Attitude, altitude, attitude, airspeed, Cherry's eyes flicked rapidly from indicator to indicator, only taking short glances out of the cockpit at the blue of endless sky.

The craft’s engines roared in her ears, the wind pushed through her coat and mane, but she barely noticed. 15 degrees pitch, 60 knots, 200, 250 feet climbing; pitch rising a bit, easy fix, 80 knots

She tilts the control stick to the left, tapping lightly on the right pedal with her hind hoof to keep the nose up as she begins her crosswind turn.

Rapidly she does some math in her head, 15 percent of 80, so 80 divided by 10, 8 then adding half 12 degrees of bank for… at 90 degrees of turn of three degrees a second… 30 seconds of turn. She adds her clock to the rotation of Instrument checks. She places the angle indicator and the wings along the 12 degrees.

She straightens out now gazing out of the left side of the cockpit ensuring she was flying parallel to the runway, she trims her throttle leveling out her flight. The RPMs were steady. The engine was good. The fuel gauge changed only the smallest amount, the seals were good even in flight.

Αttitude, Altitude, Attitude, Airspeed, everything mostly held their position. In all of the three flights of the Buttercup (a creation of Cherry's own, a so-called airplane) no take-off had gone so smoothly. She gripped the yoke all the tighter between her hooves at this thought... That being that things should have gone wrong more than three minutes ago: a hoof full of spark plugs miraculously all failling at once, or a wing falling off... something always happens... and yet...

The Airplane was flying, Buttercup was flying, Cherry was flying. She wanted to laugh out in joy, in manic terror, but instead, she bit her lip and focused on keeping the plane straight and level.

Here it comes, base leg turn. 12 degrees bank thirty seconds.

Throttle half of what It had been. Measure bank angle, watch pitch. Final approach.

She cuts the throttle and raises the nose slightly, keeping a close eye on her airspeed, a close eye on her altitude. Gently she nudges the throttle managing her descent, carefully guiding the stick guiding the pitch of the craft's nose to manage the speed.

The runway grows steadily closer.

Flare maneuver, touch down.

She gently taps the brakes coaxing the speeding craft to a gentle stop. Just barely avoiding ramming through a grey pegasus who was quite suddenly in the middle of the runway. The Pegasus collapsed

Twilight tilted her head to the side. "I don't get it. What are you getting at?”

“ I am saying that there is a branch of magic that operates even without a direct connection to the ley lines, a branch of magic that operates based rather on the passage of some energy between particles. Look at this”

Twilight watched in silence as Cherry set up her experiment.
She pulled out a jar and set it on the table.

“Dr. Hooves was kind enough to set this up for me earlier, it's called an Electroscope.”

Twilight took a closer look at the jar, it was an odd thing, a mason jar with a piece of copper wire stuck through the lid. The copper wire formed a spiral at its top, and from its bottom within the jar hung two triangular pieces of metallic foil. Then, quite surprisingly Cherry pulled a balloon from behind her ear and began blowing it up with puffs of breath.

“Twilight could you?” Cherry nodded toward the inflated balloon clasped between her hooves.”

“Wha- oh sure.”

Twilight levitated the balloon from the pink pony’s grasp and proceeded to tie the knot tongue clasped between teeth.

“ Thank you… was never quite good with that sort of thing.”

Cherry then rubbed the balloon against her mane which then as expected stood on end, a familiar effect, especially in drier weather.

“Now watch this.”

Charrie held the balloon next to the copper, and the metallic leaves moved, raising seemingly on their own accord.

“It's static." Twilight deadpanned.

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful? I think there is a differential of particles of some sort between the charged balloon and the empty jar, the balloon is more charged than its environment and is discharging, while the jar is less charged and is charging, I think the leaves are repelling each other because they bear a similar charge… I think nature seeks balance."

Cherry cut the engine and jumped from the cockpit, galloping around to the front of the craft to inspect the damage, there was none, but Derpy seemed in quite a state.

The poor mail-pony was on the ground shivering in shock for the blades that had stopped mere inches from her face. Finally, she opened her eyes, and with Cherry’s help regained her hoofing.

Cherry looked the trembling pony in the eyes or tried to, it was quite the distraughting task as the other eye wondered, even having known Derpy as the friendly local mail-pony for some time it was hard to get used to… but beyond that usual quirk and the shivering she seemed not much worse for ware… all the same.

“Why don’t you come up to the hanger with me, I'll get you some hot tea and you can prop your hooves up for a moment?”

“Oh, I appreciate the offer mam, but I really have to get back to work… Oh, I saw you got your wings working!, that's quite an impressive device. With its size, you'd better be careful its wings don't get tired“

“Thank you... I'll keep that in mind”

“No problem, welp off to work”

With that, the grey pegasus shouldered her bag and lunged into the air.

Cherry turned to walk away when suddenly.

“OH, wait! I forgot”

Derpy was back and with a letter in her mouth… She landed and took it in her wing before hoofing it to Cherry, “ This came for you!”

To: Cherry
From: your sister who loves you.

“I have a sister!?”

But Derpy was gone.

There was nothing to do but open the letter.

Author's Note

More to come soon!

No promise when soon is but keep an eye out

Alicorn Down
and
LOZWOHP2TPOH are also under continued progress.

Commentary and even severe criticism are welcomed

best Regards- Talo