Memories
My mind floats through the blackness, blind to reality. Muffled voices fade in and out of my awareness, as my brain slowly begins to turn itself back on. The quiet movement of ponies teases my ears and tickles my mind. I hear the soft clip-clop of hooves against a polished floor. The bitter tang of coffee wafts past my muzzle, and I stir. Dragging my uncooperative eyelids open, I'm greeted by the blue light of morning decorating the floor beneath the window. The door to my room is ajar, and a familiar cyan pegasus is sleeping on a pillow in the corner. My thoughts are jumbled, and it seems like half my brain knows it's in a hospital and the other half thinks it should be back home in Cloudsdale. For a moment, I don't move at all, and simply try to synchronize my addled conciousness. I try to approximate some sort of morning stretch with my limited mobility, only for a spike of pain to shoot through my withers.
No wings.
The events of last night come crashing down on me, and I let out a pathetic whimper. My mood is strapped to a lead brick and dumped into a black, unforgiving well. Whatever was nice about this morning is drowned in the all consuming depression of hopelessness and defeat.
No wings.
All my hopes and dreams, gone in an instant. All I had struggled to achieve, ruined. My entire life's dedication destroyed by an accident I couldn't even remember. Suddenly, I felt angry. Why did it have to be me? Why did life hate me so much? Why couldn't this happen to some other pegasus, somepony who didn't need their wings for literally everything they ever did in their life?!
I turned my fury towards the sleeping mare, but my animosity wavered. Even if this was somehow her fault, and I still didn't know what exactly happened, it had clearly torn her to pieces. She had been by my side ever since I came to, and I know she couldn't have known who I was until three days ago. I decided I didn't know if I liked her or not. Besides, she was the only one I had to talk to right now, and... I really needed someone to talk to. I'd rather talk to the mare who indirectly ruined my life than to be locked in a room, alone. Unable to move. Unable to fly.
No wings.
I try to think about something else, but the problem with being in a hospital is you can't do anything. You have to just sit there, waiting, staring at the wall. It's boring beyond belief. I would have been ok if I could move my forelegs around, but I couldn't move anything. I was wrapped up in bandages, and both my right legs were in slings.
No wings.
I try to look out the window, try to distract myself from the horrible reality, but—
No wings.
I just can't—
No wings.
But I—
No wings!
It's too much. Something inside me breaks, and all of a sudden I'm crying, my tears matting the fur on my cheeks and wetting the bandages around my face. I can't curl up, or hug my tail, or hide under my wings—
No wings!
Too much, too much, pain everywhere, sadness, anguish, misery, sorrow, grief, gloom, woe—
"Huh?"
A surprised voice jolts me out of my downward spiral. My vision is blurry from the tears, and I couldn't move my hooves to wipe my eyes, but an indistinct figure is clearly walking towards me.
"Oh, jeez, crap, uh..." The voice falters, and I hear hooves shuffling through clattering objects, looking for something. It doesn't take long for tissue to blot out my vision. A hoof is gently wiping away my tears, and I struggle to rein in the sobs that wrack my already injured body. Soon, my vision has mostly cleared, and I find myself looking into the concerned face of Rainbow Dash once again.
"Hey, dude, are you ok?"
I swallow the remains of my tears and glare at her.
"Ok, stupid question." Rainbow Dash sighs. "Look, um, is there anything in particular you wanted to do, today? I mean, we can try to see how much you remember before the... accident."
"What else can I do?" I mumble, looking down at the foot of my bed.
She winces, then gives me a nuzzle. I want to turn it away, to reject her and make her earn my trust again, but I just... I can't. I need someone to talk to. I need to be with someone.
I don't want to be alone.
I squeeze my eyes shut and nuzzle her back. I can almost feel the tension evaporate from her body. She wraps a foreleg around me and gives me the best approximation of a hug she can offer. I avoid leaning in to it, but savor the feeling anyway. Suddenly, I almost don't care what she did.
I just want someone to care about me.
We stay like that for a while, and I don't protest. Eventually, she pulls away, and lays her head on the side of the bed. "So, where do we start? Do you remember when you got to Manehatten?"
Normally, memories come to me on command, and it doesn't take much to summon them. Now, however, I have to scrunch up my muzzle, and drag them out of the sticky goo of my conciousness. With no small amount of effort, I manage to locate a memory of a rather spiffy looking hotel, and simultaneously remember reflecting on the fact that being a weatherpony sure paid well.
A flash of grief darts across my face, but Rainbow Dash either missed it, or doesn't say anything. "Y-yeah, I think so."
She gently rubs one of the few places on my stomach not covered in bandages. "Maybe we can start there? Just explain as much as you can of what happened, and I'll try to fill in the blanks."
I nod, and take a deep breath...
"Whoa," I whisper to nopony in particular. My annoyance at the hotel not having an open balcony, and forcing me to take the elevator instead of just fly to my room is banished by the impressive furnishings. There's a living room, a bathroom, and a whole separate room for the bed. This place is nice.
"Totally worth the bits." I drag my bags inside and shut the door behind me. Briefly abandoning my belongings, I trot over to the north wall of my room, which is actually just one enormous window. The sun is high in the sky, and the view is spectacular. Letting out a low whistle, I let my gaze sweep across the cityscape below me. Skyscrapers tower over a grid of roads crisscrossing the landscape, dotted with trees and carts and ponies. A scant few clouds grace the blue expanse above, and I can just make out the ocean through the maze of buildings, with sunlight dancing off it's surface.
With one last glance out the window, I trot into the bathroom. A cyan pegasus with a white mane tinged with blue walks in on the other side of the mirror. I take a moment to stretch out my wings and admire myself. Teal eyes look back at me from behind the glass.
"One day," I whisper to myself, "one day I'll show them even a weatherpony can be a Wonderbolt too."
I could barely manage to keep myself on the ground long enough to unpack my goggles before I was going down the elevator again, and practically launching myself out of the hotel. Warm air whips through my mane and tickles my primaries with each flap of my wings. I soar over the city, weaving in between buildings, and let out a cry of joy as I make a hairpin turn around one particular skyscraper. This was being alive. The open sky, and the wind rushing past me, and the speed. I go into a dive and straighten out just ten meters above the ground, rocketing past a musician playing a cello on the street.
Despite the fun I'm having, there's a purpose behind my flight. Before every Wonderbolts show, all the stunt fliers in the city gather for practice sessions. A little impromptu Wonderbolts camp, you might call it. Manehatten was a big city, so there were quite a few gatherings going on. I was headed towards the one near the west side of town, over a large park.
Naturally, it didn't take long to get there. I must've been going almost two hundred kilometers an hour, and I was grinning the whole way. I was not, however, greeted by the sight I expected. Instead, the pegasi were in a semicircle around a mare with nearly the same coat color as me, except her mane was a brilliant rainbow. As I drew in closer, I could make out her voice.
"... so then Princess Celestia herself congratulated me. Yeah, I'm just that awesome. And I'm the fastest flier in Equestria."
Wow, really? Who was this, the grand narcissist of Manehatten? Somepony should wipe that smug grin right off her face. Not that it wasn't expected. Stunt fliers tended to be brash and outspoken ponies. You get that many egos in one place and things like this happen. What I always liked about stunt flying, though, was that arguments were easy to settle. Whoever goes the fastest, wins.
"So why aren't you a Wonderbolt yet?" calls out a pegasus from the crowd.
"I'll be a Wonderbolt!" she shouts. "Just you wait and see! I'll be Rainbow Dash, the fastest and most awesome Wonderbolt anypony has ever seen!" She flies up to the front of the crowd. "You wanna have a go at it? Huh? Huh?"
"How about you show us, big shot!" I call out to this 'Rainbow Dash', swooping in above the crowd. "You and me, and whoever else wants in, we'll race you all the way to the docks on the other side of town."
A wide, almost manic grin spreads across Rainbow Dash's face. "Your funeral, pal!" She turns to the rest of the pegasus. "You heard the colt, I'll race you all to the other side of the docks. First one to reach the water's edge at any altitude wins." She gives her wings a powerful flap and sweeps her gaze over the assembled pegasi. "If you can't keep up, don't step up, you'll just lose."
With that, she points herself towards the water's edge, her wings precisely perpendicular to her body, marking out the starting line. The other pegasi line up beside her, a few of them whispering amongst themselves, many of them far too confident for their own good. Then again, every stunt flier was too confident for their own good... including myself. I just hadn't realized it yet.
"Three!" she calls out.
I take my place next to Rainbow Dash and straighten my back.
"Two!" the other pegasi start to join in.
Forelegs ready, wings out, tighten muscles.
A few pegasi who aren't participating shout "Go!" while hovering around us, but their words are lost in a thundering roar as several hundred pegasi launch into the air at blistering speeds. Had I not undergone training, my jaw probably would have dropped when I saw Rainbow Dash take off. Five seconds into the race and she was already twice as far as everypony else. She was flying impossibly fast. I grit my teeth and focus on my wings. If I'm lucky, she's just a sprinter, and she'll lose momentum before she reaches the docks. I hope.
I quickly locate an errant tailwind and beat my wings off it, accelerating quickly. As the breeze fades, I spread my wings out and concentrate. Another favorable jetstream brushes past my feathers, and I roll into it, my powerful wings driving me forward fast enough to overtake the head of the pack. Before I know it, I'm back inside the city, dodging skyscrapers with ease and feverishly flapping my wings. I haven't lost track of Rainbow Dash yet, but she's still pulling ahead. It's insane. I'm trading wind with three other pegasi who have pulled ahead of the pack, desperately trying to stay ahead of them so their turbulence doesn't throw me off.
There's nothing quite like a stunt flier race across town. Hundreds of pegasi tear through the sky, weaving in and out of the buildings, braiding the air behind them in a magnificent display of skill and grace. The hobbyists are easy to pick out, trailing behind at only a hundred or so kilometers an hour. The serious ones scream through the air like missiles, leaving the rest behind as they accelerate to over 300 km/h.
Then there was Rainbow Dash, who made the rest of us look like flying bricks. She must have been going nearly 700 km/h, and she wasn't slowing down. I growled, and focused on flying through a straight gap between skyscrapers. I put everything I had into flapping my wings, focusing on minute adjustments to maximize my gains on whatever breezes I could find rushing between the buildings. I angled slightly downward, and continued the acceleration for a while before straightening out and maintaining speed. Wind tore across my wings, threatening to rip my feathers out. Buildings and windows flashed by me in a blur, and I was certain I had almost reached my top speed of 450 km/h.
What had once been an attempt to show Rainbow Dash what a real stuntpony could do had now turned into an embarrassing attempt to simply get to her before anypony else. I couldn't see any other pegasi around me, but I couldn't afford to look backwards. Only amateurs looked backwards. Or Rainbow Dash, who was apparently the goddess of speed and could do whatever the hell she wanted. I think I saw her doing a few loop-de-loops, just to piss us off. Sweet Celestia, is she already at the docks?!
My wings burn in protest, and every flap sends another jolt of pain through my body. I don't care. The street has turned into a grey blur, and the streetlamps have turned into elongated blobs. Up ahead I can see the sandy beach approaching, but I resist the urge to flap harder. I had to sustain this speed all the way there.
Five more seconds.
My wings are on fire.
Four seconds.
I angle slightly upwards and increase my wing beats to get over the last building.
Three seconds
I swear my wings are going to fall off, but I keep going.
Two.
I've almost reached the beach.
One.
The beach rushes past me in a flash of white, and I straighten my wings. Throbbing pain burns my joints, but at least gliding doesn't make it any worse. I rocket past the edge of the water, and immediately begin banking wide. I circle around to about where Rainbow Dash has been hovering in the air, and promptly collapse on the ground.
I can barely breath. My lungs are on fire, and my wings hang uselessly at my sides. I don't think I've ever flown that fast in my life before. I manage to lift my head far enough off the ground to realize that I've successfully beaten the rest of the pegasi to Rainbow Dash by a significant margin. Gasping for breath, I almost don't notice Rainbow Dash landing next to me.
"Still not as fast as me, but that was pretty slick." Suddenly, instead of being angry at her for being so full of herself, I'm grateful for the compliment. If she can fly that fast, then she can say whatever the hell she wants to as far as I'm concerned. She didn't even sound out of breath! What was this girl made of?!
"How, *gasp*, the fuck, *gasp* are you *gasp* that fast?!" I ask her, panting like a dog, still unable to move my wings, which were threatening to cramp up on me.
She grinned. "I'm Rainbow Dash."
I flop over on my side, desperately trying to catch my breath. Celestia, I could barely move after that, and here she was, having gone twice as fast as any of us, and she'd barely broken a sweat. "I, *huff*, concede." My entire body is screaming in protest. Is this what dying feels like? Is that the light? Am I heading towards the light?
Oh wait, no, that's the sun.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash giggles as I flop over, and sits down beside me. "Don't feel bad, I've never seen anyone catch up to me that quickly. It's pretty impressive, honestly. What's your name?" she asks.
"I'm, *huff* Prism Glider," I reply, trying my best not to wheeze.
"Prism Glider, huh?"
"Prism Glider?"
"Prism Glider?"
"Prism Glider!"
I snap out of my reverie to find Rainbow Dash looking at me with a raised eyebrow, next to a white nursepony holding another clipboard with a hoof. "Sorry, Mr. Prism Glider," the nurse apologizes, "but now that you're awake and thinking clearly, I need you to answer some questions. First of all, we need contact information for your immediate family. Can you tell us how to reach them?"
Icy fear shoots through my veins.
My family...?
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Fantastic. The lingo during the race made it most believable! Well done! I can't wait to see what happens next!
*Your
Didn't notice anything else.
Great chapter!
So that's what he looks like.
Should of gone with lover boy.
Oh, and... That ending tho!!!
first.
"You are funeral"?
5004350 Yes
I don't get it.
Poor kid. Believe it or not, I make it a point to write in my stories about ponies like him.
5004350 Sometimes people don't know the difference of your and you're.
5004297
5004350
5004469
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
Fixed.
... Wow. I was not expecting that...:
I mean, seriously, I had no clue that Prism Glider even existed; call me ignorant. You got me there.
But I am really liking the story so far. 'Tis well done.
Might want to check the skipping between past and present tenses in the first paragraph.
5004784
I went back and forth on that over and over and over. I can't figure out how best to word it. "My mind swims through the blackness" doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe "was swimming" would transition better? It's difficult to get it to play nicely with the rest of the paragraph.I used "floats" instead, it works much better.
4991651 What is this "one second person story?" I am intrigued!
You have earned my like and favorite. Well done building the character and not going too fast, I think that's the two hardest things to do.
I could have sworn it was Fleetfoot until you said he was planning on being a Wonderbolt.
Good job so far, patiently waiting for more
I could have sworn it was Lightning Dust for a second, but when I saw that it said, "You heard the colt!" I was all
"I suck at guessing"
Goddess of speed, I like that.
5004931 I'd guess For Whom We Are Hungry by Cold in Gardez.
5004654
That a reminder of the MLP fandom IMHO.
There are countless faceless backgrounds ponies never give a second thought to, but we adopt them as fans and give them life and soul . . . and there's gonna be an episode in season 5 focusing on the background ponies and will destroy our beautiful fanon forever.
I teared up. I seriously teared up after I finished the chapter.
You did well author. You did well.
Now, if I may; Whyyyy must you do this to me?!
I don't want to be this sad!
5004346 Um... you're not even on the first PAGE, buddy.
Here's a thumbs up because you tried!
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8258770176/hF99E72BE/
Nice to know he's getting his memories back. For better or worse, that's progress. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
its like you slightly modified rainbow blitz and called him a separate character. he's still pretty cool though.
5013777
What I actually did was go through the list of male pegasus background ponies and picked the one with the most adorable picture.
I must have subconsciously picked one that looked like Rainbow Dash because Rainbow Dash is best pony.
Achieve.
Fantastic job! I'm loving the reveal of this character. It's so perfectly done.
5014090
Wow that went a long time without anyone noticing.
5014097
It happens.
Adding to PiercingSight's nitpick, it's "confident", not "confidant". A confidant is a scheming pony... Unless you meant that
Looking forward to more! I wonder what happened
>Sees Picture<
"Oh."
I really enjoy the way you write; so descriptive, so intriguing - and I can just feel everything!!
Good Job. 
5004283 Lol Just what I said... but different.
Prism Glider has butt-wings...
5165371
Hey, not my fault. Blame IDX's animators.
5165371
Dangit. Just lost ten bits. Oh well.
5455627 (gives 20 bits)
To the north
Awesome chapter!
5165371 LOL... butt wings XD hahahah!
Nice.
Huh... using a lesser known pony... I like it.
home in Cloudsdale.
<SNIP>
Why couldn't this happen to some other pegasus, somepony who didn't need their wings for literally everything they ever did in their life?!
-Evidence for someone else's guess that this is Soarin' rising... except that he would probably remember her then from before the three days.
I manage to locate a memory of a rather spiffy looking hotel, and simultaneously remember reflecting on the fact that being a weatherpony sure paid well.
-This BETTER not be a
onethree night stand by the element of LOYALTY?"One day," I whisper to myself, "one day I'll show them even a weatherpony can be a wonderbolt too."
-Ah... well, that makes it less likely...
Wow, really? Who was this, the grand narcissist of Manehatten? Somepony should wipe that smug grin right off her face. Not that it wasn't expected. Stunt fliers tended to be brash and outspoken ponies. You get that many egos in one place and things like this happen. What I always liked about stunt flying, though, was that arguments were easy to settle. Whoever goes the fastest, wins.
-So did she just challenge him to too hard a course, or did she hit him? Also, the coat coloration argues for the wing transplant to me somehow...
"So why aren't you a wonderbolt yet?"
-Should be capitalized I think? You do this in many locations.
we'll race you all the way to the docks on the other side of town."
-Doesn't sound like that hard of a course, but it also sounds like a good place to get a crate dropped on one... don't think she would have knocked it loose thinking the main character could dodge easily, but it is POSSIBLE... or maybe she just didn't realize that he wasn't clear when it fell unintentionally. A ship's propeller is another possible source of injury, but I doubt it... maybe a skylight used to save lighting money on a ware-house?
You heard the colt
-Okay, so male... other people were guessing Scootaloo, but the long description before one clicks on a chapter may disprove that (I don't consciously remember).
First one to reach the water's edge at any altitude wins."
-Sounds safe enough actually...
She gives her wings a powerful flap and sweeps her gaze over the assembled pegasi. "If you can't keep up, don't step up, you'll just lose."
-Technically might qualify as fair warning?
With that, she points herself towards the water's edge, her wings precisely perpendicular to her body, marking out the starting line.
-And here is where it occurred to me that maybe the shockwave from a rainboom (probably completely unnecessary to win the race? Or maybe he was good enough to push her to that extreme?) knocked him unconscious or blasted him into something. Sorta like how she didn't notice Fluttershy falling on the day they got their Marks, and may have even been the one to blow her off the tiny cloud.
including myself. I just hadn't realized it yet.
-Taking at least some of the blame...
several hundred pegasi launch into the air at blistering speeds.
-Okay, that makes things crowded enough that I can see how something could get knocked down and be hard to dodge... make the Rainboom theory less likely unless the two of them were far ahead of the pack, but with what his statement about overconfidence implies about his skill level I don't think that likely.
I haven't lost track of Rainbow Dash yet, but she's still pulling ahead.
-Probably not the scenario I was thinking of then...
hundred or so kilometers and hour.
-Typo: Should be "an"
I swear my wings are going to fall off, but I keep going.
-Irony...
The beach rushes past me in a flash of white, and I straighten my wings. Throbbing pain burns my joints, but at least gliding doesn't make it any worse. I rocket past the edge of the water, and immediately begin banking wide. I circle around to about where Rainbow Dash has been hovering in the air, and promptly collapse on the ground.
-Okay, so this is just how they met, and the accident came later... right... she wouldn't necessarily expect him to remember her name... or at least not that strongly...
My family...?
-Ah, yes... I thought they just hadn't made it initially, but now I realize that BY NOW they should have shown up... this will be interesting... I suspect that they told him to just stick to weather work (or maybe a much safer and more profitable and/or "respectable" carrier)...