Minor Turbulence

Minor Turbulence Part 1: Troubled Past

Chapter: 2 The City in the Clouds

By: Midway Bridge

Flight wasn't my strong suit in life.  The first time I tried flying was when I was on one of the swings that we had out front of the orphanage.  They used to be my favorite place to go,  it truly felt like I was flying among the clouds.  I had a swing that I marked with a permanent marker that said "Stormy's Swing".  When you’re 5, marking something with permanent marker was something serious, it meant you were 100% sure about a decision.   I didn't let anypony else use my swing, but I don’t think they cared.  Nopony liked the swings the way I did.

One day when I was seven, instead of pretending to fly I decided to jump off and actually give the real thing a go.  I Jumped off and spread my wings, and glided through the air.  I gave a flap of my wings and I flew higher and higher.  I circled a building.  This was true freedom of my life of walls and sheds.  It was soon afterwards I felt something strike my side.  A sharp pain coursed through my body as I began to descend to the ground.  I landed somewhere on the cobblestone path that led out of the walled gate and to the open world.  Upon impact I broke my wing, fracturing the bone severely and a large assortments of abrasions and bruises.  I was awake long enough to hear the laughter of the others.  I checked to see what hit me midflight,  it was a small rock.  Somepony threw a rock at me.  Ms. Sunshine came outside to see what all of the commotion was about and her heart skipped a beat when she saw me as a mess of sprawled limbs and blood. I don't really remember what happened after that so I suppose I must have passed out.  Ever since then I never tried flying again, and my swing remained vacant.

A sad little fun fact about my life: I was 11 and true to my word, I never tried flying since that day on the swings.  That made getting to a city in the clouds for my Summer Flight Camp a bit of a challenge for me.  So I rented a carriage, surprisingly it only cost $10 bits, which was roughly about one third of my lifesavings.  When I got to Cloudsdale I was stunned by the architecture of cloud structures and new faces that I've never seen before.  There were a multitude of columns that was a throwback to the classical Pegasus buildings that were made in pre-Equestrian times.  There were countless others who seemed to be flocking the cities streets and skies.  I prayed my innocent youthful self would just stay anonymous among the crowd.  Just keep my head down and wings furled, go about unnoticed.

The Cloudsdale Flight Acadamy Main Building was the largest edifice I had ever seen.  While the campus itself is composed of multiple structures, the main building is to this day the second largest cloud structure in the known world.  The largest belongs to the grans colleseum that dwarfs any other cloud structure next to it.

Moving on, I walked up the stairs and to the academy’s gigantic red doors and pushed my way through.  I knew that I should have probably practiced flying before I came here, but stupid ass me decided that public humiliation was a better idea.  After wandering the academy halls for what felt like hours I finally found the room I was supposed to be in.  Turns out all I had to do was follow the signs that pointed out the quickest path, but I apparently took the scenic route around the whole building.

I took a deep breath before opening the door.  If I could convince everyone else I was normal I'd have no problems fitting in.  I opened the door to find a multitude of young pegasai listening to an adult was taking roll call.  Since I came through the door that opened into the back of the room I entered without anypony else really noticing.

"You there in the back." Almost anypony else.  Of course the one who did was the coach.  "Why are you late?"

All eyes were on me, one pegasus mumbled "busted" followed by descending tones, and there were a few sniggers.  Great, I was in a class full of kindergartners.

I wanted to come up with a legitimate excuse that didn't make me look like a complete idiot.  "Um, I got lost."  Was the best I could come up with?

"Can't you read the signs?"

"Um…"

"I can't!" shouted a voice enthusiastically.  Laughs filled the room.

"Nopony cares Derpy!" shouted another colt in the room.  More laughter.

The filly called 'Derpy' slid back down into her chair with a sad frown on her face.  She covered her eyes, and I prayed to Celestia she wasn't crying; I can't stand other ponies crying.  At least the spotlight wasn't on me for now.

"Hey now guys, were all going to have to deal with each other for a month so I want everypony to be nice otherwise I'm kicking your flank out of here." He gave an angry glare at the colt who made the slight.  The kid stopped, but his two friends on either side continued to giggle.  I could already tell at that moment I wouldn’t like those guys.

"As for you," he said directed at me, "what’s your name so I can get you on my list?"

"Stormy Weather," I answered quickly.

"Alright Stormy, welcome to Flight Camp.  Would you care to take a seat next to Miss Dash?" He pointed to the empty desk next to a rainbow maned filly.

"Sure." I sat down.  I tried to be normal and normal ponies say 'hi' to whomever they sit next to right?  So I said 'hi' to Dash.  She just rolled her eyes and blew her mane out of her face completely ignoring me.  I caught that she mumbled the word "Troublemaker" under her breath.  She didn't like me already and I only just met her.  So what, I was late for the first day of camp and I'm immediately in the same boat as the three idiots in the back?!  I mean what the hell is with that!

"Whatever, I didn't care what they thought," I told myself silently.  Which was a complete lie; I cared a lot about what others thought of me. Already I was making it hard to be normal and I've been here for less than a minute.

I turned to the other filly to my right hoping I’d have better luck with her.  A cute butter colored filly with pink hair that hid her face.  "Hi."

"Um, uh, hi." she said in a tiny voice.  She shrunk into her seat and avoided eye contact while making a small whimpering sound.  Seriously, she literally whimpered like a scarred animal.

"Now that you're all here," he said wrapping up roll call and tossing the clipboard on the table, "I'm Coach Windshear I'm the head coach this year.  How many of you have previous flying experience?"

Everyone else in the room lifted their hoofs into the air.  I did too just to fit in with the rest of them I didn't want to be the odd stallion out.  I looked over to the right and saw the yellow filly didn't have her hoof raised.  Good so I wasn't the only one.

"I see, so then this first lesson should be a breeze for you.  Let’s get outside and stretch our wings."

There were murmurs of excitement and a few yawns of boredom.  We all got up and began to funnel into the hallways and follow the coach.  Whatever the first lesson was, I hoped that it would be easy.

“Hi Stormy, I’m Ditzy Doo!” introduced a mare who was walking next to me.   I didn’t notice she was there at first so she startled me a bit.  She was practically yelling in my ear to be overheard by the rest of the noise filling the hallway.

“Um, hi.”  I recognized her now; she was the filly who was called Derpy and I could see why:  her yellown eyes were completely crossed sideways.  I couldn’t help but stare at them bewildered how they got to be that way.

“Where you from?” she asked.  I was having an internal debate on which eye I should make contact with the right one was sort of looking at me but the other was looking the completely wrong way.   I focused on the right eye.  How did she even walk with her eyes like that?

“The Mareisburg suburbs.”

“Really?  I’m from Ponyville!”  Again she was yelling very loudly in my ear.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed she did a strange jump of happiness when she said that she was Ponyville.

“What’s with your eyes?”  I had to ask, I don’t care if it’s insensitive they were completely freaking me out.

“Oh, they came that way!” she answered with more enthusiasm than I sort of expected.  It was from that point on I deemed Ditzy Doo was too optimistic for her own good.  I tried to walk away from her but she stuck with me like when I super glued that one kid back in the orphanage to a chair (which was freaking hilarious).  I tried bobbing and weaving to get her to stop following me, I thought that it would be too hard for her eyes to keep up with.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, it’s just I valued my sanity.

After a while I sighed giving up.  She just babbled away, mindlessly asking me questions and talking about whatever came to her mind at the given moment.  It was torture.  When we came outside into the skyball field I was relieved to hear or rather not to hear Ditzy prattling away like an over stimulated child with ADHD, instead she struck with the sight of the stadium.

I have to say I was rather impressed too, it was the nicest looking field I had ever seen.  The clouds that composed of the field were well packed and formed a perfectly flat plane.  The cloud field was marked for numerous sports, many of which I didn't even know the name of.  There was only one game for me and that was skyball.  Skyball was a lot like the Earth ponies' games of hoofball, but in the air and across a third dimension of depth when flying is added to the mix.  I never played it but I watched a game.  Ms. Sunshine took the class out to Trottingham stadium to see the White Trots face off against the Canterlot Falcons and it was one of the best days of my life.  The roaring crowd and the wicked fast game play kept me ecstatic for the entire three hour game.

--=====--

"Now if everypony's done horsing around I'd like to get started," he waited for everyone to quiet down.  "I need a volunteer."

Everypony shuffled to the back trying to avoid being picked to go first.  That is the cardinal rule of demonstrations, never get picked first for anything.  I tried to hide among the crowd of pegasai; I didn't want to go first.  I didn't know how to even take off the ground properly let alone fly.

I don't blend in well with the other ponies, my physical appearance made it near impossible for me to.  I personally think that I’m not a handsome guy, but I don’t exactly repulse the mares away; that’s what my natural charm is for.  If you took a look at the photo of the Graduating class of 1996 in the Cloudsdale you’d find me in the back row and fourth from the right side.  I didn’t make that face on purpose; the pony next to me had some wicked nasty body odors that day.  If you could get past my grimace of disgust you’d see a scrawny looking kid with a dark stormy black coat and if the picture wasn’t in black and white you’d see my sapphire eyes and electric yellow mane.  If my wings were unfurled you'd notice that they are disproportionally larger than the rest of my body.  It made flying awkward and kind of hard to learn how to control.  My wings were powerful, I was told, but when you don't know how to use them you're screwed.

Back to hiding.  I tried hiding behind Ditzy but she moved to the side to get a better view of a flock of birds overhead.  Why was she watching a flock of birds? Beats me all I knew was she was going to be my cover.  I felt a shove from behind causing me to lurch forward and do an epic face-plant into the clouds.  A bunch of laughter ensued.  I lifted my head to realize I was now at the front of the pack.

"Thanks for volunteering Mr. Weather!" Coach Windshear said picking me up.

Celestia damn it!  I made a mental note to find out who shoved me so I could burn something precious of theirs.

"Now I would like you to kick off the ground and then hover in the air then to land back down," instructed the coach demonstrating the actions as he did, "simplicity itself."

"Aww common, make him do something that's actually a challenge!" complained a voice from the back.  Sounded like one of the three jerks that I already didn't like.  Now that I think about it was probably them that shoved me.

"I'm starting with the absolute basics, anypony who wants to give me grief for it can go walk out the front door."  Nopony else objected.  "Go on show me your stuff."

I unfurled my wings.  I said my prayers and gave a strong flap just like the coach did.  I rose off of the ground.  I soared too high into the air and panicked.  I never flew higher than 5 ft before but now my altitude was something like 10.  I tried to maintain my height but my wings froze up. I said a profanity and corkscrewed back down to the clouds once again, making an imprint of my face on the surface.  Good thing clouds are soft; if I landed on solid ground I probably would have broken a few bones.  It was better than my last attempt 4 years ago; at least I wasn’t stoned (as in rocks thrown at) midflight.

I heard laughter, terrible laughter.  I was personally proud of what I accomplished, but of course they didn't know that that was the first time I attempted flight in such a long time.  I'm sure their first attempt was just as bad if not worse than that.  I brushed myself off.

"That was very good," the coach announced over the others, "a very powerful takeoff I might add. You'd make a fine sprint racer if you practiced."  He made a mark on a clipboard.  “Who’s next?”

“I’ll go next!” volunteered a voice in the crowd.  The pony stepped forward, it was Rainbow Dash.  I wished that she would mess up like me, it would’ve made me feel better if I wasn’t the only one to not be able to do such a simple task.  No of course not, she had to show off her talent of flying, she did a loop and a spin in the air demonstrating her superior athletic abilities.  Right about now my ego took a sucker punch to the gut.  I felt like a fool.

“Very impressive, Miss Dash,” said the coach, “perhaps your calling is aerial acrobatics.”

“I’m shooting for the Wonderbolts Coach.”

“Aim high kid.  Always aim your dreams high.” He marked something on his clipboard.

Her flying was impressive, but it did leave me green with envy for her abilities.  Every day from that point on, I was comparing myself to her.  Each of us demonstrated our flying capabilities and the coach marked something down on his clipboard after each flight.  Some flights were skillful and others were painful to watch.

“Alright settle down.  Now, based on your flying skills we will separate the stronger flyers from the weaker flyers so we can work with the two groups at different paces.  The A-Team will brush up on the basics then proceed to more advanced techniques, while the B-Team will be more focused on mastering the basics.  On this clipboard has each of your names, and a letter marking which team you’re on.   Let’s go by order of performance.”

Everypony exchanged nervous glances or smug looks depending on how confident they were in their abilities.

“Stormy Weather, B-Team.” I expected that, heck I even preferred it over A-Team since I had no idea how to fly.  I walked over to the side on the coaches left where the B-Team would congregate.

“Rainbow Dash, A-Team.”  She elegantly flew over to the right side.

I wasn't the only one sent to B-Team,  Ditzy Doo, who seemed blissfully unaware what was going on was also assinged to B-Team along with 10 others.  The yellow coated mare who sat next to me who's name turned out to be Fluttershy was one of them, she refused to fly at all durring her demonstration.

On A-Team went the three jerks named Hoops, Dumb-Bell, and Score.  Each didn't seem too thrilled about it and made a snark about B-Team when passing by.

And thus the line was drawn in the sand (or rather a cloud); I wanted to be like Rainbow Dash the elegant flyer that was on A-Team.  I know wishes aren’t granted by genies in bottles, I would have to work by flank off to get where she was, and that’s what I intended to do.

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Disclaimer: I am not Laruen Faust incognito, and henceforth I do not own MLP: Friendship is Magic. I make no claim for Hasbro’s characters or world. I am just a humble fan fiction writer, nothing more.  Please leave your questions, comments, and constructive criticism in the comments below so I can better myself as a writer and enhance your experience as a reader.