“It’s more tiring than I expected,” Twilight replied, lifting a hoof to her chin as she concentrated on the memory. “Rainbow Dash and even Fluttershy make it look so effortless, but it’s approximately the opposite of that. Gravity doesn’t stop trying to stick you to the surface just because you happen to have wings – you have to continuously counteract that force to hover, or maintain enough forward velocity to let differential air flow over an appropriately shaped airfoil generate the lift.”
She spread her wings to demonstrate, and took a deep breath. She felt the threads of magical force woven through her primaries extend into a set of much larger, virtual wings, extending far enough that they would have had to phase through the walls of the library if the space in which they existed wasn’t as virtual as they were. And then she flapped, the huge incorporeal surfaces scooping the air beneath them, pushing her hooves off the ground, in roughly the same manner as if she’d jumped – the difference being that she could ‘jump’ again without having to wait until she’d lost all the altitude.
“That said, the transformation came with a reasonably well-developed set of altered musculature.” The muscles in question flexed beneath her hide, pushing her upwards again and again with impossible force. “So while it’s not effortless, the effort is at least possible for me to make, even without the years of training and exercise that most pegasus foals require.” She wobbled, as the divided focus from flying and talking at the same time made one of her wings miss half a beat, and the hurried flutter to compensate only made it worse. “Some things take – ahh!”
She flapped both wings desperately as the room seemed to spin around her, and the next thing she knew gravity was pulling her to the side, and she didn’t know how to flap sideways, but knew that stopping would be a recipe for certain failure –
She let her left wing fold as it brushed against an obstacle, but the hard edges of the shelf still slammed painfully against the bones of the solid part of her wing, and bent the magic-charged feathers out of position, splintering the ethereal extensions and disrupting the magic. Then it was her skull’s turn, and her hip – a solid shock of dull pain, followed by a brief sense of falling, the invisible magical feathers of her remaining undamaged wing sliding through the air to slow her fall, before the floor slammed into her, knocking the breath out of her lungs and making her whole body tingle briefly as the force of impact rippled through her.
“Ow,” she said, standing up and examining her wing, which seemed none the worse for wear, somehow. It didn’t hurt as she gave it a few experimental flaps, and none of the feathers looked out of place. She’d have some bruises, but that was nothing new, and the worst of those seemed to be on her flank. At least she’d missed the table. “As I was saying, some things take practice. Hovering in place is like jumping up and down on a trampoline – it’s easy to get a little out of balance and go flying off to the side. Gliding is actually much easier since the pegasus – or alicorn – body is shaped to stabilize your forward motion without you really having to work at it.”
She paused, and looked up at the ceiling. “The clouds are a good distance in the air most of the time, however. Unless you’re heading for one of the specially designated recreational clouds, it’s like climbing all the stairs in the palace just to get to the lowest hanging weather.”
Twilight motioned for the fillies to follow her as she headed outside. It was a nice sunny day, and she spread her wings in the sunlight, letting it warm them as the gentle spring breeze rippled through her mane and tail and feathers. “Ahhh,” she said. “Isn’t this a lovely day? The sun, the wind, the smell of flowers, and a bit of rain from the storm last night. I know I have a reputation as a bit of a bookworm,” she smiled at the understatement, “but in Canterlot I used to stand on the balcony of my tower and just take in the weather and the view, or lay down in the grass to read.” She shook her head. “There’s none of that while you’re flying. It’s just too much work, too much concentration just to keep from face-planting into the dirt. I’m sure all the beauty is still there, but it’s impossible to appreciate it unless you land on a cloud or something. And if I really wanted to be on a cloud, it’d be easier by far for me to teleport there.”
Twilight took a deep breath, and spread her wings, crouching down to prepare for liftoff. “But I promised Rainbow Dash that I’d learn to fly, so…” she leaped upwards with her legs, adding a flap of her wings to make it a giant bound, almost to rooftop level, and then flapping again to push herself higher and faster. She had been practicing, so there wasn’t any embarrassing wobbling or accidental inversion this time, and she quickly built up speed to the point where the airflow over her wings’ energy-patterns was sufficient to counteract gravity, making it less like a trampoline and more like skating quickly over thin ice that threatened to crack beneath her hooves if she let herself slow down.
Which made landing challenging, especially landing on as small of a target as the tiny shade cloud she’d picked. The first pass she just plain wasn’t headed in the right direction, and wasn’t comfortable making a tight enough turn to get back on track. It took two more wide circles before she was headed right for it, and then she tilted back, spreading her wings wide to grip at the air with twenty-pace wide invisible magical feathers, slowing herself into a controlled fall that would put her right… uh oh.
The moment where her glide tipped over into a stall happened a few seconds before she was ready, and more to the point a few seconds before she was actually over the cloud. Her stomach flew up into her chest as she went into free fall, but she remembered her training – don’t flap wildly to try to arrest your descent, spin yourself until you’re pointed in the direction of the fall, then turn. She yelped in surprise as she overcorrected during the first part, and started tumbling head over hooves. Her wings and hooves flailed wildly as she started to panic, none of the six limbs gaining any purchase whatsoever.
After the impact, it was a few seconds before she could open her eyes. She smiled weakly at the concerned faces of the three fillies looking down at her. “I’m okay,” she said, dragging herself to her hooves and verifying that with a few tentative stretches and pokes. “I just need to work a little more on the landings, I guess.”
“And that’s why Flight Camp is up in Cloudsdale,” came the high-pitched, raspy voice of her personal trainer. Rainbow Dash dusted Twilight off with a wing. “It’s a lot less painful to crash into the clouds than it is to crash into the cobblestones, and you’re going to be doing a lot of crashing.”
“I told you, Rainbow Dash, I don’t have the time to spend three months in,” she shuddered despite herself, “Flying Kindergarten.”
“Yeah, but Scoots here does,” Rainbow said as she led Twilight back towards the library. “Come on, let me fix up those wings of yours before you try flying with a bent secondary and go even more out of control.”
“So whatcha gonna do, Scootaloo?” Applebloom asked. “Ah know we’d miss you if you went off to camp, but are you really sure Rainbow Dash is a good enough teacher?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Rarity said that it’s important to have a professional tutor teach me how to use magic, instead of just trying to copy what she does.”
Scootaloo looked at the library longingly, not seeming to hear them. “If I stay here, do you think Rainbow Dash would preen my wings?”
