Fly By Night

Normally Little liked to lounge in bed even after she’d woken up. But with a guest in her house she rose as soon as she was conscious and set toward the kitchen to ensure it was clean. She was mentally congratulating herself for being so foresighted as she heard Sour walking toward her. But when she looked up and saw her face, she reared back.

“Sour? Are you all right? Was there something wrong in the room?”

“The room was lovely. Just wonderful.” It seemed like genuine gratitude in her voice, but she lowered it quickly. “But I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night, thank you very much. These parts that I didn’t even have yesterday kept screwing me up.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” Little ran over and draped Sour’s neck over hers. “Come over to the couch and lie down there.”

“Thanks a lot. Don’t see how that’ll be any more comfortable, and it’s daylight now.”

Little was only half listening as she dragged Sour to the sofa. “What a bad hostess I am. I should have stayed to make sure you were sleeping. Wait here, I won’t be a moment.” She ran out and galloped down to the apartment below.

“Please let her be in…and alone.” Little said to herself as she knocked on the door. The apartment’s occupant, Moon Sailor, was Little’s best pegasus friend, and indeed the only pegasus pony who she was close enough to that she could impose so early in the morning. But she worked on long-haul deliveries, and when she was in, she often liked to invite other ponies to her place to spend the night. After just enough time for Little to get worried, she heard hooves shuffling to the door and the latch opening. “Thank Celestia, you’re here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember I told you about hosting someone from the other world? She’s here and she’s a pegasus and she couldn’t sleep because of her wings and I don’t know what to do!”

“Calm down.” Moon extended a wing to smooth Little’s mane. “A lost night’s sleep is…nothing to lose sleep over. Let me come up and see what I can do to help. And by the way, I remembered that you were having the visitor from the other world, and arranged it to be here for you.”

“You’re a good friend.” They were already back at Little’s place when she said this, and Sour might have overheard.

Sour had not moved from her spot on the couch, and Moon took one look at her. “Little, why don’t you see what you can do about breakfast? Gar’s probably up by now, he’ll cook for us if you ask nicely. I think we’re all going to want a nice meal.” Little nodded and left. “Now, dear. What’s your name?”

“Sour Sweet.”

“And you had a bad time last night, I understand.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get to sleep at all.”

Moon nodded her head. She seemed to be thinking something over. “Well, in the meantime, let me see what I can teach you about your wings. It looks to me like you’re trying to use them like your forehooves. They’re not for grabbing things, you know.”

Sour had her wings in a kind of curl, neither open nor closed, reaching toward her head. “Then how?”

“They’re wings, you’re supposed to fly with—we’ll talk more later, here are Little and Garlic back.”

Little escorted in a burgundy red stallion with a white fringe on his mane. Sour flopped onto her feet again. “This is Reggie’s brother Garlic,” Little said, “who will make us breakfast. He’s a great cook. Garlic, this is Sour Sweet, from the other world.”

He didn’t say anything, but gave Sour a nod and went right for the kitchen. Little let Moon continue her bonding with Sour while she went to wake up Reggie. Within a few minutes, the five of them sat at the breakfast table.

“Well, it’s a little late,” said Reggie, “but now we can show off where we live. This is one of the nicest buildings in Manehattan, if I do say so myself.”

“Manehattan? Oh, because ponies have manes. What a clever bon mot!” Sour’s smile fell. “If your idea of clever is cheap puns.”

The change in her tone caused everypony to stop eating for a moment. But Little, trying to maintain bonhomie, waved her hoof toward the window. “Isn’t the park nice from up here? You can see all the way over to the hill where we were yesterday. Would you like to go back, or is there some other part of the city you’d like to see?”

“I’d love to see any part of it you’d care to show me…being that I can barely get around at all in this world full of freaky unnatural talking horses.”

Across the table, the two stallions made eye contact, nodded, and then each busted out with a bellowing belly laugh.

Moon put down her fork. “What’s so—Oh! Yeah, she’s exactly like her, only in reverse.”

“What are you all laughing at?” Sour was now getting angry with taking the time to first say something nice.

Little tried to explain, but then she too got the giggles. It was Garlic who recovered first. “Sorry, we’re not laughing at you. More that we’re laughing at an image. We have a friend who lives in Canterlot, her name’s Hoof Dame. So often she’ll say something with a sharp tongue, but then afterward mellow what she said by being extra-nice. You’re kind-of the opposite. So we’re all imagining what would happen if the two of you met and had a conversation. We’ve got to send her a letter and tell her to come out here. I think you’d like her, honestly. She’s a very proper mare, and we usually give her reason to be annoyed with us.

“I’m going to write her now. Excuse me.” Little floated her napkin to her mouth, but then galloped off to a side room.

“I’m really not trying to be a pain,” Sour said. “And I’m still getting used to not saying whatever’s on my mind regardless of who it hurts. Honestly I think that Little just made a bad first impression, and I’m having issues adjusting to this world. The rest of you aren’t so bad, for ponies.”

Reggie began clearing away the breakfast dishes, balancing them on his back. “I know what you mean. When I first met her she came across as very forward. But she does that to cover up how nervous she is. It may take you a while to figure it out, but she has some hidden depths. I think everypony does.”

“Well, I think that you’re all ignoring something important.” Moon pounded her hoof on the table. “And that’s the fact that Sour didn’t get any sleep last night. Anypony would be cranky after a bad night’s sleep. What we ought to be doing is going out of our way to keep things nice and slow for her. We’re treating her as a pony when, despite her appearance, she’s a foreigner.”

Sour gave a wan smile at Moon, who realized that she was the best choice to ease Sour into the Equestrian way of life.

“I am still very tired, but I’ll make it through the day. Maybe tonight Little can zap me with a sleep spell. She could do that as a unicorn, right?”

All the ponies stared at her. Again it was Garlic who found his voice first. “No way. She can explain it to you better—or maybe not, she really isn’t good at explaining magic—but she’s always saying that she never casts spells that affect a pony’s mind. It’s dangerous. I don’t know if a sleep spell would mean you’d never wake up, but I’m sure she won’t risk it.”

“Oh. Well, it’s good to know that there are restrictions on magic. I’m guessing there are no love spells or philtres.”

“No, love spells affect the heart, not the head. Love spells are easy. One of the princesses even specializes in them, spreading love wherever she goes. True love is one of the easiest things to create by magic.”

Sour threw up her hooves, admitting that she understood nothing about Equestria. Right at that moment Little emerged from her study, rushed outside to drop the letter she had into a mail slot, and rejoined the others.

“What’d I miss?”

“We were just telling Sour that you can’t do sleep spells.”

“Oh. Yeah, those are bad. They, just…no. When Hoof Dame gets here, she can explain it better than me.”

“Is she a unicorn too?” Sour got back onto the couch. “Maybe she knows what she’s doing.”

Little resolved not to let Sour’s words get to her. “She’s very good at magic. But there’s no way she can get here before tomorrow. So what would you like to do?”

“I don’t know, what would you normally do on a day like this?”

“I’d be working. But if I had a day off, I would probably have made plans with my friends. You weren’t here, though, so I didn’t do that.”

Sour huffed. “You’re so active! Don’t you ever just, you know, chill?”

“Of course we do.” Moon nudged Little out of the way with her wing. “Why don’t you come over to my place for a while? Reggie and Little’s balcony is higher, but mine has a chaise longue that’s just made for pegasi.”

“That sounds great. I’m sure Little won’t mind…right.” It wasn’t a question, and Sour was already making her way to the door.

“Actually, I take the direct route. Why not try gliding down with me? I’ll catch you if you have trouble.”

Sour showed fear for the first time, but she swallowed it and stuck out her chin. She followed Moon out to the terrace. “OK, how do I do this?”

“My balcony’s the one right below us.” She flew a few feet off and beckoned Sour to the ledge. “Here’s your first flying lesson. Look down.”

“Look down? I thought I was supposed to not look down.”

“No, look down.” Sour did, and the balconies of all the lower apartments gave a tunnel effect that made it appear quite far indeed. “Now look up. So you’ve looked down. And now you know what down looks like. So there’s not going to be any reason to look down again. If you’re tempted to look down, you’re going to say to yourself, ‘I don’t need to look down, because I can just remember what I saw.’ Got it?”

“Got it.”

“So you’re going to spread your wings, lean forward, give two big pumps, then turn around. Don’t try to turn with your wings yet. Just pretend you’re walking and you forgot something, so you have to go back. Remember, you’re not a bird. You’re flying by pegasus magic, not aerodynamics. So once you’ve turned, you’re going to keep your wings spread wide. Just having them out will slow your descent and give you time to adjust.”

“Don’t instruct me too much, or I won’t remember any of this.”

“That’s the pegasus spirit! Let’s go!” Moon turned three-sixty, and Sour understood that she was showing her the move. She had a moment of trepidation as she leaned over the railing, but she stared forward.

I am a Crystal Prep Shadowbolt. I represent my school and I will not show myself a failure in front of these ponies! She felt her center of gravity shift past the point of no return. One pump, two pumps. There was nothing but sky in front of her, and her instinct was to look down for visual context. Then she remembered that down was unhelpful. Time to make the turn.

Sour led with her head, snaking her body around in what she hoped was grace. Her wings met wind resistance, and she realized that in the future she would have to learn when to pull them inward for moves like this. But now she needed to finish the simple move. The building came into view, and there was Moon, landing on the balcony below and quick-turning in case she had to rescue Sour.

Doing some quick mental geometry, Sour figured that she was too far out. Moon had gone in at a forty-five degree angle, and if she did the same, her lower half would hit the rail. She could make it over, but not cleanly. Her reflexes made her stretch upward, and this did seem to give her extra height. Time to go. She leaned in.

She saw that she’d overcorrected. Her angle was shallower than Moon’s, and so now she feared bumping her head on the bottom of Little’s balcony. Although she had been told to keep her wings spread, she had to lose altitude. As soon as she made to bring them back to her body, she felt gravity take hold. She no longer had time to think. One hoof ticked the rail as the other missed it. She spun to her left, went down on all fours, and slid to a halt right before hitting the doors to Moon’s apartment.

“Nice move! You’re gonna be a great flyer. How did it feel?”

“I think I understand. This body…it wants to be in the air. It was the first time I felt like myself since I got here.”
Moon nodded. “So are you still looking to relax?”

“I’m all wired up on the adrenalin.” Sour looked at Moon and saw satisfaction. “But I still think I should take it easy.” She flopped onto the chaise and folded her wings, but one leg slipped off and bounced repeatedly on the ground.

Reading that Sour was being contrary, Moon backed off and landed in her own chaise longue. For a minute or so there was silence.

“So right now you’re on the west side of Manehattan.” Moon spoke in a monotone, which was difficult for her. “This side of the complex overlooks Celestial Park, which runs twenty blocks either way. I used to have an apartment on the other side of the building. On nice days you can see the water, but this view is much better. Actually, if you crane your neck here you can see the pond and the reservoir over to the left. The other nice thing about having the park view is that the sun sets behind you. It means it’s not in my face when I go to bed. Although usually I stay up past dark. Then it comes up over the park and wakes me gently.

“I think you get the impression that Little isn’t very compatible with you. But if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have this nice place to live. I’m just a courier, and I lucked into this building back when they didn’t realize how centrally located it was. Ponies refused to let the entire grasslands of Manehattan be overrun by buildings, so we have the park.”

She looked over at Sour, saw that her eyes were drooping.

“And then, of course, at this time of day, the sun’s overhead, If you lean back, the sunbeams dance around your eyes, you can feel the love of Celestia in the warmth, like you could become one with all of Equestria.”

“Who’s –lestia?” Sour muttered, but Moon didn’t answer. After a few more minutes she flew back up and knocked on Little’s sliding door.

“What’s going on? Is Sour all right?”

“Sour Sweet is fine, and I think we should use her full name whenever possible. She’s sleeping now, and I guess she’ll be well rested when she gets up. That’s an old pegasus trick when you’re on a long journey. If you can get a shot of adrenalin and then grab a nap, then you’ll be fully awake when you get up.”

Little fretted. “I should have had you in on this from the beginning. I’ve botched everything.”

“No you haven’t. You didn’t expect her to be a pegasus pony. I’d be just as out of place with a unicorn.”

“But now my next plan isn’t going to work either.” She thrust a piece of paper in Moon’s face. “Hoof Dame says she can’t make it out here. Too much to do in Canterlot. Maybe in a couple days, but add in travel time…”

“I see what you mean. Only one thing for it, then.”

“What’s that?”

“Road trip.”

*****

Sour came around thinking that she was still asleep. All she could see was the pale blue of the sky. She breathed deeply a few times, trying to force oxygen to her brain. The skin of her face felt like it was pasted to her skull. Finally she remembered where she was and what had happened.

She reviewed her situation. Moon was nice to her, understood her. Little did not. That wasn’t her fault; she was a flighty pony. The two stallions Sour didn’t quite understand yet. Reggie tried but he was under the thumb of his wife, or would be if she had thumbs. But his brother was a blank to her still.

From inside the house she heard voices and placed them at once. Little had a high lilt that would have been pleasant in most cases. Moon’s voice was less distinct, but her rapid-fire delivery gave her speech a cadence.

“Space is at a premium, Moon, and unless you want to fly the whole way—“

“Bells and bongos, Little!” Sour heard her swear, and was amused at the colorful way she did it. “Just because all you have is some cord to bring with you—“

“You’re going to wake up Sour.”

“No, it’s all right,” Sour said, “I was up anyway. I didn’t realize I was going to sleep the day away.”

“You needed it, dear,” said Moon.

“Yes, Sour…Sweet.” Little tacked on her surname.

“No, it’s fine, I feel refreshed. Of course, I’m going to be up all night from it. Never mind. What’s going on?”

“We’ve decided that we’re going to take a road trip across Equestria. This way you can see all the sights, not just Manehattan. I think that’s enough, but I’m biased. Plus you can meet my friend from Canterlot who I mentioned.”

“And what are you arguing about with Moon? Because whatever it is, I’m sure you’re wrong.”

“My cart is a fairly large one, but we still can’t fit in everything, especially with five ponies, and Moon’s d—“

“Oh, for Luna’s sake!” Moon put a wing in front of Little’s mouth. “Let us have one or two surprises. If we can pull it off at all given how little space there is.”

“OK, fine. You work on getting everything boxed up. Sour Sweet, would you like to see the cart?”

“Sure, why not? Nothing better to do now that the sun’s down.”

Little led her into the hall and back to the elevator. Sour noticed how the lift was controlled with a lever instead of buttons, which made sense as ponies would have trouble pushing the small buttons.

“Did you know that elevators were a key to getting tall buildings made? There used to be very few of them because only pegasi could get up high enough. Once we had elevators though then everypony could use them.”

Sour had heard something similar in her own world, minus the thing about pegasi of course. “That’s absolutely fascinating! If I didn’t already know.”

The rest of the elevator ride was silent. Little stopped them at the second floor, and they emerged into a dimly lit stone room supported only with pillars. Sour could see a few hay-carts around in marked spaces, but they barely looked big enough to hold one pony’s baggage, let alone five.

Little made a sharp turn right as they got out and went behind the elevator shaft. As Sour followed, she saw a much bigger cart. Although still made of wood, it was the size of some of the larger SUVs that Sour had seen.

The back of it had a tailgate that dropped, and Reggie was there loading up some black cases that Sour couldn’t identify.

“Hey, hon. Sour Sweet, how’s it going?”

“Hi.” Sour hoped that small talk was the same in both worlds, and she would not actually be required to answer.

“How’s it looking?” asked Little. “Don’t forget, we’ve got to get a lot of food and water and other stuff in here.”

“I’ll manage. We’ll be able to restock in Canterlot and a couple other places, if we’re going all across Equestria.”

Sour smiled as a thought hit her, how beneficial this would be. Little and Reggie were discussing the logistics of the trip, but for Sour it felt like a weight had lifted off her. She hovered a little, still wanting to use her newfound flight skills.

“Sour Sweet,” Little said, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you sure you want to do this? I think it would be interesting, but if you really just want to sit and relax, we’ll do that and smile about it.”

“No, this really is beneficial. Oh, and thanks for getting my name right finally.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re up for it.”

Reggie slammed the tailgate closed. “Wait, what did you mean, beneficial? You didn’t say fun or exciting.”

“OK, so as part of this exchange thing, I have to write an essay for Dean Cadance about my trip, and I was afraid I’d have to come up with a whole progression of what I learned over the summer. But if we’re on the road, I can just write, like, ‘We went here, we saw this, we went there, we did that’ and so on.”

“What?!” Sour jumped back, spreading her wings defensively. Reggie had gotten angry, and the only reason she could think of was that he was upset at her for finding a shortcut on her assignment. She scowled at him. Who was this pony to criticize? But then he stomped in a circle, sometimes causing little cracks in the mortar holding the stone together. “I can’t believe that they would send you on a vacation and expect you to do schoolwork on it. Are you deficient in composition or penmanship?”

“No, I—“

“Even if you were, it’s still no excuse for twisting what should be a happy time by inflicting you with the specter of an assignment to be done. If I had this dean of yours here I would give her a piece of my mind. As it is…” He stopped pacing and faced Sour straight on. “I am going to write your essay for you on our journey. You may need to copy it in your own—but no, we can just say that your penmanship changed when writing in our world.”

“I’m grateful…even if it is cheating.” Sour wasn’t sure what to think now.

“It isn’t cheating. And this discussion is closed.” Reggie stormed back to the elevator.

With the sound of the closing door echoing through the cavernous room, Sour stood alone with Little.

“Didn’t I tell you he was a great guy?” Little said. “He can be lazy, but when the time comes to take control, there’s no one who’ll work harder. Believe me, you’re going to have a great essay to give your teacher.”

“I’m grateful,” she said again.

Little stared at her with a shaky smile.

“What’s wrong?” Sour asked.

“I’m waiting for the counterpoint. You always amend every positive statement with a negative one.”

“Well, I don’t have one. Reggie is being incredibly generous. It’s a nice mentality to have, that homework on vacation is bad. I just had never heard it from an adult. Even if they agreed, they’d still have made me write the essay because it’s none of their business to help me put one over on the dean.”

“Oh, Sour Sweet, it’s everypony’s business to help.” The elevator returned and Little led her back to it. “Would you like to help us pack the cart?”

“All right.”

It wasn’t until they stepped into the hall that Sour realized that, although they had returned to the same floor that they came from, that wasn’t Little’s and Reggie’s place, but was the floor below. Little bypassed Moon’s apartment though and went further down the hall. She knocked on the next door, but let herself in without waiting for a response.

“Hey, Garlic! We’re here to get the food.”

Sour entered the apartment. Little’s had been opulently decorated, with lots of plush velvet and dark wood furniture. Moon’s was more spartan, the furniture consisting of more lines than curves. Now she saw Garlic’s and tried to gauge him. It was bare like Moon’s, but it was clearly a bachelor pad. There was no integrated sense of design. Some of the chairs were just crates.

But she could see where his effort went: to the kitchen. It was brilliantly lit, spotless as a hospital, and consisted of nothing but black, white, and silver. By taking the iPhone aesthetic and adding chrome, Garlic had been able to make a unified modern and classic room. Indeed, Sour saw that the shabbiness of the rest of the apartment only served to offset the splendor of the kitchen.

“That’s great!,” Garlic said. “You and Reggie can…oh, hi, Sour.”

Little cleared her throat aggressively.

“Right, so Little if you want to get these trays down to the cart, I’ll bring the cold stuff.”

Garlic had some foil-lined trays that Sour might have expected to see at a catered affair, and she could smell tasty things that she couldn’t identify.

“Sour Sweet can take some stuff too,” Little said.

He looked down at Sour’s hooves. “It would be really helpful if she spread fresh straw and hay on the cart floor. I’m sure there’s some in the bin.”

Sour realized that he didn’t think that she could carry the trays without dropping them, and was patronizing her to be polite. She wondered if he didn’t have a point, but who was he to make that call? Wasn’t she an athlete skilled in balance? Besides, her back was much wider as a pony, and she had seen the others carry things there.

One tray was on the counter waiting to go, so, asking no permission, she sidled over to it and swept it onto her back with her right wing.

She could feel it teetering to the right, but her wing held it in place and it wasn’t moving toward the back, which was important. Turning up her nose, she made for the elevator. Little came after, floating more trays in her magic.

Back down at the cart, Sour realized that she had no plan for getting the tray off her back, but Little moved it herself by magic on top of the others. “We should spread fresh hay here, even though…oh, but I’ll save that surprise too.” She floated some straw from a wooden bin that stood by the exit. Sour jumped in the cart and kicked it until it was fairly even.

“How’s that?”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll have pillows as well. OK, I think that’s good for now. We’ll move Moon’s stuff in the morning.” Little yawned. “I’m ready to turn in.”

“Not me. I slept all day.”

“You can go back to Moon’s. She’s a night owl anyway. You can stay up and talk or practice flying.”

Sour turned away and rolled her eyes. Well, that was the type of pony Little was. Sour didn’t mind getting a good night’s sleep, but she was a teenager. Night was the time for fun.

She took control as they entered the lift, moving the lever up to the second floor from the top and leaving Little there with no more than a wave goodnight.

In Moon’s apartment, there were many large black boxes stacked by the door. “Great! You’re back. You can help me get all this in the cart.”

“What is it all?”

“You’ll find out eventually. Here, hump some of these on your back.”

It was a refreshing change from how Garlic had treated her. The boxes were heavier, but Moon trusted her. They made two trips down and up, and the foyer looked a lot barer.

“I think we’re all set to go in the morning,” Moon said. “What now? Do you like to read? I have a few books but Garlic has more and I could borrow some.”

“Not really. If I were home and I was going out early the next day I’d just be chilling in front of the TV or on the phone with friends. But I guess you don’t have TV or phones.”

“Don’t know. What are they?”

Sour gave a brief explanation. “…and we can watch videos on the phone too.”

“Oh! You mean like recording. A while ago Twilight Sparkle figured out how to record and play back. I don’t know if Little knows how to do it, but there may be a way to freeze them and let non-unicorns use them. I’ll ask in the morning. We can take some on the cart trip so we have something to do.”

“Cool. But what’re we going to do now?”

“Night flying?”

“Sweet!”

Sour followed Moon to the window. It was fully dark now, with only the moonlight letting them see. She absorbed everything Moon could tell her. After a good hour of practice, the city was silent, as everypony had closed their lights and curtains.

The two pegasi stayed up most of the rest of the night getting to know each other. Sour did most of the talking, retelling the story of how one of her classmates had ripped portals to Equestria and she had almost fallen through, and then how that classmate had gone mad with power and needed Sunset Shimmer to save her. Dawn was breaking when they finished.

“Now I’m going to conk out again today,” Sour said at the finish. “Though I don’t feel tired like I did yesterday.”

“Maybe you will, but I think you’re getting adjusted. Ponies only need sleep for five hours or so, and we can get by on four. Once we get out of the city, you might sleep, but you won’t want to miss the trip out.”

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