Flying High

by arglefumph

Arriving in Ponyville

Two days later, Princess Celestia came by to see Twilight off. In a move which surprised the young pony, Celestia had insisted that Twilight take Spike with her to Ponyville.

"But we barely know each other," Twilight had argued.

"This is an opportunity to change that," Princess Celestia had said. "Besides, without Spike, there's no other way for you to contact me in case of an emergency."

When Celestia stepped onto the balcony, Twilight was busy attaching the harness of the small chariot to her back. It was difficult to attach the harness without getting her wings caught in anything.

"It's a good thing you're small," Twilight said to Spike. "I don't think I could pull much more weight."

Spike shrugged. "Just be glad all our luggage was sent ahead of us," he said.

"I see you are almost ready," Princess Celestia said, stepping over to them. She used her magic to fix one of the straps that Twilight was struggling with. "Are you sure you're up to this?"

"Absolutely," Twilight said. "I've never flown this far before, but I've done the math, and if I fly at a constant rate of 6.3 wingpower, I can make it to Ponyville in two hours."

"Don't forget to take a break if you need to," Celestia suggested.

"Yeah, I won't be mad if it takes longer to get there," Spike said. "I'm not in a hurry."

Celestia leaned in closer to the pair. "Now remember," she said. "Your cover story is that you're being sent to Ponyville to research friendship. That'll give you an excuse to meet everypony in town."

Spike, who had been told about the mission, nodded. "With the two of us working together, I'm sure we'll find the Elements of Harmony in no time!" he said.

"But what about the sixth Element of Harmony?" Twilight asked. "The compass one that nopony knows the meaning of. How can I find somepony who wields that?"

"You...let me worry about that," Celestia said, reluctant to divulge more information. "If worse comes to worst, I can try wielding it myself."

"...Okay," Twilight said reluctantly.

"Good luck, you two," Celestia said. "If you ever need me for anything, send me a letter. I'll answer as soon as possible."

"Roger that!" Spike said, giving a salute. "Goodbye, Princess!"

"See you at the Summer Sun Celebration!" Twilight said. She started buzzing her wings, in preparation for takeoff.

"Goodbye!" Princess Celestia said, as Twilight took to the air, pulling the small chariot with Spike behind her.

Celestia watched them fly away, until they were nothing more than a speck in the sky. Sighing, the Princess of the Day turned around and went back towards the palace.

Being the bright young pony she was, Twilight had noticed the major flaw in Celestia's plan: the Element of Magic. Only a powerful unicorn could wield that particular element, but Celestia knew for certain that no such unicorn existed.

For the past fifty years, Celestia had searched extensively for unicorns with strong magical abilities. If truth be told, that was part of the reason why she founded her school for gifted unicorns, five hundred years ago.

Sadly, the Princess' search for a unicorn who could be the Element of Magic was unsuccessful.

Well, not entirely unsuccessful. Her last student—the one who had hatched Spike from his egg—had shown a lot of promise. But then the disaster happened and...

"Blueblood, why did you do that?" Princess Celestia wondered, not for the first time. "Everything would be perfect now, if you had just done the right thing."

---

Twilight and Spike arrived in Ponyville about two and a half hours later. They flew over what looked like the main part of town.

"Where do you think City Hall is?" Twilight asked.

"You're the pegasus, not me," Spike said. "Can't you recognize buildings from above?"

"Not unless they have signs on their roofs," Twilight said. Roof signs were more common in pegasus places like Cloudsdale and Airizona, but Ponyville appeared to be an Earth pony town. Its buildings were designed to look interesting, only from ground level. "This kind of looks like the right place. Maybe we should land and ask—"

"What are you doing here?" a harsh voice asked.

An angry-looking pegasus mare with a rainbow-colored mane flew up out of nowhere, stopping two feet in front of Twilight. Twilight let out a small "Eep!" and recoiled, causing Spike to fall forward against the front of the chariot.

"This is a restricted area," the mare said. "A no fly zone! Get down on the ground immediately!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Twilight said. She flew downwards, looping around in a big circle so the chariot would land safely on the ground. The rainbow pegasus landed in front of her.

"Flying a chariot over City Hall? What do you have to say for yourself?" the rainbow pegasus asked.

"Hey, it was City Hall!" Spike said. "We found it!"

"I am so sorry," Twilight Sparkle said. "This is my first time in Ponyville, so I didn't know—"

"The punishment for flying a commercial vehicle over government property is ten days in jail," the mare said sternly. "I'm taking you straight to the police station."

Twilight Sparkle threw herself at the mare's hooves. "No, please!" she begged. "I'm not a bad pony! I had no idea that—huh?"

Twilight lost her grip on the mare's hooves, when the sky-blue legs started shaking. Twilight looked up to see that the rainbow-maned pegasus was...laughing?

"Ha ha ha! I'm just kidding!" she said. "But seriously, they don't like having ponies fly over Town Hall. There have been problems with that in the past."

"Problems?" Twilight asked, getting up off the ground. She started unhitching herself from the chariot, as Spike jumped off the chariot and landed on the ground.

"Yeah, this one mailmare accidentally dropped a grandfather clock through the roof once," the mare said. "Plus, there was that big pegasus protest when the mayor announced mandatory wing inspections...Anyway, I'm Rainbow Dash. I help with the weather team here. Who are you?"

"I'm Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said. "Princess Celestia sent me here to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration."

"Whoa!" Rainbow Dash said, momentarily rearing up onto her hind legs. "Back up! You know Princess Celestia?"

"Uh huh!" Spike said. "We're her best friends!"

"I wouldn't go that far," Twilight said. "But I've known her for about fourteen years. She helped me get a job here."

"Wow, that's so cool!" Rainbow Dash said. "What's your job?"

"I'm here to study the magic of friendship!" Twilight Sparkle said proudly. She struck a self-important pose, hoping to seem impressive.

Rainbow tilted her head to the right a bit. "Friendship?" she asked skeptically. "That's a thing you can study?"

"She's the new head librarian," Spike explained. "I'm her assistant, Spike."

"Oh..." Rainbow Dash said, nodding slightly at Twilight's book-shaped cutie mark. "A librarian. That makes more sense."

Twilight's face fell. "Well...I am here to research friendship..." she muttered. Then she brightened up. "Maybe you and I could be friends!"

"Uh...sure," Rainbow Dash said. "It's always nice meeting a new pegasus in town. Maybe later I can show you some of my flying tricks."

"Sounds great!" Twilight said. "But first, we have to meet with the mayor. She wanted to see us as soon as we got here."

"Well, she's probably in there," Rainbow said, pointing at City Hall. "Nice meeting you two. Have fun in Ponyville!"

"Thanks, you too!" Spike said, as Rainbow flew off.

---

After some paperwork was filled out, Mayor Mare led Twilight and Spike around the mostly empty City Hall, pointing out places of interest. "The choir will be situated there," the elder mare said. "Princess Celestia will be behind the onstage curtain until I introduce her."

"What about food?" Spike asked.

"Nopony has volunteered to help with the food yet," Mayor Mare said. "Perhaps you two can round up some volunteers while you're staying here."

"Well, we want everypony to have a good view of what's happening," Twilight said. "I take it that there will be some kind of seating system in place?"

"No, unfortunately, nopony volunteered to take care of that," Mayor Mare said.

Twilight frowned in frustration; this project was starting to look hopeless. "So you're saying that nopony has volunteered to help with setup, cleanup, food or ushering," she summarized. "What do we have volunteers for?"

"Rarity has agreed to help with decorations, and Fluttershy will lead the choir," Mayor Mare said.

There was a pause, as Twilight waited for the mayor to continue. She didn't.

"...That's it?" Twilight asked. "Only two ponies are helping with this event? The Summer Sun Celebration is next month!"

"Which is why we're so glad you agreed to take charge of the project," Mayor Mare said. "The princess spoke very highly of your abilities. With your help, I'm sure that everything will go smoothly!"

"I suppose," Twilight said. She wanted to complain that she never volunteered to be in charge of this project, but she held her tongue. Mayor Mare sensed Twilight's discomfort, and she tried to change the topic quickly.

"Did I mention that we have a guide for you here?" Mayor Mare asked.

"A guide?" Spike asked. "Like a map or something?"

"No, we have a pony who agreed to show you through town," Mayor Mare said. "She's part of our welcome wagon committee."

"Where is she?" Twilight asked. "Maybe she can help with the Summer Sun Celebration."

"She's probably outside," Mayor Mare said, leading Spike and Twilight to the exit. "I probably should warn you that Pinkie Pie can be a tad rambunctious around new—"

The instant the front door was opened and the three ponies stepped outside, confetti rained down upon them. A pink pony holding several musical instruments jumped up and down on Twilight's chariot.

"Hey, what's—ow!" Twilight said, as some confetti got in her eyes. Spike tried to burn some of the confetti with his fire breath, while the mayor held her head and sighed.

The pink pony began playing a song, although Twilight would never be sure how she could sing and play the tuba at the same time.

Welcome, welcome, welcome,
To the princess' smart student!
Welcome, welcome, welcome,
We're glad that you are present!

We hope that you are happy here,
And you don't treat us with scorn!
So welcome, welcome, welcome...
To our newest unicorn!

The pink pony did a flip in midair and landed on a switch. A banner reading "Welcome to Princess Celestia's Delegate!" popped out of the ground.

"Ta-da!" the pink pony said. "What do you think?"

"Uh..." Twilight said, not sure how to react. "I'm not a unicorn."

"Whaaaat?" Pinkie Pie asked. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! I thought everypony in Canterlot was a unicorn! They told me that you were from Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and I thought—"

"It's a common mistake," Twilight said, in an understanding voice.

"A really common mistake," she muttered, too low for anypony to hear. Why did everypony expect her to be a unicorn?

"That was pretty cool!" Spike said, walking over to Pinkie Pie and holding out his hand. "I'm Spike. Do I get a song?"

"Hi, Spike, I'm Pinkie Pie!" Pinkie said. "I didn't know anypony else was coming here, or I would have changed my sign! But I think I can make up a song for you!"

Pinkie pulled confetti out of nowhere and threw it into the air.

Oh...welcome, welcome, wel—

"Pinkie!" Mayor Mare interrupted. "Can I have a word with you?"

Pinkie frowned. "Okay..." she said, as she put her instruments away.

The mayor took Pinkie a short distance away, before chewing her out. "Pinkie, I told you we couldn't afford anything big right now. How much of the Welcoming Committee's money did you spend on that banner?"

"Um...all of it?" Pinkie said. "Well...the budget wasn't large enough, so I had to pay a little extra."

"Next time, use a piece of paper as a sign!" Mayor Mare said. "This is completely overdone and irresponsible!"

Pinkie's ears flattened and she hung her head in shame. "I just wanted to welcome the new ponies..." she said.

"And the confetti! What have I told you about using confetti on the streets?"

"You said not to use confetti, because it makes a big mess, and we have to pay for street cleaners..." Pinkie said sadly. "But I thought it would be fine if I just used a little confetti!"

"Three buckets of confetti is not a little!" Mayor Mare said.

"Seven buckets, actually," Pinkie Pie said. "I didn't use them all yet!"

"You bought seven buckets worth of confetti," Mayor Mare said, facehoofing. "I swear, you are—"

"Um, excuse me," Twilight Sparkle said, walking up to the pair. "But I can help clean up, if you want."

"What?" the Mayor asked. She looked embarrassed. "Oh, my dear, you weren't supposed to hear that!"

"It's no problem, really," Twilight said. She unfurled her wings and flapped them perpendicular to the ground. This created a small wind, which blew some the confetti away. In a short period of time, she got all the confetti together in a pile.

"Ta-da!" Twilight said.

"Oh my gosh, you are my new best friend!" Pinkie Pie said, hugging Twilight. "Thank you so much, Twilight Purple!"

"It's Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said. "And you're welcome."

"So I'm here to show you around town!" Pinkie Pie said, bouncing up and down. "Where do you want to go first? We could go to Sugarcube Corner, which is where I live! They have the yummiest food there! And you're going to live at the library, which is really close by, so we can be best friend neighbors!"

"Yes, we should probably visit our new home first, so I can drop off this chariot," Twilight said. She didn't want to pull the chariot around all day. "And after that, we should visit the local school. I need to sign Spike up for classes there."

"Hey!" Spike said. "I'm not a little kid! Besides, I'm supposed to be your assistant!"

"Maybe when you're older," Twilight said. She still didn't know Spike well enough to want to have him around her constantly.

"Hmmmph," Spike said.

"Miss Cheerilee is in charge of Ponyville Elementary," Mayor Mare said. "She can answer all your questions about child education."

"Great, thanks, Mayor," Twilight said.

"Well, I have to get back to work," the Mayor said. "I'll leave you to get acquainted with the town. Please keep in touch and let me know your progress with the Summer Sun Celebration."

"Will do," Twilight said. "Can I ask you one last thing, though? Who would you say is the most generous pony in town?"

"Well...nopony immediately comes to mind..." Mayor Mare said.

"Bon Bon likes to give free samples at her store," Pinkie Pie suggested.

"Okay, then, who would you say is the most loyal?" Twilight asked.

"Loyal to what?" the mayor asked.

"Loyal to...huh," Twilight said. Now that the mayor pointed it out, she had no idea what the Element of Loyalty referred to. There are many things a pony can be loyal to: her friends, her country, even her favorite restaurant. "Hmmm...Spike, do you know what the loyalty element means?"

"Hey, you know more about this than me," Spike said, shrugging.

"Make a note for me to ask the Princess later," Twilight dictated.

"I thought I'm not your assistant," Spike said.

Twilight lightly smacked him upside the face, with one of her wings. "Ow!" Spike said. Pinkie Pie giggled.

"Well, that's everything!" Twilight said quickly. "Heh heh, it was nice meeting you, Mayor!"

"Likewise," Mayor Mare said. She turned around and went back inside City Hall. Behind her, Spike was grumbling about unfair treatment, while Twilight lectured him on the importance of teamwork. Pinkie Pie was bouncing around, thinking up all the various places that she wanted to take Twilight.

---

Once the chariot had been dropped off at the library (and once Twilight stopped gushing about how amazing her new home was), they went to enroll Spike at Ponyville Elementary. It was shortly before noon when they arrived, so Cheerilee had declared an early lunch that day, so she and Twilight could hammer out the details.

"I have no idea how old he is specifically," Twilight said. "All I know is that he's still a baby dragon."

"Do you know how many years of formal schooling he's had?" Cheerilee asked.

"A few, I would guess," Twilight said. "He knows how to read and write pretty well. He trips up over large words, sometimes."

"We've had a transfer student from Canterlot before, so I know their educational system isn't too different from ours, besides for the magic training," Cheerilee said. "I think the first place to start is by giving Spike an aptitude test, so we can determine which level of studies he's at."

"Makes sense to me," Twilight nodded.

"What about social skills?" Cheerilee asks. "How does he interact with other children his age?"

Twilight took a moment to look out at the playground area, where Spike was. The playground area was little more than a small field, where the children could run around safely, under an adult's supervision.

The adult in this case was Pinkie Pie, who agreed to watch the children so Cheerilee and Twilight could talk. Normally, the children loved having Pinkie Pie around, but today, they all ignored her in favor of Spike. They were all gathered around the young dragon, which made him feel a bit self-conscious.

"A dragon at the school!" one of the fillies said. "We're getting a dragon!"

"Yeah, this is more exciting than the time Snails got his cutie mark at a Prench restaurant!" Snips said.

"Is it true that you can breathe fire?" Applebloom asked.

"Yeah, watch!" Spike said. He took a deep breath and let out some flame.

"Oooooo!" all the children said.

"How does that work?" Diamond Tiara asked. "Do you need fire to live?"

"Normally, I breathe air like everypony else," Spike said. "But I can heat up the air inside me and let it out as fire!"

"That's neat!" Snails said.

"If you can breathe out fire, can you also breathe out smoke?" Tootsie Flute asked.

"Uh huh," Spike said. "It feels kind of funny when I do that."

"Could you breathe fire in?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I don't know," Spike said. "I never tried."

"What are your parents like?" Twist asked. "Are they big and scary?"

"Well...um..." Spike said. "I don't really know my parents."

"Really?" Scootaloo said, jumping forward in excitement. "Did they give you up for adoption?"

"Nopony knows who my dragon parents are," Spike shrugged. "Princess Celestia says she found me as an egg."

"You know Princess Celestia?" several ponies shouted at once. They all crowded in, shouting questions at the same time. Spike took a few steps backwards, unused to all this attention.

Comments

[Celestias Paladin]

Blueblood? He hatched the egg... ok that is interesting... at least it's not Trixie...

Good chapter, and I still stand by my earlier comments about the Sixth Element.

[kingtiger666]

Okay, I've got a couple issues here. First, a 'filly' is a female foal. A foal is a child of a horse, or pony in this case. You might wanna change that. And they do use the words 'girl', 'boy', 'children' and 'kids' in the show, so that's fine too.

[Germgod]

So Rainbow Dash is not a unicorn.
Anyway i must admit i was not expecting Blueblood being the one to hatch the egg, i can honestly say i have never seen that before in any fic but since he apparently did something very bad he will not use the element of magic which means there is still the problem of just who is gonna use the element of magic(maybe Fluttershy is a unicorn to maintain the 2 earth ponies,2 pegasus and 2 two unicorns thing from the show or maybe its Applejack who is the other unicorn and Fluttershy is an earth pony in this universe)

[TheFierySkyMare]

Fluttershy as an Earth Pony? POSEY

[Germgod]

1997576
"reads comment,has no idea who Posey is,search Google and finds Posey Tumblr)
Oh my god Posey is so adorable, i now wish for Fluttershy to be an earth pony if she is that adorable and let Applejack be this(best Applejack unicorn i could find)
fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/121/2/8/unicorn_applejack_by_forbiddenflesh-d4y6lcz.png

[Feather Book]

I can’t shake the feeling that discord is somehow behind Twilight being a Pegasus. Not just an inspired plot point.
Or I could just be crazy.

My only complaint though is that you referrer to Spike as a “filly” which means a young female, or a girl in other words.

[ShadeTail]

1987537 Doesn't wash. This version of Twilight still has no friends, so making her *more* socialized makes no sense. If anything, she should be *less* socialized, because at least canon-Twilight didn't have all the unicorns around her actively snubbing her (from what we saw). Also, there's no beating canon-Twilight's ability to learn stuff. If she hadn't known N.M.'s real identity, then nopony else could have learned it either. And finally, your portrayal of Celestia is so machiavellian as to be completely out of character for her.

[arglefumph]

1998619 Pegasus Twilight has more social skills than Unicorn Twilight, mainly because of her assistant librarian job at the university. The job forced her to deal with other ponies, so she has years more experience in that area. Celestia also had some influence in this area; she wanted to help Twilight, because her first impression of Twilight was "lonely pegasus without any friends". I suppose that's a bit more positive than Unicorn Twilight's relationship with Celestia; Unicorn Twilight is scared to death of her .

As for Celestia, I'm still not sure what her thoughts were, during the first episode of My Little Pony. When Twilight comes to her with valid concerns about Nightmare Moon, Celestia casually brushes them aside as "silly old mare's tales" and forces Twilight to go to Ponyville. That's withholding information from Twilight, then putting her in the place where she most needs that information; Twilight doesn't even learn about the Elements of Harmony until Episode 2, after Nightmare Moon appears. So...what was Celestia thinking? Was she being grossly incompetent, or deliberately manipulative?

1997445 I thought "filly" could be used as a gender-neutral term, like "child" or "kid". At least, I seem to recall Cheerilee calling her students "fillies", even though there are some male students. But maybe I was wrong, so I'll change it. Thanks for pointing that out!

[Cold Spike]

This is actually a very cute story and a neat way to change things around. I did find one error though:

"How does he interact with other fillies his age" Fillies would be the term for little girls in this case, I would just say children. You can't say foals or Cheerliee would be talking about babies.

[arglefumph]

2053106 I changed "fillies" to "children". Thanks for pointing that out!

[nemryn]

Airizona

That's a new one.

2000718
I'm putting my bits on 'deliberately manipulative'; Celestia knew that if she told Twilight she had to make some friends, or that she needed to find ponies who represented certain virtues, she'd go in with a checklist and everything, and it would be forced and wouldn't really work.

[no longer on]

1997445
You're forgetting one thing though. You see, since in the US, males are more common (or used to be), so we just use the term 'guys.' This is because peoples parents used the term, causing their offspring to use the term, and so on.

Btw, no sexist was intended if anything sounded like it. And sleep deprivation right now, so yea.

[AmicusBestia]

2321715 personally I had to get up and take a lap on that one

[honeyhoneyhoney]

hmmmmm

[keaton-furman-prower]

Blueblood, huh? I'm guessing this was written before Sunset Shimmer was introduced

[PixelMoon]

'Airizona'

Hehe

[Legatus]

"Blueblood, why did you do that?" Princess Celestia wondered, not for the first time. "Everything would be perfect now, if you had just done the right thing."

BLUEBLOOD? THAT CUR?

[Scootaboom1]

3354499
In a lot of languages the male pronouns are used to be ambiguous as well.