A breeze flowed over my feathers, ruffling them. The draft was not cool as it usually were in the high skies or the mountains, it was hot and heavy with promise. A rite of passage they had written. A day worth remembering. Where everything is cast in. Ambitions, hopes, the wide-eyed starry dreams of a foal that wondered at the world around me.

I tensed for a moment. It was a strange feeling, like my life had slowly rumbled on, the little things I had done, the things I would do building momentum and cumulating to this precise moment.

My wings fluttered nervously by my sides.

I looked to the left. Another winged pegasus stands there with an uncertain smile matching my own.

“Remember,” Amber says gently. “We’re all in this together.”

To my right an eager voice shouts in glee.

“What are we waiting for?” Sunbeam yells ecstatically. “Let’s get this party started.”

We leap from the cloud, snapping our wings out to catch the large thermal and soaring into the sky. A wild scream of elation is lost in the wind and I see them both grin headily with me. Wind rushing, heart pulsing, wings straining and flapping with all their might we glided down the currents and tides that streamed in the air around us.

“This is amazing!” I cried feeling the tips of my feathers manipulate the wind currents around me. “This is awesome.”

Sunbeam just gives me a cheeky grin and she does a lazy loop-the-loop. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” She speeds off, leaving Amber and I to trail behind.

“Wait!” I yell, but it is tinged with laughter. She was right though, our journey had only begun.

The world below us was a fantastic layout of green fields, the brown and orange tinge of rocks and geological formations, and the sparkling blue of rivers, lakes and streams. It seems so small and insignificant from up high. Up here, everything fades into insignificance. It’s just your friends and your wings and the rush of air that guides you.

I revelled in that sensation. I loved the way the air around me was filled with life.

Amber was trailing behind. Concerned, I doubled back. I didn’t worry about Sunbeam, she could handle anything the weather could throw at us. She even flew in a storm once. A storm! We were worried when she headed out that night, but she came back soaked from head to tail, but sporting the biggest grin we had ever seen.

With a puff of my wings I gave her a small slipstream to fly in. Smiling gratefully at me, she pulled ahead.

I still remember the moment we would decide to take this journey. Amber had found an old book, heavy and weighted with the words of our ancestors. It told of an ancient rite of passage of pegasi. To fly on a journey without landing, using only the knowledge of the air currents around us to help keep us flying, to marathon from one side of Equestria to the other, without once touching the ground.

We had made a resolution that night when we saw Sunbeam bedraggled and frazzled, but with that enraptured smile. We made a promise to give it our all and fly. We made a pact to help us move forward, it was dangerous but it would be worth it.

Sunbeam swooped back, her expression a little guilty.

“Sorry,” she yelled over the rushing wind. “I got a little carried away.”

I nodded with a smirk and Amber just bobbed her head amicably. We knew of Sunbeam’s passion for adrenaline, she loved to fly ahead, leaving her friends behind even when she didn’t mean to. What we loved about her was that she came back, smiling her sheepish smile and doing her best to shrug in mid-air.

We flew in tight formation, skimming the clouds and breathing the thin but pure air.

“We’re free,” I remarked, feeling the warmth of the sun seep through my coat.

Amber giggled and brushed feathers with me in mid-flight.

“Yes,” she cried, uncharacteristically loudly. “We’re–“

[hr]

I placed the photograph back on the coffin. Around me was the muted sounds of weeping and crying. I ignored them, blocking it all out. All I could hear was the whistling wind and her last words. I laid a hoof on the pall as tears flowed freely from my eyes.

“–all in this together.”