“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Chapter One
“Scootaloo, this is insanity!” Apple Bloom yelled as the orange Pegasus pony was busy putting her helmet onto the yellow mare’s head and buckled the chin strap into place snuggly.
“It is not. You want to get your cutie mark, right? We’ve got to try everything.” Scootaloo gave the helmet a knock for good measure, to which Apple Bloom pouted.
“Yeah, but…I’ve never heard of any pony getting a cutie mark in space travel!”
“Then we’ll be the first!” Sweetie Belle grinned at their dubious friend and started working on the rocket canon they had been building behind the barn for the past few weeks. They had pushed it out into one of the back fields so they wouldn’t be seen from the farm house. They were supposed to be having a sleep over, but what Apple Jack didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And it wasn’t like they had left the farm…well, Apple Bloom hadn’t yet anyway. “Did you get the rocket fuel, Scootaloo?”
“Rocket fuel?” The yellow filly paled then, looking between her friends as they worked.
“Are you crazy? Where was I supposed to get rocket fuel?”
“Sofas and Quills. He’s selling fuel too now!”
“Rocket fuel…?” Apple Bloom asked again and Scootaloo waved at her dismissively.
“Don’t worry, we aren’t using rocket fuel. I just took some of the fertilizer fuel that Big MacIntosh uses for the generators.” The orange filly moved to start pouring the mixture into the canon.
“Girls, I really don’t feel right about this…” Apple Bloom turned to look again at the canon. It was a purple gold and pink monstrosity, but they have made it from scratch using stuff scraps from other projects they had laying around. Rarity had even made them matching jump suits, thinking they were just going to play around as space explorers…not actually attempt to get a pony into orbit.
“If you’re chickening out then Sweetie Belle can be the one that goes into space first.” Scootaloo scoffed, tossing aside the jug once the fuel was in and went to her saddle bag to find the matches.
“Who are you calling a chicken, Scootaloo!”
“I’m not going up in that thing!” Sweetie Belle chimed in.
“See, even Sweetie Belle doesn’t want to do it!” Apple Bloom whined and started pulling off the helmet, but Scootaloo pushed it back down on her head.
“Shhh! Do you want to wake up all of Ponyville? We have to try this! What if this is your destiny! You’ll never know unless you try!” She gave her friend a hopeful look, puppy dog eyes pleading, and final Apple Bloom groaned and walked toward the canon, head down in defeat.
“Fine. Light me up then. Let’s just get this over with before it gets too late. Apple Jack will kill us if she finds us out of bed.”
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo shared a grin and put on their own suits and helmets before moving behind the canon. Once Apple Bloom was in the mouth, Scootaloo lit the match.
“This is Horseton.” She said in her best professional voice. “Launch sequence beginning. Ignition in five…”
“Four!” Sweetie Belle chirped excitedly.
Three… Apple Bloom pulled the goggles down over her eyes and folded her hooves across herself to keep them tight against her body.
“Two…” Scootaloo moved the match and lit the fuse, both she and Sweetie Belle covering their ears.
“ONE!” The girls yelled in unison as the canon fired. “Cutie Mark Crusaders astronauts!”
As the canon went off, Apple Bloom was forced from the top and she went sailing into the air, the angle pointing her right at the southern skies and the moon that was large above the horizon tonight. Maybe that meant it was closer! Maybe they really could reach space like this! Maybe she was going to get her cutie mark in space exploring. Maybe one day she’d be just like Princess Luna and have a mane with stars in it and a cutie mark the looked like a constellation.
Just as she was starting to grow increasingly excited at the prospect of being a real space explorer, the evil nemesis of all flight travel began to work against her. Gravity started pulling her back towards the ground in an arc and she panicked as her ascent turned into a descent and then became a tail spin for the ground. “GIRLS!” She yelped, unsure what to do now. They hadn’t thought about a net or a mattress. She flayed her arms, hoping to slow herself down somehow as the trees started rushing up towards her.
“Uh oh…that's bad...” Scootaloo swore and grabbed her scooter and Sweetie Belle and started frantically flapping towards the spot it looked like the now falling Apple Bloom might touch down. Or crash for that matter.
“Oh no! We’ve murdered Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle moaned, holding onto the scooter as they zipped around trees quickly. When Apple Bloom vanished into the orchard with a thud, Scootaloo doubled her efforts to speed up.
When they came to a stop, Apple Bloom was sitting in a clearing taking off her helmet to rub at her head. “Apple Bloom! Are you okay? Did you break a leg? Get whiplash? Chip a hoof? Bend your tail?” Scootaloo asked as she grabbed her friend and started to frantically check her over for injuries.
“Bend my what…? No…I’m okay…I think. Just dizzy. Something broke my fall.” She looked back and saw that Sweetie Belle was standing over something on the ground. Her eyes were large, clearly spooked by what she was looking at.
“Girls…I…think we might have just killed some pony…” She whispered and the other two approached slowly, looking down at the pastel purple unicorn that lay on her side. Her pink and white mane and tail were strewn across her body from the hit, but her horn was still visible.
She looked about the same age as Apple Jack, Apple Bloom thought, and slowly she moved a hoof to nudge the pony in the side.
The mare groaned in response, but didn’t wake.
“What are we going to do…?” Sweetie Belle whispered and they glanced between each other. Each looking just as confused as the next.
This was bad…very, very bad.
Prologue
I am a shame to my family. When I was born, my parents named me Starlight Swirl for the great unicorn Starswirl the Bearded, a distant relative on my mother’s side.
From the beginning the expectations for me were set very high. My mother used to tell me: “You’ll be a great unicorn, too someday. You’ll do so many spells and one day you will be the greatest magic user in all Equestria.”
My father used to say: “Study hard and you’ll be set for life. You’re bound to be the best unicorn there ever was.”
But I was never the best. I was never great. I wasn’t even really good at magic. My brother and sister both were students of Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, but I didn’t pass my entrance exam. My parents paid off the examiners to get me in…but it wasn’t where I wanted to be.
As a filly, everyone got their cutie marks in magical Kindergarten, but I was left with a blank flank and no clue how to find my mark or my destiny. It certainly wasn’t in the pages of the magical history books we read or the practical exercises we did. The years passed and my grades slipped more and more, though I stayed afloat only because of my parents generous donations to the school. Other ponies began to talk though. I was a klutz, terrible at magic and at making friends. I couldn’t even handle the simplest spells like teleporting. I was shy, especially of not having a cutie mark yet and the others never let me forget that.
I kept trying though, desperate to please my parents and to be accepted by those around me, even though I knew they were right when they whispered behind my back. I had no right being there…no talents. I was just a regular unicorn with no potential at excelling.
So, I dropped out of school, unable to cope with the more advanced spells that the others were doing and when I told my parents what I had done, that I planned to try other things in search of my talents, they packed my bag and told me that I was no daughter of theirs. I was sent off into the world as a pony with no path and no future.
I started looking for the path to take, where I should go, where I might belong. I hopped on the train with the few bits I had in my bag and that is how I made my way to Ponyville…
