Sunday, February 1st, 909 AB (4 days later)

With two burners going the pancakes are getting done much faster. Cure could probably heat one more with a cantrip, but dividing attention more than a few ways is a good way to end up with a burned breakfast. Since almost all his secrets have been laid bare before his friends he can at least start using nearly the full breadth of his abilities around them.

Head resting on the table, Drift whines out, “Why the hay are we here so early?”

“Because Solar is coming home today and I want to at least say hi when he rolls in. He’ll be here about an hour after lunch, which gives us like… four hours?” Cure taps his watch and seven o’clock pops up. “Yeah, like maybe five hours for you two to enjoy the spectacle of me, potentially, face planting dozens of times.”

“You’re not going to crash today, Cure,” Glacial assures him. “At least not like that. We wouldn’t let you.”

“Aww… thanks, Glacial.”

“Would be pretty funny though…” Drift mumbles under her breath. At Glacial’s glare she defends herself. “It’s not like he’d actually be hurt!”

“A stallion’s pride is a fragile thing, Drift.”

Vines calls from the living room asking, “Are you sure you don’t want me to take over, sweetie?”

Cure shouts back, “Nah, thanks dam. I figure if the ladies are gonna help me learn to fly I should be the one makin ‘em breakfast at least. Besides, you said you’d be making lunch for us when we got back, so I got this. I’m almost done anyhow. I made a bunch’a extra batter for you all, too.”

“Oh! Thanks, honey. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

“You’re probably not going to actually be flying today, Cure,” Glacial insists. “At least, not really. It’s going to be all about wing positions and how to move your body. If you do well on that then maybe we’ll bring down some cloud… wait, can you stand on clouds?”

“I have Slow Fall and Cloud Walk in crystals on me, but I can stand on clouds. As far as I know, the only thing I can’t do is mess with the weather. I think y’all use pegasus magic for that. I should have lightning mitigation, cloud walking, and mass reduction, but anything related to weather is probably out of bounds for me.”

“What’s it like?” Drift asks. At his confused look she clarifies, “Being able to change like that?”

“Scary. Cliche as the saying is, it’s more power than anypony should have. I almost wonder if the other ponies that had similar talents were actually killed off by some greater force of something.” Cure sighs, levitating over three jars of syrup and hitting each with a Warming cantrip. “Plain, raspberry, and blueberry infused. Mix and match as desired.”

Glacial gives him a quizzical look. “Greater force?”

“Yeah. You’ve heard of creatures like Discord and Nightmare Moon. The princess fits the bill too. She did defeat those other two, after all. I’m sure there’s others out there that don’t broadcast their existence.”

Drift laughs out loud at the ridiculous statement. “Nightmare Moon isn’t real, dummy. That’s a foal’s holiday!”

He can’t help but look over his withers and ask, “Are you serious? She’s on the flag.”

“That’s…” she pauses, furrowing her brow. Turning to her friend she asks, “Wait, is that real?”

When Glacial offers an unsure shrug Cure asks, “What’s today’s date, Drift?”

“February first.”

“Of what year?”

Raising a brow at the weird question, she slowly answers as if trying to find the trap. “Nine oh nine.”

“AB.” He finishes. “Nine-oh-nine AB. As in, nine hundred and nine years after her banishment to the moon. I don’t have proof you’re wrong or anything, but there’s a dark blue alicorn on the country’s flag, our year notation is based on somepony’s banishment, and there’s a dark blue unicorn’s silhouette on the moon. If you only looked at the princess from her withers forward, what does she look like?”

Cure turns sideways and darkens his fur to navy only from his shoulders up, leaving a curved, light blue line where the edge of the moon would be, then positions his head just like the silhouette.

Looking a little panicked, Drift barely manages an “Uhh…”

Glacial cautiously answers, “A unicorn?”

He points a hoof at her and cheers, fixing his colors at the same time. “Bingo! You win one free pancake breakfast!”

“Yaaay,” she deadpans. “That’s so weird, though. I would think you’re nuts if it weren’t for the flag and year. Why haven’t I ever heard of this?”

“Y’all think I’m paranoid, and I am, but it’s strange cover-ups like this that make me that way.” Glancing at Drift he adds, “I bet some of the higher ups in the military know. Nobles, too. Some of those families can trace their ancestry to before she was banished. I can’t say I recommend asking questions about it. Somepony may catch wind of curious foals knowing more than they should.”

The room goes silent while the fillies ponder on that and Cure flips a couple more pancakes out, pouring in another two dollops into the pans. “One more set…”

“Drift, if you’re curious about how it feels, I can let you try different things, kind of. I mean, I can’t give you my talent, obviously, but if you want to try hands, for example. I have enough magic for that. They’re great for holding forks and stuff.”

Drift scrunches her snout in thought, apparently not too enthusiastic about the idea. Cure is increasingly wondering if all his paranoia about ponies taking advantage of his talent has been a waste of time.

For all that ponies seem fine changing their styles of making their butts nice and round the idea of any real change seems to freak them out. He can’t even get his own dam to let him upgrade her eyes after months. And he still hasn’t made that fucking lavender nightlight plant!

“As for how it feels? The first thing I do when using my magic is numb everything I can in the affected areas, so I guess it feels like a limb that’s fallen asleep. Rearranging crap with intact pain sensors is a horrible idea.” He pauses for a moment, flipping the ones in the pans over. Levitation makes the process a joke; never again will he serve pancakes with fold seams or that ‘smeared across the pan while flipping’ look.

“Alright, that’s probably enough,” he mumbles a moment later. He floats pancakes number nine and ten out of the pans, then hits the three plates with a Warming again and floats the two with three pancakes in front of the girls and the four-stack in front of his spot, followed by two milks and a coffee.

“Dig in, ladies,” he calls, hopping up to join them. Drift is across from him in his normal spot and Glacial is to his left in his mom’s. After a few minutes of quiet eating he continues his explanation. “The strangest thing is learning how to use appendages that I wasn’t born with.”

“Like wings?” Glacial suggests.

“Maybe. We’ll find out soon, I suppose. I mean like that tongue thing. If I didn’t have the muscle control I do it would probably just flop around, smacking myself in the face or whatever.” Both girls get a giggle out of the image. “Yeah, that happened the first time I tested it,” he admits. At the pair of raised brows he sheepishly defends, “I was curious the night after I gave one to that mare.”

“I bet you were,” Drift accuses.

“Meh, think what you want. I just tried waving it around, making shapes with it, and using it to pick things up. With an earth pony TK field it was super useful. I’m sure it looked freaking weird though. Honestly, the hardest part of all this is not accidentally doing something that makes everypony afraid of me.”

“Like growing spider legs?” Glacial asks, raising an accusatory brow.

“Legs, nothin. You do realize almost all spiders have at least some venom, right? Also, I’ve scanned hundreds of other bugs, any of which would be horrifying if they were me-sized.”

“You… could turn into a big spider, basically?” Drift asks warily.

“Spider, ant, scorpion, etcetera, or just a chimera with all the best parts of each. All with earth pony strength, near-infinite healing, unicorn magic, and wings. And judging by those looks that sounds terrifying. So… yeah, like I said, at some point I’ll do, or say, something like that that scares the heck out of everypony. Sorry,” he finishes with a facehoof.

The two fillies stare a moment longer, then share a look, shrug, and go back to eating, though at a noticeably more sedate pace.

“Of course, I can go the opposite direction with it all too. As you saw the other night, I can go the ‘pretty’ route too. Or, and I know you’ll like this, the adorable route. Nopony can resist that,” he insists with a firm nod.

“Do it.” Drift commands.

“Hm?”

“I want to see it.”

“The adorable or the scary?”

“Adorable.” With a challenging smirk she adds, “Your face is scary enough as-is.”

“... your face is scary,” he cleverly counters as he shoves the last few bites of pancake in his mouth. “Fine, gimme a few minutes,” he says, walking out of the room and ducking into the bathroom.

Though cats can certainly give them a run for their money, in Cure’s opinion there are few more adorable creatures on the planet than a big, fluffy, white bunny rabbit with long, floppy ears. The change is almost exclusively surface level, though he has to shorten his snout, which takes a lot of dental work. Changing his hooves into declawed paws with bright pink pads takes a moment, though.

Really, the whole thing probably isn’t worth the effort or the magic, but hopefully this will banish the stupid comment he made about horrifying pony-sized venomous chimera insects way out of their minds. Besides, his dam will probably lose her shit gushing over him when he comes out of the bathroom as long as he keeps his ‘your son’ scent underneath the ‘cologne’ additions he puts on too.

For whatever reason, changing his scent affects the sweet mare more than almost anything else. Add cookies, coffee, or vanilla on? That’s okay. Completely remove the ‘Cure’ smell? She starts having the pony version of a cascading failure.

He leaves his longer neck as-is, which looks a little funny, and doesn’t otherwise rearrange his cranium or overall shape, but with the extra thick layer of fuzz it still works pretty well. The ears are almost comically huge and, just for the extra “aww” factor he extrudes a big, red ribbon to affix on the right one at the base. With bright, blue eyes and an otherwise solid white, fluff-covered coat, he opens the door and slowly hops his way to the living room.

Vines glances in his direction and goes back to her book, then freezes and does a classic double-take before her jaw nearly hits the floor. Like a kitty about to pounce, her booty does the excited wiggle before, while squealing in joy, she launches herself at her son. Giggling and cooing all over the disguised colt, she nuzzles almost every square inch of him and hugs him tight to her chest, much to his amusement.

The girls, hearing the commotion, come out of the kitchen to find a smiling Cure pinned to the ground with his dam on top of him grooming a twitching ear.

Approaching for a better look at the amused colt-bun, Glacial can’t help but ask, “Sweet Celestia… that is you, right, Cure?”

“Of course it’s me,” he answers in his normal voice. “I think I broke my dam, though. C’mon, dam, let the girls have a look-see. You can get your snuggle time in later if you’re good.”

“Aww, but sweetie! Look how fuzzy you are!” she shouts, back half still dancing and wiggling.

“I know! I keep tellin everypony how adorable I am. Dunno why, but nopony ever believes me,” he sighs out defeatedly.

Climbing off with a sigh, the green mare relents. “Fine, but you need to show your mom and sister later. Oh I bet little Savvy will lose her mind!”

As Vines retreats back to her cushion, casting longing looks over her withers every other step, Cure sits up and does a full-body shake to reset his fur and the girls approach him to look him over.

“Huh. Okay,” Drift nods in agreement, “I can’t deny it. That’s ridiculously cute. Where’d you get a bow?”

“Made it.”

“So unfair…”

“Yup. Cheatin,” he agrees with a shrug and a nod.

Glacial paws at his fluff a little with a hoof, prompting Cure to roll over and lay on his back and pat his chest. “Ya gotta try this fluff, babe. You won’t find hair this soft anywhere in nature, promise.”

“Oh my gosh… your hooves!” Drift cries, rushing over and grabbing a foreleg. Cure can’t help but chuckle when she rubs her cheek across his toe beans. “Come feel this!” she shouts at Glacial.

Accepting the invitation, the platinum filly first follows her friend’s example and checks out his feet, running her cheek across the soft pads. Normally they would be calloused and tough, but not these; they’re smooth as silk and as soft as the rest of him.

“This is so weird,” Glacial calmly says. “You barely even look like a pony. Well, except your tail. Why didn’t you change your tail, just out of curiosity?” she asks, leaning down and running a cheek across his chest and letting out an involuntary sigh at the softness. “Oh my stars,” she softly murmurs, then collapses on him.

“Eh, I just didn’t think the tail would be necessary for this small demonstration. Pony tails are already pretty adorbs, so it felt like overkill. Maybe if I was, like… I dunno, trying to give somepony diabetes or whatever.”

Drift cocks a brow at the unfamiliar term. “What’s diabetes?” she asks, nuzzling against his side and running her cheek across his belly, following Glacial’s example a moment later.

“It’s a condition some creatures get where their body doesn’t properly respond to sugar. I’m pretty confident ponies can’t get it for whatever reason.” Cure gently reaches around the girls’ backs and carefully pulls them against himself.

It’s only a moment before they’re both unconsciously rubbing their sides against him, marveling at the softness of the floof. He notices his dam looking on enviously from her cushion and mentally promises to make it up to her later.

“Y’all are gonna fall asleep if we keep this up, ya know?”

Drift lets out a little whine, burying her snout in his chest fluff. “Aww, but you’re so soft…”

“Told ya. You didn’t even last two minutes.” While teasingly nudging the dark filly he asks, “Who’s the most adorable floof you’ve ever seen?”

“Ugh… you can be, I guess, but only because you can cheat so much.”

“I know… I think Glacial is asleep.”

“mmno… almost. shh” she softly responds, taking a deep breath and blowing it out her snout, puffing his extra-long fur away.

“Nope!” he loudly replies, shaking and starting to change his fur back to its normal length and coarseness. While poking at the girl to wake up he offers her a deal. “If you want, and if you’re allowed, I can give you a hand massage later in thanks for the flight training. I think Solar’s spending the day with his marefriend, so I’m just going to pop in to heal him back to full. Maybe I can come with you two up to your place and do you both there.”

Cure notices Vines gives him an odd look at the wording, but doesn’t say anything, only raising a single brow and shooting him a smirk, to which he responds with a mild eye roll.

“C’mon, G, get up. You two need to get your suits on and we gotta get movin. I definitely wasted too much time on that demonstration, but at least you’re not both givin me weird ‘is he going to turn into a bug and eat us’ looks anymore,” he teases.

“Pfft, please,” Drift stands and waves a wing huffing. “Like you could ever catch me.”

“Inside I could, but I would wreck the place doing so. I would have no hope outside until I learn to fly really well,” he agrees as the platinum filly reluctantly lets him up. “One thing I bet you’ve forgotten is that, unlike a real pegasus, I have earth pony strength and endurance.”

Drift’s eyes widen at the implication. Pegasus wing muscles are powerful; the idea that his could be an order of magnitude stronger means that his acceleration is likely to blow hers away.

Cure rolls to his feet and waves the pair to the restroom. “Go ahead and get changed. I’m going to go change back and grab a couple crystals in case they’re needed.”

Drift absentmindedly nods, grabs their saddlebags, and pushes a groggy, whining Glacial to the bathroom to get them dressed.

A few minutes later a fully geared, still wingless Cure is waiting for the girls to finish dressing. Pony body shapes definitely make getting dressed more difficult than humans, and Cure can’t even fathom how bad it would be if they weren’t as strangely flexible as they are.

“Alright, I’m going to go hop on the train. I’ll meet you in Ferndale at the station in half an hour. Make sure you find somewhere isolated enough that we don’t have ponies bugging us.”

“We know, Cure,” Drift interrupts. “You’re learning to fly because you have earth pony parents and they were afraid of you getting hurt while learning so you never did but are curious now. We know,” she reiterates, rolling her eyes in annoyance.

“I don’t know why you still feel like you need to hide what you can do,” Glacial says. “We could literally just go to the pond and practice there.”

“Remember the other night? The ponies I said think I’m a threat somehow? I was specifically told they were looking for me.” The disappointed, frustrated looks on the girls is like a knife to the heart. Weighing his options he decides it’s unlikely somepony is watching his house, and if they are then they’ve already found him anyhow. If not then seeing some random pegasus isn’t going to instant tip them off.

“We’ll go to the pond, but I’m going to stay in disguise at least until I can clear up this whole archmage thing. Dam, I’m going to keep the horn.”

“Honey… are you sure?”

“I don’t want to risk not having it should the need arise. If I explode I’ll be back in a couple hours. I really don’t think it’s that simple anyhow. I have Sending, a mid Shield, and a few mid-low Blink too.”

In the unlikely event that he may somehow meet whatever conditions were required, assuming it’s possible, Cure had sat with his parents and explained what was shown in the episode where Twilight ascended.

Granted in the show Princess Celestia showed up immediately, but he explained that this likely wouldn’t be the case should the same happen with him. Twilight’s ascension was, or will be, basically planned out. Unless Celestia gets some kind of inkling it’s about to happen she would likely be caught by surprise.

Although he suspects she could use a combination of her ridiculous speed and teleportation to get somewhere even faster than she’d already displayed, it would still mean several minutes where his parents would likely have otherwise thought him dead.

“Explode?” both girls ask in unison.

“Don’t worry about it, just an expression,” he assures them. “Probably.”

Going through the same motions as the other night, he drains some of his fat reserves building his wings. Unlike last time he doesn’t make them proportionally gigantic, instead going with ones just slightly larger than normal for his body size to make up for his higher mass. He also forgoes any over the top theme and uses his usual incognito brown colors.

“There,” he says, flaring the wings out, then folding them down like normal. “They look okay?”

Glacial nods with a goofy smile, tail swishing happily behind her.

Drift takes one look at her friend and rolls her eyes. Turning to the brown colt she nods in approval. “Aside from being thick as Tartarus and having a horn, yes.”

Vines lets out a sigh of relief. Cure had previously said he’s one of the few or only ponies that could hide their alicorn nature should it ever happen, but the thought of her young son being shoved onto the world stage so early still frightened her. Stars, the thought of him ever being in that situation frightened her, but at least now he seems to have the princess’s attention in a good way.

Movement at the top of the stairs draws everypony’s attention. Deed and Title, the latter carrying a squirming Savvy, come down the stairs. “Heya cha- uhh… Cure?”

“Yeah don’t worry, pa, I just didn’t remove the horn when I put wings on. Nothing happened. I made plenty of pancake batter… ah fudge, I left a mess,” he says, starting to turn to the kitchen before his mom stops him.

“Don’t worry about it,” his mom tells him, “we’ll clean up after we eat. Give your sister a kiss before you go crashin into everything,” she adds, setting the filly down.

Savvy doesn’t hesitate to make her way to her brother who lays on his barrel and spreads his wings out wide, level with the floor. The cute girl’s curiosity draws her to the foreign appendages, and she’s soon nosing at the underside of his feathers and chewing on one of his secondaries.

“Aww, Savvy wanna feather to noms?” he asks. “Sorry, baby girl, I don’t want you choking,” he coos, nuzzling into her side and kissing her cheek. “Nope, go chew on Teddy, sweetie. Maybe I can make you a big brother with wings plushie to chew on, okay?”

He pulls the sweet filly between his forelegs and gives her mane and ears a little attention, then plants a big, exaggerated kiss between her ears.

Turning to look at his smiling dam he adds, “I’m going to bring some wood back and make her some puzzles and a few toys to work on coordination. Would you please distract her so I can escape without upsetting her? Oh and you have maybe ten minutes until it’s time for a number two.”

“Sure sweetie.” Vines hops up and goes to the newly added toybox and fetches a plush toy, then distracts his sister enough he can sneak away. He makes a quick retreat to the door where the pegasus fillies have been waiting, watching with subtle smiles the whole time.

“Alright, my lovelies, I place my wellbeing in your tender hooves.”

Smirking, Drift pushes open the door and trots outside, followed by Glacial. The pair stop and look back at the pseudo-alicorn colt. Cure retracts the horn, then approaches the girls already standing outside. He hesitates at the doorway, looking around to see if anypony is watching and, finding nopony, gingerly steps out of the house.

The act doesn’t escape either girls’ notice when they share a look. They’ve seen him, over the months, express concerns about ponies finding out what he can do. They’re aware that he’s gone to great lengths to obscure his capabilities.

They’ve never seen him look legitimately afraid of anything, though. The confident, invincible mask he normally wears is nowhere to be seen and neither filly cares for the fact their friend has been secretly living with this fear for several months.

“It’s okay, Cure. Nopony is out and, even if they see you, nothing will happen. Come on,” Glacial gently calls, tilting her head towards the woods.

After another quick glance around, he nods, takes another step, and pulls the door shut behind him, then takes off at a canter towards the woods and, ultimately, the pond they’ve spent several evenings cooling down in after their runs. The pond is frozen over, but Cure isn’t sure if it’s solid enough to skate on. With the pegasus aura it would be fine, but he doesn’t care much about skating when flight is a possibility.

The three foals come to a stop near the bank of the pond. The trees are far enough away that no branches are overhead, so even if he accidentally shoots in the air he won’t hit anything.

“Alright, a few things I should tell you both,” he starts as they turn to face him. “First off, I’m insanely tough. Don’t panic if I crash; I’ll be fine.”

“You should be anyhow. Why… what have you done?” Drift asks, giving him a critical look-over.

“You know how I said that silk is an organic compound?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how I told you the stuff is tough?”

“Yeah… but you’re not wearing anything.”

“I have a layer of something like it under my skin.”

“Wait, what?” Glacial interrupts. “How do you have something under your skin?”

“Just think of it as a second layer of skin, basically. Under your coat is the epidermis; that’s your skin. Under that is the dermis. I have another layer under that that’s very, very tough, so if I fell onto a sharp branch, for example, instead of maybe stabbing me it would just snap off. I’ll still get cut, but it won’t penetrate. Of course I can also just heal anything, so… yeah,” he finishes, shrugging his wings.

Both girls’ eyes are drawn to the move and Drift doesn’t hesitate to point it out. “How are you doing that?”

“What?”

“Moving like we do. You said you’ve never grown wings before the other night but you’re moving them like you’ve had them your whole life.”

“Ah. That was another thing I was gonna explain. You’re familiar with, like, squids and octopuses, right?” Both girls nod, so he continues, “Their arms all can kinda move on their own because they kinda have nerve clusters called ganglia that, while they aren’t a brain exactly, do some things a brain does. Specifically, move their arms and process sensory info like touch.

“I copied the idea and have made ganglia specifically to improve coordination and kinesthetic learning speed. They’re all tied into, basically, a secondary cerebellum plugged directly into my spinal column.”

The girls both give him deadpan looks.

“Err… I learn by doing super fast. If I do something right once, I’ll basically always do it right. I also mimic very, very well, so usually if I see something done right I should be able to replicate it. This may actually go pretty well.”

“What all can you get really good at?” Glacial hesitantly asks.

“Anything, probably. Anything physical, at least. Magic isn’t purely physical, so that’s a bit harder.”

“Really?” she asks, looking suitably impressed.

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” he insists with a vigorous nod. “Between that and my talent’s observation and memorization capabilities I should be able to get as good as anypony else is at almost anything when it comes to physical activity. I don’t think it’ll take long at all for me to learn to fly.”

Drift blows out a sigh, closes her eyes, and mumbles, “I want to hit you.”

Raising a brow, he smirks at her and teases, “Wanted to see me faceplant that bad?”

“No, it’s just… all the stuff everypony else has to work for you just get it hoofed over for free.”

“I know, Drift… I don’t know what to say. It is unfair. In my defense, according to the lawyers we saw in Canterlot, three other ponies over the centuries have had a similar ability. Each one of them accidentally killed themselves with it. If we could choose our talents would you go with the one that has a one-out-of-four survival rate?”

Glacial asks, “Killed themselves? How? Is this the ‘greater power’ thing you were talking about?”

“Yes. I have no idea what actually happened to them. If it was just an accident then they probably did something to their brain, though. I did once to improve my eyesight, then, afterwards, read a magic safety book the librarian recommended and it scared the crap out of me.”

“Your eyesight? How good is it?” she asks.

“As good as yours. Slightly better, actually. Some ponies have one thing or another that’s better. Griffons, in this case, have better distance eyesight; probably because their ancestors were high-flying dive ambush predators. It’s not a big difference, but I have a little better long-distance vision than you do. I can also adjust my eyes like eagles and stuff, so I can zoom in on things.”

“So,” Drift starts, “you basically take the best of everything you find from anycreature you use your talent on?”

“Well… not take obviously. It’s not like I’m stealing something from them. Also, I have to notice it too. So, the spider venom thing. I don’t know which is best since I, obviously, haven’t tested them all. If I know something does something well, like eyes, then I can just duplicate it. I can also sometimes enhance traits by pouring magic into them, but your eyesight is already fantastic, so I don’t think you’ll gain much. Want me to give you griffon eyes?”

“Umm… no thanks. Mine are fine.”

Turning to the platinum filly, he asks, “G? Want better eyes? Talons? Tail feathers?”

“Huh-uh. Thanks, though.”

“Sure… so, what’s first?”

“Actually, I was wondering,” Drift shyly starts, “could you do the wing thing to me?”

“Sure! Just bigger or a different shape?”

Flipping instantly to excited she asks, “What shapes can you do?”

“I’ve scanned a lot. All manner of pegasi, obviously, a male griffon, some hawks, eagles, geese, ducks, a peacock, a few turkeys, woodpeckers, owls, lots of songbirds… really, almost every kind of smaller bird around here, but they’re mostly similar to each other and your current wings. I haven’t seen a hummingbird yet, but come spring I bet I will.

“I’d also like to get a few falcons. They’re great fliers. Osprey and even seagulls too, but I haven’t been to the ocean since getting my mark. Oh and there’s a really fast bird I can’t think of the name of... starts with P...” he trails off, looking up in thought.

Glacial tilts her head in thought. “The only fast flyer that starts with P I can think of is a falcon... a peregrine falcon. They are insanely fast.”

Cure points a hoof and quickly nods. “Yep! That’s it. Guess I was close. Thanks, G!” he says with a big smile, getting one in return. He turns back to Drift to continue, “Anyhow, I could probably approximate the princess too. I didn’t scan her, obviously, but she has wings kind of shaped like a duck’s, sort of.”

Eyes wide, Drift excitedly asks, “Can you give me wings like her?”

“I can try. Without using my talent there may be some things I couldn’t see, like internally. I got a pretty good look at them when she took off, though, so yeah probably. I’ll base it off a duck ‘cause, again, similar shape. We can refine them a bit if they’re not quite right. Will your parents freak out?”

Scoffing, she flips a wing dismissively. “Who cares? Besides, you can change it back when we’re done.”

“Wait,” Glacial interrupts, “when did you see the princess take off? I thought she doesn’t really fly much.”

Cure can’t help but wince at the slip, unconsciously rubbing at his forehead with his fetlock. “Damnit…” he mutters, letting out a sigh. “You’ve heard me say this a couple times now. Some of the archmages are worried I am some kind of national threat, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Apparently they’d complained enough to Her Highness that she felt the best way to shut them up was to check in on me herself. We had just sat down to dinner the first Saturday after I helped with the births and somepony knocked, so I ran to the door thinking there was an emergency with a foal or something. She was just freaking standing there when I opened the door smiling all regal-like.”

“You’re not serious, are you?” Glacial asks. “Princess Celestia just showed up at your door?”

“Yep. She later said she came alone because she knew I didn’t want to draw attention from everypony. If you don’t believe me, ask Dawn. Her sire was made aware by Sgt. Bulwark.”

“Dam found out later,” Drift tells her. “She said to keep it quiet because everypony freaks out when the princess does anything. She said the princess talked to Sgt. Bulwark and she set up some kind of test for Cure.”

“Ehh… I wouldn’t go saying that stuff, Drift. Your dam could get in trouble by tellin ya. I won’t say anything, of course. She ended up carrying me home when I fell asleep after working my tail off on Sunday from that test. It ended up being good, though. It really helped push my magic to its limit, and I made some friends that work in Canterlot for when I eventually move there. Assuming I will. I’m not sure,” he noncommittally adds.

“That’s crazy. I can’t believe the princess actually came to your house,” Glacial says, slowly shaking her head in disbelief.

“I couldn’t either. Imagine openin yer front door and finding yourself eye level with a set of white knees. I literally looked up and, like an idiot, barely got out a ‘Woah’ before she all went,” Cure quickly changes his voice, “Hello, my little pony!” causing both fillies’ eyes to bug out.

He continues in his normal voice, “I wasn’t joking when I said I’m worried about nobles and stuff. They’re already actively trying to find me according to the boss lady herself. Or at least, they were. Dunno now. Me helping those ponies in Baltimare gave them a good idea of where to start, though.

“I am paranoid, but there’s actually ponies out there looking for me. Archmages, no less. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but it implies a rather powerful magic user, somewhere, is convinced I am a threat. They may take the princess’s word for it that I’m not, but I have no way of knowing.”

Both fillies consider the implications of that. Neither knows exactly how dangerous a powerful magic user can be, but Cure has a valid point. If some kind of powerful mage is still looking for him it may not be a bad idea to play it safe. Especially if the princess herself told him they believe he could be a threat.

“Umm… maybe the color change thing isn’t such a bad idea after all,” Glacial belatedly agrees.

“Yeah, I guess I can see why you hide the horn,” Drift agrees. “I guess we hadn’t really thought about it like that. The voice thing is totally weird, by the way. Kinda cool, too, I guess.”

“Thanks! But yeah, it is a major concern. If they just come after me I’m not too terribly worried. Like I said, I’m way tougher than a colt should be. I’m just worried they would be some kinda loon and go after my parents or something. I mean, if somepony does show up they’re already ignoring the princess, so they must have a screw loose somewhere.”

Glacial tries to assuage his concerns, saying in a gentle voice, “I don’t think you would have to worry about that. Even if they start looking around Baltimare that’s a lot of area to cover. Without something from her highness nopony would tell anypony where you live. Also, if she told them you're fine I'm not so sure they even could come after you.”

“Huh... hadn't considered that. You’re probably right." He pauses a few seconds in thought then shrugs and continues, "My parents can send me a message if anypony shows up at the house, too.”

Cure takes a deep, calming breath and gives the girls a warm smile. Turning to Drift he motions her closer. “Come here and I’ll give you duck-shaped wings, Drift,” he says as she approaches him. He’s been walking in snow the whole time, so instead of sticking a cold, wet hoof on her he wraps her in a neck-hug with his chest against hers and his chin in her mane, slowly making the change over a few minutes.

Drift blushes slightly at first, getting a raised brow and a smile over Cure's shoulder from the other filly. She hadn't really paid attention before, but with them standing chest-to-chest it's obvious the colt's at least a little taller than her now. Once he begins changing her wings the odd sensation provides enough of a distraction that the blush quickly goes away.

Once he says he’s done he steps away, watching as she spreads a wing to inspect it, then gives them a few testing flaps.

“Be careful, Drift. You’re gonna be basically relearning to fly with those. I don’t want to have to fix a broken neck and, judging from the boss lady, those things are built for speed. She was going insanely fast when she left my house.”

Nodding eagerly, Drift gives a grateful nuzzle to the colt and moves away to begin experimenting.

“Glacial? Anything special you want done?”

“Not right now, no. Maybe later. For now, let’s get you flying.” With a smirk and a mischievous look she commands, “Spread ‘em.”

“Oh my… an authoritative filly. Yes ma’am,” he teasingly replies, spreading his wings wide.

Cure has long accepted that this world is very, very different from the one from Ed’s memories. It’s an exaggeration to say that everything is different, because the number of parallels between the two are impossible to ignore. For the most part, a pony could go through their entire life living a mostly mundane existence. Of course the opposite is possible as well. One could immerse themselves in the magic of the world; embracing all the things that are possible and, often, easy that would simply never be possible on Earth.

There have already been a few significant “magical” moments since the memories came in. Witnessing his dam pour magic into her garden, getting his mark of destiny, improving his eyesight, growing a horn, creating a second egg inside of his dam, and snuggling against the chest of, and being embraced and nuzzled by, a legitimate demigod are just a few of the highlights that come to mind.

The joy of flight, and the magnificent view of the town from atop a low cloud with two pretty fillies snuggled on his sides fits perfectly on that list as well. Cure can’t help but smile nearly from ear to ear, looking over the peaceful town of Golden Hills. The cloud district floats off to the northeast and, off in the distance, he can see the cloud district hovering northwest of Baltimare.

“Beautiful.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Glacial comments, leaning against his shoulder.

Drift bumps his left side. “Just wait ‘till summer. Or fall. When the leaves change and you’re in the sky it’s just a sea of oranges and reds as far as you can see. The snow’s not bad, but we haven’t had a good snowfall cover for a few days so it’s pretty slushy right now.”

“I hope I can share this with my parents some day.”

“You said it takes months,” Drift lightly accuses. “Was that true?”

“Yes. I don’t think I’ve ever outright lied to anypony, just not fully disclosed everything,” he defends. “If it came to my family’s safety, though, I’m sorry but I will do what I think is necessary.”

Drift shrugs against him, agreeing with the sentiment. “I don’t blame you. I was just curious.”

With a grateful smile he continues, “Thanks. I’ll eventually be able to do more at once, but I worry what that would do to the pony. My sire’s just now at the point I could possibly give him wings. I’m not sure he’s willing to try flying, though. To get off the ground I have to, literally, change over a third of a pony. For him that’s like seventy five, maybe eighty kilograms of mass.”

“He’s almost three hooves taller, two hooves wider, and twice as heavy compared to a pegasus,” Glacial notes. “Ponies would notice him walking around with wings, even if they didn’t know he was just a normal earth pony before.”

Drift asks, “What about your moms?”

“I didn’t want to risk doing anything since they were pregnant. I’m changing my mom a tiny bit every morning and night now that my sister’s here. In a month or so she could fly too. She’s the only one I think is likely to actually try.”

“She’s got a pretty coat color. If she had a huge set of bright pink wings every stallion in the district would be staring at her, especially with your ridiculous muscle tone,” Drift accuses, poking at his chest with her left hoof.

“The tax pony I see has her colors and she’s a pegasus. It is very pretty,” he agrees.

<< Hey, ma. Burning off some magic. How’s everypony? >>

<< We’re fine, babe. How’d it go? >>

<< Really well. Up and flying just fine. Scanning G while she flew made it easy. >>
<< We’re on a cloud chillin now. Talk to ya later. Love you. >>

<< Bye, honey. Love you too. I’ll tell let your sire and dam know. >>

“Are you getting warmer?” Glacial asks. “You can’t get fevers, can you?”

Cure leans right and gives the filly a quick nuzzle. “Nah, but remember the whole cell discussion the other night?” At her nod he continues, “We all have unicorn cells too. They make magic and I can tell them to speed up. I get warmer when I do that because there’s some energy lost as heat when my body converts sugars to magic, however that works.”

“Why are you doing that, though?” Drift asks on his left.

The three had a lot of fun playing around and, as Cure suspected, it didn’t take much time for him to get proficient enough to get off the ground.

Flying, it turns out, isn’t nearly as difficult as many of the stories Ed read had implied. He can only assume the crashing was played up for comedic purposes. There’s no reason why anypony would start by bucking a new learner off a cloud or throwing them off a balcony.

Instead, Glacial started him with simple wing exercises and worked from there. Once she gave her approval he would lift off the ground and practice hovering, then land again. From hovering, she had him hop up into a tree and glide down.

When she decided he was gliding well enough she had him use his wings to fly slowly under his own power in a straight line. Diving and landing came next, then turning in the air, and finally climbing.

Glacial was a fantastic teacher, and she was perfectly fine with him busting out his horn and scanning her to demonstrate exactly how the body should be positioned and should move for different maneuvers. Being able to see in detail down to the muscle twitches and everything made duplicating her motions a breeze.

The only thing Cure really had to do was account for his different body shape. Mass-wise, even though he is heavier, once reduced by their aura their weight difference is only a couple kilograms.

In only a few hours Cure went from being completely land-bound to being able to lift off, gain altitude, fly straight, and successfully turn without crashing. It’s all about small changes in wing and body position. Make a big sudden change in the way the wing is held and anypony could lose control.

Cure is certain that, and Glacial agreed, it does get far more complicated in high winds or even further off the ground where there’s drafts and changing currents. Even in those conditions, though, at low speeds there should always be time to compensate for unexpected changes.

It’s only when hitting an unexpected, powerful windflow that pegasi typically lose control, and experience will almost always kick in before they hit the ground. A large part of their flight education is dedicated specifically to learning how to properly compensate when something goes wrong.

That seems logical to Cure. Edward never took aviation courses, despite wanting to, but even a passing familiarity with commercial flying gave him enough knowledge to understand that, just like driving on a highway, going straight and steady is easy; it’s the responding to the unexpected that takes education and experience.

Depending on how things go in May it might be possible to take legitimate flying lessons, but that’ll depend a lot on how discussions with the princess go, assuming they happen at all. He’s not ever planning on being a professional dogfighter, though, so for now just being able to quickly go from A to B is huge.

Baltimare is now just a short flight away. He could, in all likelihood, fly to Canterlot in an hour or two if needed. He declined Drift’s urging to go all-out, but both girls agreed that his earth pony muscle power would give him a huge advantage in acceleration, top speed, and endurance.

This is especially true when considering he can change his wing configuration and go as high as necessary to find a level where winds will either help or, barring that, be minimally contrary to his flight direction. He has the griffon that owns Early Bird’s Beakery to thank for the improved lung design that permits this.

He may lack the magical ability pegasi have to boost their cold resistance, but he can also alter his body shape to increase insulation and reduce drag. The physical armor and shield spells also serve to reduce air resistance. The armor more than the shield due to its shape contouring around the target as opposed to a shield that’s mostly spherical.

With a runic circuit added to his subdermal mesh he expects he’ll stay plenty warm enough regardless of the outside conditions, but he still makes a note to eventually try to find an aquarium where he can hopefully scan some deep sea creatures for their cold environment adaptations.

Right now the brown bear from the zoo, Ruth he recalls, has the best insulation of anything he has scanned. That, combined with some of the tricks ducks use to not freeze their feet off should be adequate, even at high speeds and low temperatures. He would probably have to dip low or slow down before looking around though, otherwise he’s worried his eyes could freeze solid.

“I sent a message to my mom and am recharging the crystal. The spell uses a freaking ton of magic for what it does, so I’m just speeding up my magic generation. Here in a week or so I should get a mid-high crystal in the mail. That’ll let me basically spend all day just constantly pushing my magic. The more you use, the bigger your pool becomes.”

“So basically,” Drift asks, “you’re using as much magic as possible all the time and pushing yourself to make more?”

Drift had a lot of fun playing with the different wing shapes. She isn’t going to keep the alicorn / duck wing shape normally so as to not draw attention, but Cure knows she’ll be begging for him to reshape her wings every time they go flying in the future. When he’d disclosed the princess’s approximate airspeed estimate she lit up in excitement at the possibility of even coming close some day.

“Yep. Anytime I get full and remember to, I send her something. Usually just ‘Hey I’m burning off some magic, how’s it going?’”

“Has it helped much?” Glacial asks.

“My magic capacity has tripled since I got my mark. When I’m pushing myself all day it forces my magic pool to grow really quickly. Well, sort of. It’s still slow, but there’s no rush. The princess suggested doing things to help ponies with my mark will do that too, but I can consistently do this, especially once that crystal arrives.”

She follows up asking, “Why will the crystal make a difference, though? Can’t you just send messages whenever?”

“I can, yes, but with the crystal I won’t really need to. It holds about half as much magic as a unicorn that uses magic all the time does. Like Dawn’s sire, Mr. Haze. If he has a hundred magic units, whatever you want to call them, I have maybe like three now. The crystal I ordered should hold around fifty. I can charge it all day at school and then empty it with a few teleports or longer messages. It’s just kinda easier and more consistent.”

“Seems like a waste of bits,” Drift points out.

“Kind of, maybe, but if I ever needed to I could put a shield spell in it that it would take a unicorn a lot of work to break through, for example. Or I could buy a half dozen of them, for a lot of bits mind you, and have six shields that few unicorns could ever get through. Or attack spells that somepony would be unprepared to defend against from an earth pony.”

“I guess that’s not a total waste then,” she agrees. “Especially with how nuts you are.”

“Hey, you agreed it’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s really just another form of exercise for me. One that’ll take years to really do a whole lot, but should eventually be worth all the work. The freaking chief physician at Baltimare Hospital herself told me that from ten to thirteen my magic capacity should explode if I keep it up. Imagine if before then I can be at four, five, or maybe even ten times what I started with. Who knows what the limit is.”

Glacial looks a little unsure at Cure. “Uhh… how much magic can you eventually end up with?”

“Well I would never be able to hold a candle to the boss lady, but think of it this way. Solar’s capacity when he left for basic was about seventy to eighty on that same scale, okay?” Both girls nod that they’re following along. “When I asked him how often he burns off all his magic he said never because it makes him feel like crap.

“Just imagine. If Solar, who never exhausted himself, is an eighty or so on the scale, how high could you go if you burned yourself out all day, every day, for years?”

“Very, I guess,” Drift concedes.

Glacial nods along and asks, “Why do you think you’ll ever need that, though?”

“Because I’m eight and have had my mark for four months and I’m already a player in the big game. A tiny one, granted, but that’s not a good pond to be a small fish in. Eventually I may need the kind of power that comes from working like that. What’ll happen if I need it and don’t have it?”

Both girls shrug, unsure how to answer. “Yeah, I don’t know either,” he agrees. “I’d rather have it and not need it than the other way around, though. If it costs me a few thousand bits for crystals and more food then that’s fine. I’ll just see an extra few customers. Having more magic will help with those too, though. In a year or so I should be able to just do a deaging without getting tired at all. One wipes me out now.”

The three sit in silence for a few minutes, just laying on a cloud and watching the town. Cure is perfectly content to sit snuggled between the fillies. The comforting warmth and physical touch on each side makes him want to lay his head down and take a nap. It seems odd to him how easy it is to just sleep all the time, and he wonders if it’s the result of just being a pony or if it’s because of the more relaxed, peaceful existence.

“Hey, can I ask you two some more cultural things? Like, if I’m out flying and I don’t know pegasus stuff, I’m probably going to look dumb. The whole ‘my parents are earth ponies’ thing should work for some, but eventually I’ll run into somepony that thinks I’m being neglected or something from not knowing.”

“Sure,” Glacial instantly agrees. “Like what?”

“Putting a wing over somepony. Is that a romantic gesture?”

“Not always, but with somepony your age it can be,” she confirms. “You usually only do that to your mates or young foals. Siblings are fine too. Or if you’re sleeping next to somepony it’s fine there. It depends on the situation.”

“Okay. I’ve never seen this, but I’ve heard of it. Having somepony’s feather in your mane. Another mate thing?”

“That’s old,” Drift explains. “That’s like… pre-unification stuff right there. I don’t think anypony does that anymore.”

“Huh. It seems kinda romantic to me,” he argues. “Well, whatever, if it’s not in style then moving on. What about the whole preening thing? Family, friends, foals, flings, another f word for lovers?”

Glacial giggles at the examples. Drift cracks a smile and answers, “That’s more of a friend thing than a lover thing. Some feathers are hard to reach and get lined up right.” She pauses and looks over his wings, then pokes him. “Lift,” she commands.

Doing as ordered, Cure lifts the wing on his left, then the one on Glacial’s side just to see what happens.

“What the hay?” Drift starts. “Your feathers are all… wait… you can use your talent, can’t you?”

Cure whistles innocently as, suddenly, several of the feathers on each side shift slightly out of place. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Growling at the frustrating colt, Drift leans over and chomps down right at the base of the wing, smiling triumphantly at her attack. Glacial just giggles at the way the colt is teasing her friend.

“I… umm… I’m not like, ticklish or something, Drift,” he explains, putting the feathers back and lowering the right wing. “Was that supposed to hurt, feel good, or what?”

“It should have caused a muscle spasm,” Glacial explains. “Quit being a butt, Drift. You know stuff like that won’t work on him.”

With a huff, she releases the wing and faces back towards the town. “Can’t stand you,” she mumbles under her breath.

“Aww, but baby,” he teases, reaching over her withers with the attacked appendage, “you can pretend all ya want, I know you can’t resist me.” Finally in place, he drops the wing across her back, reaching all the way over her left side and pulls her firmly against his body. With a smile he leans over and nuzzles against her cheek while she’s frozen, wide-eyed, in place.

Glacial giggles at them from the other side and leans more heavily against him, for a moment ignoring the now kicking and thrashing filly on his other side. “Don’t be mean, Cure. Just because you’re stronger than her doesn’t mean you get to be a bully either.”

“Okay, okay, calm down, Drift. Jeez.” He lifts the wing off her and folds it against himself, then leans over and gives her a friendly nuzzle. “Do you want me to fix you up? I don’t need to preen you, I can do it all with my talent. I’ll have to use a tiny, tiny bit of fat from ya to repair the keratin in your feathers and reoil you, though.”

“Fine!” she huffs, looking away.

“Do me too. And don’t think we’ve forgotten about those massages you promised,” Glacial instructs while poking his neck with her snout.

“Perish the thought, milady. It’s the least I can do for your help today. I can’t believe how fun flying is.”

Cure takes a look around. Seeing the pair are in the clear, he pops his horn out and hits all of them with a Cleaning cantrip, then puts it away and uses his talent to fix up their coat under their suits, rearrange their feathers, replace a few that had broken, and transmutes a few ounces of fat to give them a fresh coat of oil. Lilies for Glacial and lavender for Drift.

Drift lifts her wing and looks at the full, completely replaced, groomed, and oiled set of feathers. Folding it back down she can’t help but shake her head. “So damn unfair. It’s literally impossible to have feathers in perfect shape like that and you just do it in like ten seconds with no effort.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you know how much it costs to have somepony go through wings to fix them up like that?”

“I assure you I do not. I guess I kinda forgot about the beauty shop I bought your brushes from. I was thinkin they do manes, but if they had those then I’m guessing you can get your wings done there too. Is that something I should start offering as a service?”

“Yes!”

“She’s not wrong,” Glacial explains. “Some mares and stallions will go to a beautician and spend fifty to a hundred bits just for a professional washing, preening, cleaning, and a nice oil brushing. It’s a special occasion only thing. Getting the oil application smooth and brushed in properly by yourself is not easy. Or quick.”

“Eh… I don’t really wanna go the stylist route. I only did the design thing to draw ponies in initially. I mean, I still see them, but if I were going to choose between doing a deaging or giving somepony a fancy wing design, well… one is worth two and a half grand. The other is two to four hundred. One also is a life-changing event, so yeah. Do the math.”

“That’s true,” Drift agrees. “Besides, you’re completely unfair. You could see a hundred ponies in an hour if it only took you a few seconds to do us like that. You’d put them out of business.”

“I definitely don’t want to do that. Celestia knows, literally I bet, I’m making enough bits. I’m hoping to increase my net income by about thirty to forty percent here soon too.”

When both girls look at him curiously he explains, “When the princess visited she confessed they took samples of the plants in the garden. I had modified those plants. They’re super crops; tastier, stronger, healthier, hardier, faster growing, more nutritious, you name it. She said they would give me tax rebates based on their value.

“I admit I was kinda pissed they did it without asking, but I’m fine with it as long as the amounts they come up with are fair. I’d rather not have to get involved in food price stuff anyhow. I also have something else in the works I plan on presenting soon that may be more of a permanent solution for the whole tax thing.”

“Your trees?” Glacial asks.

“A tree, but not those. Those will be too, but I’m taking those straight to the boss lady when we go see the Wonderbolts. This’ll-”

“WHAT?” Drift shouts, startling Cure and Glacial.

“What the hay, Drift?” he asks.

“You’re going to see the princess when we go?!”

“Ahh fuck. Yes. Can you both promise to keep a secret from our friends? Not a bad one this time, just a surprise.”

“Are we coming with you?!” Glacial excitedly asks.

“Yes, but please-” he doesn’t finish the sentence before both girls are excitedly climbing all over him and cheering, basically dancing around and on top of him. “I’ll wait…” he mumbles.

After a minute they finally calm down enough for him to continue, both laying across his back possessively. Drift is across his withers with her haunches on his left and forelegs around his neck, Glacial is further down across his back facing the other way, head resting on Drift’s back.

“I wanted to surprise everypony, but at the rate I’m going everypony will know. Yes, you’re all coming with me to meet her. That’s why I told everypony they would really regret not coming. Dawn is aware since her sire is the local Guard XO.”

Cure can feel both girls’ back hooves dancing and their booties wiggling from their tails on either side of him and they both have those “I can’t even stop smiling” smiles on their faces.

“So, next question,” he calls, turning over his withers to look at them. “Should I be wearing a flight suit too? I… uhh… gotta be honest. When I’m in the air it’s awfully exposing. And drafty.”

Both girls crack up. He can feel them both shaking with laughter on his back. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Y’all don’t have yer bits floppin around when you’re zipping around.” That doesn’t stifle their laughter at all, unfortunately, and Drift blurts out “dangly bits” while laughing uproariously into his mane.

Once she gets herself under control, Glacial agrees with Cure. “Lots of ponies, especially stallions, will wear flight suits. It depends on whether they’re trying to … umm…”

“Attract a mate?” he asks.

“A temporary one,” Drift blurts out, then snickers.

“Ah. Gotchya. Okay, and thanks again for answering these. I really don’t know how I would learn otherwise. Hmm… what else?” After a moment’s thought he asks, “Is there some particular… I dunno, formation? Like, if I’m flying with you two, is there somewhere I should or should not be?”

“Traditionally, mares surround the stallion,” Drift answers. “If you’re flying with a single mare she takes point. If you have a second the other one trails behind you. If three, one in front, two behind on each flank.”

“I don’t really care for the implications of those formations,” he admits.

“It was to protect the stallions,” Glacial explains. “Since there’s always more mares than stallions it was always really important to make sure the stallion is safe and protected. Back before the unification a flock losing a couple mares was bad. A flock losing a couple stallions could have been the end of the group. It’s not as important anymore, especially over friendly territory, but some traditionalists insist the mare’s place is in the front.”

“Okay, fair enough. That term, flock… is that a family unit? It’s not one earth ponies use.”

“Nah, that’s obsolete,” Drift clarifies. “It used to be a group of families that would move together, but you won’t see that anymore. I think pegasus and earth pony families basically work the same. Unicorns are dumb.”

“Don’t say that kinda stuff, Drift,” Glacial says, poking her friend. “That’s the kinda thing that’ll start an argument.”

“Well from a purely biological standpoint she isn’t completely wrong,” Cure argues. “As a species we have a five to one female to male ratio right now, last I heard. Artificially enforcing monogamy prevents eighty percent of eligible mares from finding mates.

“Well, discounting female only relationships, but you know what I mean. If we had a one-to-one ratio it wouldn’t be a big deal, but all they’re really doing is screwing over four out of five mares, roughly. It seems a little dumb, from a pragmatic standpoint.”

Both girls sit there quietly for a second, then Drift agrees with a weak, “Yeah! That’s what I meant.”

Sighing, Glacial shakes her head at the two. “Just fly in a line or … do you know what an echelon is?”

“A diagonal line?”

“Yep. Normally the strongest flyer is in front, so with your strength that would probably be you most of the time, once you have some experience.”

“You have to keep an eye out below you if you’re in front,” Drift warns. “Especially flying over some of the woods. Around here is pretty safe, but not everywhere in the country is. The second in line needs to watch too. Sometimes the pony out front is gone before anything can react, so really everypony should be aware of their surroundings.”

“Ah. Well, if it’s a safety issue I’m probably the best one to have up front just because I can kill anything that tries to grab me.”

“Right,” he can feel Glacial nod, “the whole spider venom thing.”

“Yep. That and armor and stuff. Is there anything important that I’m missing that I should be aware of?”

“Brushing,” Drift blurts out.

When Cure looks over his withers with a raised brow Glacial clarifies, “Not like grooming, brushing. She means when somepony runs a wing over you or your wing, especially when flying. It’s another lovers thing.”

“Jeez… so basically, anything y’all do with wings is basically flirting or more.”

“... mostly, yes,” she reluctantly agrees. “Wings, to a pegasus, are kind of the most important thing.”

“Well, unicorns are the same way with their horns, I suppose, and my parents lose their minds when I give them a hoof massage, especially since I started using hands instead of hooves. OH! That reminds me, I want to take you all out for Hearts & Hooves. Heavy too, if he wants. I ain’t leavin my bro behind like that.”

“Really?” both girls chorus at once.

“Yep! Hold on a sec, lemme ask my mom if she’s ok with me goin to Baltimare with you to book it real quick.”

<< Want to go book Hearts and Hooves massages, restaurant. That okay? >>

Drift, suddenly remembering something, perks up. “If we go to Baltimare you have to stay away from some areas.”

“Oh yeah, she’s right, Cure. Base Carol and some of the areas by the docks are restricted to anypony but Guards and dock workers.”

“Umm… I get the base, but why the docks?”

“Daddy says they search boats that are coming in,” Drift explains. “They don’t want anypony bringing things in that aren’t allowed. Pegasi and bats patrol for boats to make sure nopony tries to fly anything in around the docks.”

“That… doesn’t seem like it would work. There’s huge stretches of coastline that are, as far as I know, unpatrolled. What’s stopping a griffon from taking off fifty kilometers south and flying all the way to Hollow Shades or something?”

“Dunno,” she says, shrugging her wings. “Maybe they fly patrols down there too. Fort Meadow isn’t too far south. I bet it would be hard to fly all the way around that, then north far enough to somewhere inland while carrying much without being noticed. Maybe if they flew at night, but the bats would almost certainly see ‘em.”

“Huh… good point. Is there, like… a book or something that shows where it’s not okay to fly?”

“Probably,” she says, shrugging again. “Daddy said just stay away from the base and the docks, though.”

“The hospital,” Glacial adds. “They don’t want anypony getting in the way if there’s an emergency, so unless you get permission from the hospital don’t go there either. Well, unless you need help… which, I guess, you probably never would. And stay out of the way of any EMTs, guards, weather ponies, or fire ponies you see, too. Getting in their way will get you in lots of trouble.”

“Eh, if anything I would probably be tagging along to help the EMTs at least, but yeah, I could see that.”

“Other than those places just stay out of anypony’s way,” Drift says. “And remember, always break to the right.”

“Break right?”

“Mmhmm. If you and another pegasi end up flyin at each other you both break right. It should be fine around Baltimare, but you gotta watch when you’re somewhere with more pegasi.”

“Yep,” Glacial agrees. “When we go to the Wonderbolts show it’s probably best if you just stay on the ground. There’s a lot more places you’re not allowed to fly over the capital. The castle is a big one, of course, but also government buildings, some monuments, guard outposts… if you don’t have a map it’s best to stay on the ground or you can get an expensive citation.”

“Okay, good to know. I’m not sure I’ll do the wing thing in the capital though. There’s not like… some rule saying traffic at this altitude is for east, that is for west, or something like that, is there?”

“Huh-uh. That’s not a bad idea, but it’s hard to tell when you're six hundred meters up compared to six hundred and fifty, so… wait, do you know how to make a crystal that would do that?”

“Nah, it’s probably not that big of a deal. I’m guessin there’s not a whole lot of midair collisions, though.”

Drift shakes her head no, “Not unless somepony’s not watchin where they’re going. Or are drunk. Daddy says they arrest a few ponies every week for tryin to fly while drunk. Most know better, but there’s always at least a few idiots.”

“Cool. Thanks for givin me the rundown, ladies. How about I treat you both to a snack while waiting for her answer? There’s that bakery near Town Hall and I could use the calories.”

“Sure!” Drift chirps, hopping off his back. Glacial jumps up to follow, then both turn and make sure Cure is fine jumping off the cloud. It’s not super high up, but he is still a beginner. As he approaches the edge he looks for his target. It would be a little easier to get his bearings first, so once he spots Town Hall he takes a step, raises his wings, and jumps. Between their altitude and his wingspan he barely needs to flap at all.

<< Sorry, babe, but no. Not without an adult. >>

The three land and, once regrouped, make their way to the bakery. “Mom says I’ll have to wait until one of them can come. Probably because of the whole mugging thing with Dawn and Solar.”

Drift waves the issue away with a wing flick. “It’s fine. Let’s get a snack and then go get the wood you said you needed. I’m curious what you’re going to make with it.”

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

<< Okay. At the bakery near Town Hall. Want anything? >>

“Alright, let’s get some treats and head back.”

“We’re home!” Cure calls, trotting in the door. On his back is a small pile of logs from the woods.

“Shh! She just fell asleep,” Vines whispers, turning to the three.

“Eh, it probably won’t matter,” he responds with a wing shrug. “Foals sleep through almost anything. If she wakes up I’ll entertain her until she konks out again.”

“True,” Title agrees. “She’ll be fine, babe.” Turning back to Cure she asks, “Got my pie?”

He glances over his withers to Glacial with a victorious smirk. “What’d I tell ya? Not even ten seconds.”

Giggling, Glacial grabs the brown paper bag off Drift’s back and carries it over to the pink mare. She’s curled around her little girl on a cushion with Vines laying opposite of her.

While she’s doing that Cure levitates the logs, save one, into a pile by the fireplace and hits them with another Clean cantrip to remove any dirt. He’d already ensured no eggs or bugs were in them, so they’re 100% pest-free. He floats his mat over, facing his mom and dam, and hops on; Drift leaning on his left and Glacial on his right, claiming his withers a moment later.

“Where’s dad?”

“Right here, champ,” he calls, stepping out of the kitchen. “Bet on yer mom and food?”

“Nah, they wouldn’t take me up on it. I told ‘em she’d ask within the first minute of us walking in the door.”

“I thought he was joking,” Drift says. “My sister is the same way, Mrs. Search.”

“Yeah, mom, don’t be upset. Your impulse control with food is every bit as good as a growing preteen that just got her mark. Congrats!”

“Shattap brat. Oh, and thanks for the treat, I guess.” Opening the bag, she reaches in and pulls out a slice of pecan pie. Cure at least can agree with her choice. Pecan pie is some fat-tastic shit, and ponies know their way around sweet treats.

“Now that you have your dessert,” Vines teases as she stands. She gives her wife a peck on her cheek and starts towards the kitchen, brushing against her husband on the way and calling over her withers, “I’m going to get our salads ready. Do you girls like mushrooms? I have a mushroom soup casserole in the oven, almost ready.”

“Sounds good, dam.”
“Thanks Mrs. Vines!”
Drift nods eagerly. “Sure! Thanks!”

Deed takes Vines’ vacated spot opposite of the three and flops on his barrel, watching as Cure focuses on the log he picked out from the stack. “Whatcha making, sport?”

“Well, Savvy’s a little young, probably, but I’ve seen some neat toys in catalogs that are good for coordination and stuff. Here, watch.”

The fillies and his sire watch on as Cure removes a two centimeter thick, hoof and a half tall, hollow end of the log, lifting it off the peg-like ending he’d separated it from. The result is a hollowed cap, basically, that he then reshapes into a two-hoof cube with the bottom missing.

On each side he removes a couple shapes; X’s, circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and others in various sizes and slightly different configurations, all leaving behind empty spots as they fall into the cube. He lifts the cube and alters the pieces so they’re all bright colors, then uses his talent on the box and pieces, removing any moisture, then hardening and smoothing everything.

“There we go. Her very own shape sorting box. Next I’ll do the ring stack thing and maybe tonight when I get back I can come up with some kinda busy board.” With a fond smile he looks up to his sire and says, “Those things can keep foals busy for hours.”

“Not familiar with ‘em, champ. I’m sure yer sister’ll love it though. Lucky filly don’t know how good she’s got it.”

“That’s a neat idea, Cure. My parents want to have a foal next year. Do you think you could make one of those for her eventually?”

As the conversation continues Cure uses half of the remainder of the log for the ring stack toy. Cure can’t remember how many rings they normally have, so he plans for seven; one of each color including indigo with red being the largest at the base.

“Sure thing, G. I remember your dam mentioned that when I met her. I don’t mind a bit.”

“I think my parents are planning on having another too,” Drift says. “They haven’t told us anything but I overheard my sire talking about how excited he is for a colt.”

“Well they are due for one. Three fillies in a row and all,” Cure notes, focusing on the last few rings. “Who knows, maybe they’ll get really lucky and you’ll get a couple twin brothers.”

“That’s insanely unlikely. I’d be happy for them, though. We definitely don’t have enough pegasus colts out there,” she complains, sighing. “Still, I’ll probably end up with another little sister. That’s fine, Swirl’s been pretty easy-going most of the time.”

“She’s been asleep every time I’ve seen her. Your sister slept the whole time I was there too, Glacial.”

She nods explaining, “They wear each other out then fall asleep.”

“Yep,” Drift agrees, “be glad you haven’t seen them when they’re chasing each other all over the house. If the walls weren’t made of clouds they would have broken their necks by now. Wind can get them easy enough now that she has her cutie mark. Her turns are instant now.”

“Has she tried bouncing?”

“Bouncing?” she echoes.

Cure finishes with the rings and floats the set, along with the sorting box over to his mom. “See if she has any interest in those, ma. How was the pie?”

“Good, babe. Thanks, I’m guessing you want her to put the shapes through the right holes?”

“Yep. I would start with the ring toy, though. Stacking rings on a peg is pretty simple; the shape thing is probably way too advanced. I’m just not sure where the baseline is with foals.”

Cure sends a line-of-sight Message to his mom. << Remember I said everything on this planet is way smarter than on Earth? Even animals here can be near-sapient. I don’t know how that will apply to an actual sapient being, but foals at age two or three are smarter than humans at four, maybe five. >>

“I’ll see if I can show her how to stack them, honey. Thank you.”

“Sure thing, ma.” Turning to his left to face Drift, he clarifies the “bouncing” remark. “Yeah, her mark is a series of lines basically bouncing around. If her talent is like her mark she may be able to ricochet herself or maybe something she throws, who knows?”

“Huh… I’ll ask.”

“We haven’t studied any physics at school, but I have read a little at the Baltimare library. I would expect this to come up with flight training, but are you both familiar with the term inertia?”

“Yes,” Glacial answers, “it’s something to do with acceleration, right?”

“Not exactly. They’re sorta-kinda-related in that both of them involve motion. Acceleration measures change in velocity over time. Inertia is more like, how hard is it to either cause something to accelerate or cause it to decelerate. So objects with more mass have more inertia because it takes more work to either stop them or get them moving.

“I may be mixing it up with momentum. The two aren’t exactly the same, but they get used interchangeably enough I have a hard time clearly defining them. I think momentum is how much force is behind something but inertia is the force needed to stop or redirect it.”

Both girls nod along hesitantly. Drift asks, “Okay, and you think maybe sissy can… do what?”

“I have no way of knowing, but maybe she can mess with inertia somehow. Try throwing pillows at her and let her try to redirect their trajectory. If she can redirect inertia then maybe she can make them bounce instead of just hitting her. With some work maybe she can even cause them to bounce a specific direction like up or to the side or, maybe right back at you.”

Drift gives him a skeptical look. “You want me to throw pillows at sissy and tell her it’s to help her learn to use her special talent better?”

With an excited nod Cure instantly agrees. “Oh, yes, absolutely! If she has that ability then I’m really curious what it would be like if taken to the extreme. Control over inertia is, frankly, a terrifyingly powerful ability.”

“I’m not sure I follow, sport. It sounds like it could be useful, whatchya mean by terrifyin?”

“It all depends on the degree of control she has, but maybe she could somehow counter air resistance. Maybe she could take the energy from a dive and redirect herself upwards or something. Or, like my example, if somepony throws something at her maybe she can redirect it away or reflect it back at them. It’s worth testing. At the furthest extreme she may even be able to do that with magic since talents are magical abilities.”

Glacial pokes Drift in the side and adds, “If he’s wrong you get to throw pillows at her and blame Cure for it.”

Drift smiles and her ears perk up at the suggestion, nodding eagerly. “That is a good point! I’ll try it tonight.”

He leans over and pokes her in the neck with his snout. “You are going to … ya know, tell her first, right?” he asks, giving her another poke. “You’re not gonna just throw a pillow in her face, shrug, and say ‘Cure told me to’ and walk away, right?” He’s pretty sure he knows the answer when she gives him an innocent look and turns away smiling. “Hmm. I think I may send her a heads-up just in case.”

“Aww…”

“So, pa, how about after we meet up with Solar you and I head over to Baltimare and see about making appointments for Hearts and Hooves. It’s seven weeks away; they may have booked up already.”

“I doubt it,” Title interrupts. “I don’t think most ponies plan ahead like you do, honey. I’m betting you could do it later this week and still get in, no problem.”

“Today would be better, babe. I got nothin ta do after lunch and, as you know, this week’s gonna be busy.”

“Do you need help at work, pa? If you need something done I can do, like delivering paperwork, I can help out while ma’s off. I don’t think Miss Apple will mind too much.”

“Nah, champ, I’m gonna be trainin a new pony startin Tuesday. Yer ma an’ I talked it over and posted a help wanted ad in the paper a few weeks back. A nice unicorn mare answered it Friday before we went to the gym and she’s startin Tuesday mornin.”

Cure’s eyebrows shoot up into his mane. “What?! Why the hay is this the first I’m hearing about it?”

“Why would your parents talk to you about ponies they’re hiring?” Glacial asks.

He glances up and to the left to see the genuine curiosity on her face. It’s a legitimate question, at least under most circumstances. It’s not even wrong, exactly, here. He is just a foal and, if the mare is qualified then there’s no reason his sire should feel the need to consult him first. It’s not like he’s terribly involved in his parents’ business, after all.

“I guess there’s no reason to. I dunno, it just seems like we talk about most things,” he offers with a shrug. “Well, congrats, pa, ma. Is she filling in for mom or what?”

“Remember when we went to the tax office the first time?” Title asks.

“Vividly,” he answers with a slight growl.

With a snorted laugh she nods in acceptance. “Yeah, I guess you would. I bet Ms. Audit does too. Anyhow, you had suggested we sit down and figure out what we spend the most time on that we’re the least suited for. Well, according to your sire she’s got a cutie mark in finance.”

“Huh. That’s fantastic. Are we talking equinal finance or corporate finance?”

“Equinal, I think,” his sire answers.

“That’s great! Does she do retirement planning too?”

“I… uhh… didn’t ask, son. I could see if she does when she starts.”

“Well was it on her résumé?”

“Nah, she worked at a bank as a teller. She got her cutie mark a few years ago and they changed her duties, but she had to relocate when her coltfriend moved for his job. She said the pay wasn’t much better when they ‘promoted’ her either.”

“Ah. So wait, if she just came on Friday and is starting Tuesday and is from out of town then how’d you check her references?”

“She had a letter of recommendation from the bank.” At Cure’s continued stare Deed clarifies, “It was on official Bank of Equestria letterhead, stamped and signed, son. That’s good enough.”

“If she just moved here, what branch was it from? Not Baltimare, I’m guessing.”

“Huh-uh. It was from the Fillydelphia branch.”

“You seem oddly curious about this,” Drift observes. “How do you even know so much about hiring?”

“I’ve considered hiring somepony to take care of my appointments. Lemon volunteered, though, so I didn’t have to. I will when I eventually have a real office, though, so I looked into the process.”

“Here?” Glacial asks.

“It wouldn’t be until I’m at least twelve or so, and then I’m thinking Baltimare, more than likely. I dunno, though. I have so many irons in the fire right now it’s hard to make plans. Truth be told, I could probably go to any random city in the nation, hire ponies to pass out flyers, then come into town for two or three weeks and make a few hundred grand, then move to the next town.”

Glacial’s hooves tighten around his neck when he throws the number out and Drift freezes, aside from her wings that flip up, slapping her friend across the left side of her face.

Sputtering, Drift barely gets out, “A few hundred grand?!”

“Eh, probably? I mean, if I pass out flyers that say, ‘De-Aging Treatment - Arrive in your 50’s, 60’s, 70’s. Leave looking and feeling 25 again!’ along with a date span and a time and place for ponies to make appointments. I bet you I could get at least fifty, maybe a hundred ponies to show up. That’s a hundred and twenty five thousand to a quarter million bits. I could do three cities in a quarter and, with a little luck, maybe make over a half million or so. With plenty of food and some breaks I could do twenty or more per day.”

“You could also get killed when somepony tries to rob you,” Title helpfully points out.

Cure scoffs at the suggestion. “I wish them luck.” He pauses a second and asks, “Are there, like… bounties on bad ponies? Like, if somepony tries to rob me and I knock ‘em out can I turn them into the Guard for bits?”

“Son… are ya serious?”

“Why not? I don’t plan on lookin for ‘em, but ma’s right. If somepony sees me making a buncha money there’ll eventually be somepony that tries something. Unless I went in the right disguise, that is. I bet there’s a limit to what thieves would be willing to try to tackle.”

Title facehooves, then shaking her head explains, “The Guard will occasionally put bounties on ponies, yes, but what kind of disguise would be scary enough to ward off thieves and not scare off your customers?”

“... damn. You’re right. I could always make some kinda creature up that’s not real and maybe they would be leery of trying something against the unknown, though. Or just something ponies don’t encounter often, like a sphynx.”

“The only sphynx I’ve ever heard of was a mare. Err, female,” Glacial says.

“Right but you’ve only heard of one. There’s no reason I couldn’t pretend to be a male one. Or, heck, just move it all internal and leave the whole area blank and really confuse ponies.”

Drift bursts out laughing at the suggestion, leaning more heavily against Cure as her body shakes. When he looks at her curiously she freezes, “Wait, are you serious?”

“Umm… yeah?” he cautiously answers.

Drift’s face goes through several emotions and, through the minute of different twitches and odd looks, she repeatedly starts to ask a question, then stops, and finally sighs and shakes her head. “Ya know what, never mind. You’re just weird.”

“I think we’ve all come to accept that at this point, sweetie,” Title agrees consolingly.

“Wash up and come eat!” Vines yells from the kitchen.

Glacial hops off of his withers as he starts to stand. “Good deal,” he starts, “I was starvin. If you two are up for it, how about you go check with yer dams after we eat. We’ll go say hi to Solar and then head over to Baltimare with my sire and book those appointments.”

Author's Note

Typical chapter creation process:
1. Start typing
2. Reach like 5-8k words
3. Think "good enough"
4. Pass through, do edits, revisions, clean-up, add some details, etc.
5. Publish 10-15k chapter
6. Insist shorter chapters and more time skips are coming
7. Realize that there's an important event coming up that I don't want to skip over
8. Make a chapter for said event
9. Return to step 1

For folks asking about more chapters, or curious about my publishing schedule, I almost always do two per week, normally one on Mon or Tues and another Thurs or Fri.

52 through 54 are mostly done but I have an IRL event this week that may prevent me from publishing 52 later. We'll see.

I would encourage you not to comment asking for more chapters or when the next update will be, and I don't mean on this story specifically. I mean in general on any story. I'm writing this story because I want to, but I have felt the "I need to finish a chapter" pressure and, if anything, it discourages writing. I don't plan on going anywhere, but I have seen many, many stories go on hiatus or just stop when the author felt too much pressure. I enjoyed many of those stories, so please don't inadvertently do that to others.
/end minirant