Northland

by Celefin

Western Sea Cliffs - Flight

Dawn was freezing, but he didn't care. The wind had turned and picked up during the day and now drove long lines of grey clouds over Orkney’s western coastline. Illuminated from behind by the low hanging sun, scattered showers fell onto the great expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Like little curtains they connected the darkening sky with the greyish blue waters.

He stood on the edge of the reddish sandstone cliffs of Neban Point, some fifty yards above the waves. The strengthening northwesterly wind bit into his coat and drenched him in salty spray from the breakers below. Dawn stared down into the frothing water. His eyes stung, but he didn't care.

Droplets of seawater ran down from his bruised muzzle to his chin where they were whipped away by the wind. Scratches covered his dirtied legs. They still shook from the exertion of a six mile gallop over the open moorland against a stiff headwind. His skin burned, but he didn't care.

The thunder and hiss of the waves blunted the pain, like it always had and always would. This spot was his place and his place alone. Maybe one day the great sea that tirelessly threw itself at his vantage point would even swallow himself.

He’d had these dark thoughts since he could remember, but for the first time in his life they felt wrong. Ever since father had begun to groom him for leadership, the lure of the waves had grown. The vastness of the ocean had promised freedom.

But father was gone, the ever growing pressure replaced by a different burden. A burden that didn’t cast a an ever darkening shadow but came with responsibility instead. For the first time in his life, others depended on him. Others counted on him. So many things would fall into disarray. So many things would be left undone.

For the first time in his life he felt revolted by the thought of taking this easy way out. Dawn stepped back from the brink. He felt sick. He cared.

If there was one thing father had been fond of on these islands, it was the cliffs at Yesnaby a few miles to the north. He’d always insisted on going alone and that no one else should visit the spot.

There had always been a bleakness about father. Had father once stood at Yesnaby’s cliffs like he himself stood here at Neban Point, entertaining the same dark thoughts? Had the waves called to him too, enticing him to take that step? Had the thoughts about responsibility stopped him as well?

Dawn had never asked. Neither had mother. You didn't ask father about things of the distant past. You wanted neither that empty look nor that glare directed at yourself. You didn't want that awkward silence after mother had shushed you.

Maybe father had found that ultimate freedom out there. Found the will to go on because of it. Flight.

Dawn remembered all too well. Running and flapping and jumping from rocks countless times in an attempt to at least glide. Tumbling down hills again and again. Was it even possible to learn it that way or did you need the strong seawind under your wings at first?

Dawn looked down on the white water once more and shuddered. Looked up at the speeding clouds, imagining himself amongst them. The gale was coming in from the seaward side. At worst, it would blow him a few yards back for another painful landing. Dawn spread his wings.

He drew a sharp breath when his left wing joint had to take the strain of holding the wing in position against the gusts. He retracted it in reflex. The wind gripped his other wing before he could fold it back up, turning him sideways.

Dawn slipped on the smooth surface. He fought to regain his balance, but only succeeded in spinning himself around in a half circle. He stumbled and landed on his side with a heavy thump. For a few moments he lay still, gulping for air and with his heart hammering in his chest. Below his left hind leg, there was only empty space.

Yet the wind still pushed in the other direction, so far preventing that last little slide. His vision shrank until the stone slabs right in front of him filled the whole world. There. Half a yard away there was a tiny splotch of colour, a flowering sea thrift. It sat in an otherwise hard to spot crack between two slabs.

Little by little, Dawn pulled his hind leg up onto the ledge again, holding his breath. He threw himself forward while snapping open his wings once more. It hurt, but he was moving. His right fore hoof found the little crack and gained purchase. Helped by the updraft catching his wings, he managed to drag himself to safety.

A herring gull's cry pierced the air as it floated along the cliffs on its large, silver grey wings. It spotted Dawn with its sharp yellow eyes and angled into a current that flung it back towards him. Gliding over the grey pony on the cliffside, the bird gazed down in curiosity. Its feathers fluttered in the headwind as it hovered in place, examining the strange horse. Those weren’t supposed to have wings.

The gull cocked its head at the possible competitor and let the currents lift it up another couple of yards. It retracted its wings into a v-shape and dove, skimming low over the stone slabs and the exhausted pegasus.

Dawn flared out his wings in surprise at the bird's unexpected challenge. The resulting drag lifted him off his hooves with a yelp and dropped him on the rocks a few yards further away. He tumbled to the ground, trailing feathers in the wind.

When Dawn lifted his spinning head, he could see the seagull hovering a little way off and showered the bird with profanities. It waggled its wings in response, pirouetted on an eddy and shot past him with a barrel roll. Its species' signature laugh-like cry carried back to him as it disappeared. Exhaustion soon replaced the anger and he let his head sink onto the stone, closing his eyes with a tired sigh. Just a few minutes.

The sound of hoofsteps close by jolted him awake.

“Shhh... awake? No danger,” a female voice spoke in heavily accented English.

Dawn rolled onto his belly to bring his hooves back under him and looked over his shoulder. Tribal. He gave a nervous snort.

“Am friend. Name is Buidhe. You hurt?”

“I- I don’t think so. Not really. And my name is Dawn.” ‘Bwee’? That didn’t sound tribal at all.

She seemed to take his short hesitation as a cue. “Let me help up.”

The mare gave him support as he hauled himself to his hooves with complaining, wobbly muscles. After shaking his head to clear the remaining drowsiness he turned around to get a look at his unexpected companion.

Dawn knew the northern tribes well enough to tell that she wasn't one of them. She was a pureblood Iceland horse and stood at least eight inches taller than him. Her ruffled coat was an earthen orange colour, as were her thick tail and long, wavy mane. South Ronaldsay maybe? He'd never met one of them in person, only seen them from afar. If she was, what was she doing this far west from their territory?

There was an amused glint in her gold brown eyes as she turned a little, giving him a better view of her graceful form. “You like?” she said with a smooth chuckle.

Dawn realised he'd been staring at her while sorting through his thoughts and turned his head away in embarrassment. He had no idea if he'd done something terribly improper or just amused her by acting like a colt. Father would have been so proud of you right now. His ears folded back at the unbidden thought and he shoved it away in irritation. He took a deep breath and sought eye contact with the mare again.

Bwee’s posture suggested she was having the same thoughts on proper etiquette. Her ears’ position alternated between splayed half sideways and back, and her right foreleg hovered a few inches above the ground. It looked as if she was about to turn away but was unsure if she should.

Dawn remembered that she would rely a lot more on body language than those of his Stromness herd. Their language was simpler than English after all and depended on gesturing to give meaning to many of the words. Right now he was giving a lot of conflicting clues. Inwardly he snarled at the next sarcastic comment his subconscious was about to provide him with, gritting his teeth as he smothered it.

“I... offended?” she inquired.

“What? No! I'm just-” He resisted the urge to press a wet and dirty hoof on the spot between his eyes. “Look-” He took a deep breath. “Please don't be offended when I screw this up. I’m not very good at this.”

She cocked her head in bewilderment.

Dawn concentrated. “[Can we beginning new some good place? There questions? Thirsty. Tired. Make foolish me but very thank you... Buidhe(?),]” he said in New Whinny. He hoped she’d understand him despite his bad pronunciation and lack of practical experience with the correct gesturing.

It was her turn to blink in surprise. “[I would like that, Dawn. There is a place near a stream a few canters east where you can clean up and rest. And my name is nice the way you say it,]” she answered with a smile.

“Now don't tell me how good I am at speaking your tongue,” he muttered in English.

“It was bad,” she confirmed with a nod.

He deflated, ears drooping. Then he noticed the glint in her eyes and sighed. “I asked for that one.”

“You did.”

They walked off to the east in silence, with Buidhe in the lead. Dawn was thankful he could focus on stumbling along behind her on his tired legs.

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

Now, I know you're distraught and all, Dawn. But seriously... there are far better places to consider practicing flying from. Rolling plains. A gentle slope of a grassy hills. From a tree top. Off the tallest building in town as an eagle cries and a bale of hay waits down below. Not the cliff over the tossing angry seas with jagged rocks waiting. Very dramatic and all, but not good for flying practice.

And secondly; please... stick to English. Buidhe is far better at it than you are with New Whinney. For shame. Keep her around to help you practice maybe?

---

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH NORTHLAND; WESTERN SEA CLIFFS: FLIGHT IN 250 WORDS OR LESS.
SPOILERS.
(OBVIOUSLY)

When he lifted his spinning head he could see the definitively smirking bird hovering a little way off and showered it with profanities. It waggled its wings in response, pirouetted on an eddy and shot past him and out of sight with a barrel roll and its species' signature laugh-like cry.

Seagulls are dicks to ponies. Not a sin, but we felt the need to point it out.

As he realized a moment later that he'd just been staring openly at her for half a minute while sorting through these thoughts, he quickly turned his head away with a fierce blush that was clearly visible on his up until now pale face.

Hero zones out while staring at the attractive potential love interest. *ding*

There was an amused glint in her gold brown eyes as she noticed his look and turned a little to give him a better view of her graceful form.

Scene does not contain a pony lap dance. *ding*

“Now don't tell me how good I am at speaking your tongue,” he muttered in English.

Hero makes a fool of himself speaking a second language cliche. *ding*

Oh, also; Hero considers trying to learn to fly in one of the most dangerous places to possibly try to learn to fly. *ding*

---

(This is actually kinda fun... XD)

[Celefin]

6353809

Seagulls are dicks to ponies

Seagulls are dicks to everyone. Seriously. They steal your sandwiches out of your hand, they terrorize you just because and they usually try to shit on you as well, not necessarily in that order. And they always laugh at you afterwards. Dawn only suffered one out of three. Lucky pony.
Also, good flying suggestions. Give him a break, he tried all that for years and wasn't exactly in a terribly rational state of mind. Hmm... could of course have ended the story right there in style. Blaze of glory and all that.

Hero zones out while staring at the attractive potential love interest. *ding*

Maybe he was just happy to finally find a native speaker? He did try right after, didn't he? Also I like Buidhe, he doesn't get a say in that.

(This is actually kinda fun... XD)

It's kinda painful, actually. Am I the only one who'll get this treatment? Anyway, do continue.

I think I avoided a whole bunch of *dings* because of your efforts though and the chapter became a lot shorter but also a lot better: I cut out the already half-written obligatory, mediocre dramatic dream sequence that does absolutely nothing for the plot. So... sad thanks?

[Seeking Dusk]

6354018 Nah, I'm gonna start going it on all the Side Stories I pay a whole lot of attention to. It's because I love you. Remember too, sins aren't necessarily bad things. It's often all the things I laughed at and appreciated in the story. Sorry if it seems mean. I do it because I care. (Honestly, it took a while to find all those, and it was being nitpicky on little things.)

I'm waiting for Bluey to actually get his story out so I can start on him! Him I'd be doing to be a slight bit mean. Just a bit. But I'm mainly doing it for friends who hopefully won't take it badly.

And I give him all the breaks. Robin's first flying attempt won't be pretty. At all. I consider Robin an idiot for going it. So does Jade.

[Celefin]

6354143

Sorry if it seems mean. I do it because I care.

Constructive criticism is never pleasant but always helpful. And your cinema-sinning is a novel way to deliver ;)
So it's not mean. Mean is saying 'you suck and your story sucks'.
The only thing that really irritates me -apart from Herring Gulls- is the immediate (max 5 minutes) additional downvote 'Northland' gets every single time I update it. Maybe it's a Herring Gull. Should be a way to prevent your story being bumped to the main page under 'updated stories'... still, I'm happy. Expected a 50/50 ratio for something this far out.

As I said, I actually changed the chapter because of your last sin count. The dream sequence was melted down to one sentence at the beginning of the chapter and had a lot more impact on the scene than the original two dramatic pages could have had by leaving everything up to the reader to imagine (or not, if so inclined). Best advice for authors: kill your babies (Figuratively. Mostly. Well, don't have any!). Your comments are already changing the story because you add a new perspective. Writing with radio silence gets frustrating and also limits creativity in my experience.
So... do go on please. Will I regret this statement? Probably.
Will I ever be able to write responses of less than essay length? Probably not.

Addendum:

Robin's first flying attempt won't be pretty.

I want to read about that. Soon. Pwetty pwease.

[Seeking Dusk]

6354263 I'm working on it. I am horrible at writing feels and the next chapter should have some in it, so it's slowing my writing even more than usual. I've been dancing around actually working on it. Worse since I have the entire chapter detailed and literally just need to write the thing. It doesn't help that I kinda packed a lot of stuff happening into the chapter and I'm not ready to go multi chapter days yet... maybe I should. *sighs*

[Celefin]

6354322 If I can have some light hearted action from Limestone, you can have some feels from Northland.
And you should go multi chapter. I broke this one up because it feels right and gives a real break for the change of scenery to come, even though the timeline isn't progressing much more than the usual '***' hour or so. Hence the next won't be a 'Dear ---' but another one like Sea Cliffs.
Hopefully you'll get over that block and maybe just fill some crap into those chapter details. As the saying goes, 'you can't edit empty pages'. The final version of 'Dear Mother' had very little in common with the first one. Thankfully.
*settles down and waits for more Alategus adventures*

[Fistfire]

6353809 ROFL