Soarin Windsong, a 17 year old stallion sat in The Salt Block, the only bar in the little town he ended up in. He sadly licked at a pile of salt, reminiscing his past. How did it come to this, the lowest point in his life? No home to go to, no job to earn bits and nopony to turn to. He bitterly considered the events that had led up to this painful period.
Celestia's sun gleamed through the clouds of Cloudsdale. Pegasi fluttered about happily, enjoying the warm rays and basking in their glory. Cloudsdale was calm and peaceful, as was the rest of Equestria in this time, 12 years before the return and defeat of Nightmare Moon. Peace abounded in the cloud city but for one young colt, it would not last long.
"Dad?" Soarin stood up on his hind legs and shook his father's leg with a small hoof. He gazed up at his father, who was engrossed in a newspaper. He got no reply.
"Dad?" the ten year old colt named Soarin asked again. Sighing, Steamcloud Windsong ruffled his papers and looked down at his son in exasperation.
"What is it Soarin?" he grumbled. Soarin looked at his hooves, humbled.
"It's just that today's Tuesday, and I have school" he almost whispered. His father looked at him impassively.
"Can't your mother take you?" he asked, wanting nothing more then to read his paper undisturbed.
"Mom's still out dad. I don't think she came home last night" Soarin told him. Steamcloud stiffened but he said nothing.
With a sigh, he got up from his chair and walked out the door, beckoning to Soarin to follow him. Soarin had just been ecstatic that his father had gone outside. His dad barely did anything aside from read his paper and argue with his mom.
Steamcloud lazily pushed clouds in front of Soarin for him to walk on to get to school. Looking around him, Soarin saw other pegasi foals riding on their parents back or being carried to school. Why didn't his daddy do that for him? Soarin supposed it was just something his dad didn't do.
They made it to school slightly late, but Soarin Windsong was always late. Galloping as fast as he could, Soarin made it into class 15 minutes late. His teacher, Miss Swirl Fog had a very dim view of latecomers and she made that very clear to him.
"Soarin Windsong! Why are you late?" she asked angrily.
"Well I-" Soarin began to reply, but she cut him off.
"Save your excuses. I don't rightly care. However you will stay in an extra hour to make up for this lost lesson."
Soarin was surprised.
"But Miss, I'm only 15 minutes late. Why-" She cut him off again.
"I don't want excuses! I want results. And the only way to get those results is with discipline."
Soarin resigned himself to his fate and sat at his desk. It was only his second week at school and he didn't know anypony yet. The day drawled on without much activity. His head was plagued with worries for his father, who was always angry and depressed, and his mother who almost never came home. When she did, his father would yell at her and accuse her of something called 'cheating'. Soarin didn't know what his mother was cheating at, as they never played any games or did anything else his mom could cheat at. Soarin would huddle in his bed and pull his blankets over him to try to drown out the shouting, but he still heard too much.
The day drew to a close and as Soarin trotted back into his class for detention, he noticed another colt sitting at one of the empty desks. The other pony was a very dark shade of grey and his hair was a very light blue, cut in a flat mohawk.
Soarin sat at a desk in the back. The teacher hadn't arrived yet. The other colt turned back to Soarin.
"Hey" he whispered, as if the non-existent teacher might hear him. Soarin, having never really had many friends, didn't know how to respond. He just decided to mirror the other ponies greeting.
"Hey" he said nervously.
"Wanna come sit up here? It's gonna be a pretty boring hour alone" the grey pegasus offered. Soarin was about to reply that he spent all his time alone, but felt that that wasn't the right type of response. Shrugging, he got up and sat himself next to the pegasus.
"I'm Thunderlane. What's your name?" he smiled warmly.
"Soarin" Soarin muttered.
" Wanna be frien-" Thunderlane was cut off as Miss Swirl Fog entered the room. She slammed a large stack of paper in front of each of the pegasi.
"This is a quiz on the history of Cloudsdale. Since you're here, you may as well do some work" she explained. "You are not to speak to each other." Without another word, she turned and trotted down the hallway. Soarin and Thunderlane started to work on the massive pile of papers on their desks. The room was silent for about ten minutes, until Thunderlane piped up.
"Hey Soarin" he said rather loudly. Soarin ignored him.
"Soarin."
"Hey."
"Soarin hey."
Soarin looked up from his papers in irritation. "Miss Swirl Fog said not to talk." Thunderlane shrugged.
"So what? She isn't here now is she? Besides, not everything big ponies say is true" he said childishly. Except for that last part. That stuck in Soarin's head.
"Well, what do you want then?" Soarin asked quietly, not willing to get into trouble again.
"Who was the 9th Wingleader of Cloudsdale?" Thunderlane asked staring down at his paper with his tongue sticking out. These tests were unfair. How were two little foals supposed to know something so obscure? Soarin scratched his head, half closing one eye as he thought back to the history lesson Miss Swirl Fog had given them.
"I think it was Tornado Bolt the Fierce"
Thunderlane screwed up his eye tapping his small hoof on the desk in thought.
"I think you're right" he said. The rest of the hour passed and they continued to help each other on the test until Swirl Fog returned and collected their almost finished piles.
"Go home the both of you, and don't be late to my class again" she flicked her wing at the door, indicating that they were to leave.
Trotting out of the school entrance, Soarin realized that his father didn't know he had stayed in. There weren't enough clouds for him to get home on and he couldn't fly that far. Soarin was only able to stay in the air for about two minutes before his wings would give out. They were a little underdeveloped, unlike Thunderlane who could fly for longer. He briefly considered trying to hop from cloud to cloud, but soon saw that the clouds were too far apart for him to make it. The sun was setting and it was beginning to get cold. Thunderlane was about to take off, when he saw Soarin sitting
sadly on the cold clouds.
"Aren't you going to go home?" Thunderlane asked with the innocence only a foal can muster. Soarin looked up at him.
"My wings... they're too weak to fly properly yet and I live really far away." Thunderlane was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
"Oh" Thunderlane said softly. "Well I'd better get started then" he said to himself. Thunderlane pulled a cloud the size of an adult pony over to Soarin.
"Hop on" he said. Soarin looked at him curiously.
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to pull you home silly" Thunderlane said matter-of-factually.
"B-but my house is really far away, and it's late." Soarin protested. Thunderlane cocked his head sideways and looked at Soarin.
" Your house can't be that far. And yes it is getting late which is why you need to get home" he countered.
"B-but why?" Soarin asked, not being used to offers of friendship.
"Because we're friends aren't we? And that's what friends do for each other. Help out." Thunderlane said this with the maturity of a fully grown stallion. Unable to find a good reason to refuse, Soarin jumped on the waiting cloud and directed Thunderlane towards his house.
By the time they had reached Soarin's house, it was fairly late and very cold. Thunderlane panted with exhaustion.
"Well, thanks for the lift" Soarin said sincerely.
"No problem. That was kind of fun actually" Thunderlane stood on the cloud that held Soarin's house. Thunderlane pulled Soarin into a friendly hug.
" See you tomorrow friend" he said, ruffling Soarin's short blue mane before spreading his wings and flying weakly home. Soarin was surprised at the hug. Nopony had ever hugged him before. His thoughts turned to the warmth of Thunderlane's fur.
"SOARIN!"
Soarin jumped at the sheer anger of the voice. Turning to face his house, he saw his father leaning out the window and staring at him furiously. Soarin had no idea why his father was so mad.
"Soarin, you get in here right NOW!" his father yelled at the top of his voice, his face contorted in rage. Soarin meekly trotted inside.
His mother was there. May Wisp was a very light blue, almost white pegasus which contrasted his fathers deep blue coat. She was standing by the window. She motioned for Soarin to sit down on the chair in front of her.
Soarin sat fearfully. His parents stared down at him, making him feel very small. Both their faces were a mix of anger and disgust.
"Soarin, what in the name of Celestia were you doing?" his father asked in a gruff voice. His mother simply stared.
Soarin was confused. Hadn't he just gotten back from school? He didn't know what to say, so he kept silent. His silence angered his father even more.
Soarin's father suddenly swung his hoof at him. The blow hit Soarin's small jaw, knocking him off the chair. Soarin cried with pain and tasted blood, still fully confused. His jaw ached and he scrambled to his hooves.
"I want to know what the buck you were doing hugging another colt!" his father shouted. When Soarin didn't answer, his father hit him again, this time in the stomach, almost making him throw up. His mother continued to watch cruelly, as if she didn't care at all about him.
Tears streamed down Soarin's face as he trembled in fear. He trotted backwards to an empty corner.
"H-He just h-h-hugged me. He's my f-friend" said in a small voice. His father looked at him.
"No son of mine will be an unnatural bucking coltcuddler." He shook his head. Soarin looked to his mother for help, pleading with his small, innocent green eyes. Pleading for her to intervene.
"Get to your room" was all she had to say to him.
Soarin was about to protest, when he saw the look of hatred his father shot at him. He meekly trotted to his room and crawled under the covers. The sheets were to thin to conceal the loud argument his parents were having.
"How the buck does something like this happen?" his father kept saying. His mother spoke fairly calmly.
"He needs to be cured."
"I don't care what we have to do, we can't allow him to taint Cloudsdale."
"I hear the earth ponies embrace such things."
His father sounded very angry. "Those earth ponies can do whatever the buck they want, but that shit is not for cultured folk, like pegasi."
The rest of the argument continued on to high Soarin's inability to fly, his sensitivity and all his other faults. It wasn't so much an argument as an agreement between his mother and father. Soarin cried. He cried and cried into the early hours of the morning. Why was it so wrong to like colts? Just before he fell asleep in his tears, he remembered what Thunderlane had said.
Not everything big ponies say is true.
Four years passed. Soarin was hardly spoken to at home. He was put into another, stricter school and never saw Thunderlane again. He was pressured into becoming an incredible flier, although this was not a fact his father ever acknowledged. His mother left his father and his life degraded to having absolutely no social interaction. His father set him up on countless dates with mares since he was thirteen. He didn't like any of them, they were all stuck up and haughty. He was old enough now to figure out that his mother had been cheating on his dad.
When Soarin was 15, he got his cutie-mark by winning a race in the Wonderbolts Academy. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. Neither of his parents were there.
One day, at the age of sixteen, Soarin found a copy of Playmare lying on an abandoned cloud. Playmare was the salacious, mare-orientated magazine that featured pictures of almost naked stallions. It was later that night that Soarin had a realization. He was a coltcuddler. He was into stallions and nothing his father did could change that, no matter how many mares he went out with. He never mentioned this to his father, having learned his lesson at the tender age of ten. He simply continued his life. Pegasi school ended at the age of 14 and Soarin had a job cloudbusting, although he was training in the Wonderbolts Academy every time they opened their doors,as Soarin desperately wanted to become a Wonderbolt, to show his father that he was actually worth something.
Then, a few days earlier, Steamcloud had been reprimanding Soarin for not being enthusiastic with one of the mares he had gone out with the night before. Soarin was used to being yelled at by now. He simply trotted to his room.
"Soarin Windsong, you get back here right now!" his father shouted. But Soarin just went to his room, where he was always sent.
"Don't you leave when I'm talking to you boy!" Steamcloud yelled flinging open the door, rattling something inside the door. Soarin's eyes widened when he realized what was in the door. The Playmare magazine fell to the floor.
Steamcloud just stared at it. The cover made it obvious which gender it was meant to appeal to. The room was silent for what felt like hours. Steamcloud stared at the magazine, trying to process the thoughts he had.
" Dad... I" Soarin had no idea what to say. He simply looked at the ground, his dark blue mane flopping over his eyes.
"Get out" his father whispered.
"Dad.. no please-
"I said get THE BUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU QUEER!"
There was nothing Soarin could do without igniting his father's anger further. Steamcloud's words stung and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He was completely unloved by everypony.
Soarin had flown to the closest town he could find. He slumped over the pile of salt in front of him, unable to contain the tears anymore. The bar was empty, except for the bartender, who was behind the bar sorting out some shipping of salt. Soarin had rented a room in a nearby hotel an hour ago, and as he cantered out the door, he walked right past a yellow earth pony, their coats brushing against each other
Soarin Windsong didn't realize how much his coat and the coat of the yellow earth pony would touch in the future.
