Pipp rubbed her eyes and put her phone down, carefully placing it on the table in front of her. It fit perfectly in the same spot it always did, between a bottle of hoof polish and her pad of content ideas she had brought in from her bedroom. Sometimes she would wake up, half-remembering something, then grope for the pad in the dark to write down her idea. The next morning, she would wake up to either the best idea she’d had all week, or nonsense scribbles and a vaguely crude drawing of what she imagined was her sister, since they both usually had mostly unreadable expressions, but with a faint hint of pity lurking behind the eyes.
She rotated her ears, straining for any sounds of her sibling, but nothing reached her and she swiveled in her chair. She watched her reflection in the mirror copy her movements, and she was slightly envious that once she left the room, her reflection was free to do as she pleased, while Pipp walked back into a life filled with routine.
Wake up, wash up, eat up, shut up, smile and wave, pretend to be happy, be happy…
Not always in that order, and not always with the same emotions, but enough was the same she kept checking behind her for a rut in the lush carpets of the royal palace.
Pipp Petals, Princess Petals to the average Zephyr Heights citizen, a slew of nicknames – kind, non, and everything in between – to her fans, and a variety of nicknames exclusive to parents and siblings.
Well, parent and sibling, if one wanted to be pedantic.
She barely registered the guards saluting her as she passed, and she waved a downy wing at them more out of reflex than on purpose, and she couldn’t tell what expression was on her face at the moment since she had her phone tucked away rather than in front of her for a quick livestream or vlog entry.
The little purple pegasus glanced out one of the windows, and her stomach did a little swoop at the expanse of Zephyr Heights that spread out below and away from the palace.
Funny how a pegasus could get vertigo, but she was one of hundreds that didn’t deal well with heights in a city of hundreds of thousands of lives perched precariously on a mountaintop. She forced herself to move onward, putting the window behind her as she turned down a less-used hallway, tracing a path she wasn’t wholly familiar with, but remembered it because it was where she would find her sister.
Many turns later found her at the top of a staircase even darker than the hallways that led to it, and she reached out with a wing to trace a clean line along the wall, slowly guiding her down the spiraling steps.
She’d fallen down them once, and thankfully the scar left behind by the impact at the bottom was small enough to hide behind her mane. She shivered at the thought and her pace slowed to a crawl as she felt out the steps before her with cautious hooves.
One last turn, a short hallway, through an arch, and she was free.
She took a deep breath of fresh air, blown in through a massive open window at the far end of what her sister theorized was some sort of long-disused transportation hub. Faded posters lined the walls, filled with names of locales that were lost to the mists of time. The carpet beneath her hooves was little more than a few strands of blue and yellow thread, and the sounds of rodents fleeing into their holes reached her ears as her hooves hit the ground hard enough to send even her quiet steps booming through the chamber.
Movement at the far end caught her eye, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar plume of her sister’s mane caught the light, a beacon in the darkness.
The older sibling didn’t call out to the younger, waiting patiently until they were close enough, and noses touched in a familial way, shortly followed by smiles and nods.
“I had a feeling you’d be down here,” Pipp said, stepping back to take in her sister’s somewhat dusty appearance. “You’ve been cleaning.”
Zipp Storm nodded, causing a cobweb to fall from her ear. Pipp’s ears went flat against her skull as she shuddered, and the older sister tilted her head, brow creasing slightly. “What brings you down here?”
Pipp smiled slightly. “I had some free time, and wanted to use it productively.”
“You hate it down here.”
“Only when it’s messy.”
Zipp’s pink eyebrow floated upwards, followed by half of a muzzle, before the head shook itself with a snort. She stepped back, into the light coming through the center window, and half-turned to flick a wing around the room.
“Do you like it?”
Pipp followed the sweep of the wing, seeing the edge of where Zipp had cleaned. The difference between dusty and swept wasn’t obvious, but she nodded nonetheless, which made the elder happy.
Pipp saw the device as she turned back, noticing that it had been moved out into the fading light. Beyond it was a blackboard covered top to bottom and side to side in scribbles with numbers and shapes and all manner of things Pipp couldn’t even begin to comprehend, despite having taken the same classes as her sister.
The books she noticed on tables tucked away in the gloom, with titles she couldn’t make out, no doubt held the secret of the arcane scratches, but she wasn’t here for them.
“Are you ready?”
She registered the words, and nodded, and she followed her sister towards the machine, half-listening as the pale pegasus explained the operation of the industrial fan.
Pipp watched her sister take a running leap, jumped off a lever, and the roar of the fan drowned out everything else as the sibling flew into the air on a storm of wind, mane and tail flailing wildly in the maelstrom as the other spiraled up on spread wings. She turned, and Pipp saw the expression on Zipp’s face before it became blurred by tears.
Pipp blinked them away, but not before Zipp noticed and flew out of the wind, landing on the lever to turn off the fan, then jumped to her sister’s side, her expression worried.
“What’s wrong? Dust in your eye? Did something get blown into you? Are you-”
Pipp raised a hoof to stem the tide of words and shook her head, smiling wetly at her sister.
“It’s not that,” she said, voice thick. She swallowed. “Just...seeing you like that…”
Zipp tilted her head, peering at the other. “Like what?”
Pipp somewhat copied her sister’s crooked smile. “Happy.”
Zipp blinked, stepping back a bit, before slowly turning to look at the fan thoughtfully.
She was silent for a few moments, ears twitching, before she glanced back. “Yeah, that makes sense.” She took a breath. “What about you?”
“No.”
It came out harsher than she intended and Pipp winced as her sister twitched.
“Sorry,” she tried again. “It’s just...you know.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for.”
The crooked smile returned. “But I perform all the time.”
“That’s different.”
The hoof came up, gently touching fur. Pipp rested her own against the limb, resting her cheek on it.
“No support.”
“But I have you.”
And that was enough.
Pipp knew what was coming. She had agreed to it. She had trained for it. She knew there were no risks involved. Everything was safe, controlled, and within her power to end it at any time.
But as she stepped closer and closer to the newly-erected flying training grounds, every fiber of her being suddenly started protesting. She bit her lip to keep the words inside, but her breath came in short gasps, her steps became unsteady, and the world was slowly going dim-
Strong hooves pressed into her chest, halting her forward movement and she jerked back in surprise to see Zipp staring intently at her, eyes darting in their sockets as she analyzed her sister.
"Pipp? Talk to me."
The words and tone were gentle, and the hooves softened their touch, allowing Pipp to rock forward before sitting down hard enough to make her teeth rattle.
"I don't want to fly," she croaked, the words barely above a whisper. "The wires were one thing, but this...this is too much."
Zipp said nothing, standing still, watching her calmly, and Pipp fought back the urge to snap at her, knowing she was doing the right thing and letting her get it all out.
"I know I did the training, but there was the knowledge that flight was impossible, that it was more practice for the wires to make it look natural."
She'd read the video comments on her earlier performances, with a lot of ponies talking about what a clumsy flier she was, and a few of the older ones joked about there being wires.
Always a joke…
Pipp took a long slow breath, then ten more after it, slowly getting herself under control. She could feel the sweat on her coat and she fought the urge to shake it off-
"Don't."
Pipp blinked, lifting her head, not realizing it had drooped while her mind wandered, and she wrenched her attention back onto her sister, who was still calmly watching her.
"Let everything out. Get up, stretch, move. Your body is tense, and that's only going to harm you once you're off the ground."
Zipp, of course, had grasped the intricacies of flight almost immediately, thanks to her practice in the transportation hub, but she never boasted or showed off, spending more time with her hooves firmly on the ground beside her sister, guiding her when needed.
Pipp got to her hooves, and the whole world spun. Zipp was beside her in a flash, her warm body taking her weight with ease, and Pipp grinned at her before taking another deep breath, letting it out slowly, then stretched her legs one at a time, then lowered her chest to the ground, rocking back on her hooves, then forward, lowering her back as she did. She bent both left legs, then right, then lifted opposite legs, then did a quick trot in place, letting out a few quick short breaths. She then went through a shorter set of stretches, then nodded, turning to face Zipp.
"I'm ready."
Zipp looked like she wanted to say something, but simply nodded instead, and then continued forward, Zipp close to her sister's side, wings barely brushing against hers.
They reached the grounds, where the guards stood, keeping an eye on the equipment, harnesses, making sure the thick plush pads were firmly in place, and helping ponies that needed it. Thunder and Zoom greeted the princesses, then guided them through the process of putting on the control harness, then made sure all the safety features and backups were in working order.
Zipp took a few practice leaps into the air, flaring her wings to slow her fall back down, then nodded in satisfaction. She turned to Pipp, who hadn't moved after the harness went on. The guards moved away at a flick from Zipp, and she approached her sister.
"Ready?"
Pipp met her sister's gaze evenly, then shook her head. "No, but there's no way around this. I'll have to get used to this eventually, so may as well do it in the safest possible manner." She swallowed hard. "Lead on."
Zipp nodded, and they made their way up to the launch platform, barely a leg-length off the ground. Pipp eyed it dubiously.
"This is more for gliding," Zipp explained. "You need to get your hooves placed right for landings, and you don't want to be far off the ground for that lesson. Now, watch."
She stepped up to the edge of the platform, then jumped straight out, wings spreading, legs held in a running ready position. As soon as her hooves neared the ground, she moved them as if she was trotting, flapping her wings to slow herself as she did. She repeated the process from the end of the course, then jumped up beside Pipp.
"Ready?"
Pipp nodded, flapping her wings a few times. She'd watched her sister closely, then just before she jumped, she realized their bodies were nothing alike, and her limbs froze. She thudded to the ground, all four legs straight down.
"Nicely done!" Zipp said, leaping down beside her. "You didn't fall over! That's a great first step!"
Pipp nodded, glaring down at her traitorous limbs, then went through the limbering exercise again.
Twice more her limbs locked up, and she let out an irritated snort before limbering again. She trotted in a circle, jumping around in little hops and leaps, wings flapping. It took her a few precious moments to realize her legs were no longer touching ground, and she looked down. She also forgot to flap her wings, and the harness squeaked as it caught her, holding her gently in the air on its wires.
"Very good," Zipp said, holding out a hoof and gently pulling her down. "Now you just need to do that without blinding yourself to your surroundings."
"It's...weird," Pipp murmured, holding her wings out and peering at them. "Some of it feels...instinctual, like I'd done this before. That it's natural to want to spread your wings and fly."
Zipp nodded. "Good instinct. Hold onto that feeling."
Pipp went through the basic glide several more times, and finally, she managed to get her hooves to gently transition her from flight to a trot. She did that several more times, then did it faster. She fell a few times, but she got back to her hooves, shook herself, and tried again.
And again, and again, and again.
As the day wore on, she paused to take a drink, sighing in bliss as she stretched her wings and legs.
"How do you feel?" Zipp asked.
"Like a foal with five left hooves," Pipp said, examining them carefully for damage from her exertions. "I'm going to need a spa trip after this. And after every flight, I feel."
Zipp grinned. "Well, I'm sure there's a spa in Maretime Bay and Bridlewood for you to take advantage of for the trips to visit the others."
"You think so?" Pipp mused thoughtfully. "I hope so. If not, I suppose I could always open one of my own." Her eyes lit up. "Oh! Or perhaps a mane salon? Bless them, but the others don't seem to take care of their manes at all, and I'd like to be able to do something for them for all they've done for us…"
Zipp blinked, then shook her head, grinning all the while.
