It is after dusk when you take off, lightning flashes marking the horizon ahead. The squall line approaching Canterlot drives warm summer air ahead of it, and as soon as you catch the thermals you’re ascending, faster than usual.
Other pegasi would be afraid. But not you. You’re prepared. Navigators have to be; you work alone.
(And yet…)
Each regiment of pegasi has specialists from the Royal Corps of Navigators attached. Skilled in high-altitude flight and celestial navigation, you have been trained to fly high, get a position fix, and then return to the main force with updates, guiding your fellows to war and back again.
But tonight is just another training flight. You’re in full kit: insulated flight suit and helmet, wing warmers, oxygen tank and mask, instrumented goggles, sextant, watch, nav board. It’s not quite the full-plate armor of Royal Guards, but you still feel the weight. That’s where training comes in. Be lazy. Always let the wind do the work.
You keep your wings out and curved upwards, barely doing more than a quarter flap, feeling the angle of attack against your remiges and coverts, steep enough to catch the wind, but not enough to stall.
The thunderstorms are passing over Canterlot. Bright flashes and low rumbles come from below you. You sense instability in the air, so you decide to wait, so as not to risk catching a stray lightning bolt. You close your eyes, your instinct automatically piloting.
It’s a familiar feeling, this solitude, one you were used to even before you joined the RCN. Memories rush in like wind. Hiding from your stepfather, when he was in a particularly foul hungover mood. Finding out-of-the-way cloud tufts during recess instead of yet another game of hoofball. Joining the military, not entirely by choice, doing everything possible to not stand out in basic. And then lucking into the RCN, where you could become a true “quiet” professional. Valued, yet with independence.
As soon as these thoughts arrive, they depart, like the storms below. The air is calm now. Carefully, you roll over, facing towards the stars. At this altitude, you can see thousands upon thousands of them, silhouetted against the Milky Way, with the moon giving off only a sliver of light tonight.
Astronomy has come a long way in your twenty-six years. Scientists now theorize that each of those stars is another sun, and in turn around each of those suns, other worlds. You imagine yourself ascending higher and higher, past the Hoofstrong Limit, past the Kárpón Line, past the Mare in the Moon and the planets of the Celestial Sun, through the vast spaces, towards these new worlds, however long it takes. Being alone would not be a factor.
(And yet…)
Time for your position marking. You open the kit, laying the nav board on your chest. You take the chained sextant in your hooves, find the three brightest stars in the sky. Take altitude and azimuth. Lock and record. Repeat twice more. Twenty seconds. Apply index error and refractive corrections. Local hour angles. Transference. Transformation. Sine. Cosine. Saving calculations.
Words? They aren’t supposed to be here. But they are, and glowing. Firefly ink on the nav board, amid stellar almanac, navigation wheels, endurance calculators.
As wings move oscillating through the sky,
O’er clouds and peaks, the flying pilgrims come.
Where even eagles fear, come pegasi
In search of lighted paths to guide them home.
Thermals float, quiescent on the heat;
On outstretched bones and feathered wings, you glide.
Angles of stars, transformed to curves that meet
And where they touch, your place is signified.
Yet I can never share your flying powers.
So please, my navigator love, descend
And you will find, nestled in trees and flowers,
A heart entwined with thine at journey’s end.
For while you fly, your presence I’ll await.
Go out. Seek light. Come home. Iterate.
You put down the sextant and trace a padded leather gloveboot over the words–her words.
More memories rush in. A unicorn mare, with a pale coat and long brown mane. You wouldn’t have noticed her until you saw the note she left, tucked into the scroll of star charts that you had checked out of the library, telling you that she thought you were handsome. One note leading to another. Then to dates. To her telling you she would follow you wherever you were sent, wings or not. And then to a marriage, to a house and a home, to a place where you could always return.
(And yet…you are not alone.)
You close your eyes and see her, standing in a field of daisies, looking up at you as you soar by.
For a brief instant, this after-image is displayed on the inside of your flight goggles against the starry sky, before resolving into ten thousand points of light.
It is beautiful, this firmament. Yet, it is cold and solitary, and you are alone here. The oxygen mask and the chill in your wings remind you that you cannot stay here forever.
You have somewhere else to be.
You blaze through your arc-second calculations and position marking, record your flight time, stow your sextant and boards, take one last look at your compass.
You hold your breath, fold in your wings, and descend towards home.
The air at ground has cooled from when you left, but still thick with humidity from the passing rain. You’re on autopilot as you land at the base, take off your suit, turn in your gear, and fly off as soon as you are dismissed.
You feel sweat roll, horizontally, down your body, as you fly towards home, towards her.
She has left the upstairs skylight open for you. You descend quietly, like a falling feather, and land next to her in bed. You plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Hey there,” she whispers.
“Hi.”
She turns towards you, eyes still closed. “Did you like my poem?”
“Yes.” You kiss her again, and know you are home.
