The Adventures of Us.

by Wind of the Skies

Chapter 8

We fly quickly through the city narrowly missing several ponies going about their lives. “Sorry!” I shout down at one I had almost hit. I push myself faster until I am almost neck in neck with her and she smirks at me as I roll aside to avoid a pillar. I flap hard to make up for the momentum I lost and manage to get next to her again.

“We’re here!” She flares her wings out and stops suddenly. I immediately try to stop and flip several times from a misstep in flaring my wings. When I stop I’m looking dizzily up at her.

“Whoops.” My eyes roll around as I shakily stand up. She steadies me with a hoof to my shoulder.

“Well. You did good. Let’s get some pie.” I nod at her suggestion and she leads me inside and sits me down at a table. After she’s done shoving me into one side of the booth she sits down across from me.

“What would you folks like to drink?” A very stealthy waiter asks us and I jump.

“Water please.” I answer quietly. Fleetfoot snorts and rolls her eyes.

“Ignore them. Two blueberry smoothies. Please and thank you.” I blink but ultimately shrug and go with it. She smirks at me and I roll my eyes at her.

“Are you going to be ordering for the both of us the entire time?” I inquire while nudging the menu around the table.

“I said I was buying right? Learn to live a little. Besides, you kinda smell of blueberries and it made me want something with them. And yes. I will order for the both of us today.” She gently pulls my menu away and looks through her own. “Want actual food before the pie?”

“It would be nice. So I'm not complaining but why hang out with me?” She looks over the top of the menu at me. I tilt my head curiously.

She sighs. “Because I could. Plus you used up a whole lot of energy flying like that and it would have been grossly irresponsible of me if I had just said ‘Nice flying’ and left. I mean look at you, you can barely keep your head up off the table.”

She is right. I don’t know how I didn’t notice before. The waiter returns and sets the smoothies down in front of us and leaves again. She pushes one towards me and stares sternly. “What is it with ponies and feeding me? And mothering me now that I think about it.” I speak quietly before taking the straw into my mouth and sucking. Good smoothie. Yum.

“Well. You’re kind of light. Even for a pegasus. And… I don’t know. Seems like something I should do. Especially since you would have gotten water and a small slice of pie and just ignored your rumbling belly.” I go back to the smoothie and she sighs. “We’re doing an airshow this evening. You are coming with me. Please.”

I flick my ears at her and nod before going back to the smoothie. The waiter comes back and speaks to her for a brief moment before collecting the menus and trotting off again. Sounds like pasta followed by a couple of slices of pecan pie. Yummy. I glance up to see her snickering at me.

“What?” I tilt my head and my ears go floppy.

“You just looked so happy with that smoothie.” She starts sipping at her smoothie and I blink.

“Ok?” I start slurping the smoothie and soon I'm rewarded with the rattling straw that signifies an empty cup. She rolls her eyes and motions at my cup. Soon it is swiftly removed and I'm left with the straw hanging out of my mouth. Soon enough another smoothie is placed on the table and I stick the straw in there before drinking slowly. I manage to save the majority of it for later and set my head down on the table to rest.

“You ever realize how foalish you act sometimes?” She inquires and I look up at her again.

“I prefer to think of it as a fun-loving attitude. I do need to be more mature than I am right now but I'm still recovering from the foal spell.” Which is true actually. I close my eyes again.

“Food’s here.” The waiter sets the plates on the table and trots off to another table.

I wait for her to eat before I touch the food on mine. She doesn’t notice and I eat slowly with an occasional sip of the blueberry beverage. She hums lightly as she eats the pie and I take a few bites of it. Very yummy. Soon enough I am finished and I wait for her to finish her food.

“That oughta put some meat on your bones. Hmm. Kind of a creepy phrase isn’t it?” She flicks an ear quickly and asks the waiter for the check. Soon enough she has paid the check and tossed a few bits on the table as a tip. I look at the bits and pull out a few more to toss on the table. Satisfied with that I trot after her and we take to the air once again. This time we take a slower pace through the air traffic and eventually make it to the Cloudsdale arena. We land and she trots up to a small side entrance. She has a quiet talk with the guards stationed there and motions me over.

“Yeah?” I tilt my head at her.

“Just letting them know you’re with me.” She goes through the door with a follow me motion. So I follow. We trot through a series of pipe-lined hallways until we arrive at a locker room.

The Wonderbolts are in various states of dress as they chat amiably with each other. A few snap towels at each other and two are simply minding their own business and sliding into the flightsuit. I hear laughter and suddenly all I can see is blue. After some panicked flailing I calm down and pull the thing off of my head. I’m greeted by the laughing faces of the Wonderbolts.

An orange mare speaks up. “You’ll be our guest flier. We’re one short due to an unexpected accident. Put that flightsuit on. Please.” I look at the item I held in my hooves. Awesome an actual Wonderbolts flightsuit. So cool! I pull my saddlebags off and set them on a bench before struggling into the suit. Fleetfoot sighs before moving to help me. Soon enough I'm dressed and standing on a practice field. I glance down at my blue clad forehooves again and smile widely. Definitely not the way I saw this day going.

“Come on, lets get you into the groove of these formations. At least this time we found a guest before the mayor could assign one to us. And one that can fly reasonably well.” Fleetfoot smiles and launches into the air. “Well? We’re waiting.” Ohh! I take off after her and she shoots ahead once again and I struggle to keep up. We go through twisting loops and turns. Eventually I see something out of the corner of my eye and glance at it. The Wonderbolts. I’ve been flying in formation since my first flap it looks like. I smile at them and focus on the flying twisting turns. Eventually we stop practicing for the day and I flop down onto the ground breathing heavily. The breeze twists towards me and I bask in the refreshing feeling for a few moments.

“Wow… I think I did alright. Right?” I murmur lazily into the air vaguely towards one of the others.

“You kept up. So you did great. Say, what’s with the patterns? On the underside of your wings?” The orange mare who’s name I’ve learned is Spitfire asks me.

“Those? I think I got them in Pegasopolis. Might’ve happened in Roam. I keep them to remind me about what ponies should be like. Any other purpose is lost on me.” I rustle my wings and the pattern dissolves once again. Fleetfoot suddenly scoops me up off the ground and carries me inside while I flop bonelessly on her back. I'm dumped on a bed and left there. Spitfire had followed us in.

“I guess you’re sleeping with the rest of us tonight. You should look into joining the academy, it might suit you. It would benefit us to have another decent flier in there. Especially one that isn’t so egotistical. Or power hungry.” She unzips her flightsuit and trots off to the locker room. I manage to wiggle out of the flightsuit and trot off to the locker room myself. After a quick shower and putting the dirty suit in it’s proper place I trot back to the dormitory only to find the bed I was using was occupied. I shrug and curl up at the foot of the bed using my saddlebags as a pillow. I slowly fall asleep and my wings flop open.