What's it like to fly?
Cold. Sharp. Dangerous. Wondrous. Take power beyond the dreams of vanity and condense it into a pony; that is a pegasus. We go where others cannot; we see what they can never know. We are the true wisdom of the pony species; we are its purest distillation. We are magic unmatched. We are the brightest stars, and in our hearts grows a fire unquenched by the dreary jealousy that haunts the hearts of haughty ground-pounders. We are perfect and glorious, and it is flight that makes us so.
What's it like to fly?
A dream outwith your comprehension. To fly is sacred, and so the Spirits of Ponykind gift only the greatest of ponies with it. The right to escape the grasping hoof of earth and water, and rise up through the air like the dancing flame; the right to dance with the elements, to breathe the purest air and drink the clearest water; the right to see through the veil of emotion and perceive the world as it truly is - these rights are ours, and no mud-spattered halfwit trapped in her place by fences and rivers will ever know the divine sanctity that is our birthright.
What's it like to fly?
Crystalline solitude, empty and free. On the ascent, the mental conjunction of lust and power drives our burning muscles in obeisance to our will. When we fall, it is by our choice, and under our control.
When the air is still, at the arc's zenith, there is the perfect moment of any pony's life. Suspended in emptiness, bodiless and heartless, we experience the revelation of the pony soul. And in this pinpoint moment of pure clarity, we see not only the curve of the world but of space itself, stretching away beyond thirst and hunger, strength and courage, into the infinite realm of the immortal.
In that moment, nothing is beyond our reach: not the sun, not the moon, not the stars you name for your ancestors. You should remember that, you who are bound and bounded by wood and rock. Should we decide to take the stars from you, we would eat them whole and grow fat on your misery. And should we want the land under your hooves, we would simply take you from it, and leave you to ponder the mysteries of your heavy souls while you plummet like stones to the ground. For we are as safe as a master should be: you can never reach our homes, but we descend upon yours with little more than a thought. You could not stop us any more than you can stop the wind from blowing. Your suffering in this endless winter does not concern us, for among all mortal beings we alone have ascended above the clouds, and we alone, in our wisdom, have mastered their secrets.
*We alone. Yes, alone, for the rigours of flight are each pony's to bear on her own. Each pegasus is her own cloud; each pegasus must rise to nature's eternal demand: perfection or death. For we so blessed with freedom are not permitted to submit ourselves to sloth, nor burden ourselves with the care of others. We fly alone, pure and holy and gleaming in the light of the sun that we alone may see most truly. Where you worship "friendship", and devote your brief and brutish lives to mutual enslavement at the cost of the very drive to be an equine being, we alone know the truth of our natures. We alone will last this winter, and we, alone, will build a greater world from the ruins of your shattered cities.
And what a glamour we shall make it! What a place will Pegasopolis be! White, and white, and ever white, from sun to moon the cloud will stretch across the silent sky! Beneath it, every feature sculpted to enlightened taste. The whole world will be our canvas; the winds and the rains our brushes. For again, the greatest gift of pegasus flight is the secret knowledge it grants: to you, a great fir marks only an obstacle; to your kin, perhaps a resource to be consumed. Yet to us, it is a fresh scent, nothing more. There is no more effort in avoiding it than in seeking it out. And why may that fir not be a river, a mountain, a meaningless line on some distant Queen's map? Oh, what choice is given to the high queens of the heavens! Today, shall I dwell amongst stormclouds? Tomorrow, shall I soar above the ocean? Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, free of any petty place from day to day; and all the shrieking neighs of simple fools disturb only the dust: the dust that we alone have left forever.
What's it like to fly?
Contempt. In our freedom, we see your chains. With our enlightened minds, we see your grasping degradation. As we rise, we pity that you will never know our truths. And we watch you as we fall, insects in an insect's world, bound and crushed and oh, oh! So unrelentingly dull! To you, the sky is force and fear; you, who live or die by its dictates! What, then, of we who command it? What majesty of form! What certainty of purpose! What perfect arrogance must glint in our eyes; we, who speak with the thunder's roar, who strike with fearful lightning! How easily might a pony mistake us for her gods!
This is the power of flight: to see the world from high above, and so to own it, in freedom unimagined by those who call themselves our peers.
And you come to me, with your fat jowls and your filthy hooves, your librarian's wisdom and your petty affections, your foalish ignorance and your myopic vision for our perfect species - and you ask what it is like to fly?
You'd never understand, Star-Swirl.
Mere Player,
The Winter of Discontent (608 ANM)
- Commander Hurricane / 1st Windigo, Act III, scene iii (nicknamed the "We Alone" speech)
Author's Note
Q1. What important facts about the other pony races is Commander Hurricane forgetting in her obsession with the physical freedom of flight?
Q2. What does that tell you about her mental state as she makes this speech?
Q3. In the next scene, the Windigoes will kill the Hateful Triad. Do you think this speech is a fitting epitaph for Commander Hurricane and her pegasus military dictatorship? Why?
Extension: Pair up with a friend. One of you is Hurricane, the other the Windigo. Perform the "We alone" paragraph (marked above). Who says which lines? Why? How tight is the Windigo's grip on Hurricane's heart at this point?
Think! Mere Player coined the word "ground-pounder". Today, that word is deemed offensive, and The Winter of Discontent itself is a controversial play. Do you think Mere Player herself was prejudiced? What other evidence from the play can you cite?
A/N: The notes above started as a way of helping contextualise the speech, and just turned into some kind of textbook fluff. Just roll with it. IDK either 