It's In The Air We Breathe
Morning comes. Frost melts into dew upon the tips of an uncut lawn. From beneath the shadow of a building, the grass sucks down all it can into its roots before it inevitably falls back, allowing for the sun to whisk away what remains. The little droplets shimmer before evaporating, rising gently towards the sky where they will eventually condense into a half solid, half gaseous form. Whatever happens to them next is anyone’s guess.
But some of the droplets don’t rise with the rest. These ones are heavier than the others, so they condense on top of the grass, forming a short little cloud. A bit of wind from across the street glides over the lawn, giving the cloud an encouraging push. However still, parts of this cloud are heavier than the rest, and the grass digs into it like the blades that they are and keep it in place.
The cloud struggles for a minute before another shadow falls on top of it and it stops.
Then there’s a thump and the air sighs on the cloud, but the cloud doesn’t move. There’s a fluttering noise, quick yet gentle, but it’s gone as soon as it appeared and another sound overtakes it. It’s soft, but changes pitch. It’s repetitive. It’s intelligent. More thumps happen nearer to the cloud and the air breathes more heavily.
Then the thumper says a noise the cloud immediately recognizes. It’s all the information it needs to know what this thumper is, what it’s doing, and it sinks into the tall grass to escape. A second later the lighter bits of fluff are beaten off its back into uncondensed vapor, but the cloud has a trick up its sleeve. It holds onto some of that fluff, keeping it strong and together while its heaviest part snakes away through the tall grass like a trickle of water. The thumper notably becomes confused by the cloud’s resilience, and this only makes it thump the cloud harder. There’s no way the cloud can survive this, but it doesn’t need to.
By the time the cloud is completely destroyed, the entity once held inside is already gone.
The entity doesn’t like not being inside a cloud. Up in the skies when the sun is bright and shining, warmth radiates throughout the air and all that heat gets trapped inside them. To lay inside those nice warm, wet cushions just fills the entity with life. The warmth numbs an ever-present chilling pain and feeds it the strength it needs to survive, to travel to the next cloud once the one it had been occupying inevitably falls apart or is thumped. Sometimes the sun also goes away, but this matters little. Around the settlements like the one it finds itself in, there’s always a place to suckle warmth from, whether it be an open flame or a bundle of blankets.
However, there are sometimes days when the sun doesn’t shine when it should. Where the warm clouds are way, way higher than can be reached, and all that’s left are the dark and cold ones. The ones that drain their cold wetness and darkness onto the world below.
This is turning out to be one of those days.
However, the entity is optimistic. The cold dark clouds have yet to fully congregate, let alone drain themselves, so there’s still plenty of time left for it to attain the upper reaches, where the sun shines and warms. The entity slides along the edge of a gutter, looking for an opportunity when it feels a strong gust of wind dip into its path. It throws itself into it and is taken up into the air. It doesn’t get very high, though. The updraft stops abruptly, but there’s still enough momentum to toss the entity into a glide so it can better search for more.
The air breathes a little ways to the side, and the entity shifts to intercept it for the added lift, but then the air makes a noise. A noise that’s recognizable, if unspecific. The entity stumbles over itself and tenses, quickly coming to a halt before it can run into a thumper crossing its path. Not that running into thumpers is unpleasant, but it’s just the last thing the entity needs to do. This thumper is unfamiliar and the entity wants nothing to do with it. It doesn’t need to speak right now, and if it’s fast enough it wouldn’t need to at all, but time is of the essence. Every second it sits here, however, it runs the chance of speaking.
The thumper snorts and cries and exhales, and the entity can’t help but taste the warmth of its breath. That’s all the time it allows itself to waste, as it then dives away to regain some momentum before going off to search for more updrafts. The thumper pulls back its head, feeling a flash of cold in the space in front of its snout, and it looks around curiously for what may have caused it.
But the entity is already gone.
An hour later, the entity is still having trouble finding a way to reach above the cold dark clouds, which have grown thick and should start draining soon. It’s only made enough progress to scrape the roofs of the surrounding buildings, and none of the chimneys it had found could propel it high enough. But the entity knows when to concede to fate, and it’d rather not risk being caught out in the darkness.
The entity glides back down to the streets. This means it has to speak, but it’s always a little wary when it comes to speaking. The entity doesn’t know how long the cold dark clouds will linger for, so it has to be careful about whose breath it listens to. Fortunately, there’s a thumper in this town the entity has grown accustomed to, a thumper it can reliably turn to when it needs. Having familiarized itself with the town’s currents over the past couple of weeks, the entity knows just what path it needs to take in order to get to her, too.
However, she’s a fair distance away from where the entity is now. And it’s losing altitude. Fast.
The entity pulls out of its descent just above the surface of a road and follows the currents the thumpers make with their thumping. It risks being stepped on and thumped, being so low to the ground, but the thumpers swish the air with their legs and tails, pulling the entity into the safety of their wakes. The entity hugs these little pockets of air, jumping from wake to wake as it gradually makes its way towards the western parts of the town. And all around it, the crowds begin to thin, as the first of the cold dark clouds have started to drain.
The entity doesn’t want to be out here much longer.
The entity finally arrives at her home, feeling the way the air currents course up and down the street. The cold dark clouds now carpet the ground with their draining. The entity shoots out from underneath the thumper’s shadow it’d been hugging, making a beeline right for the front stoop of her house. It only pauses to recollect itself, and then it squeezes its way through the cracks in the front door.
The interior warmth of her home beats the coldness back, embracing the entity with its kind radiance. The draining clouds beat against the walls of the building, but over their drone the entity can cleanly hear her soft noises.
It drifts through the building, picking up the sounds of shuffling papers and even another thumper. Though, that should be expected; she doesn’t live alone, after all. However, the entity can never seem to figure out his name, let alone hers or any thumper’s, for that matter. Names always get tossed around so carelessly, it’s never able to keep track of them all, nevermind their language. So it focuses on the noises they make instead, and by the sounds of things, she seems to be quite excited.
It flows up to the second floor and enters her room. She’s sitting in front of a desk, tingling papers and making noises. Her friend stands at the edge, making his own noises whenever she turns to him. There’s a lantern on a nearby shelf, and for a moment the entity considers clinging to its crackling flame instead of her breath. But it’s curious as to what’s making her so happy, not to mention this lantern would probably be extinguished at some point, and it might accidentally be thumped if it wasn’t careful. It’ll be a long time before the sun reappears, so it decides it’s time to speak.
The entity gingerly sneaks its way up the legs of her desk, careful not to get in the way of the tingling papers. They sizzle with a curious energy, one the entity has grown wary of. It briefly reconsiders its choice of speaker, as she seems to be the one causing the sizzling and the papers to tingle, but once it’s speaking there shouldn’t be any problem. The entity wafts up in front of her nose, tasting the sweet warmth of her exhales, and with a deep breath, she fills her lungs with its essence.
She stammers and blinks, staring at the empty space in front of her snout. Her chest suddenly feels heavy, a pressure on her ribs like she just ascended the tallest the mountain. Adrenaline pulses and for an instant she becomes lightheaded. But this queer sensation passes just as fast, and soon thereafter it’s like it never happened. Now only the pressure remains.
...
She swallows. “I-I’m fine,” she says, unsure of her own words. Her thoughts gradually drift away from her own well being and she turns back towards the tingling papers in front of her. She purses her lips, trying to recover her train of thought while another, more distant one tries to grab her attention. The noises of her friend have become muffled, nearly inaudible over the quickened beat of her heart.
...
“Spike, really. I’m fine,” she says, then sighs, trying to regain her breath. “I probably need to slow down. I think I’m just getting too excited.”
...
“Can you really blame me?” she asks. “There’s the possibility of some incredibly rare creature being here in Ponyville. How can I not be excited?”
...
“No, it’s called a sylph, Spike.” The air sizzles again and more papers start tingling and crinkling. She hums to herself and then says, “They’re often referred to as ‘spirits of the air’, but that’s about as far as descriptors go, sadly. None of the sources I’ve found can agree on what one looks like—if they give anything at all—nevermind the discrepancies in the sylph’s supposed traits. They like heat... but that’s about the only thing consistently mentioned. Otherwise, there’s no real information to go by.”
...
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, so perhaps I’m speculating there’s one in Ponyville. However, the author of this book”—the air sizzles again as some papers are replaced with others—“was known to have spent a lot of his travels documenting rare and unusual animals, and his record on sylphs is the largest I can find. I’m willing to bet his information is the most accurate, even if it’s still pretty underwhelming.”
...
She ponders for a moment, slowed by the weight in her chest. “I guess you have a point. I should probably ask Princess Celestia if she knows anything about them before I get too worked up. Do you mind sending her a letter for me? Here.”
She pulls over a piece of paper and scrawls on it, distracted by some absent thought, then passes it off to her friend. Then, unexpectedly, there’s a notable puff of air; a rushing noise, loud enough to be heard over her breaths and beating heart. The air itself seems to crackle, flashing with heat and energy, different from the comfort the entity feels with her. It’s stronger, and, mystified by the strange phenomenon, the entity decides this is worth leaving her lungs and investigating.
Chills run through her as it gets carried out by her exhales. She stamps a hoof against the floor and coughs, and stares blankly ahead as the tip of her nose grows inexplicably cold. After a moment she reaches out at the space but feels nothing. Her friend gives her a look and makes a string of noises.
The entity drifts above them, scouring the air for that mystical heat wave that seems to have inexplicably vanished. It can still pick out the traces of its presence, however, not too unlike the sizzling it’s sensed so many times before. They’re only whispers, rising from the floor below, and it finally finds the remnants steaming from her friend’s mouth. Piqued, it swooshes down in front of him and a moment later, gets inhaled.
He’s immediately thrown into a coughing fit, but it passes in a matter of moments. There’s a burning inside his chest, deep yet not at all disconcerting. And it is strong. To feel this heat is immensely relieving, like rekindling a great old hearth in a long abandoned cabin. But this is more of a kiln compared to all the fireplaces the entity has settled in before. It’s bizarrely natural, and it decides it likes his breath far more than hers.
...
He coughs again and says, “No, I’m alright. I just feel winded all of the sudden.” He takes a deep breath and grips his chest. “Ugh, I think all that quartz I had for lunch is disagreeing with me.”
...
“I guess? I do feel like I’m wearing a corset, if that’s what you mean.”
...
“Uh...” He flushes and turns away. “Well uh, you see, one day I was with Rarity and she—”
...
He blinks, distant for some unknown reason, then shakes his head of the feeling. “Twilight, you’re asking a lot of weird questions.”
...
...
“Okay, now it just sounds like you’re just making things up. So my chest hurts a bit. So Rainbow Dash says she’s been having trouble with some fog these past couple of weeks. So Fluttershy says her fireplace hasn’t been ‘as hot’ as it usually is. Maybe the wood she’s using isn’t dry enough or something. You really shouldn’t jump to conclusions like this, especially since you don’t know for certain there’s even a sleef in Ponyville.”
...
He frowns and huffs, though it sounds more like a gasp for breath. “Fine, ‘sylph.’ Whatever. My point still stands. You even said it yourself that there’s next to nothing known about them! For all we know these things are a complete myth.”
...
“Fine,” he says, crossing his arms. “We’ll wait. But there’s no telling when Princess Celestia will get—”
Suddenly, he gags. A singularity of magic erupts inside his lungs without warning, churning with sizzling and crackling flames. It builds and forces itself upwards, but becomes blocked, and it painfully expands inside his chest, making him feel like he’s about to pop. But the entity obstructing is overcome by the force and it’s expelled out of his lungs, carried by his fiery breath and is burped into the air. The rough and unexpected movement exhausts him, causes his eyes to roll, and he slumps over onto the ground in a daze.
“Spike!” she cries, running to him and lifting him upright. “Are you okay?”
He groans, dropping his head in his palms. “Ugh... I think so.” He rubs his chest. “Ow, that last one hurt. What’d she send you, a whole encyclopedia set?”
She shakes her head dismissively, but smiles softly. “Doubt it,” she says, turning around to look for that predictable something. Only now does she become aware of a radiant heat and pulsing green light. “I don’t think... that...” she mutters, her voice fading as her gaze turns upward.
He wipes at his own eyes and blinks, and the first thing he sees is her gawking. He follows her awestruck gaze and stares. “Whoa.”
There above her bed, green dragonflame swirls unnaturally and sparkles. The mass takes the vague shape of an adult phoenix, its eyes shining like two bright emeralds, ready to pop right out of their sockets. Heat flares off of it in licking curls, whipping the air and scorching the bedsheets beneath it. Wisps of smoke billow off its being as the whole thing trembles uncontrollably.
“Is that...” he mumbles, raising a shaky claw at it.
“A sylph,” she finishes.
It sees them. The sylph snaps its new eyes their way and they flinch. Its brilliant eyes absorb them, taking in their shapes and colors as its consciousness tries to wrap itself around a sense it never had, a sense it never needed. The world assaults it with various sights, things it’s incapable of truly comprehending. Its consciousness nearly cracks apart from this sudden, violent input. It would’ve collapsed entirely by now if the flames fueling its sensory overload weren’t also making it surge with energy.
Slowly, she stands. “Hello,” she tries to say, but her voice turns into a scream as the sylph finally finds the wherewithal to move. It rockets past her and out of the room at blinding speeds, searing strands of her mane and scorching whatever surface it gets too close to.
Panic sets in and it flies around the building’s main lobby, burning random objects as it desperately tries to stop seeing. It bleeds flames like a hose and its vision blurs and fades, finally giving its overloaded consciousness the space to think. Violent crackling and sizzling is all it can hear, but over the noise it’s able to at last recall the layout of the building. Its eyes fracture and turn to ash as it throws itself at the front door, burning it, and forces itself through the cracks into the outside world beyond.
It blindly rushes a few meters out before a new pain sets in. The cold dark clouds are still draining, and they vaporize whatever flames are left. Reactively, it turns back towards the thumper’s front stoop, bleeding steam off its back. The sylph bunches up, cradling itself as the last of the flames are licked clean, its precious heat leaves it, and it drifts mindlessly into cover from the draining clouds above the front stoop.
The front door opens a second later and the thumper jumps out. She pants, glancing to and fro with a worried look on her face. She takes a few steps out beneath the draining clouds making these strained noises, until the cold dark clouds themselves steal her attention and she falls quiet. She hangs her head and, hesitantly, turns back inside her home. The front door closes and except for the sound of draining clouds, everything is still.
A small lantern hangs just beside the front door. The sylph curls up next to it and cautiously suckles its warmth, regaining what little bit of strength it can.
It doesn’t want to be here anymore, but it doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
The sylph absorbs a sweet, warm buttery scent. Days have passed since it became so weak, and now it finds itself inside the home of a thumper it’d never met before, hugging the floor as it searches for the source. Gentle heat radiates through the building, and after some wandering it eventually comes into the room where the warmth must be coming from. It feels the warm air curling up underneath, leaking from a big metal chest across the room, and after a bit of struggling it finds a way inside it. Here the heat—and the scent—is the strongest. It’s not as strong as an open flame, but it’ll have to do.
Inside it finds a metal tray, emanating that sweet, buttery scent, and it snuggles up to it. The sylph is tired, still weak from its experience at her home some days ago. It’s lucky to have survived, but it still aches all over. It hasn’t yet regained enough strength to reach the higher parts of the sky again, and it’s not confident enough to settle into those short little clouds either. It fears being thumped and broken now more than ever. However, it has little choice than spending its time so close to the thumpers now. At least, until it regains its strength. Then it will leave this town for good and find somewhere else to settle, somewhere safe.
But it doesn’t know where to go. It once thought here was safe, as the last town it’d been in was too dangerous to stick around, and it was by sheer luck it found this new town in the first place. It could always stick to the clouds, but what would it do then if it found itself stranded, somewhere where there were no near clouds to move to and nowhere warm to nestle? At least in these towns it had guaranteed warmth, even if they were so dangerous with all their thumpers. Too bad it doesn’t know of any kinder towns in which to settle, and it’s not like it knows where to start looking, either. It’s pretty much stuck here until it can figure something out.
But the sylph doesn’t know what to do. It doesn’t know where to go.
The sun disappears like it’s prone to do. The thumpers around town have all but stopped their noises and have returned to their homes. The sylph glides across the rooftops, feeding off the exhaust of chimneys as it tries to find someplace to rest—the house it’s previously been relying on is strangely dormant. Normally it’d find a thumper to speak with at such a time, and oh how it would love to be somewhere so reliable, but it still hasn’t recovered to the point it can trust itself in such a situation. Not to mention none of the thumpers it’s found come across as being remotely trusting. There was her, but it doesn’t want to think about her, let alone her friend.
After a few minutes of searching it feels a queer warmth in the distance, just beyond the outskirts of town. And even from so far away, it can tell this is strong. It excitedly flows towards it, carried by the cooling winds beyond the rows of houses and up a steep hill.
There it finds a large, open fire. The winds wrap around the air and reveal a thumper is there too, sitting beside the flames, though it doesn’t appear to really be doing anything. Regardless, the sylph makes a point to be careful, approaching the fire from the opposite side. It gingerly crawls up onto the flames, which distort and flatten as it comes to settle in its center.
Minutes pass before the sylph hears something over the crackling and popping fire. It hears her. It turns the thumper’s way and sure enough, it’s her. She’s making string after string of noises, pawing at the ground, but her sounds are nothing more than rambling. Who could she making noises at? Thumpers usually make noises only when they’re not alone.
She continues to ramble but doesn’t get up from her spot, making gestures every now and then. It’s almost like she’s making noises at the fire, something the sylph has never seen thumpers do. If this fire weren’t here it would’ve left her by now, but as the moments pass it slowly begins to consider her again. It’s scared, sure, but now it’s not quite sure what it’s scared of.
She eventually stops rambling and just breathes; deeply, in and out. She oscillates regularly between these deep breaths and her incessant rambling. After a while she tries to fan the fire, as if to inhale it. That’s when the sylph, made curious but wary, glides off the flames and up to her. She stumbles over herself, but then resumes her routine.
The sylph gets a little too close to her, though for what reason it doesn’t know. It gets too close to her and she inhales its being, just like all the times before. She stammers, fighting back the sudden urge to cough as the sylph fills her lungs. Her chest compresses but she ignores the aching pressure.
She reels onto her rump and recollects her thoughts, then says, “You know, I’ve sometimes been feeling short of breath these past few weeks. I guess you’re to blame for that, aren’t you? I wonder why it is you do that.”
...
She doesn’t feel anything equating to a response. She says, “Maybe we can learn from each other. I can only guess what I know about you, and even then it isn’t much. You probably don’t know anything really about me either, or ponies in general for that matter.”
...
She sighs, flashing a tiny smile towards her little bon fire. “I don’t even know if you can understand what I’m saying. I bet you didn’t understand a thing I said before, did you?” She rubs her chest. “Well, I at least want you to feel a sense of warmth, I suppose. What happened with Spike... there’s nothing for you to be scared of, okay? Nopony wants to hurt you. I at least want to get that across.”
...
Nothing’s heard then except for the gentle hisses of the fire. She lays back in the grass, looking up at the darkened sky, her forehooves crossed. Then, slowly but surely, she hears it. She feels it, a gentle purring deep within her throat, and she smiles.
“Maybe we can figure something out,” she says, and takes a deep breath. After some thought, she rolls onto her hooves and stands. “I have a friend named Fluttershy, and I think you might have met her before. She’s probably sleeping right now, but I think she’d be excited to get to see you. She loves all sorts of animals and is really, really kindhearted. If there’s anypony you should get to know, it’s her. How’s that sound?”
...
Again, she feels a gentle purring. She places a hoof on her heart and adds, “In case you didn’t get it before, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and there’s nothing I like more than making a friend.”
...
She pauses, and relaxes. “Maybe we can find you a home.”
written by, RazgrizS57
special thanks to: IceboxFroggie, Belligerent Sock, TheBrianJ, and Corejo
Author's Note
Sylphs are invisible, mythological spirits of the air. However, there's no substantial mythology associated with them. So I figured I'd invent some of my own.
