• Published 29th Jan 2013
  • 1,330 Views, 61 Comments

Learning to Fly - Aldrigold



Rainbow Dash takes her duty of teaching Twilight to fly a little too seriously

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First Lesson

“This is so exciting!”

Twilight grinned at the infectious cheer that leaked from her friend’s words as they walked down the sunny path. The pegasus flapped along next to her, a whistle dangling from around her neck. Rainbow’s eyes were riveted to Twilight’s lavender wings.

“With those babies and my help you could outfly Lightning Dust! Not me, of course.” Twilight rolled her eyes, chuckling as Rainbow did a loop de loop over her head. “But anyone else, easy!”

“I don’t need to learn to outfly anyone in particular, Rainbow,” Twilight said. “Celestia says I just need to learn to fly. Besides.” She levitated a thick book out of her knapsack, flipping through the pages as she walked. “According to this, larger wings are less aerodynamic, more suited for high altitude soaring flight, while smaller ones are more preferable for quick maneuvers and building speed while—”

“Whatever.” Rainbow snorted, her wings rustling the book’s pages as she landed in front of Twilight. “Who’s your flight teacher?” She tilted her head slightly to read the name along the book’s spine. “Feather Quill or me?” She puffed out her chest.

“Well, you, of course. But I’ve been reading up on flight. Did you know—”

“Twilight, Twilight.” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “I’m your teacher. The best flyer in Ponyville. Leave it to me!”

Twilight sighed. “Of course.”

***

“Here we are,” Rainbow said. “Ghastly gorge!”

A hawk screeched as Twilight looked over the gaping gash in the ground, and a rock skittered from under her hoof and tapped and cracked on boulders jutting from the sides of the canyon as it bounced into the abyss below.

“Um, Rainbow,” Twilight said, taking a careful step back, “Maybe we should start with something a little easier. Like, you know, taking off?”

“Well of course!” Rainbow dragged out the last word, gesturing with a hoof. “But I just wanted to show you what you’ll be able to do after I teach you. To get you fired up!”

“Oh.” Twilight’s stomach flipped as a rock eel growled from a hole in the side of the canyon. “Right. Very encouraging.”

Rainbow’s hooves clacked on the ground as she landed from her place hovering above the abyss. “Okay. So first flying lesson.” She held her head up, suddenly the picture of a drill sergeant. “Celestia has tasked me with teaching you, a new princess, how to fly. So you’re going to do your best! Right?”

Twilight stood up tall. “Right!”

“Good! First lesson.” Rainbow leapt up, suddenly hovering once again, and gestured with a hoof. “See that puffy cumulus up there?” With a flap of her wings and a burst of rainbow color she arced into the air, landing on top of it. “Get on up here! Flap those wings!”

Twilight nodded. Shucking her knapsack, she unfolded her new wings. She still wasn’t quite used to them, the long purple feathers ungainly and the weight of the wings throwing off her balance when she spread them. She stumbled as a gust of wind caught them, her feet flailing for a moment near the edge of the gorge, and she froze in place, panting hard.

“C’mon, Twilight!” Rainbow called from the cloud. “Just give ‘em a flap or two! There’s great thermals over the gorge!”

“Thermals. Warm updrafts. Great for soaring flight.” Twilight rehearsed Feather Quill to herself, the words soothing. “I can do this.”

Twilight flapped her wings down once, a rush of air blowing at the strap of her knapsack. Another flap and her stomach and heart rushed with the sensation of lift, like falling up.

“That’s great, Twilight! You’re doing it!” Rainbow hovered near the cloud. Twilight flapped her wings again, her head spinning as she looked down and realized that her hooves were off the ground, her knapsack smaller below her. “Now keep flapping! Use the air to spiral up!”

“Circling flight to gain altitude diffuses the effort of flapping one’s wings,” Twilight recited, her words swallowed up by a rush of air as she began to fall forward. Her heart leapt, beating double, but she didn’t plummet down.

Her wings spread, she glided lazily down toward the gorge, inching below the lip of the cliff. She flapped again, hard, the lift taking her back up.

Interesting. When she spread her wings out she picked up speed, her body angled down, and lost altitude. One flap would get her back up above the lip of the gorge. Angling her body up did nothing, though, and she flapped again, arcing down. What had the book said?

“Twilight, what are you doing?” Rainbow’s voice echoed in the gorge. “Get up here! Flap your wings more!”

Right. Muscles straining, Twilight flapped her wings, each beat sending her up and up. She had miscalculated the horizontal distance, she realized quickly, and stopped flapping, angling down to move forward before going straight up again. She felt foolish, but finally, her head crested the cloud and she angled down to land front hooves first next to Rainbow. She took a few deep breaths, her wings shaking slightly as she folded them.

The sudden whistle blow nearly deafened her, vibrating in her head. “Great work!” Rainbow shouted. “That wasn’t so hard, right?”

“Well, no.” Twilight peeked over the cloud, the gorge a strip of black below them and the hazy form of Ponyville a riot of color in the distance. “That wasn’t so bad at all.” She grinned as the grasp of muscle exhaustion left her and the thrill of standing on a cloud replaced it. Standing on a cloud! Like a pegasus! “Maybe I really will get the hang of this!”

“Of course you will!” Rainbow clapped her on the back. “Like I said, with my help you’ll be outflying anyone else in no time!” She arced into the air again, doing a series of corkscrew maneuvers. “Anyone who trains with me will be the best!”

Twilight gave a weak smile. She wanted to do well, but she didn’t really want to be the best. She wasn’t about to tell Rainbow that though. “So, uh..." she stared over the edge of the cloud again at her knapsack far below. "How about we focus on getting down from this cloud first?”