A Perfect Day for Flying

Ponies tended to have strange dreams.

Sure, a cutie mark showed a pony what their special talent was, and many ponies tended to do what their cutie mark told them they were especially gifted in, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t dream for something more. Sometimes, these dreams were easy to achieve: a nice, cozy home, a loving family, a place to belong in a community where you could do your best to help them back. Sometimes, they were just a little more complicated…

Ridge Lift was one of those complicated dreamers. A newcomer to Ponyville might not know it, seeing the indigo unicorn go about his normal day, greeting ponies with the same warm, happy smile that any other pony might give, browsing through market stalls to pack freshly grown vegetables into his saddlebags, or just resting in the park with his eyes staring up at the brilliant blue sky and his horn sketching something into a notebook, but Ridge Lift had a reputation. A reputation he was all too eager to live up to.

And on beautiful, sunny days like this, it was the perfect time to give everypony a reminder of his dream…

Ridge Lift took a deep breath in, his nostrils filling with the crisp, cool air of his elevated perch. It had taken a while, and maybe a little trespassing, to get what he needed up one of the hills just inside Sweet Apple Acres’ fence line, but he knew if things worked out right this time, the Apple family wouldn’t care. But first, he had to set it up.

Ridge’s teeth picked at the fibers of the rope as he tugged, his horn glowing as it helped to drag the wooden platform he had built up to stand straight at the top of the hill. He’d need the extra height, the hill was just too gentle a decline to run his newest test on, and he was sure this one was going to work. As the platform’s stand finally set all its legs against the grass, Ridge Lift brought the rope down, levitating over one of the stakes he had carved to hold the rope down. With a precise placement, and a few stomps of his hoof, the rope was secured nice and taut into the ground. Ridge looked back up, eyeing the other ropes he had tied into the platform—one down, three to go.

With the last rope secured, and Ridge Lift set up at the ramp built to lead up to the platform itself, the unicorn finally began to work on donning his newest test, magic tugging his saddlebags off and bringing a harness of leather straps up onto his back. His telekinetic glow guided the belts around his barrel, his legs, his shoulder, cinching up in metal buckles to make sure they stayed secure on his frame. Ridge intentionally left three long straps of leather loose for his next piece of equipment, slowly, reverently floating over the canvas wings he had spent the last moon perfecting. He slowly lowered the light wooden frame onto his back, thin struts separating it from the great, broad wings he had built, nearly twice as long across as he was, his magic guiding the final loose straps through gaps in the frame he had built to keep him tied in. It was just one more buckle to add, but the anticipation was driving Ridge Lift giddy; he knew this was going to work, and he couldn’t wait to feel the wind whipping through his mane as he soared through town.

He gave one more glance upwards as his magic lifted the glasses from his nose to his discarded saddlebags, cyan eyes squinting in the sunlight before they could be replaced with a pair of goggles. He spared one last glance to each rope, eyeing if they were still taut, before Ridge’s hooves got away from him, thundering their way up the wooden ramp. He could feel the wind pushing against the wings, a strong gust already threatening to toss the stallion back: he only saw this as a sign it was working. As he finally reached the top platform, he gave a strong buck of his back legs, tossing the unicorn and his contraption up into the air… and only air was there to meet him.

Ridge Lift’s cheers could be heard rolling through the streets of Ponyville, just moments before the unicorn himself came gliding through, hooves kicking excitedly as his wings kept him tens of feet off the ground, skirting just below the rooftops. He whooped and hollered, grin glued to his face: he had done it, finally done it, and it was incredible. The roar of the wind through his ears, the weightlessness, the little turns his body and magic gave to the wings helped to guide him down the streets as they curved their way through, avoiding any sudden stops and angry conversations with anypony whose home he would have given a new skylight to. His dream, his fantasy, had finally come true-

Was that tree always there?

Ridge Lift had a reputation.

It wasn’t uncommon to find the unicorn dangling from the remains of one of his mangled gliders, or hoisted atop the twisted heap of wood and canvas that had once been a set of wings by the frame he used to hold himself to them, or even just walking off the shock and bruises his many ‘landings’ gave him, glider wreckage in tow. Most ponies found him more an occasional nuisance than a serious problem: he had yet to hurt anypony but himself, and the small town on the border of the Everfree usually had bigger things to worry about, and bigger things to fix, than the light damage Ridge caused with his test flights.

The unicorn blinked his eyes open, shaking strands of lavender and yellow out of his face, squinting around his impromptu landing zone. It took a few moments for Ridge to confirm that he had not ended up crashing into a pony and had, in fact, crashed into a tree. Thanking that he had at least had the good sense to not kick off his flight into the orchard—this time—Ridge lit his horn once again, fumbling with the buckles to slowly untangle himself from his harness and get his hooves on the ground.

After finally freeing himself, and feeling shoots of pain radiate up his left foreleg when he hit the ground, Ridge turned his attention back to his glider. It was well and truly broken, wings bent where the supports inside snapped on impact. Frowning, he set to work guiding the twisted remains of his newest set of wings free from the limbs of the tree, knocking more leaves and detritus down onto the unicorn as he worked. When the last strap was freed, he brought it back down to just a foot away from his head, turning his head back towards Sweet Apple Acres, and the hill he had launched from. He would have to take that stand back down, before the Apples got too upset. But even as he walked away, nursing his injured leg, Ridge couldn’t help but feel that smile come back to his face. He had gotten closer, closer to his dream. Because Ridge Lift was a dreamer.

Besides, seventeenth time’s the charm!