Sky High

Off the western coast of Equestria over the deep sea flew a giant storm cloud. The city inside of it, however, was unknown to all of the citizens of Equestria. Until very recently that was, roughly the same time that Skye was admitted to the Blitzpherd Orphanage, a hole opened up in the center of the city. The Equestria's were very surprised at what they found inside the cloud. They looked upon the dark, dirty city to find tall stone buildings and even a few “earth ponies” living on the cloud, only their hooves adapted to living on a cloud.

To the citizens of Blitzpherd the sunlight was a bright, warm place, only for the upper class. They even had fee associated with entering this new “Light District” of the city, to prevent to dirty and poor from entering. Here, the upper class and entrepreneurs worked together with the Equestrians, by direct orders from Princess Celestia, to open a trading hub with this new strange city, where they trade knowledge of the city for bits, food, or raw materials. This also ceased the dangerous journey of leaving through the “Old Hole” at the southern end of the storm cloud to venture through the lightning and rain to catch fish. Leaving the vicinity of the cloud was always considered a dangerous journey, every pony that left either didn't fly very far away or never came back.

Skye delved deep into his mind, recalling his memories of his life in Blitzpherd. It was almost like magic that Skye appeared in front of the orphanage. No pony had ever seen anyone put him there and he wasn't even in a basket. The only thing the foal had on him was a golden locket with a picture of 3 ponies inside of it, one was the foal but the other two were unrecognizable by every pony in the poor district.

The little foal was extremely intelligent, as far as foals go anyway. He was able to memorize faces and simple words with relative ease. The most surprising characteristic about Skye was his size, he was considerably larger than the other foals and was comparable to fillies around Applebloom's size.

From what Skye remembered his life at the orphanage was pretty good. The old mare that watched over him and the other orphans was kind. Nicknamed, “The Old Mare”, she was a generous mare that took good care over the ponies in her care, many times at the cost of her own health. One day the Old Mare didn't wake up and all of the orphans ran outside, yelling and crying. It wasn't until a few ponies in white outfits came into the orphanage, they journeyed into her room for a few hours. They managed to wake her up, but at a cost. They told her that she had to settle down and rest, that she was getting too old to take care of a bunch of ponies. The Old Mare searched frantically for a volunteer to devote their life to taking care of foals and fillies. Sadly there were no ponies in the “Dark District” that were up to the challenge.  The Old Mare was forced to do something that she would regret until she died, she had to close down the orphanage. And this was were Skye's memories always began.

The orphanage was packed full of hopeful parents, just waiting to find their little angel. Skye was never the first pony chosen, a lot of the potential parents were afraid of feeding a colt the size of Skye. Not to mention he was related to some strange creatures with horns, as depicted by the picture in his locket. At one point in the day a filthy rich, snobby couple walked in and considered adopted all of the ponies available, but were politely persuaded to leave by the Old Mare, who knew those ponies wouldn't make proper parents and was sure that there were better ponies for her foster foals.

By the end of the day Skye had said goodbye to all of his friends, most of which couldn't talk. It was truly a bittersweet moment for Skye, all of his friends were leaving him and might not ever see him again, yet they were going to a good home. Sadly no one was willing to adopt Skye and he lay alone in his bed for one last time. The next day the Old Mare woke up Skye early in the morning. She walked up to him as he slept and nudged him with her nose.

“Skye, sweetie, it's time to wake up.”

He slowly turned toward her and gave her his little smile before he raised his hooves towards his face to wipe his eyes. “O.K.” He brought his hooves away from his eyes and brought them towards his mama and wrapped them around her neck.

“Oh little one, I wish I could still take care of you.” Little tears came her eyes, knowing that Skye would be alone on the streets and she would never see him again.

“It's ok mama, I'll be fine! I promise.” He backed off and gave her a little smile of reassurance, hoping it would make her feel better. Of course, she knew what made Skye tick and returned a copy of his smile, making him think she wasn't worried about him.

“I know you will Skye. Make sure you don't lose that locket.”

Skye grew a little whiny. “MaaaMaaa, I'm not a little foal anymore. I can take care of myself.”

The Old Mare practically burst into tears at his statement and the way he said it. She knew that he wasn't ready for the real world, especially not the Dark District, yet there was nothing she could do about it. Suddenly there was a loud knock, forcing the ponies towards the door. The door opened to two greyish pegasus with sunglasses.

“Are you prepared to go Mrs. Foster?”

“Yes, but would you allow an old mare a few moments with her favorite child?”

The two pegasus looked at each other then back to the Old Mare quickly. “Make it quick ma'am.”

The Old Mare looked toward Skye, eager to get outside. “Now Skye...”

“Maaaaaa.” Whining yet again.

“Hush Skye, you need to listen to me right now.” She immediately attracted Skye's full attention. “Do not ever leave the cloud alone, especially from the bottom.”

“Ok mama. I wont, I promise... but why not?”

“It doesn't matter, just don't ever do it!” She gave him what was possibly the scariest glare she'd ever given any pony and it was working.

“Ok ok ok, I won't mama, honest!”

The Old Mare was quite convinced, even though Skye was literally bouncing up and down, ready to live on his own, not prepared for how difficult it was going to be. Before she was able to talk one of the pegasus outside spoke first. “Ma'am, we really need you to get going, follow us please.” The two pegasus started to walk down the street, expecting the Old Mare to follow. She stayed for only a few seconds.

“Goodbye Skye, I love you.”

“I love you too Mama! Byebye!” He stood with a smile in the dark street as his mama was quickly engulfed by the busy street. Suddenly the realization came over, he had no clue what to do. He had never been without the safety of his mama and he was scared. He frantically looked around the street, searching for a safe place to hide until his mama got back. It was as if he forgot that the city took his mama away, to a place he would never see her again. He quickly saw  a darkened area between two buildings and dashed for it ignoring all of the soundless silhouettes.

The enjoyed the safety of the darkness, he looked upon the silhouettes with a smile, they never even knew he was there. But what was there to do now? He paced around the alleyway for what must have been hours before his stomach rumbled. He figured that he would have to leave the safety of the darkness to venture out to find food. The best way to go about it, at least from what he thought, was to try to blend in with the crowd. He practically jumped into the moving crowd of ponies who were, conveniently, on their lunch break going to the bazaar.

After only a few minutes of walking, Skye was abruptly ejected from the sea of ponies as they split off towards different stands. Skye looked around the dark bazaar and gazed upon loads and loads of objects and food. There was everything from fancy clothing to food that Skye had never seen before. But he decided to go back to his roots and just get some bread. He easily found a stand with the basic food and he flittered his wings until he was flying in front of the stall-pony.

“Hi mister, can I have some bread?”

He spoke in a low, raspy voice. “Sure kid, at'll be three bits.”

“Bits?” Skye responded obviously having no knowledge of the new currency.

“Yeah kid, bits. It's money that them new ponies brought over. There's a stand over there to get some, just come back here and get some bread when yer done.” He spoke greedily as he pointed down the street to a stall with a long line to it.

“Ok, thanks mister!”

“Yeah, yeah... whatever.”

Following the stall-pony's advice Skye walked down the street toward the “bit stall”. As he walked past the line of pegasus waiting for their chance of bits he noticed that almost all of them had large bags with them. He didn't really pay much attention to it as he waited in line for a few hours, humming to himself. Finally he was at the front of the line gazing upon an earth pony, a rarity in the city.

“Oh hi there little guy...” Before she could continue Skye abruptly cut her off and started talking.

“Hi lady! Can I have some bits please?”

Confused, the earth pony started to speak again. “Uhmm, I'm sorry but I don't think you...” Once again Skye cut her off.

“Oh I'm sorry, may I have some bits, please?”

Now, just plain annoyed the earth pony spoke, clearly and loudly. “Look little guy, you need to trade something to get bits, do you have anything to trade? If you don't, please leave!”

“Uhmm... I don't think I have anything, but may I have some bits anyway?” He said calmly with a huge, happy smile.

“I'm afraid not,” She looked down toward the golden locket around Skye's neck. “but I'm pretty sure that necklace would fetch quite the few bits... what do ya say?”

“No!” Skye almost immediately shouted at the earth pony, causing her to raise her voice back to him.

“Well then I can't help you today! Come back when you have something to trade!” She looked over Skye to the next customer, queuing Skye to leave.

He walked back down the street to the bread stall, hoping that the stall-pony would take pity on him and give him some bread anyway. He flew back up to the stall-pony's face.

“Ah, er' you are. You got any bits for me?”

“No.” Skye said with a frown. “I don't have anything to trade with here, so she wouldn't give me any.”

“Aw, well that's too bad...” Skye's frown slowly turned into a smile from the stall-pony's response. “...I guess you won't be getting any of this food then, will you!” His smile instantly disappeared.

“But... but...”

“Nope! No buts here kid, now get away from my stall, before I make you.” He said with a menacing tone.

“But...” At the sound of the word the stall-pony grabbed Skye by the back of his neck with his teeth, causing Skye to wince in pain. “Ow ow ow ow ow ow.” But the pain didn't stop there, suddenly he was thrown up in the air, spinning rapidly, not being able to correct himself properly. As Skye almost hit the ground he felt the collision of two hooves bucking him hard, forcing him to cry out in pain as he practically flew through the air. “An' don't come back, ya' hear?” Skye's pain train didn't stop there as once again he was spinning through the air at high velocities before he journey in the air abruptly ended by a tall brick building. He was pretty sure he heard bones cracking as he plummeted down a good 50 feet to the ground where his back slammed hard into the ground. But his punishment didn't end there, the silhouettes wanted their revenge as he was kicked around the street before he was finally forced towards his alleyway, where he quickly retreated.

Skye lay down in the alleyway, crying in pain and sorrow. He had no food, no money, and no family. He started crying louder and louder, closing his eyes talking to himself. *sniff* “I wanna go home...” * sniff* “I want my mama...”, repeating the same two things over and over again. Suddenly he heard a loud thump from in front of him as he looked up to see a small, white filly with a golden tail run out of the alley. He saw her run out into the crowd of silhouettes as she looked up to a larger pony and started talking to him, before they both slowly disappeared into the crowd of shadows. Skye looked toward the ground the see a loaf of bread, a little hard and stale, but food for the day nonetheless.

“Thank you!” He screamed as he closed his eyes and bit into the loaf of bread. He was a little surprised, he never remembered bread being this hard. He opened his eyes to a green turtle in his mouth, it's head looking at him, seemingly worried. He let go of the turtle as he realized he was back in Dash's house. He let go of the turtle and apologized only to hear Rainbow Dash behind him.

“Hey... are you ok?”