"Hey, awesome!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "I see my parents." She pointed at two light-blue spots in the distance, approaching the Flight Camp fast.
Fluttershy tilted her head to get her mane out of her right eye. "Oh."
Dash bumped a forehoof into Fluttershy's shoulder. "I had a good summer. I liked meeting you."
"Oh!" Fluttershy squeaked. She mumbled, "Oh! You too, thanks. Also... thanks for standing up to the bullies for me."
Dash's parents landed next to her.
"Our daughter got her cutie mark!?!"
Fluttershy walked a few dozen steps away and sat on the cloud. Dash's parents were very happy for her, and Fluttershy felt great for her friend... but, goodness, were they ever loud.
Dash used her pinions to reach into her bag and pulled out a small laminated card, and winged it over to her parents.
"Our daughter got her solo certificate?!?"
Fluttershy nosed into her bag. This year, all the foals had received their solo certificates. That was the point of Flight Camp, after all... not that Fluttershy hadn't needed two tries, two summers in a row, to get hers, after failing last year. She looked at the small card that had her name and photograph on it.
Unlike Dash's, Fluttershy's Solo Certificate was stamped, in big red letters, CLEAR WEATHER ONLY and, more insultingly, DAYTIME ONLY.
"Okay, okay!" Dash called, struggling out of a double hug. "I get it! Hey, let me introduce you to my friend."
"Best camp friend maker ever!"
Dash flew the few paces to fluttershy. "Flutters! These are my parents. Mom, Dad, this is Fluttershy. She got her mark the same day as me!"
"Oh! Um, hi," Fluttershy said. "Nice to meet you...."
The large stallion extended his wing. "Nice to meet you! Always love to meet Dashie's friends. Dash's birthday party will be coming up soon, how'd you like to be there? Do you live in Cloudsdale?"
Flutteshy felt the blush explode across her cheeks, and she lowered her head and tilted it, so that the mane covered her eyes. She just nosed back into her bag and pulled out her certificate, and mouthed it to Dash's dad. He pinched it in his pinions and looked at it, reading her address.
"Goodness, you barely live ten blocks from us! How do we not know you?" He winged back her card, and she replaced it in her bag.
"Duh, dad. Flutters and I are in different schools."
Two soft landings saved Fluttershy. She looked up and bolted to hug her dad, and then her mom. Her toddler brother, Zephyr, was strapped into a carrier on Mrs. Shy's chest.
"That filly gotta rainbow butt," said Zephyr. "I like it."
"Now, now, Zephyr, be nice," said Mrs. Shy.
Mom and Dad started talking to Dash's parents.
Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and sat as still as she could. Mom and Dad always told her it was impolite to put her hooves in her ears when adults talked, especially to her, and she tried to break that habit, but Dash and Dash's parents were so loud and they were talking to Mom and Dad and talking about Fluttershy and Dash, and the summer the sun was so bright and everything was so loud and she felt her hooves going up, towards her ears, and--
"Fluttershy?" said Mom.
"Hmmm?"
"Would you like to tell us about your cutie mark?"
"Oh, um, I got a cutie mark? And it's butterflies?"
Dad smiled. "We can see that."
"Um, talk at home? I'm kind of, well, done with camp. I'm ready to go."
"Fluttershy?" Mom asked. "Did you... well... pass?"
"Yes, Mom. But... daylight and clear weather only....not a full clearance."
Rainbow's dad clapped Fluttershy on the back with his wing, and she nearly sprawled forward. "Come by our house tomorrow! You and Dash can play."
"Pffft! Dad! We're not babies, we don't play. We're both too awesome for that. We'll hang out."
"...come visit Dash and hang out," said Dash's dad. "It's only a few days before school starts again for the autumn. Enjoy it while you can. After all, you can fly all the way over on your own, now!"
Fluttershy blushed, looked down at her hooves, and hid behind her mane.
The next day, Mrs. Shy knocked on the door to Fluttershy's room. "I got your brother down for his nap, honey. Don't you want to go see your new friend? She's expecting you."
Fluttershy finished placing her copy on Songbrid Serenade's new album in her saddlebags, and then squirmed under them and pulled the strap tight with her teeth. "I'm ready, mom. I'll be home before dark."
"Have a good time, Fluttershy."
"I will, Mom. I like Rainbow Dash very much... at flight camp... she was... well, she didn't make fun of me. Last year was bad enough, because I couldn't fly. This year... well... being a year older than all the other campers because I failed last year... Dash was nice to me. She always stood up for me. She never once wavered."
Mom nodded. "She seems like a very nice filly. Don't be late!"
The filly trotted out of the house and stood on the cloud-street. The late-summer sun shined down. Dozens of adults and foals criss-crossed the sky above their neighborhood of Cloudsdale.
Fluttershy winged Dash's address, written on a piece of paper, from under her saddlebag strap, looked at it, and headed off to the north at a walk.
"Fluttershy?"
She stopped, and looked over her shoulder. "Yes, Mom?"
"Aren't you going to fly?"
"I...um... accidentally left my certificate in my room. I'll just walk."
"I could get it quick."
"No thanks, I'm late." Flutershy trotted off, kicking up little puffs of clouds with her hooves.
Mom frowned, and closed the door.
"They're both asleep," Dad said to Mom, sitting down on the couch next to her. He had a bottle of mineral water in his left wing, and Mom balanced a glass of wine on her right hoof. "What did you want to tell me, dear?"
"She's scared to fly, still," Mom said, and explained the day's events. "She walked all ten blocks there, and back."
"More like twelve blocks," Dad said. "I took the long way home, hoping I would see her in the air."
They sat, sipping their drinks.
"What do we do?" Dad asked.
"She's a pegasus," Mom said. "She preens herself, she stands on clouds... we just need to get her some confidence."
"Do you have a plan? If passing flight camp didn't give her self-confidence..."
"She barely passed, and she knows it. It's going to take us a long time to get her flying like an adult."
"She's not an adult," Dad said.
"But first, we need to get her to actually take a solo flight. She still hasn't flown without one of us, or a camp instructor. Most foals can't wait to solo."
"Could she visit somepony dirstside? Maybe your cousin? She couldn't stop talking about those animals she met when... when... she... fell..." Dad's face went pale.
"She's not ready to navigate that many miles on her own. We need to send her on a short flight, here in Cloudsdale, but where she can't just trot."
"You have a plan," Dad declared.
"I hate to play a trick on her..." Mom replied, "but, I have a plan."
"Oh?"
"She's so... kind. She would never refuse to help somepony who needed help, right?"
Dad raised his eyebrows.
Fluttershy sat at her desk, and early-morning sunlight and a fresh breeze poured in through her open window. She held a gray colored pencil in her mouth, sketching one of the rabbits she'd seen during her brief visit to the ground. She had already drawn the birds and squirrels.
There was a knock, followed by, "Fluttershy?"
She dropped the pencil, and looked over her shoulder. Mom stood in her doorway, a half-asleep Zephyr cradled in Mom's left foreleg. "Yes, Mom?"
"I need a favor."
"Well, of course!"
"You're dad is working a double shift at the weather factory today," Mom said, lifting up a small cooler with her wing, "and he forgot his lunch and dinner."
Fluttershy nodded. "Sure, I can watch Zephyr for an hour while you flap his lunch to him."
Mom shook her head. "Zephyr's got a playdate at the park with his little friends."
Zephyr yawned, then said, "I like the filly wit the rainbow butt."
"So I need to take him there," Mom said. "Can you take your father's lunch to him? You've been to the weather factory with him enough times to know the way."
Fluttershy's eyes widened and the brightly sun-lit room dimmed as her head began to spin. She hyperventilated. "But--but--but--but--"
"Sissy likes butts, too," observed Zephyr.
"Shush, Zephyr. You do know where the weather factory is? You just fly it to the guard shack out front, and give them your father's name and his cooler."
Fluttershy swallowed twice, and asked, "Do I... could dad go eat at the cafeteria or something...?"
"You know we don't have the money, dearie. His lunch break is in an hour, you need to get a flap on, dear. You could probably stop by Rainbow's house on the way home. That's not out of the way at all."
Mom walked to Fluttershy's saddlebags and dropped Dad's cooler into it.
"I need to embroider your saddlebags with your new cutie mark, honey. Okay, I'm off to the park with Zephyr."
"I'm not tired," mumbled the toddler, his eyes closed, hitting himself in the forehead with a hoof. "Not tired."
Fluttershy struggled into her saddlebags and cinched them tight.
"Oh, and Fluttershy?"
"Yes, mom?"
"Take your solo certificate. You can't trot to the factory."
Flutterhsy screwed her eyes shut and took deep breaths.
Dad sat in the guard shack, talking to Secure Premises, the guard on duty that day, and drinking coffee.
"Really?" asked Secure, shaking her head. "She's that nervous? I soloed illegally several times before flight camp."
"She's not the most confident flier yet," explained Mr. Shy. "Oh! Look, I see her."
The Weather Factory floated a few thousand feet off the side of Cloudsdale, and about a thousand feet up.
Looking down and across, Dad saw a yellow-and-pink filly trotting across the clouds. She trotted right up to the edge of Cloudsdale.
Secure leaned forward, next to Mr. Shy. They both held their breath. "You can do it..." breathed the guard.
"C'mon, honey, I know you can..." said Mr. Shy.
After about fifteen seconds, Fluttershy took a few steps backwards, flapped up to a hover, and then flew up and across the gap, the yawning three-thousand-foot drop below her belly, and then landed safely on the clouds just outside the guard shack.
Through the dark glass, Mr. Shy saw her shaking and pacing, catching her breath, flicking her tail and ears.
"I don't want her to see me," explained Mr. Shy. "Tell her I asked you to keep an eye out, because I trusted she would come, and that she should stop by her friend's house on the way home."
"Got it, Mr. Shy." Secure saluted with a wingtip and exited the guard shack.
Mr. Shy could see them, but not hear them. The guard and Fluttershy talked for a few seconds, Fluttershy gave her the lunchbox, and the guard patted Fluttershy on the back with a wing.
The guard re-entered the shack, and hoofed the lunchbox over to Mr. Shy. "She was a little winded, and nervous, but I think that--"
Fluttershy didn't walk to the edge of the cloud, this time. She simply hopped into the air, and with her weak flaps, crossed the gap between the weather factory and cloudsdale proper, not even looking down at the half-mile drop.
She spread her wings and glided down, down toward the surface of Cloudsdale, and just as her hooves were about to touch the surface....
...she flapped hard, gained about twenty feet of altitude, and turned to angle toward Dash's house, flying the whole way.
Author's Note
Comments are always welcome!
