Fragmented Wingbeats

“I hope you make it."

Your last words to me echo in my head as I stand on the peak of the cumulonimbus cloud and taste the thin air. The world below, when I last saw it, was hazy and unfocused. You're somewhere down there. I wonder if you're looking up right now, and thinking of me. I'd like to believe you are.

"I don't understand why you want to do this," you said once.

I flared my wings. It was so easy to understand! I wanted to do...something. Anything. A thing that mattered, an achievement that will last. Just one thing, that is mine and can't be taken from me.

"I want to matter again," I said.

You dropped your eyes. Your hooves flexed like they always do when you think about your music. Playing the ghost of a fiddle that isn't there. "That I can understand, I suppose."

My gaze goes back to the waning blue around me. My lungs are tight, but I feel more alive than ever before. I'm going where no one has ever gone. I have failed every other thing in my life, but this is the only thing that matters. My wings faltered in the 'bolts, in the dropouts, but they can do this for me. They can carry me hire than unpowered flight has ever gone before. Higher than balloons and ariships and the princesses themselves. For the first time ever, I will be exceptional.

My heart pumps in my breast, each beat stronger and more vital than the last as my body compensates for the decreasing oxygen. I teeter for a second on the cloud's edge, and then I am airborne. Flapping hard and circling skyward.

I take flight, and my wings bear me up.