The early light broke through the small, circular window. I awoke slowly, trying to operate myself after the events of the night before. My eyes opened, and I sighed contentedly. I had no idea how things would work out for me, if at all, but I felt like they would. Everything would fall into place eventually.

Dashie had been up since earlier that morning. I could already smell the breakfast that she was making. Dashie had never been the best cook, but, you know, neither had I. I couldn't complain either way. I rose from the bed and fell off clumsily, lying there for a second and sighing. I might need another lesson later today on how to balance on clouds.

I trotted down the stairs to a bit of a surprise. I saw Dashie sitting at the circular kitchen table talking with Fluttershy, who was floating at the stove. It wasn't that much of a shock, but it broke my concentration and I nearly fell through the cloud floor. I wasn't used to the wing business, but I would learn to live with it.

I laughed, drawing Dashie's and Fluttershy's attentions. Without too much hesitation, they began to laugh with me. No reason why. It was just... laughter. And I enjoyed it for what it was.

After we had settled down, Rainbow Dash turned to face me again. "Did you sleep well, Dad?" she asked, leaning on a hoof drowsily.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, definitely. I kept waking up and trying not to fall off the edge of the bed, though," I added, yawning ungracefully and standing with caution.

Fluttershy hadn't said anything. She was busy making... something. Whatever it was, she was making it well. I groaned as I realized another adjustment of mine would be to learn to live without meat.

"You really need to learn how to control your wings," Dashie commented, then paused. "Looks like that's what we'll be doing today: I'll teach you how to keep yourself in the air."

I smiled briefly. "Thanks. I could probably use the help." This body was hard to use. I suppose I just wasn't used to it yet, but it was still frustrating. I wondered if this would be the time to talk about a few characters I thought I knew: after all, the cartoon differed slightly from reality. But, I decided to not make the mistake of procrastinating again, and asked. "Do you think maybe Scootaloo could join us?"

Rainbow Dash's response confused me. She looked like she recognized what I was saying, but couldn't process it. She stared at me for a second before Fluttershy finally decided to speak up.  

"Um, I think... that she's free today, but... I don't know what she would want to do." She turned away slightly. "You could ask... I mean, if you wanted to."

I tried to suppress a giggle. It would have been terribly rude.

"Oh... yeah, Scootaloo!" Dashie cried, throwing a hoof in the air. "Duh!"

I chuckled lightly, and sat down across from her at the table. But then a problem sprung into my mind. "If you're going to teach me how to fly, how will we get off of this cloud?"

Dashie smiled. "I invited the others up for breakfast."

I glanced around the room. Everything seemed... well, marvelous, but it felt so strange. Here I was, alone in a nearly alien universe, in a different body with different anatomy, with only really Dashie as company. I felt my tail flick back and forth andmy ears twitch every so often and - well, it's not possible to describe my confusion on paper.

While we waited for the balloon, I asked Dashie a question. "How will they eat up here? After all, earth ponies and unicorns can't stand on clouds, right?"

Dashie looked at the floor. "Oops." she said, embarrassed, and grew an odd shade of purplish-red. She looked up again. "Okay, that's, like, my one weak point."

"What, memory? Nah. It's probably just your mind getting you back to where you belong." I smiled, and looked off into the distance. "I barely know anything about anything up here, and you only got what Twilight's spell could give you back..." I trailed off, looking for words. "It looks like we're two strangers in a new world."

I didn't hear her respond, but I heard a breathy chuckle.

I looked across the table at her. I smiled, and so did she. We broke into grins and began to laugh. Fluttershy remained silent, periodically glancing back at us from the strange little cloud-stove thing.

We had to act quickly, before the others arrived. I walked away from the table wobbling a little, and called out behind me, "Do you have any balloons?"

"Oh, uh, Pinkie got me a huge bag of them last time we were talking about them. She said I was 'deprived' because I didn't have any."

My smile grew slightly. Oh, yeah, she exists, too. "Where are they?"

"Closet!"

I found them quickly enough, blew one up, and tossed it onto the ground. It was light enough to avoid sinking through the cloud. I grinned triumphantly. "I know what to do now!" I called back into the kitchen. "Get me four chairs!"

I couldn't help but burst into laughter just looking at the monstrosity we'd created. We took the table from the kitchen and strapped four chairs to the legs, before liberally applying balloons to the underside. They way clouds worked alongside balloons was absolutely miraculous.

Dashie sat down at one of the chairs (if something went wrong, I couldn't fly yet). I held my breath as the small chair ducked and bobbed slightly before stabilizing. She looked up and smiled. "We got it!" she said, holding out a hoof.

I pressed mine against hers. "Yeah, we did."

We guided the makeshift floating table out to the cloud dock, and before we arrived, we saw the tip of Twilight's huge balloon approaching the cloud slowly. When we arrived, we were greeted with shouts of 'Hi!' and 'How've you been?' and to me, 'Do you feel any better?' and 'Are you okay?' and from Pinkie 'Holy wow, you're tall!'

While the ponies were loading (precariously) onto the floating table, it wobbled and tipped and I could've sworn it was about to duck under. We tried to steady it to the best of our ability, until we finally balanced it by putting a pony on each side of it. However, I noticed with dismay that Rarity wasn't on the balloon - but it was too late. All of the ponies were already on the little table-thing. How were we going to steady it now?

One of is would have to get on the table. When I offered the seat to Dashie, she shook her head. "No offense or anything, but I don't trust you to balance a bunch of ponies on balloons yet!" she giggled. I graciously took the seat. Just coming out here on the clouds was difficult enough. She was right.

Applejack looked to Dashie, standing right behind her. "Now, please, sugarcube," she pleaded, "try not to go too fa-"

Bang! Dashie took off like a lightning bolt. Everypony around me started screaming, but I heard Dashie laughing. She has such a cute laugh. Despite of myself, I found myself laughing along with her. Nothing at all could ruin my mood that first day.

We got to the house pretty quickly, even though the docks were quite a while away. Dash guided the table to the center of the kitchen, where Fluttershy stood smiling. After a brief chorus of greetings, Fluttershy brought seven plates to the table, all of which were loaded with mounds of... plants. Just plants. I sighed to myself. It was gonna be a hard life.

When she noticed that Rarity was absent, she began to apologize. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that - well, I mean - is she... okay?"

Applejack smiled. "'Course she is, 'Shy." The smile fell from her face. "Probably worryin' and obsessin' over this week's trials 'n' tribulations." She shook her head.

"Actually, I couldn't find her this morning," Twilight interjected. "She wasn't at the boutique or... well, anywhere else. I honestly don't know whether she's okay or not."

I tried to act - I don't know the word for it. Like I was as scared as they were. Compassionate, I guess. Of course I'd help them look when I could, but... well, I wasn't feeling it. I was still ecstatic. Dashie had been such a big part of my life for as long as I could legitimately remember. And now I was existing alongside her, neither of us out of place. I felt like I belonged there. Next Chapter: Chapter Eight - Job Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes