Floating… I was just floating along in the cold abyss of dreams with only my breathing and my heartbeat to accompany me, then… She came.
At first it was but a spark that first bit at my neck. Then it began to travel up to my cheek nipping at my skin all along the way. The strangest thing about this pain was that it was not unpleasant, rather it was both exciting and alluring to me and it had me urging it to continue and perhaps… increase it’s intensity?
A strange urge to be certain, but not quite as strange as what happened when the teasing spark landed upon my lips for when it did She blossomed into a roaring blaze so intense that at first I had to close my eyes. Yet through the pain and intensity of the heat there was pleasure and comfort such as the like that I had never seen before.
This beast of a flame, this tormentor of a woman had me firmly in her grasps and not for the promise of any wealth, woman, or woe could I be dissuaded from her lips… nor her from mine. The true curse of the matter was that neither one could be without air and without it we would surely perish. It was so that, with great reluctance, we parted lips and looked into each others eyes for what was the first time, though to me it felt like I had known this radiant flame for so much longer.
Even now, with the pleasure of her kiss denied to me, the mere comfort of her touch and warmth of her gaze staved off the pain of the heat. It was then that she opened her mouth to speak, but the cruelest of fates deigned that this was where my dream ended.
“Well… fuck.” I lay in bed feeling every bone and muscle in my body ache with the strain of yesterdays training, knowing full well that there was more to come today and my wings were still giving me near constant growing pains. Yes, I have wings and I’m still not entirely sure of the science or magic behind it, but it all happened when a certain purple pony got overzealous with the experimentation of how various magical reagents and such reacted to a human. It was actually yielding some impressive results from what she told me, but something reacted badly and caused some sort of accident.
Now when most people magically get wings it’s poof “You have wings,” and let me tell you something. There is a very big difference between magic wings that will disappear in time like the ones used on Rarity, the wings one gets from becoming an alicorn like Twilight, and wings that grow out of your back because of a lab accident. Main difference being that the first two don’t cause very painful and major changes to your anatomy over the course of months.
The major change that I have noticed and have been told about by the doctors is that my bones have become more like the bones of a pegasus, which are not quite as hollow as a bird’s but are still slighty different from the other pony races. Now let me pose a question; What does having your bones hollowed out and growing two new limbs (growing pains included) in the span of a few weeks feel like? Well I would have to get very graphic to fully describe what I think it felt like, but at least they kept me unconscious for as often as possible during the worst of it.
Didn’t stop me from screaming until my voice gave out every couple of days apparently, but for me once I put my head back together and started asking questions the worst part was seeing how much Twilight had beat herself up over it. I mean I tried being mad at her, but I just can’t stay mad when a girl cries and she was honestly looking so under the weather that I just ended up letting her cry it out on my shoulder for almost an hour straight. Needless to say that for right now the tests have stopped.
As per my new wings, they were not a medical risk however they were apparently not fully mature by the time I woke up so the princesses decided that I would receive training from one of Equestria’s best fliers so as to get used to my new wings. It was kind of their way of compensating me for the pain I endured and the information that the science/magic committee gained from this huge mess.
I thought that them assigning me to Spitfire would have made my life ten times easier and maybe just twenty percent cooler, (shoot me I deserve it,) but when she heard that I was to be hers to train she apparently took it as, “Turn this recently unconscious flying monkey into a future Wonderbolt.” So that is what she has been trying to do to me for the last couple of weeks, I have been literally flying through hoops and jumping through them as well.
For now, however it was the day of the week for me to have breakfast with the princesses and give a report on how things are going so far. As I walked into the room I noticed that only Celestia was present at the time so I sat down opposite her and waited for the nearby attendants to bring me one of the meals that Spitfire had drawn up since my training with her began.
“So, Icarus. How has the physical therapy been so far?” Celestia asked me as one of the mares in attendance brought me my breakfast. After thanking her I replied, “Honestly Princess it feels more like boot camp than physical therapy at this point. It’s like she thinks that I’m some sort of cadet that she needs to whip into shape.”
“Please, Icarus you have done much and sacrificed much for us. At least in private call me Celestia.” She said as she munched on some sort of pastry.
“Sorry Prin- Celstia. I’m just not used to dealing with high-profile people and besides I haven’t done much at all for you.”
“In the contrary, your mere existence has sparked many intellectual thoughts as of late, you let us perform tests on you that lead to your person being harmed, and through it all you have been pleasant, cordial, and very forgiving to all ponies involved.”
“Oh, believe me I had a good deal of things to say to some of the doctors that were prodding and poking me throughout it all, but since there were ladies present I kept it to myself.” I said putting a bit of a fake posh accent towards the end, getting a small smirk from the diarch.
It was about this time that the diarch of the night walked into the room and sat herself next to her sister, “Good morning to you dear Icarus, how fare thee this morning?”
“Sore, but ready to soar I guess.”
…
…
“Oh come on, that was funny.” Neither of the diarchs said a word. “Fine, it was a teeny bit corny, but definitely not as bad as some of the ones Soarin cracks.”
Luna finally spoke up after drinking deeply from her coffee, “Icarus, have you been sleeping well?”
The question caught me slightly off guard as we had agreed that my dreams weren’t to be intruded upon unless she sensed something big. “Yes? I don’t recall having any overly bad dreams as of late. Why do you ask?”
“I sensed great activity and some turmoil in your dreams so I looked upon your dreams and found you covered in fire. At first I prepared to rush in to put the blaze out, but you did not cry out in pain or fear from the blaze. Although I could not see well through the waves of heat it almost looked like you were dancing with it.”
Feeling a blush making it’s way to my face I decided to try to head to training early, thankful that she could not see the subject of my dream more closely. “Well, we humans have always had a weird relationship with fire. It was probably just some subconscious symbolism or something weird like that. Anyway, I should head out to training already. Have a good day Princesses.”
As I headed down to the training grounds where I was to meet Spitfire, I took a moment to run some cold water over my head in a nearby restroom, “C’mon Icarus, sooner you get this training done the sooner you can stop having weird dreams about your trainer.” With that I headed down to the grounds.
Author's Note
Please! Any constructive criticism or helpful ideas are appreciated. For any errors or mistakes please look to see if someone else caught it and simply help bring it to the forefront.
If I don't respond to any comments it's because I'm; 1. Very busy with school, work, etc. 2. I'm incompetent and did not notice. 3. I'm dead. (Never know more likely than you'd think.)
At first when I stepped down into the courtyard below I was a bit confused. I didn't see any of the normal equipment or prepared areas that I would normally use for my training, at least there was nothing for me. There were plenty of other ponies performing various training routines throughout the yard; a group of earth ponies focused on strength and CQC, some unicorns slinging spells back and forth, and a squad of pegasi standing at attention with a very familiar burst of fiery hair at their front.
"Here he is! Trainee Icarus, form up with the rest of the group." Although we both knew that I wasn't an actual trainee, she still loved to act like I was. She even had me snap to attention and form up with whatever group she was dealing with if there was one when I would show up.
"Alright rookies, I've decided that for this portion of your training our resident human would be joining you. It's about time he started on his flight control anyway."
A bit of understanding crept into my mind when she said this, as for the most part I had been ground bound for most of my training with only short burst of flight focused on going as fast as I could or carrying as much as possible. This is where the intricacies of flying would be introduced, with a higher focus on precision and control. The only odd part was that this was the first time that I had trained with more than one or two others.
"Now, for the first few exercises we will be working on formation flight. Icarus I will give you a position around the main formation that you will try to maintain as we move around, clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" I belted out with a short salute.
At first I would find myself being a bit too close or too far from the formation, nearly brushed wings with somepony a couple of times, but eventually I got used to moving with them and even figured out a way to maintain position if I had to look away. I learned to feel how the air would feel if something was close enough to me and eventually found the sweet spot to the various areas of the formation. The most important things I learned from these exercises was presence and control of my power, as if I was too close or beat my wing to hard others close to me could become unstable.
I couldn't see if Spitfire approved of how I was doing, because I could find her she called out, "Alright trainees! Enough formation flying for right now, time to move on to what your group will be specializing in; Airlifting wounded ponies or carrying emergency supplies. Icarus, you can try your ho- er hand at it too if we can find a way to make it work.
"Now, the main thing to remember when carrying precious cargo is that you can't move too fast and that you must always stick together. In order to properly maneuver as a group you will need a lead, someone who will be directing the rest of the squad in terms of where to go. This will normally be the pony in the front left or right and you should determine who will be lead before setting out so as to avoid confusion during the mission, even if is just a cargo run."
While the rest of the pegasi in the group set out to practice this Spitfire turned to me. "Listen, Icarus. Other than personally holding a small parcel, I don't really see a way for you to participate in this with rest of the trainees. There is just to big of a difference between you and them to be able to balance the cargo properly."
"Actually, I think that I might have an idea if you could give me a minute to work and permission to use the supply shed." I said, jerking my head over towards a shed that contained supplies for building and maintaining various pieces of training equipment.
After she gave me the go ahead I began to work quite quickly, selecting the boards that I needed for my idea. For the first one, I found a beam that was just a bit longer than the distance between my shoulders and knees in terms on running along my back. Next I found two more boards that were slightly wider than my shoulders and nailed them to the beam as if I was attaching an equals sign to it, ending up with something that looked like a double crossed letter ~~T~~.
When I showed this to her, she was confused at first until I showed her how I planned on trying this idea. I would set the device across my back almost like a cross with my arm and legs on top of it while my body was below it. After tying rope to the ends it would keep what I was carrying stable and even provide me leverage as I flew with it. It took a couple of tries to take off correctly with it across my back, but I was able to make it off the ground without my cargo tipping so in the end it was a success. Luckily I was also a strong enough of a flier to properly carry my cargo, even with my wings not being fully mature yet.
I was tough and tiring to pull that little stunt off, but the look of admiration from the other trainees and especially Spitfire made it worth it by loads. It wasn't until I set down the last bit of cargo that I had been carrying that Spitfire decided to speak to the group.
"Alright rookies fall in! Now while that was an impressive idea on Icarus's end that would probably not work for most of you. Trainee Swift, what might you do if you were down a squad mate or two and still had to transport a wounded pony?"
Put on the spot, the trainee began to sputter a bit until she found the right words for her idea, "W-w-well ma'am, if it was just me and another squad mate or two, then the best idea I have would be to use a net or something instead of the standard stretcher. That way we could distribute the weight evenly."
"Very good trainee Swift, you all need to be able to improvise in the field, because you never know what situation you will find yourselves in. Before we carry on with some more basic exercises, have any of you thought of a name for your unit yet?"
The assembled ponies all shook their heads or dug around in the dirt with their hooves, hoping to find an answer there. Then I decided to offer up an idea of my own.
"Why not the Valkyries?" At this I got a lot of confused looks. "Well your main focus would be transporting wounded soldiers right? So Valkyries sounds about right for y'all."
"Care to explain what exactly a Valkyrie is, Icarus?" Spitfire always seemed to enjoy the little stories or ideas that I'd talk about from my world. I've actually been looking for a nice time to tell her about her own name.
"Well the Valkyries were considered by my ancestors to be beautiful war-maidens who would carry the souls of the valiant dead to the halls of Valhalla, and seeing as all the ponies in this unit are girls and everything else seems to line up I thought it was a fitting name."
Spitfire looked over the group of trainees, "Well it sounds good to me, how about you rookies?" A couple were blushing a bit, (not sure why, I hope Valkyrie doesn't mean something else to them,) but all in the group seemed to agree on the name. "Well then, Valkyrie Squadron! Fall in!"
Author's Note
Thank you all for the feedback and support shown so far. Please tell me any ideas or issues that pop into your noggins in the comments.
P.S. if any of you stop by the DFW area in Texas, there is a cool place where you can throw axes at stuff. It's really fun especially when Sabaton is on the speakers.
