Waking Up

by Paladin-mlp

Learning to Fly

Falling… you come to your senses only to realize that you were falling. You instinctively try to spread your wings to try to catch yourself, but they feel bound. The falling sensation begins to hit your stomach, filling you with nausea. Fear once again begins to grip you, and as you do the wind begins to hit your face even faster. You look down to see how far away from the ground you are, but you see only grey clouds in a dark sky.

Something seems familiar, this has happened to you before, you remember falling several times during your dreams. But this time was different, you had been falling for quite a while, but you have not waken up.

You begin to relax as you come to the realization that you are not actually falling but are in a dream. Yet a lingering fear still exists in the back of your mind, knowing that something is wrong…

“H-Hello?”

You speak out into the windy dark sky, barely able to hear yourself over the howling winds.

“H-hello, is anyone there?”

You try to make sense of what is going on. You remember something about quicksand, and a dark mysterious mare, and a blue aura. She kept asking questions, asking who you were.

“W-who am I?” You ask yourself, then memories of your inquisition within the quick sand hauntingly come back to you

“M-Moon Glider, from Equestria, my n-name is Moon Glider…”

“Yes it is.” The familiar voice of the mare replies. “Now listen to me Moon Glider, I need you to focus and remain calm, can you do this for me?”

You nod your head.

“You need to stop yourself from falling, you are a pegasus, FLY!”

“B-B-but my wings…”

“What about them?”

“I ca-ca-can’t move them.”

“Yes you can! Focus! Start with your right wing!”

Your mind focuses to your right wing, you can feel the wind blowing against your feathers. You try to extend it, but it feels painfully stiff.

“Extend your wing!”

A jolt of pain hits your wing, but you manage to extend it slightly,

“Further!”

The wind begins to fall under you right wing, suddenly it becomes easier to extend.

“Almost there Moon Glider!”

The pain and stiffness is still present but you manage to fully extend your wind. However with only one wing extended you begin to spin in a downwards spiral. Nausea and panic begins to grip you.

“Quickly, extend your left wing!”

Between the pain of trying to open you wing and the dizziness from falling at high speeds, you begin to black out.

“THOU SHALL NOT!”

The mare violently slaps you across the face with her blue aura. The taste of blood fills your mouth, after a few seconds of recovering from the pain and shock of the slap you open your eyes and realize that you are still in a downward spiral.

Memories flood you mind, learning to fly for the first time, taking that first plunge. You have been in free falls before, you recovered from free falls before. You attempt to extend your left wing, the stiffness and pain are no longer as severe. With both wings extended you can feel the wind passing along your feathers. The stiffness and pain is still present whenever you try to adjust your wings, but it is manageable. You begin to stabilize out of your spiral, rocky at first but eventually you are able to maintain a continuous glide. You are no longer falling, you are instead gliding along with the wind.

A blurry figure of a mare glides beside you.

“Nicely done! I knew you could do it!” The mare says in glee.

A drop of blood drips from your mouth. The mare pauses and then speaks in an apologetic tone.

”I’m sorry I struck you, we could not risk another collapse like last time.”

The taste of blood still fresh in your mouth, your tongue moves against one of your molars, which is now loose.

“N-no worries, I b-barely f-felt a thing…” You say with a smirk as you spit out the excess blood which built up in your mouth.

The mare let out a surprised chuckle, but her tone quickly became more serious.

“Night Glider, you’ve been in an accident, you are currently stuck inside of a coma.”

Memories of fear and pain begin to overtake you and a jolt of blackness temporarily strikes your vision.

“Remember what I said Moon Glider!” The mare yells. “Focus! Do not let the fear overtake you again!”

The stern voice of the mare frightens you at first, but the realization of the statement begins to set in, you begin to calm down.

“BETTER, better…”

The voice replies becoming noticeably calmer.

“Do you know who I am Moon Glider?”

You gaze at the dark mare beside you, but cannot make it out, the image is too blurry.

“N-n-no, I can b-barely see you.”

“Hold on, I can help with that.”

The blue aura beings to shine brightly, a dark blue horn becomes apparent in view. Your eyes trace the horn to a face, it’s still blurry but you can tell that it is the face of a mare, but not a normal looking mare… The aura continues to illuminate, and you being to see the rest of her body, very sleek and thin compared to the bodies of other ponies. You notice a set of wings on her body.

“A-alicorn, Y-you’re an alicorn!”

“Correct! Do you know my name? “

The aura continues to illuminate, and you can see a crescent moon on here flank. You come to a startling realization.

“N-NIGHTMARE MOON! YOU’RE NIGHTMARE MOON!”

Memories of being a colt and listening to horror stories about Nightmare Moon flood your mind. Fear begins to overtake you again and another jolt of blackness strikes your vision.

“P-PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!”

You notice the mare making a saddened and disappointed expression on her face.

“Moon Glider…”

The mare says in a dour tone.

Your mind begins to process her expression and tone, and suddenly a sting of memories floods your mind. The fear turns to embarrassment,

“F-fuck me... I-I’m s-s-so s-sorry, Princess L-L-Luna…”

Luna lets out a sigh.

“It is ok, I get that a lot, especially when I am trying to help foals overcome their nightmares…”

You can’t help but make an embarrassed smirk due to this situation of insulting the immortal-all powerful-co-ruler of Equestria. Luna notices your smirk and makes a grin of her own.

“EASY Moon Glider, let’s not get too carried away…”

You bite your tongue, the still present blood in your mouth reminds you to know your place among this goddess.

“Given the circumstances I suppose your show of humor is a good sign. Perhaps the damage isn’t as extensive as I previously thought.”

From that statement the humor of the situation immediately fades.

“H-How bad… H-how bad is the d-d-damage?”

“It was significant… but you are making a strong recovery, both physically and mentally.”

“D-d-did I always have this s-s-stu…stu…”

Grief strikes you before you can attempt to finish you sentence. Tears being to form in your eyes.

“No… this stutter was not present prior to the accident. However, your medical records indicate you had a minor speech impairment when you were young, but this was overcome with the help of a speech therapist.”

Memories flicker in the back of your mind, reciting flash cards over and over again with an, old, kind mare…

“The return of this impairment may be due to the brain damage you suffered… or perhaps trauma of the accident caused you to revert to an older state of mind.”

Luna sees your dismay.

”We are going to get through this, OK?”

You shake the tears from your face and look the mare in the eyes. Princess Luna is here to help you, if anyone was able to help you, it was her.

“Thank you Princess.” You say to her, a glimmer of hope in your voice.

“Luna… please just call me Luna…” The mare replies.

“Luna, yeah, you got it…”

Another thought crosses your mind; you look down at your legs. You can see them, but as you attempt to move them, they appear motionless.

“M-m-my legs… what ha-hap… what h-happened to them?”

A bleak expression fills Luna’s face; you could tell she was choosing her next few words carefully.

“Your legs suffered extensive damage after the fall…”

“W-why c-can’t I f-feel them?!”

You worryingly ask Luna, although the look on her face has already answered your question. Luna’s face becomes blurry due to the tears building up in your eyes.

“Moon Glider, before I answer that question I’m going to need you to listen to what I say, do you understand?”

You pause, still caught up in grief.

“MOON GLIDER!?”

“Y-yes…”

“GOOD… now… You are currently located in the manifestation of a memory located deep within your subconscious. I can only reach you when you have consciousness within one of these memories. If this memory were to collapse, I will not be able to re-enter your mind until you regain another memory is manifested, which can be… awhile…”

You divert your gaze from the mare to the infinite dark horizon ahead of you.

“This m-memory was from the ac-acc-acc…”

The horizon begins to illuminate before your eyes, you can see a skyline of Canterlot coming into view. You can feel your head nodding off. Black flashes begin to strike your vison again…

“Moon Glider, relax! Look at me Moon Glider!”

Your gaze returns to Luna.

“Episodes of intense pain and emotion can cause a memory to collapse, so I need you to relax and focus!”

Luna’s face begins to fade from view…

“MOON GLIDER. REMEMBER, RELAX! FOCUS!”

A bright light from in front of you distracts your gaze from Luna, directly ahead of you is the city street, you are flying directly into it. The fear of reliving this experience takes hold of you, as the street rapidly get closer and closer there is nothing you can do but hopelessly watch.

Luna, realizing another collapse is imminent, attempts to yells one last time, but before she can you slam into the city street, and blackness overtakes everything.