What's It Like to Flutter?
What's It Like to Flutter?
“What’s it like to fly?”
“Huh? Sorry.”
It’s a reasonable question for Rarity to ask Fluttershy, as they lie relaxing in the spa. Up until a minute ago, the two had been discussing the future of Carousel Boutique. But in the subsequent silence there had been plenty of time for the mind to wander toward topics more tangentially related to their lives.
Twilight has her wings now, and as the only proper unicorn left in their little group, Rarity may be wondering what she’s missing out on. Fluttershy hopes Rarity doesn’t feel jealous of Twilight’s alicorn wings. Being a unicorn is special, but it’s not as special as being a pegasus. Fluttershy hopes Rarity doesn’t realize this.
“What’s it like to fly, darling?” repeats Rarity. “I know we have flying machines and I flew that one time with the wings Twilight gave me, but I never had the chance to, you know, really fly. Fly in the open sky, to the horizon. You know what I mean? It’s so romantic. It must be a wondrously freeing sensation, to be able to fly away any time you like.”
Fluttershy frowns. Fluttershy knows what Rarity means, but it’s not a freeing sensation. Fluttershy doesn’t like to fly. The cotton skyscrapers and cumulus tunnels are too much for her. Leave those palaces of grandeur to the likes of Rainbow Dash, she thinks. But she knows she’s not being fair. Every pegasus, even the youngest foal, is familiar with the sensation of being dwarfed by drifting, thunderous mountains. Comfortable, even. It’s an everyday occurrence. It’s part of what it means to be a pegasus.
“Oh, it’s um, nice. Yeah.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“Well, I mean, I’m not saying you’re wrong, necessarily, but, flying doesn’t free you from your problems. Unless you’re flying away from, um, a timberwolf, or something like that.”
“Oh, of course not, dear.” Rarity struggles with the words. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought it would be nice to be able to, er, fly. When I had wings, it was the most… invigorating sensation. Such speed and power. I never felt that before. It was as if I was on top of the world. It’s no wonder that sometimes Rainbow has such a big – that is, er, she is so self-confident.”
“Yeah.” Fluttershy smiles. “It’s nice if you can fly that way.”
Rarity would fit right in among the clouds, she thinks. If Rarity was a pegasus, she would tailor perfectly symmetrical cloudbanks, and her rains would fall exactly when and where she wanted. The weather factory needs workers like that.
“I didn’t mean to imply, that is…” Rarity begins awkwardly. “I hope this isn’t a sensitive subject for you, dear. I know ponies used to tease you about flying when you were younger, so if this is something you’d rather…”
“Oh, no, no,” says Fluttershy. She hastens to put Rarity at ease. “I’d love to talk about flying. I was just a bit, um, distracted.”
Fluttershy doesn’t like to race or fly cartwheels or see how high she can go before the air gets too thin. What she likes are the secret nooks and crannies you can find in every field of clouds. The benefit of a vast blank canvas stretching monstrously to infinity is that there are a thousand places to hide and more. When life in the sky gets to be too much, you can hide in its soft underbelly. Seek out a private cave, identical to its countless sisters, and cocoon yourself in the silent, wispy, white guts of the world. Inside a blanket of clouds, the yells of rowdy pegasi lose their stinging insistency, and the soft calling of the wind takes on a sudden new importance. Clouds have no expectations for pegasi; they don’t care if you have the right cutie mark or whether you’re afraid of heights. You can make them rain and thunder, but if you don’t, they’ll still float along just fine tomorrow. When you’re one with the clouds, you know what it’s like to not need anything, to be perfectly content with being yourself. And among the clouds, it’s easy to pretend no one will ever find you – which can be a comforting thought, or terrifying.
“I feel that way about flying too,” Fluttershy says to Rarity. “When the wind’s right and the weather is nice. You’re on top of the world.”
Fluttershy remembers the first time she saw it, the letter in a bubble. She had flown crying away from the playground, the jeers of her classmates following after her. The pain of humiliation stung her more than the bruise on her knee, where she had skinned it falling on the cloudy pavement – a feat that shouldn’t even have been possible, given the softness of the cloud pavement, but which had made it all the more humiliating.
The more adventurous fliers in her class enjoyed performing tricks with the clouds bordering the playground, and such behavior was encouraged if they did not stray too far. So nopony paid much attention when Fluttershy tearfully fled the playground to the surrounding clouds. She fluttered away through the misty hills and didn’t stop until a solid mass of white blocked her tormentors from view.
She had lain down on a stray nimbus, her body hiccupping with sobs. As she rolled over, ashamed, the cotton surface beside her had shifted, dislodging a round object the size of her hoof. It was a solid bubble, its surface tension magically heightened, and within it floated a tightly rolled scrap of parchment. Her grief was replaced with curiosity. She pressed down on the bubble with one hoof, stretching its surface tight around the scroll until the parchment popped out, leaving the bubble to roll away empty.
“Greetings from the skies over Ponyville,” the letter had read. The parchment it was written on was old and yellowing. Fluttershy had known Ponyville was near Cloudsdale, but the water cycle was common knowledge for pegasi foals, and clouds were always on the move. For the letter to have returned so close to its point of origin after traveling through rain, rivers, and oceans could have taken years.
The letter contained the kind of message Fluttershy expected from what she quickly recognized it to be – a letter in a bubble, thrown at random into the sea of clouds as a snapshot of one pony’s life for anyone to pluck from the sky or snatch from a rainfall before it floated away. Fluttershy smiled as the writer, apparently a pegasus filly around her own age, described her life with enthusiasm: learning to skydive, curiosity about her impending cutie mark, and an introduction to the prizes one could find by scavenging in clouds, such as letters in bubbles. There were apparently hobbyists who devoted their lives to tunneling through clouds and leaving caches of hidden treasure, just to see where they would finally end up, or for the satisfaction of helping a complete stranger. The letter ended by advertising the effectiveness of “Granny Weatherwhack’s Secret Solution!” followed by a recipe for some sort of magic oil rub that “keeps you warm at high altitudes.” How are things on your end?, asked the writer.
Fluttershy had returned the letter to its bubble and stuffed it back into the cloud.
She regretted that she didn’t have a pen to write down her own addition to the bubble letter, as her mother had told her was a popular thing to do for the next reader to discover. By the time she returned to class and the day was over, this particular cloud would have floated away, never to be seen again. That encounter with the bubble letter was the first time, however, that she had felt consciously comfortable with the thought of growing up in the sky. Of course, at the time, the sky had been the entire world to her, so that was a big deal. The idea that clouds could be filled with wonders invisible to the common pegasus, wonders that only she knew to look for, made them feel alive and on her side. The clouds would be her secret friends, she had decided. She would share treasures and hold conversations with ponies across the world and never have to speak a word. She would become a treasure hunter. It was a silly idea, but at the time it had filled her with hope.
“Yes,” Rarity agrees, “literally the top. Even when I go up in Twilight’s air balloon, or, you know, those airships they have in Canterlot, I get that same feeling. It must be so nice to have wings.”
She sighs. Fluttershy wonders whether to disagree with her.
“Rainbow has started teaching Twilight how to fly,” Rarity continues, after a pause. “Did you know?”
“Oh, um, yes,” says Fluttershy. Fluttershy was there during their first lesson.
“Twilight and I have always had our horns in common – although admittedly her knowledge is miles ahead of mine – but it’s always been something we could talk about, that nopony else who wasn’t a unicorn could understand. Now that she has wings, it’s difficult for me to imagine what she’s going through.”
Rarity’s not jealous, Fluttershy realizes. She just wants to relate to her friend.
“It’s more difficult than imagining being a princess?”
“Oh, princesses. I’ve fantasized of being a princess since I was a filly. I can imagine every detail of a princess’ dress down to the horseshoe, and list which social occasions I would be prevailed upon to attend to maintain a proper reputation…”
“Um, I don’t think those are the most important…”
“…But wings? That opens up entirely new social opportunities. Why, if I had wings, I could fly to Canterlot.”
Rarity must be wondering what it’s like to be a pegasus, thinks Fluttershy. She wants me to give her my perspective so she can understand what it’s like.
Fluttershy considers what it’s like to have wings on your back. It’s like having a third pair of legs, one that lets you walk upward. She would feel trapped if she lost her wings. Imagine how much scarier it would be to look out of a high window, if she knew she couldn’t fly to save her life if she fell out?
It’s difficult to imagine what it would be like if she could never rise off the ground. To never know, to never even be aware that with a few short beats of one’s wings, the world looks so much more fragile. Earthbound ponies marvel at the scale of mountains, and cities like Canterlot, carved from rock. But pegasi know the true terror of size. There are clouds that would swallow Canterlot a hundred times over, grotesquely huge behemoths that weatherpony teams must learn to steer and control, and to fly straight through into oceans of blinding fog if the need arises. The castle of the Crystal Empire must have been an architect’s dream of the sky, for only in the sky are such sights common; a clear expanse dominated by a single white leviathan.
Yet because pegasi deal more often with the insanities of scale, they understand the importance of size better than other ponies. They know that even if the earth looks like it can fit in the palm of your hoof, the truth is much larger than that. Equestria is titanic, and it requires an equally titanic effort to maintain. Being a pegasus comes with certain responsibilities. When a larger than life threat looms on the horizon, it is the pegasi who take it head-on – droughts, hurricanes, dragons. Everypony is vaguely aware that the pegasi control the weather, but when you’re earthbound, it’s easier to ignore the sweat and courage that goes into producing each day of clear skies.
“It’s not that different having wings,” says Fluttershy. “It’s easier to fly around and you can visit pegasus cities too. But, you’ve been up to the sky before, so, um, you know what the clouds are like. I’m sure you can imagine it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” muses Rarity. “Perhaps it’s not so different being able to fly. It may be that what I’m really worried about is… that Twilight’s so interested in her new life that, well, she’ll lose interest in us.”
“Oh, I don’t think that could happen.”
“Hmm. You’re right, Fluttershy.”
“Maybe you should just ask her what she’s learned about flying. I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you.”
“Quite true.” Rarity blinks. “Mind you, I wasn’t afraid of asking her before. This whole idea about flying has only just occurred to me. Talking with you helps me to think, you know.”
Fluttershy murmurs in the affirmative.
“Um, I was actually teaching Twilight about how to fly too, with Rainbow.”
“Oh, were you, darling?”
“Yes, um.” Fluttershy mistakes Rarity’s surprise for disbelief. “She said it was important to get perspectives from different ponies on flying, even if they’re not good at flying. As, um, a princess, that’s important, I guess.”
Fluttershy recalls the conversation that began the flying lessons, as she, Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie had sat eating sandwiches at a sidewalk café in Canterlot. It was mere hours before the coronation.
“Can you teach me about flying, Fluttershy?” Princess Twilight had asked.
Fluttershy and Rainbow had both responded hesitantly, in delicate tones trying not to offend, that perhaps the yellow pegasus was not the best pony to be teaching her about flight. But Fluttershy had noticed the steady look on Twilight’s face, the look that said she had asked Fluttershy on purpose, that she had recognition and respect for Fluttershy as a pegasus.
“If you really want to,” Fluttershy had said, “I can show you some things about living on clouds. But if you want to learn how to fly, you’d really be better off asking Rainbow Dash.” She had grinned sheepishly at Twilight, her eyes filled with gratitude.
“That would be great,” Twilight had said. “You can teach me together.”
“Hold on,” Pinkie had cried, “I’m having a flashback!” The others had looked at her in bewilderment.
“Darling,” Rarity says, “You’re a beautiful flyer. Nopony’s as fast as Rainbow Dash, but you’re so graceful. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Um. Thanks.”
Fluttershy had flown backwards in front of Twilight, holding onto her outstretched hooves to guide her, as a mother pegasus guides her foals when they first learn to hover. The two mares had looked into each other’s eyes and giggled, as Rainbow flew circles around them, calling out tips to correct Twilight’s form, angling a wing higher here, pulling a hoof in there. Fluttershy suspects Rainbow would have corrected her own form too, but she was being nice. By the time they had risen above the first layer of stratus clouds, Twilight was pulling most of her own weight.
“I’m going to let go now,” Fluttershy had said, hoping the expression on her face was that of pride. Twilight had taken to flying much faster than Fluttershy had originally, though this fact was true of almost all winged creatures.
“Thanks,” said Twilight, giving her hoof a squeeze.
Fluttershy let go, and Twilight had risen into the air on her own strength, her wings beating mightily. Fluttershy clapped and Rainbow gave out a loud whoop. Twilight cheered and then yelped, as her upraised hoofs tipped her balance too far forward, and she went tumbling head over heels downward, landing on the flat plane of the stratus clouds with a puff.
“Oh my!” Fluttershy had cried. “Are you alright?”
“Never better,” replied Twilight, giving the hoofs up, even as her head remained buried in cotton.
“That’s why you gotta find good cloud cover to practice over when you try new techniques,” said Rainbow Dash. “See the altostratus sheet up there? That’s a good spot too, lots of coverage if you fall, and it’s way up, so you get privacy.”
“Altostratus?” Twilight tasted the word on her tongue, as she brushed fluff from her shoulders.
“Um,” said Fluttershy, “every pegasus has to learn the different kinds of clouds in grade school.”
“I know what it means,” said Twilight. “You know what they say, the pegasi have a hundred different words for ‘cloud.’”
“Eh,” Rainbow replied, “I never counted,”
“I think there are, um, regional words for different clouds too,” said Fluttershy. “I don’t know them all.”
“I’ve heard about that,” said Twilight. “Phenomena like nacreous and mammatus species. They only form under certain atmospheric conditions, so a lot of pegasi aren’t aware of them.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively. “You gotta know that stuff if you’re hardcore into the science. Ponyville is pretty normal for weather though. We don’t get weird requests.”
“Oh, wow,” Twilight interrupted. “Look at that.” She had pointed to a cumulonimbus miles away, a colossus even from this distance. It shone a blinding white as the sun reflected off its celestial columns.
“Uh, yeah?” said Rainbow. “It’s a cloud.”
“It’s amazing,” Fluttershy had murmured.
“Amazing,” agreed Twilight.
“Oh, you mean like that,” Rainbow said, embarrassed. “Yeah, the view up here is amazing.”
“It’s hard to tell how large they are from the ground,” Twilight said. “It’s only when I went up in my balloon for the first time that I realized how different things look up here. I can barely recognize Ponyville, even from this height. It’s all a bunch of tiny squares and blobs.”
“Welcome to the third dimension,” said Rainbow proudly. “If you think this is good, I’ve got sunsets that’ll blow your mind!”
Twilight lay back on the white plain, her wings spreading out beside her to outline a cloud angel in the vaporous snow. The sunlight was stronger here, warming their skin despite the chillier wind. She sighed with comfort. “It’s so great here,” she joked, “If I were you, I’d be spending all my time up in the clouds.”
There was silence for half a beat as the pegasi considered which pony this jest was supposed to be aimed toward.
“I like the ground,” explained Fluttershy.
“Well, excuuuse me, Princess,” Rainbow said, simultaneously, “if I think you’re worth spending some time with too.”
The three ponies laughed.
Twilight’s wings flicked upward as she giggled, shearing the cloud surface and dislodging a round sphere from within the nimbus. The bubble bounced out and hovered in the air.
“What’s this?” Twilight asked. “Did some carrier pegasus drop a letter?”
“Ohhh,” said Fluttershy softly. “It’s a letter in a bubble.”
“What’s it say?” Rainbow asked excitedly. “Open it!”
“I think…” Fluttershy murmured. “It’s the same one.” There were numerous paper additions to the bubble’s contents, signifying how many hooves it had passed through, but she thought she recognized among them the same scrap of yellowed parchment she had picked up years ago.
Destiny.
She had forgotten her fanciful notion of being a cloud treasure hunter in her childhood. But here it was again, the letter that had once suggested to her that there was a way out, that she didn’t have to build a life around flying like other ponies to be happy. She could dig deeper and find other gems in the sky. But that life was long gone, replaced by a better one. What was the letter in the bubble telling her to do by showing up now? Today she had friends who accepted her for who she was, and she had found a talent that she was proud of, that she didn't need to fly for.
“The same as what?” said Rainbow.
“Never mind,” said Fluttershy.
“Hey,” said Twilight, “that letter looks pretty long. If we’re going to read it, I think we should bring it down. Pinkie’s still waiting for us on the ground, remember? She can’t see us from here.”
“Speaking of Pinkie,” said Fluttershy, “I just got an idea.”
The ponies looked at her.
“It’s a surprise,” she said, and smiled. “But I think you’ll like it.”
The two ponies rise from their couches in the spa, thanking the attendants for the end of their session.
“I think it’s wonderful that you can share that part of your life with Twilight,” says Rarity. “You and Rainbow grew up in Cloudsdale, so you must feel right at home among the clouds and other pegasi.”
“Oh, they don’t, um…” Fluttershy mumbles, rolling up her hoof-towel and setting it aside. “I feel more at home on the ground now. Most of my friends are here, so um, it’s where I’m more comfortable now.”
Rarity stares at the butter-yellow pegasus, who says so little but means so much.
“Well, we’re certainly happy to have you down here,” she says decisively. “Other ponies may think it’s strange for a pegasus to hate the sky, but I think it’s a perfectly acceptable opinion. It’s so cold and, and big up there. I’d rather sleep in a wooden bed without rolling off the edge of the world in the middle of the night, thank you very much.”
“Oh! I, um, I don’t hate the sky. I told you I like flying, remember? I mean, when it’s nice.”
“That–”
“But thanks for saying so, Rarity. I’m glad that we’re friends, and also that I’m a pegasus. If I hadn’t grown up in Cloudsdale, I never would have met you.”
“Aww.” Rarity gushes sweetly.
The two ponies exit the spa. The clouds above are gathering thick.
“There wasn’t a storm scheduled today,” says Rarity.
Fluttershy lifts her nose and smells the sweet wetness of the air.
Pegasi know all about how to pour rain from a cloud, but many of them rarely set hoof on land, so they’re not on the receiving end of rainstorms as often as other ponies might expect. To the most high-minded of pegasi, the world begins and ends at the sky. Whatever falls from the world of clouds is lost, swallowed by the hungry roots of trees and dry earth. The land provides food and raw materials for ponies, but it is the privilege of the pegasi to be able to leave such earthly pursuits to the other two races.
“No,” says Fluttershy, “it’s right on time.”
The clouds begin to rain despite the afternoon sunshine. Amidst the rain there float countless tiny baubles, sparkling and shining. As the spheres tumble slowly to earth, they reveal themselves to be tiny bubbles, each holding a crystalline treasure from heaven. The pavement glistens as the jewels come to rest on their wet surface. The earth is gilded all colors of the rainbow. The citizens of Ponyville fling open their windows and rush onto the streets, with exclamations of delight. The sound of noisemakers and accordion music drifts near, signifying the start of Pinkie Pie’s surprise party storm.
Rarity catches one of the bubble-wrapped treasures with her horn and examines it.
“Fluttershy. Is it raining… candy?”
“Yes.” Fluttershy laughs. “It’s a Pinkie party.”
“Good gracious. How did she pull it off this time?”
“It’s easy. You just need to know somepony who flies.”