Chapters Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Leaping from the Steep Slope, Vacation
Spitfire paid farewell to her fellow Wonderbolts and the Princess. Rather, she let herself be summoned under Luna’s royal wing like a foal as the nocturnal monarch bid her farewell. Even after multiple diplomatic trips together, Spitfire still had to correct herself every time she thought of Equestria being under the steady guidance of the Princess.
The convoy took off in the mid-afternoon from the makeshift runway. Luna and her guard pulled the ship as it gained momentum in the sky, the Wonderbolts circling in full travel uniform to smooth the air currents. They would return in much the way they arrived: the Wonderbolts circling to navigate and clear clouds during the day; Luna and her guards trading places during four or five decreasingly moonless nights. It is a truly impressive distance from Canterlot when ascending to the rarefied flight levels above the Peaks of Peril would signal to the cavalcade that they were on the home stretch.
Once inside her yurt-inspired log cabin, Spitfire reviewed her royal directives in the follow up to the first visit from Canterlot in a generation. With four princesses, Equestria now had the spare royal attention required to re-establish ties with far-off herds. Beyond exchanging universal equine pleasantries, Luna’s drive was to check in that they received adequate sunlight and ask if they wanted any adjustments in their constellations. Now that her boss was departed, Spitfire checked her mission objectives.
Take a vacation. The Wonderbolts will just have to manage themselves without you. Be a guest, not merely a visitor among your own kind. Forget about Equestria. Weather-permitting, begin flight home early in the day before the night of the full moon
She sighed. It was that obvious that her vacation was also a test run for the inevitable day when she was no longer the capital-C Captain of the Wonderbolts. Blaze repeatedly made it clear she prefers being second-in-command. Fleetfoot would make an absolutely worthy successor—too bad they were in the same rookie class. Same problem with Fire Streak: that stallion had a head for logistics that earned respect from the senior ‘Bolts while keeping a low profile that kept him out of the rookies’ orbits. Too bad both of them had even odds of being retired by the time she could no longer stay Captain.
Rainbow Dash was the next obvious choice. A superstar rookie. An objectively risky bet, but the natural victor of a power vacuum among pegasi. Spitfire scribbled something about putting Dash under the tutelage of Fire Streak and Blaze. It’s one thing to lead the local weather team by being the best, but being merely the best flyer…
Papers flew around the non-yurt from a sudden flare of wings. Spitfire opened her door and trotted with resolve toward the cliffs to her east. She needed speed, and her best option in this thinner air was a drop start. Her flustered snort echoed off the cliff face. She’d have to fly to the spot she saw the hawks launching.
It was not her snort that echoed.
Spitfire had not yet learned those were all names for the various life stages of the same creature.
One of her host villagers stepped away from the rocks that disguised him, his cremello belly and brown topline blending in with the sandstone. At least, she assumed he was one of the stallions. The ponies here were unlike any herd back in Equestria. To start, they universally shared the coloration of perfectly roasted marshmallows. She still got confused when trying to tell them apart from one another. If she were meeting for a greeting, she’d look up—yes, upward—for their cutie mark. Not to be confused with kirins, niriks, or qilin, the kiang hosting her were ponies as tall as Princess Luna with the conformation of donkeys and short, erect manes.
“I’ve seen one of you tending to the birds. How do you get there?”
Spitfire’s question was met with another snort and head bob. “Follow me.”
She followed him up switchbacks fit only for goats and mules, the rock blocking one of her wings making her feel unsteady the whole time. Soon enough, they reached the flat grassy top of the escrapement. Spitfire peered over the edge. Not a place to dive. She stepped back and saw her escort breathing heavily. Nopony could see them here. She was safe in thinking that. Gingerly, she flared her wings and stepped toward the panting stallion before beginning her slow, rhythmic flapping. Within ten wingbeats, he had mostly subsided back to regular respiration.
“Thanks,” he said with a nod, “I wasn’t expecting exercise so soon in the season. Still had my winter coat on.”
Wings retracted, Spitfire backed up even more before heading for the precipice at a gallop. Two steps before her hooves no longer had ground, she spread her feathers and beat hard against the wind.
Legs outstretched, she flapped to climb higher before relaxing to soar in broad circles. Eyes focused downward, she pivoted her remiges up for a full-speed dive. Wind brushed her mane and tail better than any mane & makeup department at a Wonderbolts show. Earlier than usual, she applied her brakes to pull back to horizontal flight and returning to climb.
The following fortnight passed in a blur. The tricky flight parameters among the kiang guaranteed a redirection in focus whenever her mind fast-traveled home. Fanning the kiang with her feathers, a practice which had once seemed so insulting when they were more interested in pegasi as personal air conditioners instead of aerial acrobats, became a ritual of care and friendship. Despite pegasi being effectively a new sight to them each time an Equestrian delegation visited, kiang proved much more adept at learning to how preen than the earth ponies back home in Equestria, not to think of the unicorns. Spitfire returned their favors the best she could, her relatively diminutive stature meaning she could only bite at the tufts near the point of her host’s shoulder instead of grooming each other’s withers as equals.
Given how had the kiang loved to dance, it was no wonder they valued the flapping abilities of pegasi. On festival nights (or days, there were many of each), the freshly-bathed and perfumed kiang would dance until the sun rose (or set, if it’s a daytime party). Her feathery presence allowed them a respite to recharge and not have to be the first to stop from heat exhaustion. The pounding of drums and wafting incense picked up after the perfumes dissipated. Even still, some nights (or days) got called in early when too many of the musicians were distracted by the scent of sweaty donkeys to stay in beat (or slowed tempo from heat stress).
After partying, it was time to plunge in the frigid creek, shake it off, and sleep. If the weather stayed day—they did appreciate a pegasus who could report on distant clouds—, one or two would stand watch while the rest of the herd, Spitfire included, slept (and ate) in the fresh spring grass.
Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Two days before the full moon, the party was in Spitfire’s honor. Everypony slept hard that night in their yurts, cabins, and other assorted domiciles. At dawn, Spitfire quickly packed her saddlebags with the practiced efficiency of a military mare, then trotted out to examine the runway while saying her goodbyes.
After giving her hosts a show by taking off from the ground at a full gallop before a dramatic leap, Spitfire was most glad to fly high, as the flight suit she wore quickly became stiflingly warm on the ground. Soon, the village disappeared into a dot in the back of her wraparound vision, and she was every bit as free as the non-sentient birds and the mares who lived in the forest.
Her course would take her over the ocean, the one non-racing challenge for a Wonderbolt. Oceanic flight was for the long-winged slow pegasi—ones like Rainbow Dash’s friend. However, the shortcut cut the trip from five days with a stop in the kirin village and lots of trotting around to a maximum of three days of pure air.
As the land receded and her eyes saw only a deceptively still blue beneath her, the upper-level winds whisked her quickly toward home while sharply reminding her why she donned the stuffy suit that morning.
At long last, she saw the wall of clouds out of her right eye. Twenty-five minutes later, she stood atop the fragile cirrus to rest after a six-hour flight. As she rested, she examined the supplies in her saddlebags: namely, food. Dense energy bars and enough hay to push it through to where the nutrients get absorbed. Beneath her hooves and continuing as far as her right eye cared to see lay vast reserves of drinking water and pillows.
Spitfire paused before pulling out a gift from the Kzarina Prime Minister of the kiang. Some magical rectangle with attached ear plugs.
She removed the neutral plugs she had been using to attenuate the rushing winds and replaced them with the gift buds. The rectangle commanded the earbuds to sing themselves to life with Hi-NRG Italo Disco.
How could the Kzarina Prime Minister have known those were my favorite tunes? She thought. Did Luna clue them in?
Snack and stretch over, she packed her supplies and took off once again toward the afternoon sun, the wall of clouds to her right providing a comforting navigation aid.
Problems began as the sun made its preparations for descent below the horizon. She kept having flashes in the periphery of her right eye. Were they real or merely imagination?
Clouds now seemed to form their wall ahead of her. Even when she adjusted so that those were to her right, there was still a gathering wall of cloud in front.
The big warning she had gotten into trouble was the sudden lack of updrafts.
CRACK
The first bolt of lightning indicated the storm was now in session. Spitfire flapped and flapped to get ahead of the lashing rain, possibly hail. All Katherine’s hard work became undone as the precipitation punched holes in her feathers’ alignment coverage. Still, much like ground ponies fleeing a brush fire, the safest place to be is ahead. Jump or, in this case, fly through the thin, deadly danger, then enjoy relative safety where the potential energy has already been burnt. The tops of these clouds offered no protection, as unpredictable downdrafts could flush her into the downing depths below or smash her against an island.
1,000 gold shoes = 750 feet
Spitfire panted heavily as she broke through the eye wall into the central calm. A lone cloud floated a thousand gold shoes ahead of her, taunting her with respite from the buffeting winds. As she flapped toward it in the calm center, her wings began to ache.
They protested all the more as she pushed and pushed to raise the cloud to match the upper structures of the surrounding storm.
Finally, she landed on her sky island.
The clear sky above revealed the storm had blown her off course. Out of the convergence zone, but perhaps only a day and a half from Equestria’s shores.
Next, she checked her supplies. The magic rectangle continued to command her earbuds to sing. She turned down the volume, then paused the music. Her saddlebags were soaked, the food inside no longer good.
Spitfire imagined a rescue ship, then chuckled at the absurdity of the thought. No pony would suspect she was missing yet, let alone think to look in the eye of a popup hurricane. She would have to attempt the flight home with sore wings and an empty stomach once the storm dissipated.
As she peeled off the remains of her torn latex high altitude flight suit, some minor bruises on her flanks confirmed that she was hit with hail. The tattered plastic rags now her blanket, exhaustion put a sudden end to ruminating thoughts about what were to happen if the cloud on which she was marooned dissolved or if she lost energy before reaching shore.
Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Last night a DJ saved my life Last night a DJ saved my life 'Cuz I was sittin' there bored to death And in just one breath she said "You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta ascend to flight level 101."
"What the hay?"
Spitfire opened her eyes. That was not the ending of the song. That was not supposed to be a nap.
She looked around and felt sunshine on her wing. Somehow, she had survived the night without any further action on her part.
The sun was in its mid-morning position. All around here were clear skies. The storm had vanished in the night. It must have been one of thosevmagically enhanced storms for it to have intensified and dissipated so fast.
Her stomach rumbled. She had eaten her food last night. Hopefully, the carbo-loading will pay off for her remaining flight home. The empty skies threatened to drown her from exhaustion if the shore was as far away as expected. Navigating by sun alone meant she had a slight chance of getting lost in the direction of closer land, a cold comfort. At least the clear and calm skies meant she could see any available funerary clouds to scavenge.
Ascend to flight level 101.
Was that the same voice that had interrupted her song and woke her?
Spitfire looked down. The cloud had descended to 303 feet (404 golden shoes, FL3). The storm's central downdraft must've pushed her down as she slept.
Wishing she were on land so she could roll and scratch her back, she looked at her possessions arranged around her: a watch, her magic rectangle and singing earplugs, the empty saddlebags, the regular earplugs, and binoculars. Binoculars. Whatever else she had no longer mattered for a moment.
She whinnied to call out to whoever was up at FL101. Eager hooves grasped the binoculars and raised them to Spitfire's face. If her savior was familiar with aerial sea rescue protocol, she could expect to find the airship at an azimuth of 45° opposite the sun.
Luck was on her side: she did not need to scan the sky with binoculars. A skinny and bulbous airship was flying in a wide circle at an azimuth around 52°. Her alert eyes peered through the binoculars at the ship. Matte grey coat, borderline tan if the sun were higher in the sky. An unfamiliar military aircraft of some kind. At best, it was a passing good Sammaretan. Spitfire did not imagine what "at worst" could be.
Examination continued: the airship had a giant ovipositor. Was the ship itself a predatory creature wanting an easy meal to deliver itself?
Ears flicked at the thought.
"If the ship intended on stinging her into an easy meal, it would have already done so while I slept," Spitfire reassured herself.
Pounding heartbeats did not distract her review of her possible rescue. The undersides of the wings had a faded white star inside a blue circle as its cutie mark flanked by a complex white stripe and her confusion only grew.
You are alive. Ascend to FL 101 once you have passed preflight tests to refuel.
This living airship is some kind of changeling. How else would it communicate inside her own thoughts? Why else would it leave its ovipositor dangling about? It was a queen. The structure was far too long to be a stinger.
Whatever it was, it had not made any hostile move while stalking her. Wings and forehooves worked in concert to pack her saddle bags. If it was hostile, she was going to go out fighting rather than drown from exhaustion fleeing over the open ocean.
"I need three minutes to preen," Spitfire yelled to set expectations for the patient changeling.
She sat and began to preen. Thoughts of this mysterious creature bothered her. Changelings of any species were not known to imitate mechanical forms. Were changelings signatories of the Universal Nautical Rescue Convention? The hives near Canterlot were decidedly not signatories to the treaty of aerial assistance over land. However, both pegasi and changelings strongly preferred to take each other prisoner over letting an enemy splat on the ground. Why would a changeling choose to disguise in the gray chitin of a military aircraft rather than the attractive bold stripes of a rescue ship?
Perhaps it was best not to think of those things. Spitfire focused her attention on her remaining remiges. Fewer dud feathers were littering the cloud than expected after such a storm. After the last remex was in place, it was time to climb.
More than survival, the pounding beats in her ears kept tempo in her sore wings as she ascended. As she flapped, she finally caught a break and found a thermal to soar from FL30 to FL92. The remaining distance was easy to cover with the optimism of being granted two breaks in a row.
Please dock your refueling port to the boom.
“You mean ovipositor?” Spitfire yelled at the mass of chitinous gray gunmetal.
Fly to the cockpit windows if you’re nervous.
She landing on the sentient vehicle’s nose and peered through the glass. Inside were two Przewalski’s ponies. She had never seen such beasts from the wastes beyond Prance before, but she instinctively recognized them by their erect manes, coloration like marshmallows kiang that were left to roast too long, and ratio of ears to face that was pony, not donkey.
Neat, huh? Our kind found it while mining. No clue whether it’s a preservation or a transportation anomaly.
“How can you interject between my thoughts?”
Changeling technology or something. My partner and I just fly this thing. Head to the refueling boom for refreshments. You need them.
Spitfire dropped below the aircraft into position to meet the refueling boom. Cautiously, she turned the valve and let a trickle visit her tongue. Its taste was most bizarre. The closest descriptions for her were jet fuel with magical additives to allow for mammalian digestion or sugar water with enough caffeine to act as a bitterant. Either way, she turned the valve to suckle greedily like a newborn foal as the steel beams of despair and exhaustion melted.
Stomach comfortably full, Spitfire closed the valve. The aircraft changed its bearing.
To return to Canterlot, go in the opposite direction from us. Drop two flight levels and flap ten times.
She descended quickly with steady, spread wings and heard an earsplitting rush as her wings flapped. When she looked, the craft was already a speck on the horizon, with a massive puffy contrail, hopefully pointing the way home.
Her flight up to the contrail was smooth. Whatever was in that life-giving elixir also quelled her aches. She began to fly slowly toward its end, then dropped to gain speed. Around FL13, she yanked her wings, kicked the air as if to leap from the ground, and easily soared back into the sky. Her next arc took a slight downward course as she flapped to gain speed. This time, she kept pushing through the wind peeling at her face. The sky lit with fiery hues of her rainboom and her contrail turned from smoke to flame.
Propelled, she began large circles around Canterlot to bleed momentum. As she slowed, her path narrowed until she stalled out and landed on the perch of her penthouse overlooking the surrounding plains.
Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Vertigo, a fellow mare of A.I.R.S.
Rarity closed her eyes in a counterproductive attempt to transport herself elsewhere. No longer was she in the penthouse condo overlooking the plains around Canterlot. However, she merely teleported next door and back fifteen minutes. Gryphons made coarse jokes about self-delivering meal kits instead of helping a distressed mare find her way to help another mare equally in despair. She opened her eyes again. Back to the stale uncertainty, punctuated by the stale breathing of a pegasus on the bed beside her.
Still breathing, good .
She shut her eyes to flee the penthouse once more. Now, she was stall-weaving on the interminable trip up the mountain in Canterlot’s main freight elevator. Its synthesis of Art Deco and brutalism was a testament to the craft of the ponies who raised Canterlot from a city on the plains to a mountaintop capital for the Princess.
I’m only going backward with each attempt. At least next time, I will be bored on the train—hopefully sleepy instead of antsy .
This time, she could not fully shut her eyes. Though the guard's words echoed in her ears, “She’s been breathing steady for five minutes with no sign of that changing,” duty compelled her to keep watch of her charge this time. After the medic pronounced her stable, he told Rarity that healing magic would flow smoother if it were a friend who kept vigil instead of Canterlot’s royal guard. At least they were willing to help her clean up most of the mess that wasn’t on feathers, coat, and mane.
Rarity idly levitated the large water glasses, vessels that previously contained enough tasty booze to make an earth pony drunk, around the nightstand in a futile effort to use careful decoration to speed the healing process. The sleeping pegasus made some noise between a muffled snort and a groan, but remained entirely unaware of the outside world.
A.I.R.S.
The nice weather implored Rarity to wonder what could trigger such a relapse in her friend. As they discussed many times in A.I.R.S., Rarity was one of the few non-pegasi in the group for reasons other than falling off balconies or cliffs. That same incident that put her in the sisterhood of group therapy was merely “an expected risk of the job” for a Wonderbolt.
A long field is approximately 7500 feet (2286 m)
Rarity glanced out the window, the late afternoon sunlight warming the productive farmland at least an entire long field below and mirroring her friend’s coat and mane. Trepidatiously, she stepped toward the balcony to enjoy the view, using good judgment not to add a second mare to the problem by getting too close. Unfortunately, the floor had other plans as it gave out from under her, dropping her into an inky void of pulsating music. Rather than trip through the open shutters over the balcony and railing, the sound dragged her back to the empty elevator shaft.
Her gossamer wings returned and proved every bit as useless as they had in Cloudsdale several years ago. No Rainbow Dash could save her in such tight confines. The beat pulsed and propelled her next thought.
Spitfire was the one needing my rescue .
Downward she plummeted, the main showroom of her boutique now visible from an overhead view. An astringent note jarred her attention and she was now about to hit the floor of the Golden Oaks Library at terminal velocity. The moment before she hit the ground, she saw that it was Pinkie’s party celebrating Twilight Sparkle’s arrival in Ponyville. She was gifted with the intellect to calculate that, even at terminal velocity, she should have gone splat by now. Yet she still fell.
A chord change propelled her to fall from the catwalks and rafters to the dance floor in Pinkie’s underground party palace. Ponies of all colors danced to the same music that grabbed Rarity.
This time, she hit the floor. The music stopped.
Silence resumed in the penthouse suite. Silence and breath. One pony, slow and regular; the other, gasping for survival.
Seconds passed until Rarity found her eyes dry from being open for the entire drop.
Open and able to see this whole time .
Vertigo set in when she shifted her attention forward to the beautiful pre-sunset, the floor threatening to tilt back to dump her down the hollow shaft once again. Each step back brought the floor closer to level.
Her focus returned to Spitfire and the burning question of just what triggered her to go boozing so heavily. Spitfire was open about what kind of incident would put such an accomplished flier in A.I.R.S. Midair collisions were a risk for pegasi, especially Wonderbolts. Rattling, but not something requiring extended support.
On a return trip from a diplomatic visit a year ago, Spitfire was surprised by a hurricane. She found refuge on a placid rain cloud in the eye, only to sleep when exhaustion overcame the worry about what would happen once all the supporting rain had drained. “Obviously, I woke up instead of disappearing below the waves,” she’d always say—woke up too exhausted to return to Equestria. Some strange mechanical beast piloted by primitive ponies rescued her with fresh fuel.
Ever since then, she was a regular at A.I.R.S., quickly befriending Rarity over their shared unconventional aerial incidents. Even still, Spitfire maintained an unconcerned attitude toward fatal accidents: “Better to hit the ground in a sickening crunch which you won’t be around to feel than to ‘recover’ after escaping a full-body wing and hoof cast only to fly no more than a two dozen H.H. above the ground.”
H.H. = hooves high, measured the same as hh (hands high): 1 hh = 4 inches (ca. 10 cm). Two dozen of them are around 8 feet (2.44 m).
An open eye cut short the reminiscence. Spitfire had awakened.
Rarity levitated a glass to Spitfire’s lips. “You’ll want this.”
Spitfire sipped at the pure saltwater as she replenished her fluid/electrolyte ratio before eventually staggering to her hooves to the bathroom.
Rarity followed her in, initially to ensure she didn’t collapse from her shaky gait. Once Spitfire’s intentions became obvious, Rarity’s dedication to cleanliness kicked in, and she used her magic to aim the water streams as Spitfire cleaned herself.
Oh, when that morning sun .
Rarity’s ears flicked. Spitfire must have pressed play on the Hi-Fi on her way to the bath.
“…comes here to greet us,” the speakers crooned above a deliciously bassy piano.
It was Rarity’s turn to snort in amusement at the song’s irony about sunrise playing at sunset. The soothing lyrics continued as she bathed and gently returned her friend to reality. It was not liquor filling Rarity’s inside with a warm glow as the pride of being the mare chosen by Captain of the Wonderbolts to be her A.I.R.S. confidant swelled.
