Sky High

"Sister, allow me to do this, you have done enough..." Luna spoke calmly to her sister, clearly stressed and heartbroken.

"No!" Celestia roared. "I WONT LET ANYONE FEEL THE PAIN I'M FORCED TO FEEL!" She grit her teeth in anger, glaring at her sister as a punishment for her insistence. This was her duty, her punishment, her love...

It was, once again, another average day in Ponyville. There hadn’t been any special events going on for a while and there still wouldn’t be for a couple weeks. The ponies were all hard at work doing their daily chores. Up in the sky, everyone’s favorite light blue pony was clearing the sky of the massive amount of clouds, allowing Celestia's warm sun free reign over the citizens of Ponyville.

Back on the ground, at the exit to the Everfree forest, a strange pegasus emerged from the darkness of the trees, followed by an assortment of fluffy, wild animals. He turned to face the creatures with a bright, toothless, smile on his face.

“So, this is the town?”  He received a series of high pitched noises and squeaks as a response to his question and in turn replied with a happy squeak as he thanked his little friends and ran off down the path. This place was his goal and he'd traveled days to get here. He didn't have words to describe his happiness as he trotted towards Ponyville. Soon enough, something just off the path caught his attention, well two somethings, both of them purple.

Of course, Twilight was practicing her magic with her assistant right by here side, trying to give her encouraging words as she attempted to turn wood into stone. She couldn't help but notice the new pony traveling towards Ponyville. He was larger than most ponies, maybe even bigger than Big Mac. His light grey coat still managed to shine in the bright sun. He had a rainbow colored mane which is shorter than Rainbow Dash's, but just about as mismanaged. His eyes, a light cyan color. He also carried a saddlebag that seemed pretty full of an assortment of things.  Twilight was practically starring at him, analyzing all of  his important features before she realized that he was right in front of her.

“Uhmmm... hi.” Skye attempted to start the conversation, but Twilight was still focused. He had a surprisingly calming, mid-range pitched voice, considering his size she expected a much deeper one.

“Uhhhh, Twilight.” Her little dragon assistant poked at her.

Twilight managed to break her concentration. “Oh, hi. Sorry about that, can I help you with something?” He seemed to try to avoid eye contact with her, something that Fluttershy would do from time to time when she felt embarrassed about something.

“Uhmmm... yeah.” He managed to look at her. “Is this Ponyville?”

“Sure is!” Skye looked back toward the ground with no reply. She couldn't tell if he didn't hear her or if he was just a little shy. She attempted to put on her happiest face and in her most cheerful tone, “My name's Twilight Sparkle and this little guy here is Spike.”

He started to realize that he was making the situation kinda awkward. “Oh, my name's Skye High. I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little nervous, I've just never seen an earth pony with a horn before, well, not in real life.”

“You've never seen a unicorn before? I thought unicorns were like, everywhere.” The little dragon managed to say, before Twilight could respond. Twilight though for a few seconds, there weren't many places where unicorns weren't seen. The only place she could think of was a sky town, a place where only pegasus can live comfortably.

“Well you see Spike, there aren't any unicorns or earth ponies in any of the sky towns. Only pegasus can stand on clouds, so it makes sense that he's never seen a unicorn.” She looked up at Sky to verify that she was right when she saw his extremely bright smile. A little blush showed up on her face, she's never quite had anyone smile at her the way he just did, not Cadence, not Shining, not even Princess Celestia.

“Yep, you guessed it. Are all unicorns as smart as you?” This caused Twilight's little blush to blossom. She couldn't even bare looking at him.

Now, to any random onlooker, Skye would seem like a suck up, but that's just how he was. It's always been his goal to make people feel as good about themselves as possible. Spike couldn't help but feel a little jealous at how easily Skye was able to turn Twilight's cheeks red.

“So, what are you doing out here Twilight?”

“Oh, just practicing some magic, I'm trying to turn wood into stone but this spell's a toughy, I haven't gotten it yet.” She didn't like to admit it. Normally Twilight would attempt a spell and there would at least be some outcome but this time nothing changed, it was getting frustrating.

“Wow really? Do you mind if I watch?” Skye was pretty intrigued by this whole magic thing. He's never seen anything like it.

“Sure, just give me a moment to concentrate.” To Twilight this was her chance to show herself. Skye was already impressed by her and all she needed was another chance to prove herself.

Twilight glared at the block of wood put in front of here by Spike, as he ran to duck in cover behind a log. Skye stood defiantly where he was, having no fear about this new magic he just learned about. Twilight's horn grew extremely bright as her entire body strained to contain the magical power building up inside of her. She began to sweat as she desperately tried to concentrate on the wood, thinking about how she wanted it to look, what it would be made of, and what it would become. Finally  she pointed her forehead towards the block as a purple ray of light spewed from her horn, shifting and morphing the wood into what appeared to be a hard, brown substance. As the light dissipated Twilight feel backwards onto the ground as she started panting and coughing, a sign of her exhaustion from all of her hard day's work. She was only on the ground for a few moments before Skye's face was directly over hers.

“Are you ok?! Twilight!” He practically cried, sincerely hoping his new found friend was alright.

gasp “I...” inhale “...yeah...” Spike ran over to her with a glass full of water and slowly put it up to her lips as she drank and almost immediately recovered.

“Ya know Twi, I told you that you shouldn't strain yourself that much, maybe we shou...”

Twilight practically jumped off the ground and squealed as she pointed her forehoof at where the block of wood was., in it's place was a pile of dirt. “Progress!” Twilight yelled as she went back to the ground, this time Spike putting herself under her catching her fall.

“Wow, good job Twilight, now let's get you home so you can get some rest...” Spike's sentence got more and more dreary as he realized he'd have to help her walk back home. “Alright Twilight, up you go!” He tried to lift Twilight but let's face it, he isn't the strongest dragon. He managed to get Twilight on her hooves but there was no way Spike could really help her from this point. As soon as she was about to fall over again Skye was right next to her, wrapping his wing around Twilight's back to her underbelly. Of course, doing this enticed a little 'eep' from Twilight, she's never really felt a pegasus's wing wrap around her like Skye had just done.

“I hope you don't mind if I help walk her home Spike.”

“Sure, I guess so... as long as you don't hurt her.”

“Of course Spike, I'd never hurt my fr... er, Twilight.”

He was too afraid to call Twilight his friend. After all, what if she didn't want to be his friend or what if calling Twilight his friend would make Spike think he was weird. Really he didn't want anything to feel awkward or upset. That's just how he is, Skye really hates when ponies are upset. When ponies are upset all they tend to do is make other ponies sad or angry and Skye hates sad and angry ponies.

The walk didn't seem long. Sure Twilight's house was near the center of the town but the sights seemed to attract Skye's attention for most of the time, Twilight was too tired to care, and Spike just wanted to get home so he could rest too. But the sights Skye saw were amazing, at least to him. He was very used to tall apartment buildings that all looked the same and generic, but the first thing he passed by was a small cottage on his way into town. He then saw an amazing, round, multicolored building that looked almost castle like. Then while he was in town he passed by what he could only describe as and enlarged gingerbread house covered in tons of decorations and even had a few candles on top of it. He even noticed a pink pony starring at him with a wide smile on her face, as the pony scrambled away from window in a hurry. He didn't pay that much attention to it until he walked a good ways down the street. Suddenly the town boomed with a large shriek.

“WHERE'S MY WELCOME WAGON!?!!?!!?”

“Good grief, let's get you to the library before you become exhausted too.” Spike said in some kind of spite, which Skye didn't particularly enjoy, but Twilight let out a little chuckle so maybe that's just one way ponies, or dragons as it may, joke around here.

Soon after, Skye made it to a very large tree near the center of town. He just stood amazed for a moment. He knew that little animals lived in trees and some where even kind enough to invite him into their homes. But the little creatures only had homes in the base of the trunk, this tree had windows and doors over all parts of the tree.

“Spike, Is this really where you live!?”

“Yeah, why? Is it weird?”

“No, no... well, It's just that I've never seen a house made out of a tree. It's really cool.”

“Hmpf, I guess it's pretty cool.” He started to walk towards his house and stops at the door. “Ok Skye, I think I can take it from here.” Skye lets go of his hold on Twilight as she manages to stand all on her own.

“Thanks a lot for helping me home Skye, if there's anything I can do for you while I'm here I'll be glad to help.” Skye looked at her with a strange face, wondering if it would be ok to ask his question.

“Well actually I do have a question for you. Do you know where Rainbow Dash is? She's the reason I'm here.”

“Rainbow Dash? She lives a little outside of the town, in a cloud house. You can't miss it.” Twilight pointed her hoof off in the direction of Rainbow's house, which caused her other legs to wobble, only for her to be supported by Skye. “Thanks, are you and Rainbow related or something?” Skye quickly looked at the ground before he let go of Twilight and looked back up, with a slightly less convincing smile.

“Uhm no, we're not related. I've actually never seen her before. Anyway thanks for the info, I'll see you around some time. Cya Spike.”

“Cya...” As the tired little purple dragon walked inside.

“See you around some time Skye, thanks again...” As she stumbled into her tree house, closing the door behind her.

“Any time Twilight.”

From there Skye leapt into the air towards his destination. Not long after he was soaring towards the supposed location of Rainbow Dash's house. He was flying extremely fast, why? Well it was in part because he always pushed himself to be as fast as possible. It was also partially because he really wanted to see Rainbow Dash. Ironically enough, he didn't actually know what Rainbow Dash looked like. All he knew was that she was light blue and that she had a rainbow colored mane. Nevertheless, it didn't take him long to get to the only cloud house outside of town. He had his own reasons for wanting to see Rainbow Dash so when he arrived at the door he couldn't help but knock extremely hard. He recoiled his hoof backward as he just stood in front of the door. He waited for about a minute before he knocked again. Yet again, no response. Skye started to get a little worried, so he took off once again to fly around the house, checking through some of the windows to make sure she was there.

He couldn't help but notice how strange this house really was. It was a tall, circular three-story house that seemed extremely small. What really made the house to Skye was the assortment of liquid rainbow rivers that ran throughout the cloud. He always wondered exactly what rainbows tasted like and even tried eating parts of his mane, which he found tasted very disappointing. Then he tried tasting someone else's mane, which he found equally disappointing and so did the other person. But he tried not to be too distracted and attempted to look through some of the windows, but to no avail. It appears that Rainbow likes to keep her curtains closed, probably so she can take a nap whenever she was home.

Skye stayed around Rainbow's house for a little over an hour, constantly knocking on her door or flying around her house. It was starting to get dark and he was worried that Rainbow Dash wasn't home or wasn't going to show up at all. He was also extremely mesmerized by the rivers of color that flowed throughout her 'yard'. He finally decided to give into his temptation and flew over to one of the rainbow rivers. After inspection, Skye noticed that the liquid was much more soupy that he thought it would be and didn't appear to have any smell to it. He lowered his snout down to the river, half anxious and half excited when he heard an annoyed voice behind him.

“Uhmm, what do you think you're doing?”

Skye backed away from the river with his head still pointed toward the ground. “Oh, I'm sorry I just...” He looked up to see another tired pony, this one a pegasus that was sky blue with a rainbow mane. Wait, sky blue with a rainbow mane? He rushed up to her face with a happy smile. “Are you Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow really wasn't in the mood for this right now. She'd been moving clouds all day long, well since when she woke up, which was pretty late in the afternoon, but she'd worked for well over 5 hours straight. She had no idea why there had been so many clouds the last few days but they seemed to have been multiplying, when ever she got rid of one another would show up in it's place. And now some ridiculous grey pony was standing in front of her, questioning who she was, right before he was about to drink from one of her rainbow rivers. Yeah, she was a little annoyed and wasn't afraid to show it in her tone.

“Ughhh, yeah, what do you want?”

“Oh, well... I don't know. I just kinda wanted to talk to you. I hope you don't mind.”

Dash just wanted to tell him to go away, but there was something about him that convinced her not to. It must have been his smile, it seemed different, almost magical. She didn't want to be too rude to him but she also really wanted to go get some rest without dealing with a barrage of questions from some ridiculously large stranger. But she put on a faint smile.

“Well look, I've been working really hard today and kinda just want to get some shut eye. How about tomorrow, meet me here tomorrow at noon, k?”

“Sure! I'll be here!” With that, Dash walked past him towards her house and took her smile off as she practically slammed the door closed, leaving the strange pegasus outside of her home alone.

Skye could sense that she was annoyed and quickly flew off towards the forest. He didn't want to bother Twilight for a place to sleep and really didn't want to go around to houses randomly asking for a place to sleep, he knew how that would turn out, he's tried before. He was used to sleeping outside, except here he could actually sleep on a soft normal cloud, which was much more comfortable than what he was normally accustomed to. He chose a cloud well into the forest and lay down.

Fluttershy had an awful time sleeping that night. All she heard that night was terrible wailing and crying from somewhere in the Everfree Forest. Most of her little animal friends were back home as she was alone in her cottage with Angel, who was sleeping soundly. Whenever she tried to sleep she would picture some kinda of pony wraith sneaking into her house and possessing her. The wailing continued all night long but eventually her body put her to sleep.

Rainbow Dash woke up bright and early, too early. She drifted in and out of sleep for a couple of hours, not wanting to get up and move clouds all day. She just lay in bed, wide awake when she heard a loud thumping at her door as she remembered her arrangement with the mysterious pony. She slowly got out of bed and walked past her mirror, mental remarking on how she looked and how much she really didn't care. No second knock gave Dash the opportunity to walk to her kitchen and grab something to eat. The first thing she saw, she grabbed, which just happened to be an apple from Sweet Apple Acres. She was content with her breakfast, but wasn't exactly sure about today. She didn't exactly expect much from this strange pegasus, sure he seemed nice but he also seemed pretty stupid, I mean really he was about to taste rainbow, how dumb can you get? As Dash was approaching the door she heard a large amount of moaning and groaning as she opened the door to see the grey pony on his stomach with his to tongue out of mouth coated in rainbow. He made an attempt to speak with small tears streaming down his eyes.

“Thaaat waaasn't good aaat aaall.”

Dash couldn't help but laugh at him, rainbow causes all of the tastes buds on the tongue to activate, strangely enough all of the bad ones seem to override the good ones, rainbow really does taste terrible.

“Well what did you expect it to taste like, cotton candy?” Skye didn't answer for a few second before he admittedly replied.

“I thooought it wooould taaaste better thaaan haaair...”

“Try taking a bite out of a cloud, that normally helps get it off your tongue.” Skye looked around before he finally just took a bite out of the cloud beneath him as he spit it out, producing a smaller, rainbow colored cloud that began to float away. But Rainbow wanted to get down to business as soon as possible. “So, who are you and what do you want to talk to me about?”

At Skye's first attempt to speak all Rainbow Dash heard was mumbled jargon. Clearly, Skye was nervous about meeting Rainbow Dash after all, he thinks that Rainbow was the reason that Skye got his cutie mark and couldn't think of the words to even answer her questions. Finally Skye gained the courage needed to speak. “My name is Skye High and... well uhmmm.... did you really do a 'sonic rainboom' 12 years ago? And then another a few months ago.”

Needless to say, Rainbow was very surprised at these questions. Was this pony questioning her awesomeness or has he really never heard of the great Rainbow Dash, the amazing Element of Loyalty. Was it really possible that there was some place in Equestria that hasn't heard of Dash's amazing feats? She decided to humor him, if he was indeed joking. “Yeah, has it taken you 12 years to learn about my awesomeness?”

“Well, it only took 11 years, but it took me a while to get here.” He took a short pause, pondering how he should start. “It turns out that the first sonic rainboom you did helped me get my cutie mark. To make a long story short, I used to live in a city that was inside of a thundercloud so there was no way for me, the little stallion I was, to see outside of the city. The only way out of the city was through the really fancy district, but I was never allowed in. Anyway one day I was on the outskirts of the city, alone, and suddenly a little hole opens up near the top of the cloud and a rainbow came through and shown right on me.  When I flew up to the hole I saw the sky, which I've never seen before, and the sun felt so warm and the clouds were white and it was so cool. Then I felt a sensation on my... well my hindquarters and I had this *nods towards his cutie mark*. That was probably my favorite day of my whole life. So I just wanted to come here to thank you and maybe, ya know hang out?”

Rainbow Dash was surprised at the openness of the strange pony. He seemed pretty shy and stupid when she first met him, but with that 'short' story he seemed to come out of his shell and started talking to her like he's known her for years or like he was the big brother that she never knew. She didn't exactly know how to respond to everything he said.

“Ya, I do have that kind of effect of ponies. Let's just say you're not the first pony who got their cutie mark with my help.” Dash stood victorious in front of Skye, as he stood in awe in front of her. They both just stood in front of Dash's house, neither of them talking as Rainbow finally snapped out of her victorious stance. “So, have you met any of the other ponies?”

“Yeah, I met Twilight Sparkle and Spike, and I saw tons of ponies in town. There was also some weird pink pony in a gingerbread house that was staring at me through a window... and well, that's about it.”

“That's it? Well how about a tour of the town then? You can meet all of my friends.”

“Sounds good.”