Riding Across the Storms

by Tower of 0

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Slice of Life
Length: 5093

A colt has no idea about waht it's like to feel like a true pegasus and finds out what it means to be one day.

Thunder Strife was always a wierd one for a pegasus. He never truly felt the experience of the wind beneath his hooves, in his mane, in his tail, nor against his coat. Follow this young pony for a slice of life through the meanings of flight and his discovery of being a pegasus. With the help of a unicorn by the name of Morning Wind.

Published 2013-03-03 01:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-03-03 01:30:02 UTC

Riding Across the Storms

   School had just let out in Ponyville to another sunny day. Thunder Strife, a new colt pegsus in class, shifted each of his legs slowly to put himself at a pace that seemed steady. He was that last student to leave the schoolhouse and enter the warming sunlight that covered Equestria at this hour. Thunder kept to himself when he walked home alone, looked at the ground, and occassionally spread his wings from his side and brought them back. Much like an earth pony, he was raised on the ground and had no idea what flight was like as a pegasus. His mother had planned many a day to teach him how to fly, being as he inherited his wings from her. The story of how his parents met wasn't quite as much as the ones he heard around him. His mother was getting rain filled clouds ready over Ponyville, it was going to be the rainiest of days, until, she was struck by a renegade bolt of lightning and sent her plummeting to the ground.

   She was unconcious during most of her fall, it seemed her demise was inevitable. An earth pony was still out cleaning up some of the sticks and twigs when he saw her falling. Apparently, that stallion was supposed to be the quickest earth pony there and galloped towards the intended crash site of the pegasus. With luck, the stallion caught her and carried the unconcious pegasus inside to shield her from the storm. Now, here is little Thunder Strife. Bright minded, friendly when you get to know him, but doesn't know how to fly. He would stop momentarily on his walks and gaze up at the sky and think of the possibilities that he can have while flying. That's when he started to imagine seeing himself soaring high above the heads on Ponyville. He eventually shook himself out of his trance, looked back down at the ground, and continued to shift along the road.

   Thunder Strife eventually made it home, he never actually lived too far from the school so his walks usually weren't long. His usual thing that he did awas to make it past the hall and hop up the steps to his room. Thunder's room have be on the second story, but he had two windows to gaze out of, a Wonderbolts poster was put up on one side of the wall. He had shelves that held what little books he had, some toys were on the shelves along with his books. The top of his bed was littered with various drawings and what not, an alcove were indented in the pile as he slept next to them at night. Thunder went over to the shelf and reached of one his toys, specifically a Wonderbolt figure, he didn't quite reach. He tried jumping up and grabbing it, but alas, to no avail. Eventually he just juryrigged a tool from tapping a line of crayons together and pushing the selected toy off the shelf and quickly grabbed it. Atleast he got his father's speed.

   He continued to move the toy around in the air with his hoof, this usually lasted for about thirty minutes until he put it down and stared out the window for several hours and watch the clouds pass, the sun set, and put the toy back on the shelf. This time, Thunder actually put the toy in reaching distance. His mother usually came home from weather control around the time the sun set. She should be home now. Thunder thought to himself, smiling, and rushed downstairs to greet his mother. In the hall to the front door stood a grey mare, wings folded to her side, blue and orange mane sruffed up, back turned. How Thunder's mom looked when she came home.

  "Mommy!" Thunder cried out, galloping to the mare.

"Have a good day, Thunder?" she turned, smiling and hugging her son on impact.

"Yup." Thunder replied , nuzzling his mother.

"Make any friends at school today?"

Thunder retreated from the nuzzle and looked down. Shameful about the question his mom asked.

"Thunder, you can't saty up in your room all day, it's not healthy for a bright colt like yourself." His mom continued to say.

"What pony is going to want to be friends with a pegasus who doesn't know how to fly?" Thunder continued to ask, tears now starting to well.

"I'm pretty sure that there are a couples ponies who would like to be friends with a pegasus." His mom said.

  She hugged the colt closer and stroked his mane to comfort him. She wiped away his tears and smiled at him. Thunder only looked back at the smiling face that was his mom.

"How about we get dinner ready, your father is bound to be home any minute now." She then stood fully and trotted off to the kitchen while Thunder tailed just behind. It felt natrual for him to help his mom cook, he was a momma's pony afterall.

"Anyone home?" a familiar voice echoed from the foyer, Thunder galloped as fast as he could the his father.

  His fathers coat was a brown color followed by an maroon mane and tail. Thunder may be a momma's pony, but he also loved his father the same way that he loved his mother. Their life was peaceful for the most part.

"Hey kiddo!" Thunder's dad exclaimed, kneeling down before the already galloping Thunder could crash into him like his mom. When Thunder reached his dad, he was hugged tighty and thrust onto his dad's back. Thunder was happy around his parents. He couldn't explain why he was kept to himself in public.

"Mist, you in here darling?" Thunder's dad called out, trotting into the kitchen with a bit of pride sprinkled across his tone.

"You know I am, with..." she looked to her side to find that Thunder was on his dad's back, "Well, I thought Thunder, but I guess not." Thunder climbed down to where he can just barely touch the ground, let go, and landed with fluttering wings.

  After some time, the family was gathered at the table, eating something each had made. For Thunder Strife, it was biscuits, and boy did he make them good! Most of them were usually gone by the time dinner was over. After dinner, Thunder usually scampered off the the living room to read one of the books he usually kept off his shelf in his room til he was done reading. He was busy reading away at a book aout a unicorn enrolled in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns and her adventures to find various items of magic to bring back to the school's display case when he overheard his parents talking in the kitchen.

  "We could always just pay the bits for Thunder to go to Flight School." It was the voice of his father.

"I know, but you know how he is about being far from home. Espicially with people he doesn't know." His mother confronted the idea.

"I know, but he can't just spend all his life stuck up in a room, alone, with no idea on how to fly, he's a pegasus, he should be able to fly."

"We really don't get time to teach him though, which is a problem  from him and us."

Thunder couldn't listen to anymore of the converstation and retreated to his room for the night...

The next morning, Thunder Strife rolled out of bed and lazily slumped to the bathroom and got his usual morning bath routine started. He walked back to his room and retreive a notepad, pencil, and a sharpener. Thunder put htem in his saddle bag and left for the bathroom once more. After he was done bathing, he started brushing his teeth, while brushing, Thunder noticed a note attached to the mirror which read, Dear Thunder, I will be home later than usual tonight. I think your father to taking you out, you know how his cooking is. With love, Mom. Thunder nodded to himself, finished brushing and rinsed out his mouth, and got his saddle bag from his room.

   Thunder reached downstairs to find the house empty of all life except him. He checked the living room, no pony. Then he checked the kitchen, still no pony. So he just shrugged and left for school. He did his usual routine, keep to himself, gaze at the ground, and slowly strech his wings out. Thunder was the quite the worker at school, although he sat in the back of the room doodling on his notepad when he got the chance after his work. He also sat next to a unicorn filly, just about his age, whom would try to start a conversation from time to time. he was just about to say something to Thunder until the bell for lunch rang.

  With a sigh of releif, Thunder Strife quickly left the classroom and found himself a spot under a tree. Although he felt like he forgot something, he checked his saddle bag. It concainted only his sharpener, no note pad.

"Hey, I think you forgot this." Said a voice he wasn't aware of. Thunder looked up to see who it was, the unicorn filly. Whom was holding his notepad with her magic. "You left it on your desk."

"Uhh... thanks, I guess." Thunder piped up, trying not to look at the filly.

"You really don't talk much, do you?" The filly asked, plopping herself next to the now drawing Thunder.

"No... not really." Thunder replied to her, a bit of sweat on his brow.

"Well, my name's Morning Wind. What about yours?" The filly was leaning over to see what Thunder had drawn.

"Thunder Strife..." He was simple with the saying and put both the notepad and pencil back into his saddle bag with care.

   "That's a nice name, even has a sort of ring to it. Thun-dah Str-y-fe" Morning sang out cheerfully. Thunder just looked at her in cofusion. When he tried to get up, Morning noticed his wings and immediately blurted out a question about them.

"Can you fly? 'Cause, you know, you have wings and all."

"I... don't know how to fly." Thunder replied, lowering his head once more.

"Well," Morning started up again, "how about me teaching you? I''ve watched dozens of pegasi fly."

Thunder looked at his wings and then to Morning. "Do you really think so?"

"How hard could it be?" Morning replied, thinking it would be just as easy as it sounds. The question is raised though, how hard is it to teach a pegasus to fly?

   First, Thunder had to learn wing form, essential to pegasi flight. He had to learn how to control his wing's flutter speed in order to actually start flying. Sounded easy to Morning, but is it easy for Thunder?

"Ready." Thunder said to Morning, whom was standing next to the colt.

"Then start flapping." Morning said, monitoring Thunder's wings.

Thunder streched his wings from his sides, and started to flutter his wings. The colt got a few inches off the grass before giving out and landing again.

"That was good, atleast you made it off the ground some inches." Morning examined once more from the colt. "Go again, only put a bit more effort in to fluttering,"

   Thunder started to flutter his wings, with alll his effort, and eyes closed, he rose from the ground. He was hovering high above Morning's as she got excited and started jumping.

"Thunder! Thunder! Open your eyes!" She called out in delight When Thunder opened his eyes and looked dow, he found out that he was higher than he had intended to go and quickly clamped onto a nearby branch from the tree. He steadily made his way down from the tree going branch to branch as he brought himself closer to the ground. When he made to the last branch, Thunder hovered down and was immeadiately tackled by Morning.

"That was amazing Thunder!" She squealed, hugging on the disoriented colt.

   The bell rang for the foals to come back to class. Thunder finished off his work, like usual, and proceeded to dig out his notepad. Morning glanced over and saw that Thunder was drawing once again. She tried to keep her attention on her schoolwork, but she kept getting sidetracted by Thunder's drawing. What is he doodling now? Morning thought to herself. Even though she was nearly done with the work assigned to the class. Thunder then put his pencil down and teared the page from his notepad. He held it in his mouth and turned to show Morning what he had drawn. She examined the page, the picture were clouds, storm clouds specifically, raining hard with lightning bursting about.

   Thunder then leaned over to her desk and placed the page down. A few hours later, the release bell rang for the foals to go home. For the first time, Thunder wasn't walking alone, nor was he keeping to himself. He walked with Morning on the way home.

"So... what does the picture mean exactly?" Morning asked, pulling up Thunder's drawing.

"It was a dream I had some nights ago. I don't know what it meant." Thunder replied, nudging Morning jokingly.

"Doesn't it concern you though?" This question popped up as she put away the sketch.

"Not really, everytime I have that dream, I feel happy, peaceful, and what not." Thunder was now hovering above the ground.

"Strange enough, but I guess it would make sense." Morning replied, smiling slightly.

"Well, this is where I depart. See you tomorrow?" Thunder stopped hovering.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." Morning said, walking onward

   Thunder headed inside and went up stairs to his room. He has been meaning to clean up the mess of papers on his bed for quite some time now. As he was collecting up the pages when one fell to the floor, a peculiar page he drew a while back. Dark clouds, rain, lightning, like the one he drew for Morning Wind earlier today. He put his stack of pages in his nightstand and studied the page that fell to the floor. Is this? Nah, it can't be. Thunder thought to himself, but he brushed it off, picked up the page and puts it with the rest of the his drawings. Hours later, after eating at a restaraunt with his dad, Thunder ascended the steps without touching them and not thinking about his action. Thunder eventually made to his bed and fell fast asleep. That's when his dream started again.

   Dark clouds were present, as far as the eyes could see, rain was falling at an alarming rate, lightning lit up some of the clouds around. Something was different this time, instead of the rain just falling, it was coming foward. The wind howled, then, nothing. Just darkness, that's when Thunder woke up. It was still night time when he woke. Thunder slid out of bed and went downstairs. He then fluttered into the kitchen, found himself a glass, and filled it with water. Thunder usually got drinks of water in the middle of nights when he couldn't sleep. He made his way from the kitchen, through the foyer, and into the livingroom where he put his glass down and turned on a small lamp. The colt then retreived the book he has been reading, take a seat in the chair next ot the lamp, and opened up the cover.

   As Thunder read, he would reach over to the glass on occasion and take a sip. He paced himself when he read, which turned into a habit after a while, to make a book last longer. Thunder always thought a book was better if he porlonged it a bit. The colt eventually sipped away the last of his water, but continued to read without noticing that his glass was empty. On a night like this, a good reading puts this foal to sleep, eventually. Thunder could feel his eyes getting heavy, as he read on, the heavier they got. thunder eventually just gave in and passed out in the chair. Leaning his head off to the side as he slept in the chair.

   Thunder woke up to the sound of his alarm once more. Tucked in his bed, and the book on his nightstand. Sluggisly getting out of his bed and continued the morning with his routines. When the colt hovered on downstairs, he noticed something in the living room. Curiosity took over and he stopped to examine the form on the couch, it was his mom sound alseep. She must have put me in my bed last night. Got to remember to thank her later when she's up. Thunder started to think, heading out the door with his saddle bag. Lunch at school again, yet, Morning and Thunder were  sitting under the same tree from yesterday. Both foals were enjoying crip apples, fresh from this morning.

   "So, Thunder," the filly begain, "how was your night?"

"All right, I guess. I was up late though." Thunder replied, leaning against the tree before taking another bite.

"And why were you up late?" Morning asked, taking a bite of her apple. Thunder swallowed before he could reply.

"I had that storm dream last night. Only thing different about it is that the rain wasn't still and falling, it was moving towards me. I could feel the wind rushing by. That chilling wind with the coolness of the rain." Thunder started to go into a trance as he thought about it more. "That cold rain, felt, right. Espicially with the lightning."

"Lightning?" Morning shot straight up. "There wasn't lightning in the picture you drew. Was there?" Morning was looking at the entranced Thunder. He soon snapped from his trance and spoke.

"No, there wasn't wasn't any lightning in the picture. It only seems to be that way in my dream."

   Morning relaxed against the tree again, finishing what was left of her apple and throwing off to the side. Thunder was flapping is wings in a slow manner, obviously falling in to a deep thinking process by now. What he was thinking about was flying, hence his wing movement, but the more he thought about flying the more his wings would gain speed mentally and physcially. Soon, Thunder started rising up the tree trunk, Morning tried to get Thunder out of his trance. Too late, it wasn't long before Thunder hit a branch and fell back to the ground. The colt landed flat on his belly and was groaning for a few minutes as Morning was helping him back up.

   "Thanks..." Thunder managed to get out from his groans.

"What kind of friend would I be if I just let you sit there in pain?" Morning said, brushing off the colt.

That's when it struck Thunder, plain as day, he finally did what his mom said and made a friend. Then bell rang once more for the day and let the foals go home. Thunder accompanied Morning all the way home like last time.

"What in the wide world of Equestria happened to you back there?" Morning had decided to get that off her chest from earlier's encounter.

"I have thendencies to go into deep thoughts. Much like earlier, but that's the first I ever actually went up while thinking." Thunder replied, lowering his hover state closer to the gorund, but didn't make contact.

"Well then, you got to work on that."

"I know, well, this is bye for today" Thunder waved to his friend and headed inside.

   Thunder entered through the door and hovered into the living room, his mother was awake, but she didn't notice her son was home. Thunder quickly hovered to and on the couch and hugged his mom tightly.

"Well, isn't someone hovering around now?" His mom said, smiling, and hugging her child back.

"Morning Wind taught me how to hover, since she's observed some pegasi flying and all." Thunder had replied the explaination as he hopped back slightly.

"Who would this Morning Wind be exactly?" She asked looking at him as the smile shrunk a bit.

"A unicorn at school, she's really nice, except, she talks a bit more than me." Thunder answered, startung to hover off the cushion.

"A unicorn... taught you to hover?" She just looked at the colt until her face broke in to another smile. "Well, atleast I can teach you to fly today, as we planned to months ago."

   Thunder hovered down from the couch as his mother got down and headed for the back door. Thunder trailed behind her with excitement. As soon as they were outside, pegasi from all around Poyville were placing thunder heads for the storm tomorrow. Thunder stoppped hovering and walked up to his mom's side.

"Since I wasn't around to teach to hover, and you learned through a unicorn's observations and learned well. Now you get to learn how to fly." The mare stated, flapping her wings to rise high above the yard. Thunder soon followed her with the faint sound of his wings fluttering in the air.

"This should be simple for you, all pegasi learn to fly at some point in time or another. Anyway, you lean forward to gain some speed, and when your at a point where all you have to do is flap your wings, sjust straitened out your body and tuck in your front hooves." She instructed along with an example, even though the demonstration was quick, thunder still caught on.

"But what about my hind hooves?" Thunder asked, looking at his still flying mom. She stopped to explain to him.

"You leave your back hooves behind you, it's better for the flight. Now you try flying around."

   Thunder went in to a lean, starting to gain a bit of speed, but not a whole lot.

"It's a good start, but keep practicing, I'm sure you'll get good at it one of these days." His mother started, flying over to her colt. As they were floating down, the two were greeted by Thunder's dad.

"Well, if it isn't my lovely wife teaching our colt to fly." He said with a wide smile.

"He's aready learned to hover without me having ot teach him." Thunder's mom replied.

"Well, he might learn from you faster than most pegasi, Mist." Tunder's dad remarked, ruffling the colt's mane.

   The rest of the night was followed by thier dinner, kitchen cleaning, and the family gathering in the living room. When they gathered themselves up in the living room, chat would just start from one topic and go on to another type of topic. Some topics would include plans of a vacation somewhere, Thunder's grades in school, waht used to be talks about Flight Schooll when Thunder was around, and now Thunder's flying. Both Thunder's mother and father were releived to not go on about worrying about Flight School and bits that might have been going in to it. They were more worried about Thunder being happy though.

   The house fell quiet as both parents had gone off to bed but Thunder stayed up a bit longer. He drug out a piece of paper, one of his pencil, and started to draw a pony character. He was particularly good with character sketches. One of his characters consisted of a dark grey pony, the eyes weren't colored in because he hasn't chosen a color for them yet. But his new one looked like it was an older version of Morning Wind, but the cutie mark on the character's flank differed from the one that occupied his friend's flank. Thunder finished up the sketch, put the pencil and paper back in his nightstand drawer, turned off his lamp, and curled up in bed.

   Thunder woke up to the light tap tap tap of the rain hitting one of his windows. He turned over slightly and stared at his ceiling, observing nothing much but the color. Thunder decide to get out of bed and do his usual morning routine. Bathe, brush his teeth, go downstairs and got some breakfast. Thunder then proceeded to the living and looked out the window for quite sometime before an idea popped into that strange little pony mind of his.

   Thunder headed outside to the rain and looked up at the droplets falling to Equestria in great numbers. He leaned low to the ground, closed his eyes, and spread his wings. He lept and instantly took off towards the dark clouds. Raining beating against his coat, Thunder pushed further into the clouds with great speed and puntured on of the clouds without ripping a hole nor obliterating it in the process. Once he was up in the clouds surrounding him, he opened his eyes and flew inside the wonderous wet realm he had entered. As he flew, it seemed that droplets of water were trying to race the colt, but stuck close to Thunder.

   Lightning lit up some of the clouds he passed by, that's when another idea crossed his mind. Thunder headed towards the roof of the dark rain clouds quickly as possible and burst forth once more into the sun. He looped around with the droplets and went back into the clouds of rain. Thunder then started to roll during his flight, accumulating  more water and eventually creating a stable water tunnel around him. The pegasus was obviously enjoying the flight until he heard some commotion. The tunnel slowly dispersed as Thunder slowed down. He was focused on locating the noises in the clouds.

   With a sudden burst of motion, a large contrapion emerged and almost rammed into Thunder. A loud "Wooooooooo!" followed the contraption as it flew on and went back under. Thunder turned right around and took a quick boost of speed in the direction he thought was home. Rain drops started to follow him again as he went on his hunch of a direction. Thunder was starting to head under the clouds until Ponyville came back into view. Once he had the town back in range, he let the clouds fly over his back.

   Thunder was approaching his home at a rapid rate. He landed on the doorstep with a large shower of rain following after Thunder and soaked his coat, mane, and tail. Thunder walked inside and shook himself dry in the foyer. Water drenched the walls, the ceiling, floor, and almost anything in a few feet of an area. Thunder then continued to head up the stairs to into his room. Whilst there, he drug out two pieces of paper and a pencil. Two ides were forming in his head that he wants to get out on paper. His first sketch consisted of lines forming a pony in some fort of armor, the pony was a unicorn itself, but the armor, it didn't look like the type you'd see on Celestia's guard. The second sketch was something, like one of those airships from Canterlot, only  it  looked like it was propelled by some sort of thruster or something like that.

   As the day went on, Thunder found himself gaining sketch ideas one after another and drew each of them with a sort of care. He popped out some extrodianry things like a space craft that looked like it belonged in one of the sci-fi novels he owned. A futuristic looking unicorn and a cybernetic pegasus. When he got done with most of his ideas, Thunder's floor was cavered in sketches, but he also found himself out of paper, the pencil garphite down to a blunt, and forgot about lunch in the process. The more he thought about what he was going to eat, the more he stomach rumbled in hunger.

   He descened down the stairs for the second time day and into the kitchen. Thunder flew around the kitchen, locating bread, jelly, and some penut butter. It may not bean exact lunch, but a peanut butter and jelly was one of his favorite things to eat. Thunder got used to the fact of using his mouth to make the sandwich, and the step always was on repeat in his head as he made it. Two pieces of bread, stick knife in peanut butter, spread peanut butter on one piece, wash knife, dry, stick in jelly, spread jelly on second piece, done. Thunder's own voice echoed in his head, he put the caps back on both jars and flew them back to their respected cabinets and fridge shelf, amd the knife rinsed and washed. He finally turned one of the pieces over so that the peanut butter was either covering or under the jelly.

   An awful smell started to fill Thunder's nostrils. He quickly figured out it was him, the smell was a product of the massive downpour he created when he landed at the doorstep. The colt's mane and tail were still a bit wet, so he did the next best thing and ate his sandwich and headed to the bathroom upstairs. He started another bath but decided to relax in it and added a bit of bubbles before stepping in. Thunder like his baths mildly hot, which the cold rain amplified. The colt submerged himself under the water for a few seconds before resurfacing his head.

   Thunder's eyes started to wander around the bathroom, looking at various items that had decorated the room itself. He thought about what that contraption was that almost hit him up in the coulds, then switched to the feel of the flight. He got aout after an hour or so and headed downstairs to read, his current thought was what he got to tell Morning Wind when they see each other again. That really put a smile across Thunder Strife's face. Just thinking about Morning and his flight.

   The next day, Thunder was outside jumping from puddle to puddle. He wasn't paying attention to anything else around him, but he might have splashed somepony during one point in his jumps. The clouds were still hanging around and the weather team was working on removing the rain clouds from the area. Thunder stopped in front of a certain filly he knew from school. A smile appeared on his face when he looked at Morning and the two started to walk down the street, telling stories and getting to know each other that much further,