Other than Others

'Ouch,' was the first thing Sunburst said. Clouds didn't feel like he expected them to feel. If he wanted to, he could stomp a hole in them, but still it felt like he landed on concrete with a thin layer of foam covering it.

Grandma Pegasus immediately hurried to help her grandson get up. 'Sweetie, what is this?' she asked surprised.

'Get back in the basket. Now,' Sunburst's mum demanded, and her son, for once, obediently followed her orders.

His mother then turned to her parents. 'What is this?' she said, her voice trembling with anger. 'Did you two know about...'

Sunburst's grandparents both shook their heads in utter shock.

Sunburst himself sat in the basket, shaking and astonished, continually touching the cloud beneath him. Yep, he could still feel it.

He heard his mum and grandparents arguing, but it didn't really get through. His head was filled with a loud buzz, accompanied with a high noise he couldn't actually hear, he felt it.

The world shook before his eyes, as if there was an earthquake, except that such things didn't happen in Cloudsdale. He knocked on his head a couple of times, and the noise and the shaking stopped.

'He can hear you!' he heard his mother yell.

And then, his grandfather, 'Who cares? You knew he would end up in here!'

'I didn't!' his mother protested. 'I never knew he could... could walk on clouds! I mean, he's a unicorn, for Celestia's sake!'

You can't hear them, Sunburst thought, no, heard a voice in his head. They are wrong...

'Who are you?' the unicorn said.

The three other ponies turned around to Sunburst.

'What did you hear?' said his grandmother.

Sunburst shook his head. 'I... nothing. There's nothing.'

'See!' his grandfather yelled. 'I told ya'!'

The quarrel started again and Sunburst pressed his hooves against his ears. 'Stop it,' he whispered.

Stop it, his mind replied.

Whoever it was that had nested itself into his head, it was right. Sunburst took a very deep breath and yelled, 'Shut the BUCK up, it's my BIRTHDAY!'

'Sunny,' his mother immediately protested. 'Go wash your mouth now.'

The unicorn bit his lip and then, he carefully stepped out of the basket.

Nothing happened.

'Look, mum,' he said. 'It's safe. Now I wish to know, WHO of you did already know this?'

Good job.

His grandparents nervously looked at one another and his mother frowned.

'THESE two,' she said. 'These two know it runs in the fam'ly. These two know that when you have a unicorn dad and a Pegasus mom, you'll be able to walk on these cloudy substances. Your gramps, in fact, has found this out all by himself since his MOTHER was a cloud-hopping unicorn.'

'Hay!' Sunburst's grandfather said. 'A little bit of respect for my mother would be nice!'

'Quit it,' Sunburst whispered as he heard his family starting a fight again. 'C'mon, please! T'is my birthday only once a year!'

Nopony listened. The three stood in a circle, looking at one another and shouting the most random insults.

Sunburst was done with it.

Quietly, he walked past the trio. Nopony looked at him, though, and the clouds blocked every hint of sound.

Where he first had taken very slow and cautious steps, he now had the courage to run. Faster and faster, the clouds soft yet solid underneat his feet. It was funny to run that fast without making a single sound. He felt like he was flying, but of course, he wasn't.

Suddenly, he was snapped out of the narcotic feeling by a loud yell. 'Hay! Watch it!'

He felt a bump and landed - again - with his face first in the clouds.

'Owch,' he said, as his eyes fluttered open. 'What... Why?'

The pony next to him was strangely familiar. Oh, yes. She was the one with that tiny brother, wasn't she? She was a blankflank, she had long, messy hair, she wore a blue bracelet and... she had just tripped him.

'What was that for!?' he said indignantly.

The femme rolled her eyes and simply pointed at the cloud they were standing on. Sunburst followed the line of her leg and saw he wasn't far away from the edge of the fluffy puffy cloud. Below, there was a whole lot of nothing before it got to a small field. If he had taken another three steps, he would've been dead.

He blinked a couple of times in confusion and shock, and then looked up at the mare.

'You're still at the ground,' she said. 'Cloud, more.'

'Heh. Am I?'

The mare sighed. 'Ugh. Why were you running in the first place?'

Sunburst groaned and got up. As he sat on the clouds, he thought about if he should tell the Pegasus about his disastrous birthday.

'Well?' she asked, and left him with no choice than to tell.

He sighed and said, 'Well, today is my twelfth birthday and I came here for the first time in my life to celebrate it with my Pegasus grandparents. By accident, I found out I am able to walk on clouds, which shouldn't be possible since I am a unicorn, but still I CAN WALK ON CLOUDS. Now it appears my grandparents knew it all the time since it runs in the fam'ly or something and my mum and they are in a HUGE fight about why they didn't tell me and if they should have to...'

'Geez, really?' the Pegasus interrupted him. 'Oh man, that must be horrible!'

Sunburst nodded and continued. 'I hoped this birthday would be the best birthday ever, but all that happened was this investigation and the fact that my fam'ly is a mess right now. It sucks! It totally SUCKS!'

The green Pegasus sat down next to him and rised an eyebrow. 'Woah. Especially when you don't have five brothers to take care of because you're mother is too retarded to do it and you have to keep your whole family alive by yourself. Must be hard for you.'

Sunburst didn't know what to say. What the buck did just happen?

'Meh, you probably don't even mind it,' the green pony continued. 'Just like I don't mind your bucked up birthday. I have to buy groceries and bring my brothers to school, later.'

Sunburst was astonished. Silently, he watched the green Pegasus soar and fly away.

He scratched his snout in confusion - it was a miracle she didn't make a remark about it, he oftenly got bullied with his snout - and watched the tiny figure become smaller and smaller in the distance.

She had saved his life, sort of. A'course he had seen that cliff himself, he just... suddenly liked danger.

Sure, the voice said. Sunburst nervously looked around, but there was nopony on the cloud but him and - in a greater distance - his arguing family. His mother looked like she'd explode with rage, and his grandparents didn't look better, really. But still, there was this strange voice.

It was his own voice, undoubtedly, it just sounded slightly... slightly...

Darker? the voice said.

'Yeah,' Sunburst said thoughtless. Then, clear again, 'Wait, eh?'

The voice in his head was quiet.

Sunburst shook his head in confusion and the clouds in his mind slowly disappeared. He starteto think clear and realize that he was actually standing on a fluffy puffy rain machine, made by the Pegasi in Cloudsdale and used everywhere in Equestria. He was a unicorn. Standing on a cloud.

He looked down to the field and was slightly proud.