I, setting the bags straight for the last time, nodded to myself and opened the door, leaving the library. Morning cheers me with chirping of some birds, pleasant chill, and on the top of that — I’m going on my first training about flying!
Yesterday, when visiting traumatologist, I got his approval on exercises — including flying — and immediately, as soon as I left the hospital, I started to learn it. I swiftly found some literature in the library, breaching through new grammar and asking Twilight about different moments from time to time, read methodology, read about set of exercises and rushed on the known furthest shore of the lake to try it!
As the practice showed, it was a right choice to go to the lake. Falling from a high altitude is a very dangerous business, of course, but I didn’t try it. But when falling from a small altitude — water is far more preferable than ground. And I fell often, yeah…
Strangely enough — some body’s reflexes are still intact, even after so much time, but for a normal flight — it’s not enough, I had to develop my own. And I did as I could. I realized quickly, that falling flat wise into the water from 3-ish meters is not what I’d call fun. Also, I learned that mare’s udder is a very sensitive place… So I tried to fall with head down — not belly: it wasn’t that painful with the head.
After getting really exhausted on that training, I somehow managed to crawl to the library, only to be dragged out by Rarity half an hour later! Honestly, I almost sent her to hell, but remembered just in time, that I promised to accompany her in spa that evening. I had to peel myself off the wall, acting like everything is fine, tailing along the unicorn, glowing from enthusiasm, calming myself at the same time with the fact that, if I remember correctly, there’s a steam bath inside of the business…
The earthpony sisters, working there — Lotus and Aloe — were bearing my presence with great difficulty at the start. They clearly didn’t want to upset Rarity and lose business’ prestige, but feared me almost with panic — I had to reluctantly decline the offer to professionally clean my teeth to not make everything worse. But gradually, with my zingers and wholehearted support of my beautiful companion, spa-ponies relaxed a bit, calmed down and finally hit it out of the park, making my and unicorn’s leisure excellent.
At the start, I thought to go through only the steam bath, massage and comb out, but Rarity quickly forced me on a real spa-marathon with all these masks, aromatherapy baths and other extravagances. Honestly, I didn’t resist much: I had neither energy, nor will — I just wanted to just fall already.
In the result, I didn’t regret my acquiescence: I don’t care if these aromatic baths are nonsense, but I relaxed perfectly, leaving the business with the feeling of being born again. Muscles, buzzing from strain, finally rested with pleasant, fur glossed, hooves shined, feathers laid one to another, mane and tail were dressed in primitive, but pretty hairstyle. Generally, I thanked Rarity, which was glowing with happiness, wholeheartedly and sincerely.
However, we almost quarreled because of “who pays?”… Generosity, with all her hooves, refused stubbornly and demanded categorically, that I must count this as a gift. I whistled from the price slightly — not a surprise: almost a complete list of services! — but I still demanded to take money in response and to not argue with me: my moral integrity couldn’t allow me to take such big gifts from a barely know pony. In the end, to really not hurt Rarity, I had to step back, promising to her, that I will return the money when I suddenly find spare cash. What a stubborn mare.
Meanwhile, I didn’t even notice how I came. Tossing the already usual bags onto the grass and setting straight the ponytail on my head, I looked at the smooth surface of the lake with a long stare.
Inha-ale — Exha-ale. Let’s go. I unfolded the wings and started the exercise. Executing it only for a third time, but it’s not a difficult one, and Tia did her best on that memorable walk to make it unforgettable for a long time… But now, making moves almost reflexively, I could let my thoughts to easily slide from topic to topic without the distraction of remembering the right moves.
Generally, last three days, except for yesterday, were fairly quiet and not rich for events. Except for the training and spa, I spent them in the library almost without leaving, training my skills of reading and writing — got a firm hate towards quills — and learned different things about the world around and myself.
I must say that I learned a lot about myself.
As it turned out, I thought on a savage mix of Equestrian and English languages. Moreover, it felt so natural, that I paid attention to that only when started to write and saw, that I write something wrong reflexively. The good thing was that no one was nearby and no one was interested in my scribbles. I burned the paper, just to be on the safe side, but I kept close the fact that I remember my native tongue. And if I want to make notes not for everyone’s eyes — I’ll make them in a completely foreign language.
Despite the fact that it’s now easier to read for me, I, as it turned out, have a very bad handwriting. No, I knew all the letters and almost all the words, but I built them by the rules of the ancient Equestrian grammar! Moreover, I had no reflex in writing at all! And writing with telekinesis, as it turned out, demanded a great skill: pull and pressing were poorly felt. In the result, I traced out letters slowly and sadly, cracking quills and making blots regularly. I’ll have the most exciting tasks in the near future — tackling the modern language and improving the handwriting.
Good news didn’t end on that: ponies use the duodecimal system! It was born in times out of memory, when races of ponies started to unify under one flag. The duodecimal system was a compromise between the quaternary numeral system of earthponies and unicorns, and the senary system of pegasi. The new system turned out to be better when counting big amounts, so it replaced the old ones just in one generation.
However, on the practice, it wasn’t that bad as the earth counterpart — the hexadecimal system, in which a mix of Arabic numbers and Latin letters were put in because of absence of letters and terminology, creating a mayhem. The long-ago created system of ponies had both symbols and names, so, on practice, it wasn’t that worse than the good old decimal on Earth.
Of course that I paid attention to magic as well — to the theoretical and practical one. Again, thanks Twilight for explaining unclear moments… From the theory I understood what “world spells” are: these were mentioned by the Devil himself — by the equalogist, and their more pompous name was “The Laws of the World”. In reality, what it is and how does it work was a mystery for ponies: all of it was just an established theory, but not a proved one. The point is that some effects, resembling some complex magic by their influence, but no one knows why it works and who creates it. The “Cover” spell was on that list, and it works on all rational and half-rational beings on the Equus. Except that, I discovered another thing and was rather surprised: the possibility of ponies, dragons and griffons to fly was on that list as well. It seems that they shouldn’t be able to fly, but some magic allows them to. Hoofkenesis as well, but, as far as I could understand from very cloudy explanations, not all ponies agree with that, because it works only on rational beings, but The Laws of the World must work on the half-rational as well… Or something like that, if I have even understood it correctly and didn’t lose the track with reality… Well, I got exhausted from it.
On the practical lessons I finally understood how to work with unwatched objects by telekinesis. It went badly, but at least Twilight taught me how to make a ponytail. Except telekinesis, I started to try myself in creating magical power fields, but everything was very bad in that direction: I had neither the knowledge, nor the energy to make this happen, and what’s even worse — I had no power and control. To our general with Twilight regret, she couldn’t help me with that.
Yeah, Twilight… Moving away from her and accommodate in a hotel, as I planned in the first place, wasn’t going to happen: people still lose their minds from fear, and unfortunately for me, all three owners of hotels in this small town were scared of me the most and tried to run away from me by hook or by crook. The first one, pegasus, was scared to death and panic because of my attempts to communicate with her, and I just didn’t catch her. The second one, a unicorn, was not found by me: either her cutie mark is about invisibility or a sufficiently root cellar with a good supply of food… Generally, her building is closed on a weekend, report, maintenance day, lockdown and et cetera whenever I come. The third pony, as it seems, found out about my tries and swiftly backed up: he closed his business for two weeks and ran away to Vanhoover, and if I’m correct — to his family. So I had to stay in library and sleep on the ground, on which I came over to from this awful bed on the second night. Of course, not the most pleasant thing, but still better than a low, tight and short grating bed. Well, my plan “live alone” has failed… As well as my idea of giving a gift to Fluttershy — jeweler was from the same scared rank, God damn him…
With the thought about pegasus, I remembered the recent market’s visit, after which I went to Flutty. Yeah, what a great day it was…
I remember, when on the way back I met Applejack: she heard from someone about “evil devil doing some things on the market”, found out, that I was heading to Fluttershy — with her unconscious body on the back — and rushed to handle everything. Fortunately, farmer, as opposed to her rainbow-maned boon friend, knew to think and then act. At least she didn’t try to fight me straight off the reel, demanding explanations first, even though in a very crude tone. Crude enough for a desire to wipe her nose to appear, but not enough for this desire to be done. Talking politely with the stubborn earthpony, we were dissatisfied with each other and separated: she moved towards Fluttershy to check my words, and I moved towards Twilight to eat and sleep.
Didn’t make it — met Twilight herself and Pinkie, Rarity and Spike half-way. They — what a surprise — started to look for me because of the situation on the market as well. They felt sorry about the poor trader there, if you can believe it… You don’t know a better fu… You found just the best person to feel sorry about!
…
“Nightmare, but it was wrong!” The white unicorn exclaimed. “You basically robbed him! Only one bit!”
“Auction is auction.” I moved with wings phlegmatically. “He was offered the price of a bit and asked if he had objections. There were none, that means he was fine with the price. That’s all”
“Yeah, it could have been a surprise if he had had objections…” Twilight grumbled. “You just scared the wits out of him, how would he insist?”
“It’s only his problem that he didn’t do something about this.” I waved aside angrily. “In the end, Fluttershy didn’t try to lower the price as well — did anyone stand up for her? No! She can’t — her problems, isn’t it? Let her continue to pay more for her shyness — no one cares! And she surely appears on this market more than once a month — and every time she gets robbed! If you, her old friends, don’t want to help — I can! And I will how I used to! I will not look how my savior pays twelve coins for a something that costs two-three!”
“TWELVE?!” Twilight and Pinkie got surprised in unison, Rarity couldn’t even find words from indignation.
“What a penny-father…” Spike even said, which has been quiet like a mouse after our meeting.
“When you said that he overpriced, I thought four-five, maybe six… But twelve?” Twi shook her head. “It’s beyond the lines even in rather expensive Canterlot, to say the least…”
“How this rascal had even enough boldness to do such a rottenness?” Rarity finally transformed her outbreak into words. “Poor Fluttershy! She didn’t even tell us about it! Oh… How could I have missed it?…” The white unicorn drooped. “But… When I was with her on the market — no one tried to raise prices for her…”
“Forgive us, Night! We really-really didn’t know about it! And Flutty was silent… As always.” Pinkie sighed.
“It’s fine. I assume that he wouldn’t dare to repeat such actions.” I smiled gloomily.
“I understand why you did so, but… Wasn’t there a way without scary threats?” The Princess’ student couldn’t hold herself from lectures.
“I could pass the word part and start to break legs immediately.” I laughed.
“Don’t make such jokes, please!” Rarity looked at me with dread, others supported her wordlessly.
“Who said I’m joking?” I looked at the stylist thoughtfully. “Who touches Fluttershy will be touched by me. Touched so hard, that his bones will be for miles apart!”
…
Well, we’ve talked… They even apologized for suspecting me in everything bad, even though I didn’t understand why. They weren’t hurling accusations right and left, spoke pretty calmly, worked it out.
Pinkie also apologized that she went to get a cake and didn’t come back, giving me, as an excuse, a box of donuts, that was very well accepted by me and eaten afterwards with a great pleasure.
And after that, we split up: I, Twilight and her assistant moved towards library, Pinkie and Rarity went home.
And in the end, Rarity invited me to the spa, which we did during the evening.
Phew, that’s end! I shook with my body and indolently moved back and forth, regaining breath and, yet again, just getting pleasure from the chill grass under hooves. Ending a circle, I stopped and turned towards the lake. Warmed up! Now let’s get to the main part: to flights!
…
“A-a-a! F!…”
Squash!
I emerged to the surface swiftly and looked around, trying to understand in which way I have to swim. I didn’t have time to lay back my right ear to head — now it’s filled with water. And dumping it out from the straight ears isn’t an easy task…
Damn it, I was going good! Well, more or less… And on a turning, I felt a blow of wind from the left — and this is game over. Bastard! I can fly only in a straight line and during windless calm! And if the conditions change — especially if they change sharply — my ear can hear only “squash”, “plash” and “plop”! It was good when Tia was backing me up…
I, finally on shoal, felt the bottom with legs and wandered tiredly towards the shore, sniffing petulantly and shaking head in futile attempts to get rid of water in the ear. Neck and face were covered with stray mane — hair tie, gathering it into a ponytail, drowned somewhere during another splashdown a couple of hours ago. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fly, but to swim — for sure! At least, there’s an improvement over yesterday.
Shaking sharply, I moved out from the water — bright surrounding sand was decorated with numerous black specks. Getting higher, I fell onto the grass with exhaustion, though not forgetting to unfold my wings. Now I won’t fly until they dry a little: soaked feathers weighed like metal.
I’m tired a bit, huh… How much am I drowning here? At least five hours, not less… Nah, I think I’ve had enough today. I’ll dry and go home. I want to devour as hell — just can’t take this anymore: everything, that I thoughtfully brought with myself, was eaten a long ago…
I turned over onto my back and, in order to get rid of water, tried to do a pose on wings — local pegasi can do even this. But exhausted whining limbs refused to hold me, and I, to my burning indignation, poked horn into the ground.
“Damn it!” I commented gloomily the soil-covered end of horn with a brightly stand-out piece of sticky grass on it. God, these thin things can be washed out only by a brush! And the water is still in the ear…
The next ten minutes I spent on: firstly, wandering belly deep in the water, trying to wash horn in the lake, and then — shaking my head rabidly, trying to return my full hearing. Fortunately, these attempts gave results, and I, moving happily with my restored and fully hearing ear, started to pack up for the way back.
…
And still, even though I fly so bad now — it’s still unspeakably cool! I can’t even remember such enthusiasm in learning something before: something more willingly, something — with great difficulty, but now, going towards the library, I couldn’t wait for the next day to come, when after a rest during night, I’ll come back to the shore of the lake, to unfold wings and take off after a short run! And who gives a heck if this flight is over after a minute or so in water! It’s just a beginning, but sooner or later, I’d be able to fly properly! By steep and toilsome ways to the stars!
I, squeezing eyes with pleasure, smiled to my enthusiastic thoughts cavernously, noting with the edge of mind someone’s scream and hurriedly departing stomping. However, an unknown mare with her reaction just made my smile even wider.
…
“Good day, Mare in the Moon!” Oddly known voice returned me to reality.
I turned to it dazedly, seeing Scootaloo waving at me happily. E-em, I don’t get it… Is there an occasion or something?
We’ve been coming across with each other a few times in streets — and I wouldn’t say that her behavior stood out from others. It was clear that she treats me without any serious dread and even greet me from time to time, but the pegasus had no desire to talk, to say the least. And now this loud, expressive greeting, like for a show…
Of course! Like for a show! I looked around swiftly, spotting another three fillies: white unicorn near Scoot and a couple of earthponies — gray and pink, with a small diadem on the head. Tiara, if to be precise, which she was named after.
Did this little one decide to show a powerful and invincible ally in the person of me to her enemies? Nice one, kid! Not sure if it would help, but the overall idea is good. I must enter into the spirit for sure.
“A-a, hello, Scootaloo!” I waved with a wing and turned towards her. “How are you doing?”
“E-ehm… Fine, miss!” She lost courage for a second, clearly not expecting such a reaction from me, but recovered swiftly.
“Again you say “miss”!” I pictured dissatisfaction loudly. “Nightmare Moon or just Nightmare, how much do I have to remember you?”
“Oops… Sorry, Nightmare Moon! I’ll try to not flounder anymore!”
I came closer to the kid and extended my hoof. She hesitated for a second, but shyly dabbed it with hers.
“A… And where are you going from?” Scoot chose to ask, trying to maintain a vision of a casual chat for the passive onlookers.
“From the lake.” I waved with wing towards the reservoir. “Water is beautiful today.”
“M-m… And, yeah… How is your health?” The little pegasus decided to ask quietly, between us only.
“The bruise is almost healed, I have permissions to fly, so more or less fine.”
“Are you… Are you still angry at me?” Kid shyly poked soil with a hoof.
“Not at all.” I smiled with my lips and added loudly: “But I still remember your promise! And wait an exuberant sacrifice at Nightmare Night from you! Don’t forget!” I winked at the lost pegasus. “Two buckets. With a hill!” I explained my thought quietly.
“Of course!” She started to glow. “I won’t!”
I looked around hastily. So-o, it seems that the spectators liked our small show with Scootaloo: no unicorns, no earthponies — no one at all. Wait… Didn’t we overdo it, did we?
“Ops, where is Sweetie?” The young pony looked around as well.
“You wanted to introduce us?” I twisted eyes at the interlocutor.
“Ehm… I guess… Why not?” Kid hesitated a little, while looking around. “Sweetie! Sweetie Belle!” She called.
“It seems that your friend wasn’t filled with inspiration about me.” I chuckled. “The plan was good, but be careful: they can treat you as my devotee — you’re risking to be not only without enemies, but without friends as well.”
“What plan?” Scootaloo tried to imitate surprise.
“To show enemies that you rub elbows with the Mare in the Moon. Why would you greet me so pointedly then?”
“It was so obvious, wasn’t it?” Kid drooped. “Excuse me, I…”
“Everything is fine.” I waved away the excuses. “I said that the plan was not bad. Just be cautious — don’t let expenses overweigh profit.”
“If these cocky smugs back off — they won’t.” Scoot said firmly. “And I guess Sweetie will understand me if I tell her everything and introduce you to her.”
“Well, may be. Okay, good luck.” I extended a hoof to the little pony, and this time, she immediately dabbed with hers.
“Thank you, Nightmare Moon! Farewell!” Mare said goodbye. “And… You’re not as evil as they told you about in class at all!” She added after a moment.
“Are you sure?” I looked at the kid narrowly. She nodded, taking a step back reflexively. “In any case — thanks for kind words, Scootaloo. Farewell.”
Turning around, I moved towards the road. “Not evil”, heh… Just not evil to everyone, Scoot.
“Sweetie, where are you? Sweetie Belle!” I heard behind my back: pegasus tried to find the escaped from me unicorn-friend.
Nevertheless, I still liked this pony. Swift tongued, not from cowards. I hope her acquaintance with me won’t hurt her…
Smiling and shaking head to my thoughts, I continued my way towards library. I’ll eat, rest… What a great day, isn’t!
