A Star Pony Tale

by BlondeSky

Preparation

Chapter 36

Preparation

The list for all that had made the flight team had been posted outside of the gym beside all of the other rosters for the teams. When Zone went to check it he saw that it wasn’t a particularly large number that hadn’t made it. For the most part it appeared that the various tryouts had been more of a participation grade than anything else. He didn’t mind that very much, but it made his name making the list feel like less of an accomplishment. Still, he was glad to be on the list and he let that heighten his mood.

As he walked into the lunch room later that day he became aware that he was going to have to share with the others, but by that point he had grown more confident around them, even Kara. She still felt the need to call him names, but it was not so much hostile as it was familiar. She also felt the need to ask him if he knew whether he had made it every day the moment that she saw him. His answer was always the same. He would inform her that no, he didn’t know, and that she would know as soon he did. As she took her place at the table she was not a moment late with her inquiry.

“So? Do you know yet? Did they tell you guys yet?” Kara interrogated him the moment he took his seat.

“Yes-” he began before she cut him off excitedly.

“Really!? Did you make it?” she questioned energetically.

“Along with basically everypony else who showed up, yeah.” he answered trying to sound modest.

“That’s great! When do you all practice? And what about competitions and stuff?” she queried wanting to hear all that there was to tell.

“Practices are Wednesdays after school, just like basically all of the tryout days. As for the rest I’m not really sure.” he explained simply.

“Cool! Does anypony else know yet?” she asked curiously.

“No. I only found out this morning when I got here.” he informed her.

“So I’m the first to know?” she questioned happily. He nodded. “Great! Then we can announce it to everypony else once they’re all here!” she told him ecstatically.

“Yeah.” he agreed feeling slightly less joyful.

As the rest of their group started to congregate he could see that she was practically bursting from the effort of waiting until all four of the others. No sooner than when the final pony had sat down was she making his announcement. “Did you all hear that he made the Flight Team!? It’s really exciting!” she cried excitedly.

“No, I hadn’t, that’s great!” Astro congratulated him being shortly followed by similar comments by the others.

“Thanks.” Zone replied to the group after each one had finished.

“You know you could look a little bit more excited.” Kara scolded him.

“It’s not that big a deal.” he responded simply.

“Shut up.” she retorted in annoyance at his lack of enthusiasm.

“Done.” he finished.

She frowned as he fell silent and stayed that way. “Aren’t you going to say something?” she queried. He shook his head simply in response. “But, then how am I supposed to talk to you?” she questioned. He just shrugged and returned to eating in silence. “I didn’t mean shut up.” she tried in vain. He remained eating and didn’t give her his attention. “Hey! I never said ignore me!” she argued. He looked up at her quickly before turning his gaze back to his food. “Fine.” she mumbled in annoyance, “I don’t have to talk to you either.” She quickly began her own conversation with the other four and he finished his lunch in silence, but not a dejected one.

Due to the grade difference he knew he wouldn’t see the rest of them outside of the lunch and was consequently quite surprised when he saw Kara while walking out of the school. “So when are you free during the week?” she inquired as she saw him.

He felt that his silent treatment had lasted long enough and responded, “I don’t know. Basically every day. Why?”

“Well, that whole audience thing. After school we could work on it. I think I found a good place.” she replied helpfully.

“You were serious about that?” he asked having believed that it was just an offhand comment.

“No, I wasn’t.” she muttered sarcastically, “How’s Tuesday sound?”

“Fine.” he told her after thinking about a moment.

“Great! Then you can come with me on Tuesday!” she responded enthusiastically.

“Sounds like a plan I guess.” he agreed.

“You know you don’t need to be so unsure sounding. Anyways, see you tomorrow.” she finished before trotting off.

-/|\-

When Tuesday afternoon arrived the two friends trotted out of school together. Kara had neglected to share with Zone where they were going which made him slightly nervous, but he didn’t push her for a location. Although there was another fact that caused him some worry so he attempted to bring it to her attention saying, “Right, I know that we planned this for today, but-

“What? You gonna wimp out on me?” she questioned giving him a disapproving glance as they trotted.

“No! It’s just-” he began.

“Nope.” she cut him off looking away to the front.

“I’m going, but if you’d let me explain-” he tried again.

“Nope.” she repeated picking up her pace so that she was ahead of him.

He quickened his own stride to catch up. “It’s kind of important.”

“It’s also probably an excuse.” she retorted.

“It’s not an excuse if it’s an actual problem.” he argued.

“Yeah, well I’m not having any of that out of you.” she told him with finality.

“Whatever.” he mumbled dejectedly. He just hoped that she would cool of eventually and take the time to hear what he had to say.

He followed next to her as she led him through the city. He didn’t know his way around yet as he hadn’t been there long, but he did know his way to and from a few places, one of them school. Watching her she looked fairly comfortable with where she was headed and the streets as well. “How long have you lived here?” he queried genuinely curious.

“My whole life actually. I’ve been to a few of the other islands to visit, but for the most part I’ve just stayed here.” she informed him glad to have something to talk about.

“How many islands are there?” he inquired.

“You’re new here aren’t you? Kind of forgot. There are nine islands in Unisus. All of them are really close to each other which makes transportation between them really quick. This island, Unisus Isle, obviously houses the capital, but it’s actually one of the smallest islands.” she explained.

“Okay.” he answered satisfied by the information.

“Where did you move from?” she queried.

“I came here from Equestria over the summer.” he told her simply.

“Cool! I’ve never been, but I hear a lot about it.” she replied.

“I never really knew a lot about this place honestly. I knew that it was here, but besides that not much.” he informed her.

“Yeah, well, Equestria is a lot bigger and I suppose a lot more important globally and stuff.” she responded with a shrug.

“It’s nice here though.” he said back.

“Yeah, I like it, but I’ve never really known anything else I suppose.” she agreed.

A companionable silence fell over the two as they continued to walk through the streets. He promptly remembered his concern though and tried once more to inform her of it. “So, about the weather forecast for today,” he began.

“What, you’re really going to talk about the weather?” she interrogated with a roll of her eyes.

“Not small talk, just that flying today might be-” he tried before being cut off.

“I said no excuses and I mean it! If you didn‘t want to be here then you shouldn’t have come.” she retorted angrily.

“I’m not making up excuses!” he argued unsuccessfully.

“And I’m not listening.” she replied in annoyance.

“I noticed.” he grumbled dejectedly.

Kara was not in the best of moods as they arrived at their destination. It looked to be a local park to him. “A park?” he asked in confusion.

“Yep. You can fly around all you want and after school it’s not usually all that crowded, but there is still ponies here.” She gestured to the various ponies milling about. “That’s your audience.” As he looked around he found that he was a lot less worried about the ponies on the ground than the pegasi in the air. He felt that he would get more attention from those aloft.

He walked inside with her feeling rather nervous. He noticed that the pegasi he saw were all keeping close to the ground or staying in contact with it entirely. He knew why of course, but it appeared that his companion wasn’t willing to listen to him. He halted as she stopped in an open area of the grass. She took a seat and looked at him expectantly. An awkward silence fell between them for a moment. “Aren’t you going to go fly now? That was kind of the point.” she stated blatantly. He grumbled silently to himself before taking off. He made sure to keep close to the ground. The winds weren’t ones that he could work with very well, but he’d rather have those than move up higher.

It didn’t take long for Kara to notice however that he wasn’t where he needed to be. “You’re barely even off of the ground. No wonder you’re having a hard time. You were way higher up at school.” she said in annoyance. He grimaced as he knew that she was right.

“Yeah, well…” He had given up trying to explain it to her.

“Well what? Go higher!” she commanded. His grimace deepened as he contemplated her request.

He allowed his altitude to rise hoping that he wasn’t making as big a mistake as he thought. In an instant he felt the eyes of at least half a dozen nearby pegasi on him. He did his best to ignore them and just run through the motions. The winds hadn’t betrayed him yet, but yet was an important factor in the equation. He felt himself attracting more attention from the pegasi that were around even if others were content to leave him be. It was probably more the pegasi that understood the risk he was taking staying up there like that. He only intended to stay up there just long enough for her to be satisfied and then he would promptly make it back to the ground. He made sure to keep everything that he did to a low level of skill to allow himself more attention towards what was going on around him. On another day where he felt slightly less worried he would allow himself some room to push himself.

He managed to sense the winds a moment before they caught him. Everything in the background faded away as the violent gusts threw him about like a ragdoll. He might have been able to vaguely recall a collective gasp from below or possibly a shout from Kara, but he wasn’t quite sure. He tried to remember what one was supposed to do when caught in such a situation, but a blind panic took hold in a moment. He fought for control, but brute force earned him nothing. Only pure luck allowed him to right himself for just a moment, one moment that let him collect himself.

The angry gusts buffeted about viciously, but even they had a pattern that he only need find. He knew what all of the winds felt like. These were the same ones that he was used to only more powerful and less regulated. As he found one favorable breeze he rode it to the next. He took the storm of winds one blow at a time more worried about staying aloft than escaping in that moment. Still his chain of successes continued to grow as he let his knowledge guide him through step by step. As he rode it out pride and determination filled him. When he escaped and descended he did feel battered and tired, but his jubilation trumped both of those feelings. He was grinning from ear to ear as he touched down.

“What was that!?” Kara interrogated him as he reached her.

“What I was trying to tell you about. Rogue winds.” he answered.

“What does that mean?” she questioned.

“Pegasi control the weather, but they control the winds too. Winds are more unruly than the weather however and every now and again there will be patches of winds that don’t cooperate. They’re called rogue winds and are basically just small pockets of chaotic gusts. They can’t be tamed, but they can be broken up by talented flyers. That’s what I was trying to tell you about earlier, but you wouldn’t listen. I just didn’t want to get caught by one of those monsters.” He paused as he felt that she was staring at him.

“So did you break it up?” she inquired curiously still looking uncomfortably intently at him.

“What? No. I couldn’t do that. I just managed to ride it out.” he replied simply. He wilted back slightly from her unrelenting stare. He noticed that she wasn’t looking him in the eyes.

“It looked like you did more than just ‘ride it out’ to me.” she retorted not allowing her eyes to deviate.

“That was all I did though alright. Nothing more, nothing less.” he promised hoping to divert her attention or at least diminish its intensity.

“Alright, but uh…” she began awkwardly, “Well…”

“What?” he questioned worriedly. She just gestured to him simply in response.

He looked at himself in confusion wondering if something was wrong. It was then that he noticed what she had been staring at. In his concentration he had completely missed the moment in which the cutie mark had appeared. He looked over at her in shock and then back at his newly acquired cutie mark. He found himself laughing joyfully despite his usual nature. He also found himself hovering a couple of feet off of the ground. His cutie mark depicted a wind spiraling about freely. He felt it to be an apt description of what he aspired to in the future.

“That’s neat isn’t it.” he commented brightly still hovering below the tree line.

“Neat? That’s fantastic!” she corrected him happily.

“Yeah, basically.” he agreed still beaming.

“And if I hadn’t made you come out this wouldn’t have happened would it?” she questioned with a smirk.

He rolled his eyes, “I also never would’ve been in danger from the winds in the first place.”

“Let’s focus on the bright side of this.” she replied.

“Done.” he agreed. He twisted about in the air gleefully to get a look at the cutie mark. “I think we can call it a day. Same time next week though?”

“Definitely! Next time though I’ll hear what you have to say. Sorry about that.” she apologized.

“Yeah, well, you were right. If you hadn’t pushed me I wouldn’t have this right now. I say we’re even.” he responded.

“Agreed.” she finished. The duo trotted out far happier than they had trotted in.