Unready
Soarin came to a landing on the only cloud in sight and pushed his flight goggles up on his brow. The view, as always, was pristine. Rolling emerald hills sat etched in vivid relief by the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. The slowly setting sun shone hot on his dark mane and warm on his jumpsuit-clad back after the day’s workout. The moment stretched, drawing his slow, satisfied sigh out to join the gentle westerly breeze.
And then the cloud exploded.
“SURPRISE!”
Soarin tumbled off the edge and into spiralling freefall. The splendour below reeled and whirled until he braked with his wings and shot back upward with three quick beats.
His chalk-white comrade was waiting on what remained of his landing spot, her flight suit and blonde mane damp with cloudstuff and her lilac eyes bright with mischief. “Heya, Clipper!” she chirped. “Gotcha good, huh?” She giggled.
Soarin frowned, but his scowl soon broke into rueful chuckles. That mare’s simmering energy was infectious. “Heh. Yeah, Surprise. You got me. Again.”
She reclined on the ruined cloud and flicked her tail. “Yeah, it’s pretty much an art, sneaking up on fellow ‘Bolts. Nopony counts by threes like us.”
At the mere mention, Soarin’s head and eyes moved to perform the clock-face sweep. Checking his three o’clock, his six, nine, and back to twelve. Ever since he earned his nickname, he’d tried to keep up the habit.
“Well, anyway,” Soarin said as he awkwardly perched on a stray puff of cloud, “what’s goin’ on? What were you doing hiding in there?”
Surprise grinned. “Waiting for you.”
He smirked and chucked her shoulder. “C’mon!”
She slid a little closer to him on her larger patch of cloud and lowered her voice. “Maybe I wanted to see how heavy you are.”
“You, uh … you what?” A blush warmed the bridge of Soarin’s nose.
She leaned closer still. “Uh-huh. ‘Cause, you know…” Closer and closer. Soarin felt her warm breath tickle his face. All at once she drew back, and her eyelids and voice raised again. “... I wanted to see if you pass weight for your promotion eval!” She giggled again.
Soarin let out his breath and rolled his eyes. “Uhgh, don’t be shocked if I don’t, actually. General Coriolis is, like, a huge …” He counted by threes. “ … stickler about regulations. She’s totally merciless. One button outta place during formal dressage, one slip during skills tests, and she dumps you to the end of the line.”
Surprise slowly nodded. “Uh, she’s a toughie, yeah. But I bet you can do it! I mean, lookit me! I nab one more bump and we’ll be the same rank, Captain. Better order me around while you can!” She saluted with a smile.
“Ha ha. At ease.” He spread his wings and hovered as his little cloud-lump finally broke apart. “Okay, I better head back to wash off and put on a fresh flight suit. Don’t wanna give the General an excuse by being late!” He turned and took flight.
“Yeah, okay,” Surprise said to his back. “I’ll … I’ll see you around.”
Once Soarin was a dot on the horizon, Surprise kicked the broken cloud to bits and flew off with a heavy sigh.
The General’s angular shadow stretched out across the lofty mesa that was home to the Wonderbolts HQ. Her eyes stayed cold sky-blue as the dusk turned the horizon golden, and her charcoal-grey mane was a saw-blade silhouette with the backlighting. Every piece of her uniform was proper and pressed or polished. Museum-ready.
She spoke the instant Soarin came back into view in the distance. “Captain Soarin, front and centre.” She made no particular effort to be heard over the whistle of the wind.
“Ma’am!” Soarin responded immediately. He banked away from the track and surged forward for a landing two paces in front of the mare. He stiffened and offered his best salute, pushing up his goggles at the same time.
Coriolis responded with a half-effort flick at her brow. “At ease.” She picked up a clipboard of detailed notes, which ensured that Soarin was anything but at ease. “Captain, I see this is our third time having this conversation, now.” She looked up from the notes to pierce him with her stare. “You don't give up easily, do you?”
Soarin swallowed hard. “Wonderbolts never give up, Ma’am.”
She sniffed derisively. “That’s true. But they also have the common sense to tell the difference between difficult and impossible.”
“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?” Soarin’s eyes narrowed.
Coriolis went back to looking at her notes. “Granted.”
“We aren’t even having this talk in your office. You made up your mind before the tests started. Didn’t you?”
She stabbed him with her gaze again. “What are you insinuating, Captain?”
“You’ve got a copy of my files right in front of you. You know what I’ve done. What I can do. So, why? Why do you keep blocking me?” He realized his voice and wings were raised; he lowered both. “... Ma’am.”
The General set down the clipboard and shook out her wings. She took a slow, deep breath before speaking. “Yes, I do see what you can do. And what you can’t do. You want to know why I won’t make you a Colonel? It’s because you don’t DESERVE it.” She stepped closer, hoofsteps clicking on the paved track, and stared him down. “There’s more to being a real leader than goofing around at the Grand Galloping Gala and signing autographs for foals. Your flight skills are excellent, you make a well-liked squadron leader and you react quickly in a crisis. None of that makes you qualified to help shape the future of this organization and its reputation. You do fine work in the field — you’re staying where you belong.” She turned away from him. “Dismissed.”
Soarin gritted his teeth and stayed silent until he could speak without shouting. “Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” His salute, and then his takeoff, sliced the air like a blade.
The officers’ mess was well populated for a weekday, with the balmy late-summer weather stirring up more interest than usual in cold cider and warm togetherness. Pegasi in duty uniforms, bodysuits, or nothing but goggles chatted and laughed and toasted in twos and threes, but Soarin sat alone, perched on a stool at the bar with his black tie loose and his eyes locked on the frothy reflection in his mug.
He only noticed the new arrival next to him when she spoke up.
“That Ponyville stuff smells great, but I hear it works quicker if you drink it.”
Soarin’s ear twitched. “Colonel.”
Spitfire was as primly uniformed as Coriolis, but where the General made it seem cold and aloof, the Colonel was simply an exemplar of everything a Wonderbolt aspired to be. She couldn’t help it. Might as well ask Fleetfoot to ease up on a straightaway.
She touched a wing to his upper back. “Turned down again, huh?” The bartender delivered her a glass of rainwater chilled with hailstones. With an early duty rotation the next morning, Spitfire wasn’t drinking. She gave the mare a nod of thanks and tipped her five bits.
Soarin took a long pull from his mug. Earth Ponies could be slow and stubborn and belligerent, but they made damn fine cider. He let out an apple-scented sigh. “Yeah, it’s not happening. It’s not GONNA happen. She’ll never approve it. She hates my guts.”
His comrade’s eyes darted aside for a moment. “She doesn’t hate you.”
“Oh, come on, Spits! You can’t even look me in the eye when you say that!”
Spitfire sighed this time. “You can’t let her get to you like this. This isn’t you.”
He bashed the bar with a front hoof. “Yeah? What IS like me? Goofin’ around? Chasing pies?” His wings sprang wide. He tilted back and forth, lolled his head and rolled his eyes while putting on a clownish exaggeration of his coastal accent. “Hay dudes! It’s like, totally me, Soarin! The funny one! Woops, looks like the Wonderbolts only recruited me as a joke! Hurr hurr hurrrr!”
The display turned heads; Spitfire smoothly took to the air and helped ease him back down to his stool. “Okay, Clipper. Easy does it. You won’t make Colonel any quicker if you end up in the stockade.”
Soarin settled down and drooped until his forehead pressed against the rounded edge of the bar. “What am I doing, Spits?”
“You’re getting promoted.” She said it with flat confidence, like a statement about the weather or the time of day. “Next time for sure.”
He sat up again. “Dunno if I believe that, but thanks.” He picked up his mug and held it forth. “Next time.”
“Next time.” She clinked her glass on his mug.
The bartender went to open a window to let in the cool evening breeze. As soon as the way was clear a yellow and blue blur rocketed through the hole and sent her tumbling.
“WOO-HOO!”
Bar napkins and toothpicks and coasters swirled in indoor dust devils from the wind-shock of Surprise’s sudden arrival and even more sudden stop. She stood on the bar between the two officers. “Oh my stars! Soarin! Spitfire!” She squealed and bounced in place. The other Pegasi further down the bar picked up their glasses and mugs to keep them from spilling.
Spitfire chuckled. “Gee, let me guess, Surprise — you got some good news?”
Surprise squealed at an ear-splitting pitch and volume. “I made it! I finally made it! I got the promotion!”
“Good for you,” Spitfire said with a warm smile. “We could use some positivity right now.”
The pale mare leaped off the bar and turned on her hooves to face the pair. Her painfully wide grin faded a little. “Aww, Clipper. I guess you, ah, I mean she didn’t …” Surprise stirred a hoof in a circle.
“Still a Captain,” Soarin said. “Third time’s not always the charm, I guess.” He drained his mug.
Surprise sighed and sagged, like a dirigible deflating, but her boundless energy soon resurged. She perked up and locked her gleaming gaze on the stallion. “Well, then we’ve got even more reason to celebrate with me, doncha think?”
“How do you possibly figure that?” Soarin gave the empty to the bartender, whose purple mane was still mussed from the shocking arrival earlier.
Surprise leaned to and fro as she replied. “Well-ll-ll … you aren’t gonna celebrate NOT getting promoted, so you’ve got nothing else planned. And the best time to do something fun is when you need cheering up, isn’t it? It’s like the Colonel said — you need some positivity! So, let’s go cheer you up!” She lunged and spread her wings, snatching Soarin out of his stool like an owl seizing a field mouse.
Soarin wriggled in her warm and surprisingly strong grip. He’d heard that she had some Earth Pony ancestry somewhere in her lineage, and he believed it. “Wh-What? Go? Go where?”
She giggled coyly. “It’s a surprise.”
Soarin gave a pleading look Spitfire’s way, but the Colonel just smiled and nodded. “Bring him back in one piece, Captain.”
“Will do, Ma’am! WOO-HOO!” She took off like a shot, hurling herself and Soarin back out the open window with hairsbreadth clearance on every side.
By the time Soarin squirmed out of the hold and took flight next to Surprise, they were past stratocumulus height and still climbing. Wind roared around them. He tapped his right ear, and a small gemstone trinket’s communication enchantment crackled to life. He waved at Surprise and gestured at her ear, and she likewise awoke her trinket. “Check-check? Where are we going?” he asked.
“Loud and clear! And I already told you!” Surprise’s chirping voice was thin and tinny coming through the little jewel. She looked up and ahead once more, and poured on the speed.
Soarin pumped his wings and followed. If nothing else, the workout helped take his mind off his troubles.
They climbed and climbed, past the anvil-top peak of a column-like cumulonimbus, up to where the only clouds were ragged, barely tended streaks and ribbons. Surprise alighted on one of those thin, wavering sheets, and patted the flimsy surface next to her.
Soarin cautiously came in for a landing; the thin, spongy cloud made his unsteady perch earlier that day feel as sturdy as the Cloudaseum. “Okay, so, what are we up here for?” He suppressed a shiver. Surprise had a flight suit, but his duty uniform did little to fight off the chill.
“Just look,” she said. “Any minute.” She sidled up closer to him, and draped her wing across his back. She focused on the vast view below them. Even Canterlot Mountain looked tiny at that altitude, and the evening’s long shadows had pooled together.
While Soarin watched, the Princesses finished the evening’s work. The sun vanished below one horizon, and a rich, hearty harvest moon peeked up across from it. The last shreds of daylight still drowned out the stars, leaving the sky a smooth dark blue. Soarin tried to look at it, but Surprise pushed his head down again with a hoof.
Little by little, the shadowed land lit up. Sparkling expanses of cities and meek little clusters of towns, dotting the dimness with countless points of light.
“Everything’s upside down,” Surprise whispered. “Sky’s a deep blue ocean. All the stars are on the ground.” She hugged him with her wing and pressed against his side. “It’s b-beautiful, huh?”
“Yeah …” Soarin turned to look at her. “Surprise? Are you … crying?” He gently dabbed a tear off her cheek with a hoof. “All this time, I dunno if I’ve ever seen you–”
Surprise sniffled and softly chuckled. “I’m just so ... so relieved. I’ve never brought anypony up to see this with me. Upside down world was my special place. I was saving it.”
“Saving it for what?”
She leaned to nuzzle against his neck, and stroked his wings with hers. “For you, silly.”
Maybe Soarin really was a goof. Only then did years of playful pranks, close talking, and joking flirtation crystallize. All those years, always seeing her smile when she looked his way. “That’s why you’ve been pushing so hard to catch up to my rank. You like me.”
Surprise giggled, nodding as she nuzzled. “I like you.” She drew back to meet his eyes. “Do … do you like me?”
With the shock of realization, several ciders, and thin atmosphere all rattling his brain, Soarin found himself disarmed by the simple question. He looked at Surprise. Took her in the way he’d taken in her special, secret view. Her dawn-bright mane and cloud-white hide. Those wide purple eyes, so eager to pick magic out of mundanity. Her fogging breath, sweet from her madly high-calorie diet. And that boundless, effortless lust for life that kept her gleeful while facing disasters and dragons.
“Y’know what?” he said. “I think I do!”
She tackled him with an ecstatic squeal. The cirrostratus carpet bulged down ominously under their weight. He hugged her, feeling her warmth. Her brightness.
The cloud burst and they fell. At their altitude, though, it would take minutes for it to become risky. They had time. He held her tighter and let the howling wind take his peaceful sigh as they streaked toward upside down world’s starry sky of city lights below. It was dark now, but maybe there was still some sunshine left.
Surprise spread a second layer of red currant jelly onto her already heaping slice of bread. The sticky mess shone like a cache of gemstones in the daylight. She dropped the knife back into the open jar to clear her mouth for speaking.
“What, really? She just, like, showed up?” She picked up the bread and its precariously wobbling jelly pile and devoured it in one slurping bite. Somehow, despite being out of uniform, she didn’t spill a drop on her pristine hide.
Soarin nodded. He swallowed a smaller bite of his own somewhat less overloaded sandwich. “Yeah! I think she might have washed out of the Academy way back in the day, but she definitely wasn’t a reservist. She was just … there … when we rallied. It’s fine that she was, though. I remember racing against her when I was a colt. I’d never seen anypony so fast. She even beat Fleetfoot! If it wasn’t for her vision problems, she’d probably have my job by now!” He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof.
Surprise looked out at the bucolic splendor of Ponyville below; from the height of their cloud picnic spot, the obsidian trenches left over from Princess Twilight Sparkle’s battle with the demon king from Tartarus looked like ink scratches on a map.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Clipper,” she said without turning his way. “You were there with her. You, Spits, Flatfoot and a bunch of green recruits, against a magic-eating monster. That’s pretty brave…”
Soarin joined her at the edge of the cloud and looked down as well. “I guess. It’s just what we do though, right? Like, Crash saved my life before she even applied to the Academy!”
Surprise stifled a giggle. “Right, when a dressmaker freaked out in freefall and knocked you out cold.” She offered a wry smirk. “Okay, maybe sell yourself a LITTLE short!” She nudged him and giggled louder.
The sound pulled a laugh from Soarin as well. He mussed her unruly mane with a wing. “Hay…! That mare kicks pretty hard, okay? My jaw clicked for a week!”
Surprise got her giggles under control with no small effort. She turned to face him. “You know, Captain’s a pretty good rank. I’m really happy with it.” Her eyes darted aside for a moment. “And who knows if the General will ever change her mind? Right now, though, you’re here, I’m here — maybe you should just … take a moment?”
Soarin frowned. “You think I should give up? Seriously?”
Her blush showed vividly on her white face. “N-No! Not like that! I just mean, this wouldn’t have happened any other way. And we both haven’t had a special somepony in our lives ever since joining up. You don’t have to stop reaching …” She reared up and strained to stretch her front legs way up high. “ … but appreciating what you’ve got is important, too. So, maybe just take a minute to rest your legs and enjoy the view?” She sat back down with a smile. “It’s a pretty nice one, isn’t it?”
Soarin looked down at the landscape, and then back at the amethyst eyes locked on his. Back at that bright, irresistible smile. “Yeah …” he said as he smiled back. “It is.”
The next morning, Soarin cut two full seconds off his lap time during his morning workout. His grin was so wide that the wind half choked him when he hit a new top speed.
A day later, Fleetfoot threw a bar of soap at his head when he wouldn’t stop singing in the shower room.
A day after that, he cheerfully bobbed his head to a tune nopony else heard while he held back a trainee’s mane as she heaved into a bucket after a failed spin on the Dizzytron.
Two days more, and he tensely trotted in place on a cloud until he caught a distant flash of golden mane and let out a shrill whistle to catch Surprise’s notice. She glided down to him and bounced up off his cloud without stopping. He leaped into the air and joined her on a wide, leisurely tour around Wonderbolts HQ airspace.
They climbed and dived, banked and arced, flying for the love of flight with no crisis to meet and no time to beat, chatting about everything and nothing.
“... But it had been INSIDE the pineapple the whole time!” Surprise giggled her carefree, contagious giggle. “As soon as the top came off, it jumped right out!”
Soarin joined in on her giggling. “Well, I guess that’s one way to impress a Princess!” He craned his neck to nuzzle against hers. She nuzzled back so their warm cheeks touched until they had to part to correct their flight paths.
They flew a lazy spiral around the Academy mesa, and then trotted to a stop on the grassy field near the runway. Surprise lifted her goggles and turned to face him. “Hay, uh, I wanted to celebrate us having such a great time together. So, I … I got you something.”
Soarin pushed up his goggles as well. “Yeah? Awesome! What is it?”
She let out that lovely giggle again. “You know how this works by now!” She briefly covered her eyes with her wings and wiggled her eyebrows.
“Ha ha, okay, okay. I gotcha. It’s a surprise.” Soarin closed his eyes. “So, is it right here, or do we–”
She kissed him.
Soarin’s eyes snapped wide, but then slowly closed again as she embraced him, legs and wings, and they fell to the emerald lawn.
Fifty yards above, Spitfire smiled and nodded in approval.
Next to her, Fleetfoot grimaced. “Uhhgh. Like they weren’t insufferable before.”
Spitfire chuckled. “It’ll be good for him. For both of them.”
“Uh huh. Sure.” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes, but her scowl was softening.