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Blue to Orange
Not every cadet in the Wonderbolts has a love of ceremony. Sometimes one meets a phlebotomist who is afraid of needles, or a clown who fears performing in public; actors such as these approach their craft the way a child does that must cross a fearful dog on their bike path to school—by convincing themselves it is they who are the more dangerous of the pairing.
Such was the case for Cloud Chaser, whose distaste for idle pomp was mixed with a sense of duty toward her parents to endure and love it, as she loved them.
The poise required to manage her divided lifestyle made it difficult for her to sleep. At night, she would poke her head outside the dormitory window where she stayed, above Froggy Bottom Bog, where she could hear the musical chatter of the peepers. She would pick out counterpoint in the sound as worries ran through her mind—her mother’s gout; how her younger brother was doing without her; and dreams of property suitable in size to chickens and privacy.
Her deprivation began to make her feel dizzy during stunts; once, while executing a group dive, she slammed into one of the other wingmen, causing him to careen and scuff his uniform.
In despair, she would nonetheless write to her best friend, Flitter, that everything in the Wonderbolts Academy was going fine, except for the small problem of the swamp peepers that would keep her up at night.
One day she received a reply, scribbled on a piece of parchment paper whose cracks had been used to doodle a swooping military pegasus. It contained advice:
I hear in some cultures, ponies who have entered the second half of life will devote themselves to poetry—or seek those that do. The poems help prepare them so that they are not so unexpressed when they die. As above, so below… right?
That night, as the peepers chirped through the window, Cloud Chaser composed the following ‘sleep’ poem:
Blue, to orange, wends/
Into the rime of cloud patch/
My wings will repose.
“Not bad,” she thought. And as she considered the connections that formed her imagery, she fell into a deep sleep.
As she had never had a hobby of her own, and relished the usefulness of this one, she went further, as Flitter suggested, into poems about death:
I lay in a bed/
While cursing my existence/
A chill creaks the glass.
“Perfect!”
She found release in articulating her impressions of death; not of her own loss of life, but of the morbid tonic which was a liberation to the pressure of duty, and showmanship, and houses with chickens. With her improved state of mind, her performances in the air field were once again sunny and vigorous.
After many weeks of this new energy she was called into Sergeant Spitfire’s office. The latter spoke with a voice soft and hoarse from years of giving drills, and said that a cadet had found the death poems left out on a trunk and brought them in for fear of Cloud’s safety. Spitfire observed that she seemed fit; but gosh if the found papers didn’t make her concerned for her mental wellbeing.
Cloud Chaser looked at the sheets sitting on Spitfire’s desk. She thought of her chickens—she didn’t want to be sent off for psychic evaluation, which would be a road bump in her career; nor, however, did she want to startle her parents with her peculiar new therapy, and lose her freedom.
“It’s the peepers,” she said. “My bunk is right over the big bog. There’s nothing you can do about the noise, so I like to give them little personalities to make light of my annoyance. That one that you’re reading met the man of her dreams, but lost him in the crowd,” she concluded, smiling at the execution of her girlish prank.
She was let off without further questioning. Spitfire had never had a complaint about noise in the dormitories in the west wing. But she decided not to move Cloud Chaser. Instead, she would wander over to her room when the cadets were doing exercises, the sun was high, and there was time to divagate. She would open the window and let the sound of the peepers flood in, filling her like the ocean fills the senses with scent and movement and light, to think about the days of old.
Such was the case for Cloud Chaser, whose distaste for idle pomp was mixed with a sense of duty toward her parents to endure and love it, as she loved them.
The poise required to manage her divided lifestyle made it difficult for her to sleep. At night, she would poke her head outside the dormitory window where she stayed, above Froggy Bottom Bog, where she could hear the musical chatter of the peepers. She would pick out counterpoint in the sound as worries ran through her mind—her mother’s gout; how her younger brother was doing without her; and dreams of property suitable in size to chickens and privacy.
Her deprivation began to make her feel dizzy during stunts; once, while executing a group dive, she slammed into one of the other wingmen, causing him to careen and scuff his uniform.
In despair, she would nonetheless write to her best friend, Flitter, that everything in the Wonderbolts Academy was going fine, except for the small problem of the swamp peepers that would keep her up at night.
One day she received a reply, scribbled on a piece of parchment paper whose cracks had been used to doodle a swooping military pegasus. It contained advice:
I hear in some cultures, ponies who have entered the second half of life will devote themselves to poetry—or seek those that do. The poems help prepare them so that they are not so unexpressed when they die. As above, so below… right?
That night, as the peepers chirped through the window, Cloud Chaser composed the following ‘sleep’ poem:
Blue, to orange, wends/
Into the rime of cloud patch/
My wings will repose.
“Not bad,” she thought. And as she considered the connections that formed her imagery, she fell into a deep sleep.
As she had never had a hobby of her own, and relished the usefulness of this one, she went further, as Flitter suggested, into poems about death:
I lay in a bed/
While cursing my existence/
A chill creaks the glass.
“Perfect!”
She found release in articulating her impressions of death; not of her own loss of life, but of the morbid tonic which was a liberation to the pressure of duty, and showmanship, and houses with chickens. With her improved state of mind, her performances in the air field were once again sunny and vigorous.
After many weeks of this new energy she was called into Sergeant Spitfire’s office. The latter spoke with a voice soft and hoarse from years of giving drills, and said that a cadet had found the death poems left out on a trunk and brought them in for fear of Cloud’s safety. Spitfire observed that she seemed fit; but gosh if the found papers didn’t make her concerned for her mental wellbeing.
Cloud Chaser looked at the sheets sitting on Spitfire’s desk. She thought of her chickens—she didn’t want to be sent off for psychic evaluation, which would be a road bump in her career; nor, however, did she want to startle her parents with her peculiar new therapy, and lose her freedom.
“It’s the peepers,” she said. “My bunk is right over the big bog. There’s nothing you can do about the noise, so I like to give them little personalities to make light of my annoyance. That one that you’re reading met the man of her dreams, but lost him in the crowd,” she concluded, smiling at the execution of her girlish prank.
She was let off without further questioning. Spitfire had never had a complaint about noise in the dormitories in the west wing. But she decided not to move Cloud Chaser. Instead, she would wander over to her room when the cadets were doing exercises, the sun was high, and there was time to divagate. She would open the window and let the sound of the peepers flood in, filling her like the ocean fills the senses with scent and movement and light, to think about the days of old.