8,000 feet, Cherry Berry would argue, is the perfect altitude. The air is crisply refreshing and not yet too thin to breathe comfortably. The world below, with all its worries and troubles, melts away into a patchwork quilt of village and farmland. Clouds envelope you in such a way that feels oddly intimate; a private moment, alone with the sun against an endless blue horizon.
Usually such an experience was reserved for pegasi or an exceptionally plucky unicorn. That’s what made Cherry Berry special: she was an earth pony that could fly. Sure, her method of flight was a bit more… mechanically-involved but again you’d have Cherry Berry arguing that it required just as much skill as magic or wing-flight. If she was feeling especially cocky that day, she might even claim it took more skill to fly via hot air balloon than what it took to flap two wings. Those came pre-installed after all; a balloon had to be precisely engineered by hoof.
Cherry Berry’s initial interest in flight had stemmed from a daredevil attitude she developed as a foal. In searching for ever-greater sources of adrenaline, the pink-furred mare took to the skies and built a successful flight business along the way. Winter time put that on hold however as most ponies preferred a warm, enclosed ride on the Friendship Express railway to the chill of open-air travel. With no bits to be made, these wintery flights were purely for pleasure.
The sun was still waking up when Cherry began her pre-flight checks. Knots were tested then re-tested and then tested a third time still. Each fuel canister was topped off and then given an excessive shake to confirm no leakage. Even the basket which had borne hundreds of passengers through the air with no issue was given a thorough inspection.
The world was quiet aside from the crunch of snow under hoof. Most ponies wouldn't be waking up for a few hours and by then Cherry would be long gone. In fact, she was just about ready for take-off now. Gently, she pulled on the rope attached to the balloon's burner and confirmed that it did indeed still work, a jet of flame shooting up to heat the balloon's enclosed air.
Next came the best part, all her precaution and excitement finally coming to a head. One-by-one, Cherry Berry loosened the rope lines that were keeping her grounded, the balloon lurching up with each new anchor-weight unsecured. By the final knot, Cherry was already hovering off the ground. The final sandbag fell unceremoniously into the snow below and with that, Cherry Berry was airborne.
Ponyville was camouflaged against a blanket of white and the whole town seemed to disappear as the balloon rose higher and higher. Cherry Berry hadn't noticed, she rarely looked down anymore. Instead, she was marveling at the layer of clouds rapidly approaching as well as how the sun was rising just alongside her.
Cherry read one of her many instruments and then gave the burner a hard tug, feeding the air enough heat to quickly push through the clouds above. The balloon emerged out the other side as quickly as it had entered and she killed the heat, allowing the balloon to come to a ‘stop’. She was here, she was home, just her and the sun above an endless cloudy sea. “Hellooooo sun!” Cherry Berry called out, shouting at the top of her lungs.
“Hello there!” A reply had come from behind her and Cherry Berry fell back into the basket with a shriek. She took a deep breath, adjusted her flight goggles back over her eyes, and peered over the edge of her balloon.
Princess Celestia waved at Cherry Berry, or at least the two wide-eyes that stared back at her from over the basket's edge. “My apologies for startling you,” the alicorn said as she started to approach. Cherry Berry dipped back down out of sight and reached for another instrument. The device told Cherry the oxygen levels were more than sufficient and she quickly ruled out an oxygen-deprived hallucination.
Celestia reared back on her hind hooves, braced against the basket, and peered over the edge. She spoke with a calming softness. “There is no need to be afraid.” Her disarming smile helped drive the point across. “I am just here to fly- much like you.”
Cherry Berry wasn't afraid, just… Confused? Star-struck? Surprised? Honestly, a dart thrown at a dictionary would have likely hit an emotion she was currently experiencing. “Your princess- err, your majesty, I…” Cherry stumbled verbally. It was hard, remembering how to speak and think and be rather normal in her presence.
Celestia reached a hoof down into the basket and helped Cherry Berry back onto all-fours. “There is no need for that,” she smiled again. “Just ‘Celestia’ will do. I am up here to avoid all that, at least for a moment.”
After accepting that this was indeed happening, the first thing Cherry noticed about Celestia was her looks. She was still awesome and stunning but the messy bun holding her mane back gave the impression that Princess had woken up just recently as well. No crown on her head, no lavish jewelry befitting royalty, just an Alicorn going for her morning flight. It made her more personable, Cherry thought, although it did little to calm the nerves.
Celestia fell back into a sitting position. Cherry slung her forehooves over the basket's side and peered over. It felt wrong, looking down at her princess, but their casual encounter was probably just what she was looking for. Play it cool, Cherry thought before flashing a nervous smile of her own. “SoOoOo… flying?” Cherry asked. “Do you come here often?”
The earth pony thought to whack herself in the back of the head. ‘Did she come here often’ - what kind of question was that?! Of course she did, or well, could. Those wings were both really big and really real. She could go wherever she wanted, do whatever she wanted…
“Not exactly,” Celestia replied, cutting right through Cherry’s train of thought. “Though most mornings I do watch a certain somepony drift through the sky… may I admit something? It is a touch silly but I have wanted to approach you for some time actually. It was only today the thought struck me- this earth pony, so bravely conquering the sky, I need only borrow a fraction of her courage to come and say hello.”
“Wait, you've been watching me?” Cherry asked, a million realizations suddenly dawning on her. First and foremost was the memory of her breakup with Goldengrape and the flight that occurred shortly after. She had brought along a dozen cupcakes on the flight and returned with zero. It had been nasty work, tears, frosting, and crumbs just about everywhere. That wasn't even to mention the ugly sobbing and wailing…
“Oh, no-, no, nonono,” Celestia replied hastily. She turned to face the sun and motioned with her hooves. “Watching you, no, but here with you in a sense.”
Cherry Berry didn't follow.
Celestia followed the mare's confused expression and then pointed to the cutiemark on her flank. “Sun,” Celestia stated slowly and plainly then traced from her flank back towards the actual sun in the sky.
Cherry Berry still didn't quite understand the exact mysteries of alicorn magic and chose not to press the issue.
“So,” Celestia clapped both hooves together, quickly moving onto the reason she was here to begin with. “Would you care to fly with me, Cherry Berry?”
Cherry Berry hadn't considered that being an immortal ruler meant the Princess had plenty of time to get to know all her subjects, even if only in name or face. Ironically as well, her assumption that the Princesses simply knew everything was shattered when the first hour of their ‘flight’ together was spent slowly drifting above the clouds as Cherry explained the inner workings of her craft.
The lecture had gone over quite well, Celestia earnestly ‘ooo’-ing and ‘ahh’-ing over the various details and intricacies that made up balloon travel. The whole time Cherry’s stomach was doing flips and tricks that'd make a pegasus falter. She had conquered flight long ago, she certainly wasn't nervous about that. It was just…
Most of Cherry Berry’s flights had been solo with the sun being her ever-constant companion. Even in the worst of conditions, through rain and snow and winds that threatened to ground her, Cherry Berry knew she had only need to climb a little higher and the sun would be there to greet her once more. She had grown fond of her friend and even talked with it on occasion. Well, talking at it, anyway. Had she been commiserating to Celestia all those years? Every big choice, ran by the sun. Every broken heart, tears dried by the sun's rays. The comfort she found in that big fiery ball reflected in Celestia too, she realized, though she remained justifiably red in the muzzle.
They had both grown quiet, basking in the silence of each other's company. It was Cherry Berry that broke the silence first. “Celestia?” She asked sheepishly. The alicorn was lazily floating along the same current the balloon was, close enough to reach out and grasp a wingtip. She locked eyes with Cherry and smiled that sweet smile once more.
Cherry’s stomach did a loop. She half wondered if it had forgotten it belonged to an earth pony and not a pegasus with how it was seemingly trying to fly off and away. She swallowed hard and continued. “When I was a filly, my mother would tell my sisters and I stories before bed. My younger sister was a little obsessed with you, it was the only way my parents could get us to bed on time.” She looked away from Celestia and focused on the horizon before them. “She used to tell us how princesses grant wishes. If we got the chance to ask one, she'd say, then the princess could make our wildest dreams come true.”
Celestia chuckled but let Cherry continue. She had heard that Old Mare's Tale a hundred times before and would hear it another hundred times more.
“I know you said you were uhh… up here to avoid ‘all that’, but… ?”
“I am here to avoid the bickering of nobleponies first thing in the morning,” Celestia clarified with another laugh. “Not that I'm avoiding being a princess. My duty is to Equestria and all my little ponies- including you.” Celestia beat her massive wings a single time then continued riding the current. “I may have to disappoint you however, depending on your prospective wish- believe it or not, my strongest magic is my signature. That and the royal seal accomplishes most things quite quickly!”
“Haha, yeah,” Cherry laughed the fakest nervous laugh she could muster. Words clung in her throat and it took all her remaining courage to force them out. “Could you give me wings?”
“A spell to give you wings…” Celestia mused aloud.
Cherry’s face turned downcast, disappointment made clear.
“... is surely the type of magic an avid pilot would already know-of.” Celestia surmised correctly.
Cherry Berry met her gaze again and nodded meekly. “Real wings, bone and sinew, feathers…”
“I am sorry.” Celestia said with a dismissive shake of her head. “I cannot give you a pegasus’ wings.”
“Those stories meant a lot to us, I think,” Cherry continued, this time steering the conversation in a new direction. “If Berry were here, she'd be talking your ears off. Goodness, she's going to talk my ear off later when I get back.”
“Sisters, right?” Celestia joked and Cherry couldn't help but give her a real, honest laugh.
“It's kind of funny when I think about it. I met Princess Luna long ago but I had been too afraid to ask then. Her first nightmare night,” Cherry clarified. “Though I guess I had met her even earlier when she…” Her voice trailed off, not wanting to continue. She may have had the ‘princess pass’ to casually chat and hang with Celestia but this felt like a sore topic to discuss.
“When Nightmare Moon returned?” Celestia surmised again. “Sisters, am I right?” The two shared a hearty laugh.
Cherry continued to reminisce. “I was there when Princess Twilight first arrived in Ponyville too. Ugh, Berry… ‘that's the royal chariot! that's the royal chariot!’” Cherry mimicked her sister's excitement that day, even including the wild hoof pointing at an invisible chariot. “We attended the royal wedding too.” She left out the fact that they had snuck in to see all three princesses.
It came as a slow realization to both of them. Celestia's rule was unfathomably historic, spanning over a thousand years. Despite such a long reign, the past few moons had been the most eventful yet and somehow, someway, this interesting little mare had been there for all of it. In a similar way, nearly every little going-on in Ponyville over Cherry's adult life could link back to Celestia, directly or otherwise.
The pace and nature of their conversation changed. Though they had met as strangers, the two now talked like lifelong companions. The anxiety of conversing with a princess- the princess - had long since disappeared but it was replaced with something else. This new feeling was stomach-knotting all the same but it wasn't entirely unpleasant and Cherry mostly ignored it as the two shared stories and anecdotes.
Cherry Berry had just finished telling the story of when she had flown her balloon over the Canterlot gardens during a party, face still burning hot after Celestia asked if mayhap Cherry had been the one watching her all along. Celestia apologized for the teasing and then sighed contently. They had been flying and chatting for nearly two hours now though neither had really noticed the time pass.
“Cherry Berry, how fast can your balloon fly?” It was Celestia who broke the silence now.
“As quickly as the wind,” she replied. At the moment? Not very quickly.
“Do you trust me?” Celestia's second question was far more cryptic and dripping in excitement.
“I, uhh… yes!” Stuttering and stumbling and just a tad confused, that was the best answer Cherry could give.
Celestia smiled wide. This was not the smile of a benevolent ruler or fairytale princess. This was the look of a mare ready to share a whole new world with a friend. Her horn sparked, so quick and faint that Cherry didn't even notice the magic occurring.
She did notice the balloon basket above her head, just as she noticed the empty space beneath her hooves. The clouds rushed up to meet her as she fell like a rock, down and through and to the snow-blanketed world below.
Cherry screamed the whole time, a throaty “AHHHHH!” that surely would have grabbed everypony's attention had she not been 10,000 feet in the air. She screamed until she ran out of breath and then screamed some more. She had been so preoccupied with the thought of her rapidly approaching messy landing she hadn't even noticed as they leveled out.
Celestia was by her side, powerful wings beating hard. The alicorn's horn glowed a brilliant golden-orange and Cherry Berry realized what was happening: she was flying though perhaps not in the literal sense. Magic hugged the mare's body, keeping her rather firmly locked in place adjacent to Celestia. Where she went, so did Cherry.
“ALL GOOD?” Celestia asked over the whipping wind.
Cherry gave her a panicked look then nodded hard. She has never flown so fast in her life, she hadn't even known that flying could be so loud!
Magic wings beat hard and suddenly the two were climbing again up towards the clouds they had just plummeted through. “CELESTIA!” Cherry called out. Immediately the alicorn slowed their ascent and came to a sudden halt. “No, it's ok,” Cherry panted while pointing a hoof back towards Ponyville. “Can we fly overhead?” She half-asked, half-yelled.
“Let us do one better! Hold on, little one,” Celestia laughed like a foal before tucking her wings in and diving straight down. Balloons did not do quick or fast in any sort of sense of the words and certainly not the new definitions Cherry had learned today.
Ponyville was rapidly approaching, perhaps 5,000- no, maybe 4,000 feet now? Cherry couldn't keep up. 3,000, 2,000, 1,000… She could make out the individual houses and buildings now and Celestia showed no signs of stopping. They had been accelerating this whole time, their freefall further powered by her magic. Cherry Berry braced for impact with hooves on her face.
They never met the ground despite how eagerly it had seemingly raced up to meet them. Instead, just above Ponyville's skyline, Cherry Berry became the fastest mare alive. Two rainbows exploded outwards in a paired ring and the subsequent Shockwave loosened snow from roofs and trees throughout the town. Cherry hadn't even realized what had happened till they touched down in the ramparts of Canterlot Castle.
“Was that not lovely? I can't remember the last time I've been flying like that! Exhilarating!” Celestia galloped about with an extra dose of adrenaline coursing through her.
Cherry Berry collapsed in a heap on the ground trying her hardest not to lose her breakfast. Her legs felt like jelly and… well, honestly, her entire body felt unreliable and sore. She had been bracing the whole time, using the same muscles a pegasus would when flying and tired herself right out. “That was AMAZING!” Cherry didn't care that they were no longer alone in the privacy of the sky or that a contingent of royal guards had surrounded them.
“Princess… Celestia…” The pegasian guard gasped and wheezed. He had been following them for some time, desperately trying to keep up. Celestia had been well aware. “You are… summoned post-haste to the throne room… by Princess Luna.”
“Oh woops,” said Celestia, nonplussed. “I believe we lost track of the time…”
Cherry Berry scrambled to her feet. The guard had maneuvered themselves defensively around Celestia and had started their accompanying march when Cherry frantically shouted for them to wait.
“Princess! One more question?” Cherry asked, figuring it best to address her properly in the presence of the guard. Celestia halted her chaperones and raced back to meet Cherry muzzle-to-muzzle, both still beaming from their joyride.
Suddenly she felt all too nervous and thought to give her goodbyes but something deep down spurred her on. “Would… would you care to go flying again?”
Celestia laughed. She laughed until tears streamed down her face and then laughed some more. “Cherry Berry, I wanted to ask you the very same thing!”
Cherry nodded enthusiastically.
“On the ‘morrow then, we'll meet in the clouds!” Celestia confirmed and then magicked the earth pony away, teleporting her directly to her front door.
Celestia's prance through the throne room doors brought a sigh of relief to everypony except for Princess Luna. She looked quite cross atop her throne while dressed in a nightgown.
“A word with my sister please,” Luna commanded and the room cleared out beside the two sentries at the door.
Celestia smiled up at her and Luna frowned back. “A missing princess, reports of a rainboom over Ponyville... Tell me sister, which mare are you swooning over now? Another one of those Wonderbolts?”
“Luna, I… that is not… am I not entitled to a morning flight?” Celestia asked, a noticeable hesitancy in her voice. “... how did you figure a mare?”
“That prance. The smile upon thine countenance. The song in your voice, dear sister.” Luna stepped down from her throne and strolled up to Celestia, allowing every ounce of warranted annoyance to spill out. “I'll not press nor will I take away your ‘morning flight’, so long as a certain Princess remembers her morning duties?”
Celestia feigned shock. “Oh goodness, sister, my apologies. You know me, I would never shirk my duties, I’ll…” her voice trailed off.
Her balloon.
“I FORGOT HER BALLOON!” Celestia's shout shook the room and she unfurled her wings in a grand display.
Luna had no chance to respond before Celestia teleported away.
