. Work had kept me hoping but I will be getting back to this story and finishing it up. In the mean time if you could all do me a favor I would be very greatful. If you decided to favorite my story could you please leave a comment and let me know what about my story you like. I love feed back and sometime even get good ideas from it. Thanks everyone.

[Heyayey]

Please please please continue with this. I need this. Please. Please continue. Continue with this.

Please..?

Oh uh, yes, what I liked about it... Yeah, Jake learning stuff was nice. Him going to Ponyville, yeah, that'll probably be funny. CONTINUE WITH THIS.

[NoLongerSober]

Wonderfully written thus far. I really like your portrayal of the characters. They all feel...for lack of a better word, relatable. I am also slighjtly intrigued as to how the mane 6 would react to a male alicorn. Don't know if the fic is dead or not, but for what is done, well-done. Favorited and I will be reading any chapters, if more should come out.

[Black Ash]

Getting a serious case of wing envy here.