Of Time Before The Stars

by JinxTJL

Of Wings That Dreamt of Soaring

She loved to fly.

She loved it more than anything in the world.

The wind tugged at her with imperious claws as she fell. Headfirst with her body streaming out like a comet behind her, hooves and head and body feeling all as though they may at any time be torn straight from her. The chill of a breeze too slow to do more than scrape at her coat as she tore a hole through layers and layers of endless sky.

She didn't know when she'd started to fall. She didn't know how long she'd been falling.

But still, she opened her eyes, and her wings followed suit.

The far reaching blue stretched like the pale ocean out before her as her wings unfurled; her body and shallow breaths hitching in a moment as the deep gusts caught under her wide span. The cinch of air a comforting embrace like she'd never known, but somehow so familiar.

But something was wrong.

She struggled to control her out of time breathing; every breath full of the pain brought by the buffeting and bracing winds, as her wings struggled to keep steady amidst the torrent. Her eyes burned. Her chest tightened, and she suddenly realized of a stabbing ache in her breast.

She spun, trying to find a draft. Something to save her. Tight circles of increasingly desperate attempts that each failed in turn; spiraling in greater and greater space until she was once more falling: hooves flailing and body twisting with even less control than before.

She couldn't do it: her wings couldn't catch the wind. They flapped and swept uselessly behind her; a weak tithe in comparison to the great, crushing weight borne against them. Not worthy to the eyes of the skies. Not enough.

They flagged, bent close to her back; she gasped in pain.

She couldn't do it.

You can do it.

She didn't have the strength.

You have the strength.

She needed more.

Take all you need.

Her wings snapped to full length with power like she'd never felt. Her body jerked and her next breath stalled on her open lips as the sky seemed to disconnect from her in one jarring moment. The fall stopped; the world shifted.

She began to glide.

The sky before her: only moments before an angry, far off observer that pressed in closer and closer every second, now seemed placid. Appeased, and cautious. Distant and dangerous under and away from her hooves before her, but no longer approaching for her harm.

A nervous, nearly afraid chuckle rose on her lips as she slowly fell- no, floated down in a gradual arc. Her hooves waving out into the long stretch of expanse: looking for ground that wasn't there. She tentatively flapped her wings; the movement dropping her towards the bright chasm of unending blue for a heart-stopping moment of fear, before propelling her forward as they crested her withers.

Again, she rose higher. Again, and her smile grew more bold. Again; an excited bubble of laughter pealed from her large grin.

Once more, and she began to fly.

With one great leap of her feathers, she burst with a boom towards the heavens. Her hooves, once bonelessly kept trailing at her sides: now leapt like arrows, sturdy and strong, from her front. They carved her way forward as a steady drone of tension built in her back; wings flapping in a powerfully even rhythm to the take of her breath.

She rose and rose, body now set at a glorious opposite to her tragic fall of what could only be ages ago, now. There was no memory left of such terrors; there was only her grand ascent.

Clouds of familiar white color came and went as she climbed higher and higher. Each misty barrier doing little to stand in her way as she braced for each, and broke through with another flap. They were insignificant in comparison to her.

All is insignificant to you.

This was it. This was flying. Freedom.

The long barrage of cold and mane-dampening mist ended as she blew past the cloud barrier, into the highest section of sky to the heavens. Time seemed to slow as she turned, back and widely flapping wings to the long sea of white; breath stalling on her lips as awe tugged her jaw, and tasteless shock dulled her mind.

Up above, where no clouds lay: the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen. Like a great, giant eye peering from a black expanse of sweet, pure nothing: an incredible, monumental, indescribable white circle.

Just... up there.

The moment passed, she took breath, and with a profound sense of wonder: she began to fall again.

Her body flipped over itself as she twisted to face the clouds again, thoughts of the hole in the black sky burning in her mind as she tucked her wings close to her, brought her head down, and brought her front facing hooves to touch their sides.

She almost expected some kind of impact as she tore through the first film of fluff, but there was as little resistance as there was overwhelming momentum. Blindly streaking; a wonderfully painful sensation of the force on her body as mile on mile of cloud shattered before her.

Her body hurt.

She'd never felt so alive!

A long, foggy trail of cloud swept behind her as she shot back down into the endless blue; too bright for what lay above, lit instead by something unseen below. Barely a thought in the back of her mind as she twirled tightly, traces of mist still clinging to her hooves and creeping up along her neck.

The suffocating cloak of condensed drizzle flew off her like a shed cocoon as her wings snapped open again; her extended twist ending in a half-turn, as she flapped herself to an upright gliding position. Still falling just as fast, but now primed for what came next.

Her heart was beating, so loud in her ears; she couldn't stop grinning.

Her wings folded, shifting back to let the air carry her up. The roaring wind, still carrying her along so fast: caught along the thread she'd set, giving her a wonderfully hard feeling in her chest as it compressed.

She soared up and up to a sideways view, the feeling in her chest growing and growing to tune with every bit of overwhelming feeling attacking her on all fronts; her smile quickly feeling itchy on her face. It wasn't enough expression. It didn't fit.

She needed more.

Feel no shame.

She whooped in time to the burst of exhilaration in her chest as her climb turned upside-down, and she twirled for that extra bit of oomph before she began to arc back down to where she'd started. She passed the unseen mark too fast to register, and kept going; her warm face stuck in silly faces for each awesome moment.

She raced between expansive mesas and deep gorges formed by the fluffy cloudbank; trailing along their edges and letting her hooves drag long trails in the mist that left her damp and sensitive. A bright holler of joy balled in her throat and escaped as she climbed the edge of a rising peak; peaking across multiple spectrums as she cleared it, then sped down its side.

She took a moment to watch her shadow along the clouds as the wind carried her: the blackened double keeping nearly perfect pace with her, though losing by a large hoof's length.

So, certainly not her hoof.

She cracked a squeal, laughing at her own joke as she broadened her wings, and let the breeze carry her up. Her constant companion obliged readily as it always did; the weightless feeling bringing a bright feeling to her hooves as she spun, letting them sway around her.

This was all she'd ever wanted. This. Here. Now. In the moment, in the vast and reaching sky; not in the small little cabin or the dumb, dank woods. So far from everything she'd ever known, but so little lost.

This was all she'd ever-

In a blink, in a flash, in the shallow span of a drip barely even settled: it was gone.

-wanted.

The soft feeling of something plush pushed up on her back, while something just as warm encircled her midriff. Soft sounds of even breathing and tiny chirps and cricks of small bugs. A warm presence at her side, just far enough to not touch. The dark above her: brightening into the image of a ceiling. Wood.

Luna's next breath was a shallow gasp, as her body jerked upright. Her head whipped in every direction she could as soft pictures of white mountains on blue skies faded from each stare; her breathing picking up fast pace as every sight left faint afterimages that bled into dark sights that were quickly brightening to-

No. She shut her eyes.

It couldn't have been a dream. It couldn't have been a dream. She'd felt the wind under her wings. She'd tasted the sweet, thin air. She'd laughed for the feeling of excitement in her chest as she'd skirted the precipice of crashing.

She'd touched the sky. She'd soared above.

The memory of her racing heart. The heat of the neverending moment of adrenaline.

Her haunches, as if they'd been still for a long time, stung uncomfortably as they took more of her weight, but still: she brought one of the hooves supporting her up to her chest.

Cold. Racing, but empty. Like it always was.

Like everything was.

It was a dream. Like it always was.

Drip

Drip

Drip

Her breathing hitched as she grit her teeth, and a very real urge began to sweep over her. An urge that she hated herself for, even as she let her back relax, and her head touch her bed again.

She breathed in one shuddering breath, then another, as she tried to keep her eyes shut as tightly as she could. To stem the flow. To staunch the bleeding. To make herself strong.

It wasn't working. Because she wasn't strong. She couldn't do it.

And there was no response.

The warmth was coming fast, building in her cheeks in quick masses too large to ignore, so she opened her eyes again. The dim wood ceiling rose above her, only as tall as four or so of her. The sight only hurt all the more.

She winced, and cringed away from it: turning onto her side, to bring her to what lay there. A comparatively large lump of darkened white and eyesore pink that burned her eyes for a moment; its side rising and falling to time with the present sounds of breathing that wasn't hers.

She shuffled closer to the mass, biting her lip to stop the small yips of sorrow that threatened to jump out. Her vision now dominated by it: she stared at the mass for a very long moment, letting her head wobble in mixed fear and need before her forehead finally came to gently rest on the side of the white.

"Celestia?" she whispered thinly, letting the quiet word hang in the air for a moment as her throat burned with the effort of keeping her held-in tears from entering it. Her sister shifted after a moment, but the sound of breathing did not alter, and Luna knew she'd have to try again.

"Sister?" She whispered, again; cringing down on herself as, this time, her voice came dangerously close to cracking. Still, her sister did not respond, and Luna took a shuddering sigh of effort that turned into a low whine at its tail. Her body wracked itself with shivers for a moment, and she could only brace against the near break until she eventually calmed.

"Sister?" This time, she tried louder, and she knew she'd failed. Her voice, too loud, came out warbly and ugly, and her breath caught too late to stop a pathetic sob. She squeezed her eyes shut as a stray tear leaked out, wetting the fur of her cheek as her sister finally stirred to the sounds.

She couldn't stand to look and not see the blue sky anymore. She only felt the subtle motions of her sister as she went through her own process of waking; her head being dislodged from the scant warmth as her sister shifted around to face her.

Luna knew her sister was looking at her now: seeing the mess her face likely was. And it hurt.

It was a moment of quiet before the sleepy breath of her sister began to turn into a word, but she didn't give her time to start before she was pushing her face in the direction she thought her sister's chest was. Something like warm, pillowy softness enveloped her, and her hooves lying dormant at her sides rose frantically to circle around what she could reach of her sister.

She hated it.

She was getting her sister's coat dirty, now.

She hated it.

More and more little whines and body-shaking sobs were beginning to escape her bruised lip.

She hated it.

A quiet sigh, and the weight of a hoof on her head that set to gently stroking along her mane and down the curve of her neck. Making her shiver, and making it so much harder to stop herself.

"What's wrong, Lulu?"

One quiet sob, and then everything just began to unravel.

She hated it.

Author's Note:

Hey, have you heard the good word?

It's Luna. Luna's the good word, because she's the greatest good.

Love her. Love making her vulnerable, because that means she's fallible, because that means she deserves. And oh, how I wish to write for her: the world. How I wish for her to find her place, her happiness.

But making her cry and cuddle up to her sister for comfort is still pretty cute, so I guess i'm good with that, for now. They sleep in the same bed, of course; for extra cuteness, and because sometimes siblings have to listen to their dumb parents when one of them gets bigger and needs a real bed to sleep in.

Struggled with cloudy landscapes for this one, which is why it took comparatively long. Everything else was spur of the moment, because I'm driven by passion, and because Luna's cute.