My job is thankless, but somepony has to do it.

For a few moments the filly just clutches onto me, her eyes wide and her muzzle pressed up against my chest. Through her fur I can feel her lungs struggling to expand, her ribs vibrating with nervous energy. Her tiny wings are still buzzing, still rustling from the wind that moments ago had pinned them back against her spine.

“W-whoa!” she says, her exclamation bookended by foalish giggles. “T-thanks!”

I tilt my own wings and shift upright in midair, and she slides forward right into my hooves. So small. I only need one foreleg to contain her, but I hold her with both anyway. She’s light as a feather, just like all foals her age.

“You’re… a really good flier,” she pants. “Someday I’m gonna fly like that, but…”

She wiggles a bit and tries to look over my shoulder, but my wings block her view of the canyon floor. It’s a hundred and fifty feet from the bottom up to the ledge she leapt from. The gorge dwarfs her. I tower over her. Most ponies would be terrified to come near us. I look her in the eyes, and all I see is embarrassment, commitment, resilience. Red cheeks under an orange coat and a purple mane. She’s giggling again.

“I guess maybe not today,” she says.

My job is exhausting, but I don’t know who else could do it.

We ascend slowly, carefully. The filly has her head up under my chin, dug in close like instinct is telling her to assume I’ll let go of her. She jumps out of my grasp when we reach the ledge, wobbling a little as she lands. Part of her already wants to try again. For once, curiosity tickles at my throat.

“Why did you fall?” I ask.

“Well...” She grimaces and works her tongue against her teeth, as if she’s just tasted something foul. Her mouth is dry. I know this because mine is too.

“W-Well, I wanted to come practice flying,” she says, “and I thought I was doing really good and so I thought maybe I could go a little higher, and then the wind blew really hard and the ledge was… I-I couldn’t…”

She bites her lip. Her wings are buzzing again. There’s more red on her face than orange now. “Thanks again for catching me.”

The filly is beaming, and inside me something is burning. I want to say something, but I won’t. She wants to fly again, but she can’t.

My job is difficult, and there are times I don’t want to do it.

“I shouldn’t have done that, huh?” the filly says. Some ponies would cry after what just happened, but her eyes are dry, pointed at my folded wings. Her pride glows in her cheeks, her hair, from the feathers and follicles of her messy wings. She forgot to preen them this morning.

“That’s all right,” I tell her. “It was just one little mistake.”

We stare at each other, unblinking, unafraid. I know what’s burning now, because it’s burning in her too, glowing red and orange and purple and bright… but fading. The adrenaline is wearing off. She glances at the canyon again, and for a breath of an instant, her pupils dilate.

“Do you…” She scuffs her hoof against the ground. Behind her, the horizon is dark, studded with white seeds that will grow into a canopy of endless night. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to fly right?”

The hardest part of my job is never the ponies. It is never the mothers, the fathers, the sons or the daughters. It is never the excuses, the curses, the pleas or the lamentations. It is never the silence. It is never the screams.

It is the questions. It is the numbness. It is my definition. It is my answer.

My job is impossible, and yet it must be done.

Instead of speaking, I take her hoof in mine and look up. When we float off the ground--wings still, hearts fluttering--her eyes crumple in confusion. I let go of her, and she doesn’t fall. Her cheeks split into a grin, and she rises with me towards the stars, never looking back. Never looking down towards the canyon. Where she wanted to fly. Where she fell. Where beneath the shadows there is still orange, still purple, still red.

Where I caught her.

My job is eternal, and eternity is beautiful.