Fallen

I was just a little colt at the time. I had just gotten my cutie mark: a cloud, symbol of the sky. I was full to the brim with happiness, a feeling foreign to me during that time. See, I was enrolled in Flight School at Cloudsdale, and, being the very last to receive my cutie mark, was the favorite target for the bullies to pick on. Before me, two fillies, the slender yellow Fluttershy and the bold blue Rainbow Dash, were the main targets, and I was the colorless colt the bullies would pick on in between harassing those two.
But, that’s beside the point. Now that I had gotten my cutie mark, I was dead certain that those guys would leave me alone, maybe find some other foal to beat up for once.
Boy, was I wrong.
They snuck up on me as I flapped up to the entrance of Flight School. A burly chestnut grabbed my tail and yanked me into their midst atop a cloud.
“Hey Paste. Where do you think you’re going?” he said. They chuckled as several of them poked at me with their hooves.
“Hey, leave me alone! I have my cutie mark now, leave me alone?” I whimper as they sneer at me.
“Ooooooh, where? I don’t see any cutie mark!” “Nope! He’s lyin’!” “’Course he is! Pasty, pasty, white and stark! Never gonna get his cutie mark!” “Poor blank Pasty! Why don’tcha just go live with the ground dweebs like that wimp Flutterwuss!”
I gaped at them. I looked at my flank. The cloud was there, all right. It just blended in so well with my white coat that it was really difficult to see. “It’s right there, all right?”
“Yeah right. What do you say, boys? I think he’s trying to rise above his place. Should we teach him a lesson?”
I gasped as a rear hoof struck me in the jaw. Fortunately, I was just starting to rear up when it happened, so the worst that happened was a bruise, but I was devastated nonetheless. Here I was, proof of my coming-of-age upon my flank, and yet here these ponies were, bashing me into the cloud, tearing apart the first happiness I had felt since coming here. I tried to look behind the group of bullies for aid, but I only saw colts and fillies averting their gaze and hurrying quickly away.
I knew why. Any time another pegasus sided with one of the bullies’ targets, they were instantly peppered with taunts and given no end of grief. I remembered when Speed of Heat stood up for me once. Before that, she was a cheerful, social filly who loved to talk to other ponies. I remember how the bullies escorted her away…
After returning with a black eye and most of her primaries yanked out, she wasn’t the same pony. After her wings recovered, she would always fly higher than any other pegasus, just to be alone with the sky and the wind. Needless to say, that happened to any pony even seen talking with one of the bullies’ targets.
It sickened me. The fact that some ponies could just turn a blind eye to these things. I needed to get away from them. Here I was, being torn up on the inside and the outside, and nopony dared care about it. I couldn’t stand a second more.
So when one of the bullies kicked my prone form, I rolled with it, right off the edge of the cloud. I spread my wings and flew. I didn’t care where I went, so I found a current and rode it, tears nearly blinding me. I heard the bullies give chase behind me, but of course I could fly farther, being lighter than them. I quickly pulled away from them, and listened to their irritated grunts as they reluctantly swung back around towards the school.
There’s no telling how long I flew, or how far. I just wanted to be away from everything and everypony. I had no idea where I was going, and I couldn’t see through my tears. I only knew that the wind was carrying me along. I didn’t care. I was one with the air, and that helped put my mind at ease a little. But the tears still came.
Eventually my wings were so tired they could support me no more. I glided down into the trees below, landing on a wide branch of a massive tree. It would have been twice my length in diameter, but I didn’t care then. I just sat down and wept. I suffered all these years of abuse from bullies for being the last to get his cutie mark, and when I finally get it, they only harp on me the harder for it. I hated it.
What gave a pony the right to take pleasure from another’s pain? Granted, it hadn’t always been this bad, but that was because, in the past, there were plenty of targets. A dandelion-maned gray mare with a lazy eye, for instance. She eventually moved away from Cloudsdale to Ponyville, but her wall-eyed expression singled her out before then and drew the bullies to her like a magnet.
Then there came Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, or Rainbow Crash, as they called her. Fluttershy… didn’t fly very well. For a pegasus, who is born to fly, there could be no greater humiliation. It was like… a Diamond Dog with no sense of smell, or a fish that couldn’t swim. It is their nature to be able to do these things, and if they were unable to do them, well. It’s depressing.
But then, after Rainbow Dash stood up to the bullies and performed the first Sonic Rainboom in centuries, Fluttershy the weak flier discovered her true calling on the ground as an animal caretaker and Rainbow Dash became so infamous for the performance that the bullies wouldn’t dare to taunt her anymore.
Which left me as their only option. I’d always been targeted because of my lack of pigment in my fur, as well as my freckles. No other pegasus had a coat completely lacking in color like mine, so the bullies hounded me with their catcalls and the mocking name “Pasty”.
Why would a pony do this? To need to taunt and tease another pony and make his life miserable at the same time? To feel better about themselves? Or is it that they have been at it for so long that they don’t know how to stop?
Why couldn’t we all just be friends? I know it might sound clichéd but, well, why not? For that matter, why couldn’t I have any friends, like Fluttershy had Rainbow Dash, to stick up for me? Why must these ponies insist on making my life a living hell, and everypony else just turn a blind eye and move on?
Did my life mean nothing?
My only solace came from my parents, whom I trusted alone. They were always there for me, but somehow could do nothing for me at Flight School. Everything they tried ended in failure, probably because the pompous parents of the bullies couldn’t believe that their angels could do such wrongs, and therefore it must be my fault as the perpetrator that their foals are getting in fights.
I had lost all faith in ponykind. No people that could commit such wrongs and stand by while others suffer could have any good in them. So it was best that I was alone.
After awhile my tears stopped and I took a look around. Where am I? I was surrounded by jungle as far as the eye could see, and there was not a single sign of pony kind anywhere. I was lost.
But…. I didn’t care. Nopony could find me here, so nopony could make my life miserable, or coldly ignore my grief as I suffered. I was on my own, and I liked it. I glided to the ground on exhausted wings, and trotted through the vibrant trees in search of water.
Never had I seen such things in the sky. I remember Fluttershy telling the rest of us how wonderful it was on the ground, with the air so thick and heady, so even the weakest pegasus could fly with ease down there. I didn’t really care too much; in Cloudsdale, I had the sky, and that was all that mattered at the time.
But this!
Such vibrant colors! The green of the trees and the grass rivaled the hue of emeralds, which I’d only ever seen once, when a griffon salesman came to Cloudsdale to hawk his wares. And the smells! Each step on the ground layer of lush moss brought forth an earthy aroma of life. Stopping to examine a bright purple flower, I discovered a scent so delicious it made me want to sit there, drinking in the smell, all afternoon.
But the flying and crying dehydrated me to the core, and I knew what I needed.
Saddened that I couldn’t stay and appreciate the wonderful flower, I tramped on through the underbrush, marveling at a bush here, a fern there. I even stopped to examine a vibrant orange fungus growing off of a tree.
“So this is why Fluttershy left Cloudsdale…” I murmured as I was pleasantly startled by a huge colorful butterfly lifting off in front of my face. Following my nose, I reached a pool of water, which I blissfully drank from. The flavor was clean and pure. Not as pure as rainwater, though you can’t get much purer than that. But I was refreshed as I drank, remembering not to gulp it down too greedily.
Realizing that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, my stomach grumbled, and I made short work of the nearby ferns and moss. The moss tasted earthy, fresh from the ground, and the ferns were a delicate tangy treat. Too late I remembered the lesson to not trust strange plants, but fortunately they didn’t come right back up, so I ate ‘til I was full.
With a satisfied tummy, I lay down on the lush grass and closed my eyes. I listened to the sounds of the forest, from the screech of the booted eagle to the calls of small monkeys. I didn’t know what exactly made those noises yet, but I listened nonetheless. These sensations, so foreign to a pony who lived his entire life in the sky, enthralled me.
I hungered for more new discoveries. So after my wings recovered, I gathered myself up and launched myself into the air.
I instantly had to dodge around a wide tree branch to keep from crashing. Immediately after I dived sharply to avoid another limb, and I laughed with the exhilaration. I liked it.
Catching sight of a hanging vine, I swooped to it and grabbed onto it with my hooves. I swung and let go, flipping in midair.
I must have spent hours just playing in this obstacle course of vines and trees, and swinging from vine to vine. I looked up and saw that it was nearly evening, so I broke through the canopy and sailed into the blue sky. I wheeled and circled, surveying the vast emerald wilderness that lay below me, waiting for me to discover more wonders. In the sheer joy of flight, I spun around and dived towards the trees, pulling up in the last seconds. I smiled with glee.
I never felt more free. The wide open frontier, with no pony in sight, called to me. I had no reason to return to the world of bullies and those who would simply ignore me.
But, most of all, I could fly. I could truly appreciate my wings to the fullest here, where there are so many discoveries waiting for me to uncover them. I could catapult through valleys, and ride on the updrafts over mountains, unearthing new and fantastic sights and sounds.
But I remembered. My parents, the only ponies who cared about me. What would they think when I didn’t arrive home on time? Would they be worried?
Of course they would. They would be worried sick about me. I knew that there were at least two who would miss me when I was gone, and because of those two, I circled on an updraft and tried to retrace my flight path.
I might have never found my way back, if not for the search party my parents had sent. I was intercepted by an inky pegasus stallion, who escorted me to the welcoming hooves of my parents, who sobbed with relief.