This time, when they came to take his lunch money, they also tried to take his favorite gray ballcap. Thunder fought back. For that, he earned a black eye and a two-day suspension notice from the principal’s office. “It’s not fair!” he sobbed to his parents. “I didn’t fight anyone. They fought me.”
The fight took place on a Friday, so he had all weekend plus Monday and Tuesday to stew. By the time he got back on Wednesday, most of the classmates who hadn’t participated in the previous beat-down wanted to jump him for getting to miss so much class. It wasn’t fair, they said. Why’d he get to stay home an extra two days?
He kept his head down and almost made it through the whole day when he ran into the ringleader of the little gang who’d beaten him up.
Her normal quartz-blue fur looked paler than usual today. Her eyes had bags underneath them. Her mane was plastered to the side of her face, oily and unwashed. Her overflowing bookbag bowed her back at the middle.
Her name was Zoom Zephyrwing. And she looked mad.
“Hey buddy,” she cooed, “how’s it going? Enjoy the extraBOOM!”
She screamed the last word in his ear and slammed his locker shut. The combination left him momentarily stunned. He sank to his haunches, blinking back tears.
She laughed the way all bigger ponies did when they knew Thunder couldn’t fight back. “Can’t handle a little thunder?” She flicked him in the forehead just below the rim of his cap. “See you tomorrow.”
As she turned around, a little bottle of wood glue fell out of her saddlebag. By the time Thunder noticed, she was halfway down the hall and out of earshot. What would he do anyway, call her back?
He wiped the tears out of his eyes and pocketed the bottle. Maybe he could glue her butt to the desk. Or glue her big stupid mouth shut. Or... or...
More tears swam around his eyes. Not here. He couldn’t cry here. He was a big colt, and big colts didn’t bawl their eyes out in the hallway.
From the northernmost exit of Zephyr Heights Technical High School, it was a straight shot to the Itty Bitty Public Park squeezed between Zephyr Tech and the business district. It was embossed into the edge of a cliff face, sitting just far enough down so as to be invisible to any prying eyes in the school itself. Massive LED billboards facing the city screened the park from the other side.
In the far corner of the Itty Bitty park was an itty bitty skate park, complete with pint-sized drops and a few low but excellently angled rails.
When he started high school, Thunder found the thought of taking some pretty mare there after class exciting to the point of distraction. Now, he sprinted there just so no one else would see him crying.
When Thunder caught a rail just right and leapt into the air, it felt like flying. Probably. He was born a few years after all the pegasi lost the ability to fly. But if he had to guess, flying must feel something like a grind down a steep rail following up into a 360 tail grab. Sick.
Skateboarding was all about rhythm. Thunder’s rhythm went, rail, pavement, bench, pavement, open area to gather speed. Rail, pavement, bench, pavement, open area. Repeat.
He had at least another five hours until he lost the light. So, with his ballcap cocked at just the right angle to block the sun and look maximally cool, Thunder practiced his circuit-- Rail, pavement, bench, pavement--until his brain completely turned off, and he lost himself in the sound of knobby wheels rolling across pavement and the blissful silence of momentary flight before the board smacked down to earth again.
Beyond his little bubble of boarding, something moved. He glanced up to see a pony coming along the trail towards the park entrance. He saw a flash of quartz-blue wings and a bulging saddlebag, and his stomach dropped.
He dipped behind a shallow concrete ramp and waited to see which direction Zoom would go. There was a chance she would walk past the park entirely and leave him alone.
But the hope died as Zoom turned and started down the stairs. It seemed like she still hadn’t spotted him yet. Better to keep it that way.
There was only one official entrance and exit to the park--that was the stairs Zoom now occupied. Two of the other sides were cut off by ten-length tall walls. The other side, the one closest to Thunder, was a twenty length drop down into the edge of the business district.
He couldn’t fly up. So he had to fly down instead.
Thunder waited until Zoom was looking away, then vaulted the guard rail. He threw his wings out to slow his descent, angling them so that he fell towards the wall. He shoved his skateboard beneath him. Then he was riding the wall down.
The wind whipped at his face. If doing tricks felt like flying, this felt like crashing. He had just enough time to aim for a soft-looking patch of ornamental shrubs and close his eyes before impact.
Stars exploded in his eyes. His head smacked the dirt. Shrub branches caught his ballcap and ripped it off his head. The plywood deck of his board bowed to the brink of snapping, then shot straight into the air like a spring. Thunder had just enough sense to flinch out of its way when it came back down by his face.
Still, it was better--and less painful--than confronting Zoom again.
He laid there for a few minutes until he noticed a police pony trotting towards him, a confused expression on his face. “Are you okay, son?” he called out. “That was quite a fall--hey, wait a second!”
Thunder grabbed his ballcap from the shrub, threw down his board, and took off like a light.
Dinner that evening was interesting. For the first time in nearly a month, his dad, Hotspot, came back from work in time to sit down and eat with the rest of the family. Hotspot, along with his mom Songful, sat around in meaningful silence and devoured their dinners the traditional pegasus way: fast. Thunder took a different, though no less traditional approach: he pecked at it.
When he was finished, Hotspot asked Thunder, “How’s school?”
“Fine,” he replied around a crust of garlic bread.
“Any big tests coming up?”
“Nope.”
“Do any big skateboard races?”
“I don’t race anyone. I just do tricks.”
Hotspot wilted a little. Thunder wished he had lied and said yes, but then he would have felt bad for lying. He would have felt even worse if he had said nothing at all. Why did his dad have to paint him into a corner like that?
“Hey, uh.” His dad pointed at the ballcap on Thunder’s head. “Is that a twig in your mane?”
Thunder excused himself from the table and went to play video games.
With the headphones blasting equal parts “Resident Medieval IV: Zompony Castle” and Sk8 Trash Meet Cute, the rest of the world faded into nothing. He bobbed his head as he slashed zombie ponies for Lord Killgoremonger and his Sword-Shaped Table of knights while singing along to his favorite song, Exasperated Ugh in A Minor.
“If you fell off a bridge I’d be just fine,” he intoned. Then he threw his voice and responded to himself in a wavering falsetto, “Be just fi-i-iiine!”
“If you hit your head I hope you bleed and die. Bleed and die-i-iiie!”
“I hate you cuz I want you to be mine. Won’t you be--”
An image of Zoom flashed through his mind. He stopped singing and mashed the joycon’s buttons as hard as they would go, but for some reason the slashing and thrashing now felt sad, somehow soft.
So he turned the music up and switched games. “Bone Rattlers XII: Viscera Swimmers.” That’d do the trick.
The bottle of wood glue lived in his locker for the next few weeks, tucked behind his sticker-plated e-reader and his skateboard. Every time Thunder opened the locker, he’d see the bottle and get a little worried knot in his gut.
There the bottle stayed, until one day on the ride home from school he spied an unusual sight. There in the Itty Bitty Public Park squeezed between Zephyr Tech and the business district, sat Zoom. She didn’t look mad. In fact, she looked downright tranquil.
She cradled two thin pieces of wood in her hooves. As Thunder watched, she squeezed a little dollop of glue onto one piece, then laid the other atop it at a ninety-degree angle, forming a lowercase “t” shape.
He watched her assemble a few more pieces, transfixed by the stillness of it all. A slight spring breeze blew her mane out behind her. Faint music from the city’s many billboards whispered synthesized raindrop melodies into the air. She was smiling. He’d never seen her smile.
He turned his skateboard around and raced back to school at a breakneck pace. I’m gonna give her the glue back, he thought.
Luckily, the school doors were still unlocked. He rolled right through the entrance, past the cool lunch lady who always gave him extra fries, past two tired teachers too pooped to care, all the way up to his locker. He stuffed the glue in his saddlebag, spun around, wiped out, recovered, and took off again.
She was still there when he came back. Thank goodness. He slowed up and hopped off his board. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. He shouldn’t be nervous, he thought. It was only fair. This is what had to be done.
He took a few careful steps backwards and waited for a lull in the wind. When it came, he lunged forward and chucked the bottle with all his might.
It sailed in a perfect weightless arc, like a royal pegasus mid-flight. Then it dipped, flipped, and whap--caught Zoom Zephyrwing squarely in the back of the head.
She put her hooves up and curled into a ball, crushing the little twigs beneath her taller frame.
Thunder didn’t have time to see what happened next. He was already fifty yards down the street, pumping the pavement, forcing his knobby-wheeled board into motion, his chest heaving, his mind wiped blank by fear and elation. All he could think about was the ballerina-like arc of the bottle, the way it tumbled like a missile through the air, the sound of it connecting.
It felt better than boarding.
The following day, Thunder decided to hit the rail on the Itty Bitty park’s entry stairwell. It was far steeper than anything at the skatepark proper, but he was still riding high from yesterday’s historic toss and decided he’d practiced enough to try something properly angular.
He got a good bit of speed going on the sidewalk, flared his wings to help guide him, and kicked the board up.
The actual grind itself was a split second of pure gutless panic, then his wheels hit the ground. His knees bent automatically to catch the shock. He felt himself shift left. His wings compensated and flared right. The pavement leered beneath him, tiny stones waiting to tear at his skin should he fall.
But he didn’t. He rolled halfway to the skatepark on the momentum of the grind before coming to a stop.
He stood there for a moment, frozen on his board. Then he let out a whoop of joy. He thrust his wings down and backflipped off the board, landing upright on his rear two hooves facing--
Facing Zoom Zephyrwing balled up in the corner of the park, crying.
One second, the whole world stopped as she glared across the grass at him. His wings wilted. Fanfare melted into fear.
“Uh.” His heart thudded in his ears. Thunder barely heard himself say, “No kite today?”
All her tears evaporated into white-hot rage. She leapt up with a powerful flap of her wings and charged towards him.
“Get out get out get out!”
He didn’t even have time to hop onto his skateboard before she got to him. She got two good swipes on his flanks and hocks before he was able to escape her reach. When he got to the stairs, he chucked his skateboard to the top and followed after it. His wings flapped hard to gain just a little bit of extra speed.
Only when he was sure she hadn’t followed him up the stairs did he dare risk a glance behind him. She stood alone in the middle of the grass, panting. Staring.
“What’s wrong with you?” he yelled. “This is my spot!” He pointed to the school. “You got your spot. Lemme have mine!”
Zoom took a single step towards him. That was enough to send Thunder running.
Fine. Fine. He didn’t need the Itty Bitty skatepark. This was Zephyr Heights. There were a dozen other skate parks within gliding distance of the school. It was fine. Honestly.
Really.
The first park he went to was called, “Agonizing Crunch.” All the skaters there looked about ten years older and twenty years more experienced than Thunder. And nopony wore a helmet. Very unsafe. He wanted to tell them what CTE stood for and why, should they all somehow get their ability to fly back, they were really going to regret the loss of balance and motor function. But again, they all looked ten years older and twenty years more experienced. And when he got close, they got mad.
So he went to another park--”Vanishing Courage.” This one had ponies in more sensible pads and helmets, but true to the name, all his gusto went right out the window as he climbed an agonizingly long staircase up to the top of the smallest drop-in. He took one look over the edge, almost pitched forward from sheer dizziness and panic, and at that point, what else was there to do but make like his courage and vanish?
He managed to actually get on his board and drop into a halfpipe at the third park, “Death and Death’s Little Brother.” He was actually starting to have a pretty good time riding this pipe back and forth, when a pegasus half his age pointed at him and started laughing.
That was when he realized he was in the “Death’s Little Brother” section of the park, and the other section of the park--the one with all the scary vertical drops he’d carefully avoided while making his way to this pipe--was the one designated for ponies his age.
The problem, he realized, as he ran out of “Death and Death’s Little Brother” with a crowd of jeering foals swarming behind him, was that all these other skate parks were built by and inhabited by pegasi. They threw caution, and their bodies, to the wind. He, apparently, was not a pegasus but a big scaredy cat.
Once he’d put some distance between himself and the park and the mob of foals, he paused and hopped off his board. He flapped his wings once, then twice. His hooves stayed glued to the ground.
He walked the rest of the way home.
Thunder’s dad, Hotspot, worked as an engineer for a construction company. When he was a new dad, the hours were short, the work was easy, and the pay was ideal for keeping his family afloat without tempting them towards the trappings of upper-middle class hubris.
Then the magic had gone away.
When pegasi lost the ability to fly, the entire civilization collectively pivoted to other hobbies and refused to elaborate on the issue further. Pegasi were pragmatic and proud, and more than a little bit petulant, so losing that one thing that made them special left a lot of them feeling, for lack of a better word, pissed.
Zephyr Heights, formerly a city of clouds, was unceremoniously converted into a city of escalators. In a span of a few weeks, Hotspot’s salary and weekly hours doubled. He felt proud of his newfound spending power, but also deeply ashamed. He started missing family dinners and baseball games. The money flowed, but something was deeply wrong. Thunder started growing distant. So did his wife, Songful.
There was one way Thunder took after Hotspot. The colt started finding excuses to miss family dinners, too.
One night, Thunder stayed out late to check out some new skateparks. Hotspot made some tea, sat Songful down, and told her that she should divorce him and find a stallion who could be the father Thunder deserved.
Neither knew if that was the correct course of action, but they both acknowledged that something had to change, and divorce was about as big a change as one could get. They held onto each other and cried for what felt like hours. Then they heard the familiar knobby rattle of Thunder’s skateboard working its way up the street, and they cleaned themselves up and agreed that they were both being stupid. They were in too deep. They had to make this work.
At five thirty the next morning, Hotspot peeled the sheets off his sweat-matted fur and got dressed for work while Songful made breakfast for the two of them and Thunder. Neither parent told Thunder about the conversation they’d had. They barely spoke at all, in fact.
Thunder seemed to sense something was wrong, but he took a cue from their book and busied himself with pushing the eggs and toast around on his plate.
And in any case, that’s not what this story is about.
Zoom Zephyrwing’s mom, Zing, had gotten a similar talk from her husband, Snap, albeit nearly seven years before Hotspot and Songful had their fateful conversation. Snap was a spineless pony, and when an offer for a promotion got dropped in his lap he felt obligated to take it, no matter the devastation it would bring on his personal life.
Unlike Songful, Zing took Snap up on his offer and divorced him. On occasion, she had to pick Zoom up from his place, and that was pretty awkward, but aside from those moments she was quite happy with her life and never looked back.
Snap, who got to see Zoom every other weekend and every Wednesday and Thursday, constantly found himself explaining why things hadn’t worked out between himself and Zing. He couldn’t help himself.
Zoom actually tried turning it into a game--if he brings it up before dinner, demand extra dessert and don’t stop screaming until he gets it for you--but after declaring herself winner four months in a row, she decided she didn’t like that game anymore.
So she found a new hobby, one that took her mind off things without stressing her out too hard. One she could safely put down on those semi-weekly occurrences when she’d burst into tears for no reason, then pick back up again once the wave subsided.
And that is what this story is about.
Thunder steered clear of the Itty Bitty public park for nearly three days before the itch to grind reasonable rails got the better of him.
After making absolutely sure nopony else was in the park, he returned to his usual spot in the skatepark and tooled around with the flat bench and the inclined rail. The light shifted as the sun started its descent and the LED billboards lit up. Orange and pink alternated with white. Shadows danced from one side to another.
Today, Thunder’s rhythm went rail, pavement, bench, pavement, open area to gather speed. Rail, pavement, bench, pavement, open area. Repeat.
He had just settled into his usual rhythm when he noticed another pony walking into the park. Her eyes caught the light, first sunset-pink, then a livid shade of lavender.
She saw him. He saw her. His board went out from under him. Neither looked away.
Zoom finally broke the stare-down by settling down on the opposite end of the park from Thunder. She pulled a few sticks from her saddlebag and started gluing them together. Thunder kept his head down but watched her from the corner of his eye. He tried a few more tricks, but watching out for Zoom and watching out for his balance got to be too much. Eventually he settled on practicing going in a slow circle over and over again. It wasn’t very fun, but he could at least keep tabs on Zoom this way.
He watched as, piece by piece, her glue and plywood project came together. It resembled a hollow cube with some bracing in the middle and a plastic bit attached to one corner. She looped a line of string through the plastic bit, then produced a gossamer-thin piece of white fabric with the initials ZZ stenciled on the side.
She finished assembly by stretching the fabric over the plywood shell. Then she stood up, walked a few paces towards the center of the park, and gauged the wind. When the moment was right, she flung the thing up into the air.
Thunder flinched. For a second, he was sure it was going to fire a rocket at him. Instead, the fabric caught the wind and billowed out, carrying the whole assembly a hundred lengths into the air.
Zoom let out a cackle of delight and rushed to let out her line. Her completed kite dipped one way, bobbed another, then found a stable current. There it hung, a beautiful white bird in a city of flightless pegasi.
Skateboard forgotten, Thunder sat on the bench and watched the kite sway in the wind. Just as quickly as it went up, however, the wind died down and the kite plummeted back to earth. Wood crunched. Thunder flinched.
Zoom dug out another bottle of wood glue, and after some pit-stop repairs the kite was back up in the air again. This time, the wind took it much higher, so high that Zoom ran out of line to let out. The kite drifted over to Thunder’s part of the park.
He turned his hat backwards so he could see the kite better. He was so transfixed he didn’t notice the wind die. And the kite was so small he didn’t even realize it was getting bigger until it was almost on top of him.
He leapt up. The skateboard he’d forgotten was beneath him shot out. He tumbled to the pavement. A moment later, the kite crashed right on top of him. Wood crunched. He felt glue on his fur.
“You!”
Thunder went pale. There was the Zoom he remembered--rage in her eyes, charging towards him. An animal on a warpath.
“Gimme that back!” she cried.
Before he had a chance to think twice, Thunder scrambled to his hooves. He grabbed the kite and ran to the edge of the park. Using his teeth, he plucked the string from the plastic bit and dangled the kite over the edge. One slip of the hoof and it would drop into the endless business district, gone forever.
Zoom stopped short. Something like worry flashed in her eyes, though Thunder was certain he was just seeing things.
“Dirt muncher,” she growled. “Give it back.”
“No.”
“I’ll--”
“You’ll what?”
Zoom ground her teeth together. Her eyes burned. It was like staring at a cockatrice without turning to stone.
“I’ll give this back if you promise to leave me alone,” Thunder said.
“You little--” He let the kite slip ever so slightly from his hooves. She gasped and leaned in. “That fabric’s expensive.”
“So is two months of lunch money you stole. So were the smoothies you dumped on my head. So was--everything.”
The staredown made his face burn. Thunder wondered if she actually had a cockatrice gaze, and the pins and needles in his body meant he was turning to stone at that very moment.
But he didn’t turn to stone. And a moment later, Zoom hung her head. “Fine.”
“And no more chasing me out of the skatepark. This is my spot.”
“This is my spot.”
He raised an eyebrow. And the kite.
“Okay, okay. It’s your spot.”
Holding his board up like a shield, he inched his way towards her, then tossed the kite to her. She snatched it up and raced back to her side of the field. He’d never seen her run away like that before.
He must have really gotten to her, he thought. That should have made him feel better. But all it made him feel was gross, like someone had dumped fifty gallons of slime on him and turned him into a knock-off Smooze.
Zoom didn’t try and fly her kite after that.
Thunder tried going back to his tricks. But nothing was taking. And with Zoom still over there brooding over her busted kite, he saw no other option but to head home.
On his way over, he passed close enough to hear the birdlike chirp of her crying, hiccupping, then crying some more. He couldn’t see her face, so he couldn’t tell if she was actually crying or just faking it to lull him into a vulnerable position.
But he felt that Smoozey feeling crawling up his skin again, and he knew he had to say something, or he’d feel scummy all night.
“Hey.” He waved at her. She didn’t turn around. “Uh. I’m sorry. That was mean of me.”
“If you say one more word, I’m gonna beat you up and take your board.” Her voice was strong for someone who was supposed to be crying.
“I’m sorry for taking your kite. I didn’t--” He glanced at the shattered portions of plywood. “Did I break it?”
She didn’t say anything back. Tension turned to awkwardness. Thunder took off his ballcap and fiddled with the brim. “Fine. Mess with someone else if you want. Just stop messing with me.”
She looked up. Her eyes fell on him with immense weight. He took a step back. “You came straight from school, right?” she asked.
“Um. Yeah?”
She dug into her bag and produced a ziploc baggie with half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She tossed it to him. “I’m not hungry.”
He eyed the sandwich suspiciously. “Who’d you steal this from?”
“No one.” Her annoyance seemed sincere. He decided he could take her word for it this time. And, well, he was feeling pretty hungry.
He dug the sandwich out of the bag and took a bite. Gluey. Kinda soggy. But PB&J was PB&J.
“Y’know,” he said, the words all gumming together, “they make kites with plastic frames. They’re like, six or seven bucks online.”
He expected her to say some flavor of go away. She surprised him when she replied, “Building’s half the fun. If you put hours into something that doesn’t work, and then it works--that feels good.”
A light went off inside. Progress. “Why kites?” he asked.
“They follow rules. You follow the rules of flight, and it flies.”
He swallowed a bite of his sandwich. Hunger made everything taste amazing. “What are the rules of kite flight?”
She pointed to the busted kite. “The wood and fabric and string have to be light. The frame has to be rigid. You gotta catch the wind just right.”
“Sounds kinda like the rules for skateboarding.”
She chuckled. “I thought skaters hated rules.” Her voice sounded cracked and dry, but it stirred something in Thunder. Excitement, maybe. Not safety. But something like it.
“Well, yeah. But like, if you wanna go up you gotta build up speed and push off. And you gotta put your hooves on the board a certain way. Y’know?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
He picked up said skateboard and turned it over in his hooves. “It’s getting late.”
Zoom checked her phone. “I don’t wanna go back home yet.”
“Me neither.”
At that moment, he realized what the half-eaten sandwich was. It was an olive branch. A peanut buttery, jelly-y olive branch. Maybe Zoom didn’t even know it. Not on the surface, anyway. But that’s what it was.
So he polished off the olive branch in two quick bites and set his skateboard down in the grass. “Are you gonna fly your kite some more?”
“I gotta fix it first.”
Thunder gulped. “Uh. Could I, erm--help?”
“I don’t need help,” she said automatically.
He wrapped a hoof around his board, ready to spirit himself away at a moment’s notice. “Please?”
This time, she said yes.
