Littlepip Thought It Well
An old mare took a deep breath, enjoying the moment. The air smelled of dusty books, the scent of threadbare school knowledge and childish hopes: children wished that the teacher would not give them ‘that stupid homework’ today. She smiled to herself as if savouring every second of what would happen next.
“So, children, your homework is to write an essay about how the Princesses united Equestria under their rule. Two pages.”
The entire class of nineteen young foals—eleven colts and eight fillies—whimpered in disappointed unison, but the teacher, an old pegasus mare with classical glasses and a grey mane pulled into a bun, didn’t bat an eyelid. It was not her first time, and every time she put textbooks into her old, shabby saddlebag, she hoped it would not be her last.
Every year she gave this simple homework to every class, and every year she received the same reaction. It was no different from what she had experienced in her first time when she was a young tenderhearted part-time assistant helping a teacher just as old as she was now.
She knew that they whimpered just because they hoped for an easier task, like reading a textbook, but she always followed her curriculum. Every time, exactly on that day and exactly after that subject, she gave children the homework: to write an essay. Nothing would ever make her waive this rule.
“It’s just two pages,” she added in an irenic tone. “But I don’t want to see wide gaps between words and lines or any paragraphs starting at the end of a sheet and second sheets containing only a few words! In-depth analysis of the events and information from the literature will give you extra points.” She frowned and gave the class a stern look. “As for you, Study Scroll,” her glasses menacingly gleamed when she looked at skinny colt with a reddish-brown coat and a pair of oversized glasses; he was smartest in the class. “I’m expecting the best work from you. The lesson is over.”
The foals haphazardly packed their belongings and rushed out from the classroom. Before she knew it, she was left alone. An old class book seemed to smile at her with its smooth hoofwritings, promising to brighten up her long familiar loneliness.
The mare just shook her head. She was a history teacher and liked her job as well as she liked to listen to all those answers her pupils gave her every day.
The foals—’little perpetuum mobiles’ as their science teacher had once called them—ran from the classroom to the locker room in a single burst of activity. After a few moments, they were all dressed up and ran outside, full of afterschool joy.
Unlike other cities of the Enclave, Volcano City—for the most part—was actually situated on a sleeping volcano, and thus was a home for a large number of earth ponies working on farms. In the days of the Last War, it was they who founded the city and had sufficient political weight for a long time after. Thanks to their efforts, Volcano City had gotten influence over many urgent matters that took place in the pegasi state, not to mention the fact that they could bargain anything from anypony in exchange for food.
Even the Enclave’s very military machine was not an exception: great numbers of old mechanisms, kept usually by the Enclave until times of need, got into the hooves of municipal services of Volcano City. The local authorities used them for improving agro-industrial complex, constantly expanding and digging deeper into the volcano and adjacent mountain range.
Certainly, having such resources was the reason why the city prospered. Many families moved and settled here upon obtaining permission from the Migration Department, starting their own business or working for local employers.
During the last two centuries since the Apocalypse, the city had been growing more and more until it just could not give enough space to all citizens. That was the moment when a truly ingenious solution was found: to build up a second residential level intended only for pegasi. As a result, almost two-thirds of the mountain land was left unoccupied and immediately given to the municipality.
The authorities had sold most of the land to businessponies and began to improve the remaining part using the received finances. That was when they had built up the famous Steep Peak University, which was named after one of the nearest mountains, and the Grand Park that was planted in order of tourism development—what meant an inflow of financial resources.
Thanks to these solutions, the rate of economic growth shown by the city became the highest of all, so even more ponies moved here. Pegasi dragged clouds for watering the Park and worked in the service sector, earth ponies were involved in farming while most unicorns taught students at the University Departments.
Volcano City became the equestrian dream itself—it was no surprise that one of the most favourite holidays here was the Hearth’s Warming Eve. ‘Like Equestria of Old, but better!’ was the advertising slogan of tour companies.
However, the children who gathered up in the schoolyard cared neither about adults’ intrigues nor political and military aspirations. They had their own problems on their minds. At the moment, they just wanted to play hoofball.
Fillies never liked hoofball, so they went away. Two earth colts also had to hurry up home, to their farms. The rest were pegasi, and they had no problems with the lack of firm ground under their hooves.
The problem of choosing a proper place for the game was not going to disappear, though.
“We’re going to the Upper Sky!” Cloud Kick, a grey colt, suggested. The Upper Sky was a part of the city that was located on clouds and inhabited by pegasi.
“Yeah, we’re going to look for our ball on the ground all the weekend after that,” retorted Paper Clip, his best friend of white and blue colours. “The Upper Sky is a waste of time, the cloud cover is better!”
“There is no field!” Cloud scolded and took a step towards Paper. His friend moved forward as well. Other foals stepped back, leaving the disputants enough space.
“We can make it! You just take four clouds and shape them like goalposts. Easy-peasy!” Paper bridled up and looked down at the opponent.
His father was a local librarian, so since his foalhood, Paper imagined himself in the place of his favourite characters while reading books and comics—particularly Daring Do. Like his favourite fictional hero, he seriously intended never to give up and to fight until the very end.
A disjointed squeaking chorus of quiet murmurs demonstrated that Paper was supported by several other foals, but this did not stop Cloud.
“It’s too far away!”
The others considered this argument to be more reasonable. It took an adult pegasus two or three minutes to get up to the Upper Floor; as for foals, it would take ten minutes to get to a bus stop on a cloud highway and another five to fly home. At the same time, the school was quite close to the cloud highway. Besides, if they were lucky, some friend of their parents could easily drive them up on a wagon after the game.
“Afraid of getting tired?” Paper slyly narrowed his eyes and stepped closer.
His whole posture radiated desire to win the wrangle, his small wings spread wide open. The last, as he thought, made him more formidable. At least, all cool pegasi on posters in the library stood with the spread wings—Wonderbolts of the Enclave, and Shadowbolts of Old Equestria, and even Rainbow Dash whose poster his father hid for some reason between two cabinets in his office.
“I soar farther than you at PE, you know!” The grey colt approached as close to his friend as possible. “And I can run faster than you! It’s just... The field is lopsided, and vertibucks are flying all the time! What if we get caught?”
“Pfft,” one of the foals standing around waved his hoof carelessly. “You’ve got the dad in the Congress! Nothing bad will happen!”
“Yeah, and your mom! She’s at the University!” another colt agreed.
“Let’s go already!” the others clamored.
Сloud Kick bit his lip and dug the hooves in the ground as if being tousled, but surely nopony was going to do it.
The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of what bigwigs his parents were. The moderate conservatives with a humble motto ‘better to do well than to say well’, they had taught their son a way of modesty. He learned this lesson by heart.
Paper went ahead like a true leader who won the conflict, his head held high. Rough Sketch and Mane Cut, his deskmates, rushed after him almost immediately; the rest of the flock followed them except Cloud Kick and two others to whom his arguments seemed more intelligible. His wounded vanity was fighting the urge to go with his friends and suffered an inglorious defeat. The fulsome imagination promised him visions of how he would restore status quo on the playing field. When he moved over to Paper, his look and posture and gait practically said, “I’ll tear you to shreds!” He followed Paper, and the others followed him.
Low-rise buildings sullenly watched them, occasionally flashing with signboards of shops located on the ground floor as the foals went past blocks of flats. They did not bother looking which way to go and simply chose a route that seemed them the shortest one. The road was going to take just about fifteen or twenty minutes, anyway.
Those ‘fifteen or twenty minutes’ lasted for a good half of an hour because the kids got distracted by a pastry shop where everypony bought an ice cream for his pocket money. Another obstacle on their way was a comic book store wherein they split down the middle, arguing about their favourite superheroes.
Rough Sketch insisted that Psionika would easily defeat Extra using her psionic talents, and Extra’s illusions would be unable to do anything with it. Other foals—Mane Cut argued especially loudly—responded that even Mastermind, who was Psionika’s father and a more powerful superhero, could not defeat Extra. If so, his daughter, the relatively young and inexperienced superheroine, would certainly fail to cope with her. Rough was not going to let it up and offered a deal: if he won, Mane would have to kiss the ugliest girl in the class on next day, but if he lost, he would do it himself.
Rough Sketch just cheated a bit: his parents worked at a publishing house, and he already saw the drafts of future comics. In fact, he actually wanted to ride Mane’s scooter and would offer this as a prize, but his desire to screw the deskmate over was a little bit stronger. Besides, he had nothing comparable to give in return in case he lost. Of course, he would not lose, but still.
The last place of interest that they passed by was a large festival field for live music where all ponies were making preparations for a gig of Aleph Baker and his popular band performing their new hit Boom Kaboom! We bombed Canterlot City. Further was a clear, absolutely empty cloud space. Standing on its edge, they heard a test record playing.
“Boom! Boom! Boom! We bombed Canterlot City…
“Its leprous waterfalls aren’t worth our pity,
“And I remembered that day forever,
“Just because that day we met together...”
After a few steps, the cloud cover gently licked their hooves and caused the foals to burst into a storm of sincere childish delight.
Crossing the line between the ground and clouds was scary only for the first time as their instinct of self-preservation drew a colourful picture of their unmerciful fall. It was like shifting dunes or magma—take a step and vanish forever, and hooves just froze in indecision to take this step. Of course, the flames were fanned by parents and school teachers who explained how dangerous it was just to even stand on it. Among children, there was a horror story about an intractable foal who went too far and began bragging in front of his less brave friends when, suddenly, a black claw gushed out from below, tearing the delicate layer of the cover. It was as big as a foal, as big as a two-story house, and the more Spooky Tale told this story, the bigger it grew. The claw dragged the careless pony below, only his cap left after him. Spooky swore he knew the poor foal’s classmate who had seen that cap firsthoof.
The cloud cover was supposed to be there forever. After all, it had been at its place before they were born, and before their grandmothers and grandfathers, and even before their great-great-grandparents.
Far to the south, there was a plainly visible rainbow which the children had seen this morning on their way from the Upper Floor to the school. It beckoned them in earnest.
Parental admonitions always worked only once. The first time, of course, all kids had been afraid to even approach the edge of firm land where a cloud seamlessly overlapped sloping ground, but eventually, urged by jokes of their more brave fellows, they started touching the white haze, then gently put a hoof, then the second and finally rested upon their both forelegs with dramatic caution like they were checking if the cloud would fail. Fear hung upon them as often as the cotton wool-like matter softly bounced under the pressure. It used to be said that below clouds the ground went down in a steep cliff.
They were afraid only for the first time, after all, and any other time they just leapt the borderline without even noticing it. As it happened this time.
The foals did not immediately start to prepare for the game. First, they wanted to make sure that no one would disturb them, neither adults eyeing them from the height of the Upper Floor nor soldiers returning to their base from patrol. There was such a place: a quite small rectangular field hidden between folds of cloud hills.
The main problem for them was a selection of teams.
Cloud and Paper, two captains, picked first two players pretty quickly but faced the trouble with dividing the three left into two teams.
The rest—Rough, Mane and Study—decided to take matters into their own hooves and after a moment burst into a terrible argument about who would go in what team.
Study had the fewest benefits: it was clear that he preferred to spend leisure time not chasing a ball or doing exercises but rather reading a book. Study did not have a father and was being brought up by his mother only. His father, who was a soldier and constantly serviced somewhere on the other side of Equestria, had died a few years ago in a slaughterous battle with savage gryphons.
The vision of parental care choking his life came up from the depths of his memory over and over again. It was as if his mother, distraught with grief, decided to protect him from anything and everything: from mean glares full of anger and hatred that peers gave him, from sharp corners of stools, even from the stark reality itself. If it were not for the intervention of a school psychologist, he would have grown a trivial mama’s boy. “Your son isn’t a filly,” the doctor had said on impulse to cool her fervour. Study did not even know whether he was supposed to be grateful or not.
But before, it had been a year full of aspirations and hopes to become a great scientist. The inconsolable mother wept at night; Study saw it more than once but was afraid to approach her in such moments. Every day and every minute she feared that some horrible mechanism would click in the foal’s shaggy-haired head and he would decide to follow his father’s steps. Prestigious, promising and honourable steps. The Enclave’s military machine eagerly opened its mouth in attempts to ruin everything that was good and bright, taught by parents from birth, and swallowed foals with a vengeance. But what was worse—they sought self-destruction themselves. After all, behind walls of police and military academies there was a luring bait of privileges for children of military personnel. The Enclave gladly took them under its protectorate.
And since then, Study Scroll had become the smartest pupil among primary classes. He always received excellent grades and always took extra assignments for in-depth study. Six months ago he had even won the math competition in his district, and now he had been preparing to take part at the city level.
Obviously, he had problems with physical education, but teachers used to turn a blind eye to his inability and allowed him to go home if those lessons were last on a normal school day.
He was not really mocked in the school for a different appearance: thin legs, a long neck and wings of particularly modest size; the foals got along well. And the foal paid his classmates the same coin—he helped them with doing homework or cheating on tests; Paper was especially friendly to him for that.
But at the moment, when all three foals were very eager to be on somepony’s team, that was what Study was blamed for.
“You can’t run fast! You’re short-breathed!” Rough and Mane shouted at him in unison.
“You can’t keep your eyes on a ball!” the brown colt snapped back, adjusting his glasses. “You two always start to ram others!”
“It’s called playing defence, chicken head!”
The foals laughed, causing unpleasant moisture in the corners of Study’s eyes. He sat down on a bulb of fluffy cloud; the other children did not react positively.
“Then why do you ‘defenders’ kick a ball to the goal?” His muzzle devoid of any contrived nonchalance became all but whiny, so they increased the pressure.
“For scoring goals!” The pair laughed even louder and turned back to the captains, being pleased with the result: almost a crying foal who did not even want to continue fighting for a place in a team.
All the time Paper had a feeling that something was wrong. On the one hoof, taking the brown colt as a player was not the best decision because it would weaken the whole team, and nopony wanted to lose. On the other hoof, Study helped him with homework, and Paper could almost say that they were close friends. Leaving friends behind was just a despicable thing.
His team might be upset, though, because while Paper was their captain, they believed that he would lead them to victory. Everypony wanted to win, but one weak link could ruin everything.
Somewhere deep inside his soul, Paper was glad it was his turn to choose. Study, otherwise, would definitely be left out of the game. Paper did not think that Cloud as a captain shared the same sentiments, although he used to copy Study’s homework as well.
“Alright, Study, you can join us,” the white foal sighed. This would come back to bite him later, but right now he did not want to think about it.
Something glinted in Study’s eyes, but Paper thought it was lenses of his glasses glittering in the sun.
The little brown pegasus stood up with a huge smile on his face and approached the rest of the team which, as the captain thought, was not very happy about their new acquisition.
“Rough, you’re with us then,” Cloud waved at two other foals. Rough shrugged his shoulders, making his way to the second group of foals.
Mane, who was left alone, plopped down on his haunches and only gasped for air with his mouth open. He did not expect such a turn and was unpleasantly surprised.
“Heya, wait a minute, but what about me?” He managed to regain self-control only when both teams assigned responsibilities and began to disperse across the field.
“Well, you can be a referee!” somepony shouted nonchalantly.
Nopony saw the foal clench his jaws angrily, but he quickly overcame his rage. Although, he held a grudge and even began planning his revenge. For example, the next day he could find a couple of drawing pins or glue notebooks before anyone would see him...
Loud shouts brought him out of his thoughts. The game began.
First who got the ball was Paper at the centre of the field, and he rushed forward in attempt to make his way around rival defenders. None of foals could fly, but using their wings for help was not forbidden, and they did so as much as they could either by twisting their wings or just flapping them for some unknown result.
Keeping the ball, Paper managed to get past the defenders quite successfully and started to approach the goal where Cloud was already standing, but suddenly, the ball hit a cloud bulb and shot up high.
Cloud’s eyes blazed with excitement as he intercepted the ball. The whole game, ball and goals—all was a battlefield for him now. And he was a true warrior of his skies, the defender and soldier. It was him who must do it. The whistling of a wind, driven by his vivid imagination, was like screaming bullets to his ears.
Those bastards! They caught him from two sides. Rascals! Scoundrels! Cloud felt like he was about to throw the ball from under his hooves and to come down upon enemies like a ton of bricks. The blood throbbed in his temples, the brain frantically pondered what to do next. And the solution wedged into his head like a needle: now he would pretend to kick the ball, rolling it in one place deftly and quickly so those slouches could not keep up with him, and then he would strike! The goal seemed so defenceless...
The first part of the plan was an easy success. Large, but not fat Wide Bone lost his balance, stumbling and plunging his nose into the snow-white blanket. The young heart of the Enclave’s new shooting star cheered. But his enemies were cunning, sinister, wicked—he could probably pick up various adjectives for all the eternity—and took advantage of his slightest weakness, his only mistake. The sun’s glare struck his eyes, forcing him to squint them, and the moment later his leg did not feel the familiar elasticity of the ball.
The time froze. Hearts of Paper’s whole team simultaneously sank. The bitter taste of defeat was already felt on the tongue when the attacker bypassed all their defenders and was left one on one with a goalkeeper... With skinny Study who was placed there so that he would not torture himself running short-breathed.
Everypony slowed down when Cloud ran up close to the goal. He knocked the ball hard and...
His strike deafeningly rumbled in the ears of little hoofball players. Spinning like a comet, the ball was rushing to the planet of children’s hopes in its strive to fly between the goalposts of clouds and ruin all fun of the game in a single moment. Paper imagined glances of his classmates, condemning and full of reproach, and the opponent grinning cheekily like a brigand who stole the victory from him. And Study’s eyes, sad and tear-strained, saying, “You put me here on purpose so that I can let everypony down, right?”
The ball hit Study right in the chest. He did not have time to realize anything, even to jump, although he did not need to do this. It all looked as if the attacker had deliberately aimed at him.
But in fact, it happened purely by chance.
“Ugh,” the colt’s lungs emptied with a muffled grunt, full of pain and misunderstanding of what had happened, and sounded across the silent field; his whole chest ached from the strike.
Study could almost sense in his guts what others were waiting for. They were waiting for the moment when he would finally burst into tears to shake their heads or tut in disapproval. Maybe somepony would even decide to mock him. A sudden flash of burning anger made him stand up and throw the ball as far as he could to Paper.
This time Paper knew where he did not have to run and rushed to the edge of the field. Well, almost to the edge, so that nopony could tell him he went beyond the borders.
Actually, he was sort of glad that the rivals played more reckless than his team—usually it was him who dare to act boldly. During the attack, even their defenders ran forward, and now his only concern was to get to their goal.
And certainly, not to lose the ball.
But he was not in any real danger: he was the second after Cloud Kick who knew how to dribble right. In fact, he was second after Cloud in everything about sports. But today—at least for a brief moment, for just one day—he would be the first in hoofball. His smile widened in anticipation as he dreamt of a truly heroic deed. He imagined bleachers where thousands of ponies roared, called out and danced full of happiness, wanting to see his excellent game. How could he possibly dare to let them down?
Although, anyone could make mistakes. He assured himself that it was totally normal when someone very successful could experience a failure. All the imagined spectators went silent as a feeling of bitter awareness penetrated his mind. There were no spectators, they would never become real, and he would not be the first. But at least today, at least for now...
Cloud was ready both mentally and physically when Paper approached his gates close enough to attack, and nothing could prevent Cloud from hitting the ball. He was a goalkeeper and would never allow anyone to score a goal past his defence. “This is my duty,” he repeated to himself. Behind him were dozens of innocent souls. A wind stirred the goalposts as if wanting to tear them apart. And the ball was like tens—hundreds—no, thousands!—of foul dragons and gryphons. He had no moral right to let them break through...
Time for him slowed down the moment when Paper raised his hoof to kick. His whole world froze on the small ball as everything else around ceased to exist. Literally, the most important thing for him now was to take away the rival’s chance to score a goal. The image of a filthy, vile, bloodthirsty, greedy gryphon was now incarnated in the white surface of the ball, glittering in the sunshine like a living embodiment of the evil itself...
In slow motion, Paper kicked the ball, and it flew from his hoof upwards. Cloud was afraid that at this moment he simply would not be able to move and leap forward, but a second later his body seemed to rush to the ball on its own, without any extra commands from the brain.
Either Paper could kick a ball very skillfully or he managed to do this purely by chance, but the ball flew straight to the top of the cloud-made goal. It was the most difficult strike even for professional hoofball players, let alone a little foal. A ball in such strike could be caught only in a very tricky jump when a player had to kick off from the ground and fall onto his side simultaneously.
Clouds might seem fluffy to touch, but if you are unlucky enough when falling onto them, it could cause a serious injury.
Cloud Kick did not think about it, though. He was concentrated on catching the ball. For a second he imagined he was flying through the air... All disappointment caused by unpleasant words of the cruel reality was gone...
The ball! He caught it! Still spinning in his hooves, the ball offendedly produced a high-pitched ringing sound as if not believing it could not reach the goal.
It struck him against his chest. Foul bandits who failed their attempt to break through his defence, impenetrable like a stone wall, got their petty revenge...
“Got it! Got it!”
He could not believe he did it, and so he shouted loudly at the top of his lungs as if assuring himself that he did. Joy, rapture and realization of his strength and agility screamed inside him, drowning out a sharp cry of pain. He heard his teammates cheering, their shouts roused into pure admiration and insulting reproaches towards the enemy team. They cheered like every one of them caught the ball together with him, like every one of them dreamt to share this small victory at least in words.
The opponents answered with a booming, like an airship foghorn, disappointment and tried to reassure themselves, like, it was just a game. After all, nopony scored a goal yet and there still was goalless draw, so the fight must go on!
The sweet music of cheers subsided, much to Cloud’s utter disappointment. “What a pity,” he muttered under his breath. He wanted it to last longer.
Now he had the easiest part: to regroup and fall onto his side. Well, every foal fixed this movement in mind when learning how to fly. The history did not know cases that someone learned to fly without falling.
Cloud had been looking forward to the day when he would be able to fly over the school and eagerly preparing for this moment. Therefore, shifting his weight and turning to his side during a fall was not difficult for him.
But when his ears twitched upon hearing a whistling wind, the foal realized that something went wrong. That surely was a vertibuck. In a moment, a lot of bulky soldiers hung with ammunition and an officer would disembark from their transport and catch them by the scruff of the necks like naughty kittens, and then... Nopony would not want to listen to a boring lecture about how “it’s dangerous to play there” after school lessons. After catching the ball, Cloud would not want it even more.
He did not know that the Grand Pegasus Enclave would never splurge on fuel in order to chase a bunch of foals—this could easily be handled by a couple of cadets. But he wanted to somehow explain the growing roar in his ears.
So he chose the easiest way possible: he just opened his eyes.
There were no clouds beneath him.
Instead of the snow-white cover, a steep cliff opened its jaws, greedily dragging him inside. Old withered bushes waved him goodbye with what had remained of stunted leaves—for some reason, he wanted to wave goodbye back. Still with the ball in his hooves, the foal heard his friends crying frightenedly through the terrible whistle and tried to turn around to look at them.
He managed to do it. Study funnily kicked in the air, seeking a firm surface for support, and knocked off his glasses. It quickly flew up. But... Up? A terrible, bad, wicked guess crept into Cloud’s mind.
Rough screamed hysterically like a filly, Mane echoed him. Paper kept falling a bit away from them.
He watched them all. Every day they went to the school. Sitting on boring lessons. Doing stupid homework. What had they been said to do for the next day? Damn that whistling in the ears.
The bitter, hurtful, wrong feeling gnawed at him. The foal started to feel sick. The dizziness threatened to turn into vomiting at any moment.
A gust of wind abruptly raised his head up, and there he saw two rainbows, the one which he had seen in the morning and the other that seemed to appear quite recently. Long ago, he had been told that seeing two rainbows at once meant good fortune.
Cloud screamed. No, he yelled as loud as he could, squeezing the ball in his hooves. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there were another thought and a tiny hope which tried to break through. Together, his thoughts kept saying that right now adults would appear and the strong caring hooves would catch them all. The mother’s tears, teachers’ rebukes, unwanted questions—were these that bad? Let all of them come back! He would honestly stand in the corner as long as they would say, and even more. He would never hurt a filly, he would do homework, he would do his parents’ any whim.
Behind eyes of the foals, all the world banged in vain against a wall of infinite and everlasting horror. Unrealized desires and wishes, beautiful visions and hopes, dreams of future...
What those eyes did not see was old ruins, dilapidated and overrun with weeds long ago. From tiny, toy-like buildings they turned into towering giants of grey concrete boxes. Like an ancient half-ruined colossus who bared his teeth. Like a monster whose dinner they were about to visit. The wind licked them, as if tasting, and stunned by a whistle.
A still unbroken piece of rebar punched him right in the jaw and pierced through his skull.
Cloud Kick did not even know he got a cutie mark. It was a ball.
Author's Note
