Peace. Quiet. Serenity. Such moments are rare in the cities and towns of the equines, which even at night often abound with day-to-day noises. Carts being pulled over cobblestone paths, distressed parents trying to put their young to bed and parties stretching long into the night make noises of many pitches and volumes. Yet at some point, those partying ponies, busy businessmen and foals intent on staying up just a little longer past their bedtime must fall asleep. For these few hours, eyes close and minds wander into the dream world. It is a world full of infinite possibility, even if that possibility is not so easy for the sleeping mind to control.
Despite this lack of control, Luna’s world of sleep is often a comfort to those who need a break from the struggles of life. Surely, they think, a world of perfect harmony could never be achieved out of this imaginary destination. Surely, it would take the most amazing and profound action to begin to attain that sort of perfection.
Or would it?
The silence continued, reaching ever closer to its conclusion. Although all silences are the same, they can end in a nearly infinite amount of ways. They can end gradually or suddenly; spectacularly or not-so-spectacularly. This one seemed to end in a combination of all these ways. The first sound wasn’t surprising, and yet, it was quite a spectacle.
A light yawn was all it took, the noise of a pony leaving the world of sleep and dreams and coming into the light of day. Surrounded in the white fluff of clouds and the warm caress of sunlight, she pushed herself off the bed she lay on. Stretching out her forelegs, the air was graced with the sound of joints popping, joints that had obviously been put to quite a bit of use in the past. Yawning again, she plopped back down onto the vaporous bed, not quite ready to be up and about.
She stayed there for some time, with her eyes closed and her body completely relaxed. The house would have been in complete silence were it not for the whirring fan that kept the other occupant of the house aloft. That being the only noise in the house made her almost automatically focus on it, and with that sound, she felt a sort of itch in the back of her mind. Not a literal itch, but an urge to do something. But in another way, it was exactly like an itch: she had to scratch it.
As the buzzing in her brain seemed to overcome that of the fan, the mare came out of her meditative state. Her eyelids opened, taking in the utter plainness of the ceiling above her. Breaking this simplicity, there was a skylight in the middle, just above the foot of the bed. She’d never been sure if she should truly call it a skylight, because Unlike unicorn or earth pony windows, it didn’t have any glass; it was simply a hole in the ceiling.
It was at that moment that she knew what she wanted to do. In a flash, she jumped off the bed, leaving twin indentations where her hooves had been. She circled the room once before streaking out of the hole and into the morning sky. It wasn’t the clearest of spring mornings, but in a season where it was raining most of the time, it was relatively tame. Any day it wasn’t raining at this time of year was a good day in her book. The good weather was the first thing she noticed, and the second was the cold bite of the morning air. Even with the physical resistance to cold that all pegasi were born with, she could feel the cold slowly seeping into her skin. She felt a slight shiver run through her as her body tried to compensate for the sudden change in temperature.
Despite the cold, the mare was perfectly content. Flaring her wings, she pushed them downwards. Instinctively, she knew the exact angle and attack needed for each flap. The increase of her velocity was gradual at first, but grew exponentially as she climbed up into the clouds. With each cycle of her wings, she felt her body heat up as her heartbeat quickened, keeping pace with her flight.
Presently, her flight path took her through a large cloud. Rather than avoid it, she continued in a line, allowing her body to pass through the billowy surface. By the time she came out the other side, she felt truly awake and alert. It was as if she’d taken a cold shower, which, in a way, she had.
Now that she was refreshed, she began to notice not only her own state, but the state of her surroundings. Far below, she could just make out Sweet Apple Acres. The rows of trees, which looked as though they stretched into infinity when viewed from the ground, seemed far less massive from above. Looking upon the fields, she could imagine the smell of apple pies, the taste of cider, and of course, her friend and sometimes-rival Applejack. She had the sudden urge to get just a little bit closer to those trees. Maybe she’d catch her friend on her morning rounds if she was lucky. The pegasus swooped down into a dive. The wind whipped against her face faster and faster as she descended, her already messy mane and tail whipping around in the breeze.
She pulled up just before hitting the apple-dappled treetops. Now she could not only imagine the scent of the apples, but she could smell them as well. The lightly blowing wind carried those scents on the breeze along with all the other tangs of the nature below. These combined fragrances just seemed to smell like spring. She couldn’t pick out the individual ones except for that of the apples, but those other unidentifiable ones fused together into one natural aroma, and that was easy to pinpoint.
By the time she looked down again, she’d passed the Apple Family’s ranch and was swiftly approaching Ponyville proper. She increased her wingspeed, going from a casual glide to a breakneck pace; making a beeline for the center of town. Her streamlined form slipped through the air, offering little resistance.
It took mere moments to reach town, and as she flew over it, she began to question why she’d flown there in the first place. She was enjoying the solitude of her flight, and she didn’t feel like socializing with somepony else, at least not yet. Although it was early enough in the morning that there were only half a dozen ponies up and about, there was more to it than not wanting to break the sanctity of her morning flight with a conversation. She didn’t want to interrupt her flight. There was more that could be seen from the air, so there was no reason to leave it.
Coming to Ponyville hadn’t been a decision; it had been a lack of one. It was nice to do something without having to make a decision. Many days, it seemed as if she did nothing but make decisions, whether it be with her friends, saving equestria or as second-in-command of the Ponyville weather team. This choice to come to Ponyville was a lot like flying: one doesn’t consciously choose to flap their wings every single beat, they just do. It’s instinct; it just comes naturally.
But what to do with this choice? That was what she was asking herself at the moment. She could pull off some wicked stunts above the town, hoping to catch the eyes of a few early-morning admirers, or just take in the rooftop vistas of the village. Or she could accidentally crash into Twilight’s Library again for absolutely no reason whatsoever. But these were all things she’d done before, in some cases hundreds of times
Lazily, she flipped herself upside down, doing an aerial backstroke like she did when she was tried to show off sometimes. And she thought …
… And she thought …
… And she thought some more, but in the end, nothing came to her. She didn’t really feel like showing off, and she knew Twilight wouldn’t be awake this early anyway. The rest of her ideas had similar pitfalls. But she was okay with that. For once, she was fine with not being the center of attention. It was peaceful, a peace she didn’t embrace very often. For once, she was fine with flying for the sake of flying and nothing more.
Sometimes she forgot what that felt like.
So, with no reason to stay in Ponyville and a world of endless possibility around her, she took off once again, leaving the town behind in favor of the unpopulated areas around. She smiled a bit, thinking that if Fluttershy were around, the mare would have corrected her, saying that the animals counted as a population as well. Incidentally, she was passing over her friend’s cottage just as she thought these things. Around it, she could vaguely see what must have been animals waking up from their slumbers. Continuing onwards, she soon saw only forest below her, and she was surrounded by an entirely different atmosphere from the one she’d left behind.
Although she hadn’t wanted to deal with the morning noises of Ponyville, there were plenty of other noises she noticed that didn’t bother her in the slightest. The chirping of birds, the gentle whoosh of the air and the myriad of ambiance were things she enjoyed, though she wouldn’t be quick to go telling everypony else about that kind of sensitivity. She could be boisterous, sassy, pushy, but on the inside she loved a moment of peace such as the one she was in.
Where there was an excitement in competition and a satisfaction in besting another in a race, there was a different sort of gratification in this casual flight. She didn’t have to worry about her speed, weight, technique, or where she was going to get the energy to pass that next pony.
Looking up, she angled her wings, allowing her body to follow her line of flight. She continued her upward climb, leaving the ground behind in favor of the cloudy sky. This was when she was truly free; not even during her Sonic Rainbooms did she feel so at peace.
She continued her ascent, the air thinning out with each push. She was leaving it all behind: the noise, the smells and the sights of nature. The only sight now was that of cloud. Absentmindedly, she named each cloud layer as she passed it.
Stratus … Nimbostratus … Stratocumulus
The air continued to thin, making her breathing labored as she flapped her wings faster and faster. It was as if she was climbing a mountain, huge, invisible, yet clearly still there. With no eyes watching and nopony to impress, she only needed to climb as much as she wanted to.
... Cumulus … Altocumulus … Altostratus
The mountain had a peak, and she could see it. But on this mountain, she could make her own peak; set her own point of completion. In a sport where she so often had to go right to the edge of being out of control, she was now in perfect control. She was the absolute winner; the absolute loser; the only competitor.
... Cirrocumulus … Cirrostratus … …
There was one layer left to go, one more before she was above the clouds. The name she knew all to well from her short stint in flight school echoed in her mind
… Cirrus
She knew she could do it; she’d gone much farther before-to the edge of the atmosphere even, where not only clouds but air became scarce. Yet her pace slowed as she flared her wings. After her long climb up the mountain of cloud, she was in the world of the mysterious thin wisps of cloud: the cirrus class.
Seemingly eternal, these clouds were not the result of pegasi workmanship but of nature itself. This wasn’t exactly common knowledge; the higher-ups in Cloudsdale didn’t want everypony knowing that anything was out of their control. Most Pegasi didn’t even know that these clouds existed, and nopony knew for sure where they came from. There were a few theories: bits of pegasus-made clouds that were blown into the upper atmosphere, remnants of the pre-pony weather cycle, or whatever you wanted to think.
No matter their origin, these clouds flew the highest. Fiercely independent, they could not be formed by even the most experienced pegasus hooves. They yielded for none, listened to none, and were the stuff of legend.
It reminded her of herself.
Sighing, she looked up at those tufts of vapor, feeling the desire to go that extra mile. And yet, she resisted. For her, that extra step would take little effort, even though the typical pegasus could not reach this altitude. The thin air by itself was enough to deter those ponies. Yet she was above them, both literally and figuratively. She’d worked her whole life to be on top, and even though there were those who could go just the slightest bit further than her, she knew that she’d someday surpass them all. It wasn't a matter of arrogance, nor overconfidence.
All she knew was that she had the drive to beat those other ponies, enough desire to drive herself to the top and over it. She’d put herself through pain regularly just to reach where she was, and knew that further elevation would require even more pain. She was not scared by this revelation as most ponies would be. It only fueled her further.
To get to the top, she knew she would have to break all her barriers, surpass all she thought she’d ever be able to do.
And yet, she did not want to go further. She’d spent her whole life breaking barriers, and would spend the rest of it doing the same thing. Just for once, part of her wanted to keep that barrier sacred. After all, was it really that impressive to push herself 100% of the time if she didn’t know how to stop herself?
She looked up at the clouds one last time, the name still ringing between her ears.
… Cirrus
She smiled, and in a flash she turned downwards, streaking off at an impossible pace. She did not regret this, the first true failure she'd experienced in as long as she remembered. She still didn't like to lose - she despised it more than anything else - but this time, she hadn't lost. She'd climbed to the top of her own mountain, her own summit, not defined by her physical limitations, but her mental discipline.
And that was a victory.
So she left behind those mysterious clouds, whose existence so closely resembled her own. They were not living and they could not think. But if they could have, they would have known. They would have felt honor and gratitude for this pony, a pony who had learned so much over her life, both of her talents and how to control them.
And yet, the Cirrus could not think these things. So they stayed up in the sky, their existence continuing to puzzle the ponies below. They stayed peacefully; silently; serenely.
