-Sky Water-

The sun slowly sunk below the horizon but still painted the sky with a few fleeting oranges and pinks, colors reflected by the walls of clouds that grew all around. The brightest of the stars had already begun to show themselves now that the sun’s radiance could not dwarf theirs. Soon its light would disappear altogether and the moon would rise, their clockwork dance uninterrupted.

A flock of Pegasi flew away from the fleeting light, toward the darkening skies and the fields of clouds. They flew in rough formation, sure to give each other plenty of space to stretch their wings. They shouted and jeered at each other jovially, the excitement and anticipation built up already. Several had had the foresight to pack saddlebags that were tightly tied down to their bodies. Both to be prepared in case they stayed out longer than intended and had to camp for the night or to treat an injury should it happen. The latter was likely since they were bringing a rookie flier with them.

Coalback’s large wings cut through the air surprisingly quietly despite their size and the roughness of his leading edges, and the ponies beside him gave him a large space. The blue sash that was wrapped around his flanks was tight, and would not flap in the wind. And his goggles, new from Cloudsdale only a few hours earlier, fit him well. All the same, he moved through the air like a brick, and they’d need to act fast to help him if he got in trouble. Rainbow Dash didn’t seem worried however, and instructed him from the front of the flock.

“When we hit the storm don’t try to fight the wind!” she shouted over her shoulder, Coalback’s ears faced her despite the sharp bite of the wind and their fast pace. “We’ll come down on it from above on its leading side, the winds will be pretty harsh there! If you get hit by a downdraft, tuck your wings and point your nose down! Ride it to the bottom before you try to come back up, but don’t let it slam you into the ground either! Don’t worry about lightning- you don’t have anything metal on you, right?” she yelled as she twisted around in the air.

“I think that the buckles on my goggles are metal?” Coalback boomed. At least he had no trouble making himself heard over the wind. But now the rest of the flock was almost certain that their weather captain was trying to freak out the newcomer.

“Unless you got a really cheap pair, they should be fine!” Rainbow shouted back at him.

“Anvil, ho!” Thunderlane shouted with a whoop of excitement. The flock’s attention was drawn forward to the huge anvil shaped storm that had appeared out of the gloom, a silver halo granted to it by the rising moon. It stretched far into the sky above them, its innards lit from within by tendrils of lightning. A threatening rumble reached them, as if the storm meant to scare them away.

Someone else whooped and a blue Pegasus did a loop as she shouted her excitement. “Eyes! Eyes!” Rainbow shouted and was echoed by the weather team behind her. “Follow our lead, Coalback! Climb!” she shouted and the flock began its ascent.

Their wings pumped faster now and forced them to climb higher into the sky to meet the top of the storm. They aimed for its upper edge, but it soon became clear that the storm would overtake them before they could reach it. Coalback called out to Rainbow, his worry in his tone. However she only grinned over her shoulder at him.

“Go! Go! Go!” a pony shouted.

“Pull! Pull!” shouted another past the whoops and the roar of the wind.

A column of lightning broke the darkness and its thunder hit them instantly. The explosive sound knocked the Pegasi back and left a ringing in their ears, but when the ringing cleared their cheering could be heard. The wind suddenly switched directions, now a tailwind that sucked them toward the storm.

“She’s calling us home!” someone shouted, met by the cheers of her peers.

“All the way!” someone yelled back at her and their climb steepened, now leading the edge of the storm.

The icy air began to grow colder, and the moisture in it sucked the heat out of their bodies. It only served to drive them on as the thinning air whipped away the heat from their muscles and they labored to climb. First fog, and then ice began to grow over their goggles as the winds grew and it became a race to the upper edge of the storm.

“Nice, rookie! Nice!” someone shouted to Coalback, surprised he was even able to keep up with them. Coalback only snorted out a cloud of steam and shook himself mid-flight, no one realized how hard it had been for him to bite back the cheerful howl in his throat.

The flight, the cheering of the other Pegasi, the chill air and the howling wind, even the imposing thunder that rumbled out of the storm; it all had a strange invigorating thrill that Coalback hadn’t considered on the ground. He’d been apprehensive of joining them at first, but now he was genuinely glad he had. Coalback hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Not since he had run faster than he ever had before and chased down big game with his brothers and sisters. For some reason, here, the memory was not so sour.

There was a push of a sudden wind in front of them and the Pegasi arced over the edge of the storm sooner than they had expected. Their ascent ended abruptly and they hung in the air as their momentum held them aloft. The wind was gone here, and the sudden silence was strange with the roiling clouds that stretched out in front of them.

Thunderlane’s dark fur whipped back down at the behest of gravity first. “Whoop! Whoop! Wahooo!” he howled as he dived into the top of the anvil. A pink and silver blur soon followed, a scream of joy echoed out as she too disappeared into the maelstrom and gravity began to pull on the rest of the flock.

No command was given, but whoops and screams of joy filled the air as the rest of the ponies began to plummet toward the upper lip of the anvil. Coalback followed, his panic rose for a moment as he tried to understand what was happening but soon it ebbed as he watched the others. They tucked in their wings and pointed their noses down, he followed suit and soon the wall of cloud met them.

Coalback rammed through the cloud like a rock, the turbulence sudden and frightening. But the blackness of the inner clouds ended as quickly as it had hit him and he was greeted with a warm updraft. A rainbow blur blasted past him, Rainbow spun in the updraft and raced away from him along the front face of the storm. Coalback’s eyes were drawn to the dots now skating across the surface of the storm’s face, billowing rooster tails of cloud followed them.

Coalback opened his wings again, just a hair, and felt the wind tug him and slow his fall. It pushed at him and he found himself hugging the wall of cloud that made up the face of the storm. His head steered him into a shallower dive and he rocketed along the side of the storm with the other Pegasi. His weight lent him a large amount of acceleration from gravity and he soon caught up with the other ponies, his own wake of torn up clouds followed him.

“Eyes! Eyes! Rookie incoming! Eyes! Eyes!” one of them yelled as they noticed his approach. They dipped just the edges of their hooves into the clouds to steer themselves around him. They surfed across the face of the storm.

“Captain, ho!” Thunderlane yelled from the front of the group, his voice strained over the howl of the wind.

Only an instant later Rainbow’s iridescent blur shot past, a thin line of broken cloud just behind her as she dove sharply down the face of the storm. Another instant and her true wake passed them, a huge explosion of pressure that ripped apart a large swath behind her. The echo of her sonic boom reached them as she pulled back up far below them. Thunder boomed to meet her own sound, as if the storm were angered by her speed.

“Eyes! Eyes!” Thunderlane shouted as he disappeared into Rainbow’s wake. He was echoed again by his fellows as they all followed him through. Coalback hit the turbulence and was deflected skyward. Rather than fight it he attempted to let the intense wind lift him.

Thunder boomed and he felt the pressure pop his ears forcefully. He emerged from the wake of Rainbow Dash’s speed at an upward angle and aimed himself to meet her at the top of her arc. His wings twitched at his side and he propelled forward much faster than he expected. He did it again, more forcefully now, and sped over the rest of the flock.

A sharp wolf whistle rose up from the flock as Coalback overtook them. A few cheers directed in his direction brought a tentative smile to his face.

Rainbow slowed as she came to the top of her arc; gravity her enemy here. She spun in the air, which forced more wind across her wings as she came to the very summit of her flight. Her hooves scraped the bottom of the anvil’s upper lip and she spotted him as she began to dive again, a smirk on her lips; a silent challenge of a race.

Coalback twisted his shoulders and spun upside down as he pointed his nose down. The wind held him aloft for only a moment, and they began their dive in near unison. Rainbow quickly overtook him as she pumped her wings against the wind, but her lead slowly stopped growing and began to shrink as gravity pulled Coalback’s bulk.

Distantly they heard Thunderlane yell, but the wind robbed his words from them. There was a wave of pressure that quickly passed as Coalback rode the calm of Rainbow’s wake, a shrinking line as they both sped toward the ground. A subtle wobble to his wings, barely a flap, and he forced more wind past him to speed up.

He couldn’t tell if she’d slow down for him or not, though he could hardly tell how fast they were going. Surely he hadn’t matched her apparently supersonic speed. But all the same, her lead no longer grew and they were both still accelerating fast toward the bottom of the anvil.

Rainbow tilted her wings up sharply and shot back up the face of the storm. Coalback mimicked her and followed an instant later, his wings nearly pulled from their sockets by the winds as they pulled him skyward. He felt the force of the turn in his legs as blood pooled there and his vision flickered at the edges. The turn even sped them up, the massive forces redirected in their new, upward path. Rain battered his face and wiped away the fog of his goggles.

The flock once again flashed past them, a fleeting shout as they rocketed toward the lip of the storm. Coalback soon closed in on Rainbow’s hooves as his momentum carried him further than hers. Her multicolored tail fluttered in the intense wind just in front of him and he could see the roof of the anvil close in on them quickly. They would not be slowing, that much he could tell.

Once again he felt the slam of the turbulence as they burst through the anvil.

The silence and the cold surrounded them suddenly, even as they soared far above the surface of the clouds. They slowed and only their momentum carried them. Ice slowly crawled across the lenses of their goggles, but the burn in their muscles kept them warm. They drifted upwards, the thin air barely enough to slow them at all as they drifted farther and farther away from the earth.

Coalback’s momentum carried him closer to Rainbow even as the same force slowed them both to a weightless stop. Rainbow twisted in the air; a slow, graceful back flip to face him. The satisfied smile on her face only grew as she realized he had followed her all the way up.

They drifted into each other in that brief moment of weightlessness at the top of their arc. Rainbow reached out and halted his approach with hooves on his shoulders. Her nose brushed his and a tiny spark of static gained from friction with the air leapt between them. Her breath was warm against his muzzle and somehow the chill was much more noticeable to him. His eyes widened with her grin and some part of him that was still thinking said she saw the expression on his face. With a push she fell away, back toward the clouds.

Coalback hardly noticed that he had begun to fall as well. The brief experience and electric touch had left a large part of his brain frozen only to restart with a jolt as he plunged back into the clouds.

It took several long hours for the storm to become too unstable for them to continue. Long, enjoyable hours filled with more of the sport the Pegasi continued to call ‘storm chasing’ no matter how much their newest friend kept calling it ‘cloud surfing’. Their makeshift camp had been made on a large cloud left relatively flat by the dying storm now just about to break over top Ponyville as a light thunderstorm. A foldable, metal contraption that sat atop an enchanted stand spread heat in a small but adequate circle so that they could all dry and relax in warmth. And the Pegasi gathered around it loosely to share stories and laugh in post adrenaline highs.

“I have question- a question,” Coalback said in a lull to the conversation. It caught the attention of the rest of the flock as Coalback had remained nearly silent for the entire trip, at least until he’d started whooping and hollering at the storm with them. “You, I think,” he said to Cloud Kicker, “you said ‘she is calling us home’ earlier. Who is calling?” he asked.

“The storm,” Cloud Kicker laughed. A few of the others gave their own good-hearted laughs. Coalback cocked an eyebrow, but Rainbow Dash intervened before he could follow up the question.

“Pegasi came from the clouds,” Rainbow explained from her relaxed spot on her own little chunk of floating cloud. She used her wings to lazily pull herself closer to Coalback. “And the most awesome Pegasi came from storm clouds,” she finished.

“I’ll toast to that!” Thunderlane said as he pulled a canteen from his pack. He took a long sip from it before he passed it to Flitter.

“Why am I not surprised that you brought booze?” she said as she licked her lips and passed the canteen to somepony else.

“Because he can’t get any unless you can’t see straight enough to look at his stupid face!” Cloudchaser cackled, which summoned a long round of laughter from the flock. Coalback smiled, however the joke was mostly lost on him.

“What does that mean? You were all born from clouds? No … parents?” Coalback asked to steer the conversation back to the subject.

“No, dude,” Rainbow said with a shake of her head. “It’s an ‘origin story’ according to Twilight. It’s just a legend about were ponies came from, the first ones.”

“There’s others for the other tribes, but they’re not as awesome,” Clear Skies agreed as she lounged against a mound of cloud. “The earth ponies climbed up from the clay of the earth. The Pegasi flew free from the clouds. And the ‘noble’ Unicorns stepped down from starlight itself,” she recited with a roll of her eyes. “You can kinda guess what tribe wrote that!” The flock laughed around her, jokes about Unicorns and their haughtiness were fairly commonplace among them.

“Say, Coalback,” Cloudchaser said from her seat by the heater, a wing still extended as she preened herself, “your people got a story like that?” she asked as she dipped her muzzle back down to straighten a feather, her eyes never left him though.

“My … people?” Coalback asked, unsure how to answer.

“Yeah! Well, I mean, you didn’t grow up around here: you got that accent and all. And you don’t look like no Equestrian Legionnaire to me,” Cloudchaser said.

“My people … my family?” he asked. The ponies around him shrugged and nodded, they wanted a story but it didn’t really matter what about. “When I was young I didn’t believe it, but … we were the sons and daughters of Fenrir, the monster wolf,” he said, his eyes on his hooves with a furrowed brow that betrayed the thought that went into each word. “Fenrir was a Giant Wolf, as tall as three or four of me,” he explained. “And he was born to the god of tricks, Loki, and was raised by the gods. At first they thought he was funny, a little ball of fur and bones. But Fenrir grew quickly, and his hunger even more so. Soon only the bravest of them would feed him or play with him, so he started hunting on the earth for his food. Eventually he found our oldest ancestor and was so struck by her beauty that he stole her … he forced himself on her and made her bear his children, the first of us,” Coalback explained.

“Gross! A giant wolf raped somepony?!” Cloudchaser grimaced, her preening forgotten.

“Yes,” Coalback nodded with his own grimace. “Later the gods locked Fenrir away. It took three tries with impossibly thick chains to hold him down. Their last chain was so powerful it trapped his soul in his own body and he was locked away forever – or at least until the end of days, as legend says,” Coalback explained. He hoped that Fenrir’s imprisonment might allay any worries that he’d gotten away with his crime, even if it had been wholly unrelated.

“That’s pretty awesome!” Thunderlane said.

“No, it’s not!” Clear Skies protested. “It’s really sick!” she said with a shake of her head.

“Oh, come on! ‘It took a bunch of gods three tries to lock up my ancestor.’ How badass do you have to be to best a bunch of gods twice?!” Thunderlane chuckled. The canteen was passed back to him and he tossed it over to Coalback. Coalback caught the canteen in his mouth but didn’t move to drink from it. He sniffed at it and rolled his eyes distastefully. He threw the canteen back to Thunderlane. “What? You don’t like it?” Thunderlane asked.

“Weak brew. Try this,” Coalback said as he slipped a hoof into his sash. He pulled out a thin flask and threw it across the cloud to Thunderlane. “Only a sip, very strong,” he warned.

Thunderlane didn’t hesitate to pull out the stopper and pressed the opening to his lips. He coughed immediately and slammed the stopper back onto the flask. Coalback smiled. The coughing fit lasted for a long bout and he waved the flask desperately to Flitter, who grabbed it and tossed it back to Coalback. Coalback pulled open the top and took a thick swallow from it with a grimace. “Good, no?” he asked.

“That’s fucking strong! It’s like I just swallowed a bunch of ashes – hot ashes!” Thunderlane coughed. “Where did you get that?” he asked desperately as the coughing slowly died.

“The Princess Luna has offered me a few supplies to apologize for extending my stay in Ponyville,” he mumbled as he put the flask back into the fold of his sash that it had been hidden in.

“Wait, you mean you were gonna leave?” Rainbow asked.

“It was my plan, I have things that I need to get done away from … ponies. Those two idiots I’ve been saddled with will have to come, too. But now I’m not so sure I know what to do,” he mumbled. “I need to stay to protect the town, but …” he grumbled as he stood. He leaned forward and stretched out his legs with a groan. “We should sleep, I need to be back early tomorrow,” he said as he wandered around to the other side of the cloud, out of view.

“He’s right,” Rainbow said reluctantly as she made a dramatic yawn. “We got an early start tomorrow if we want to get back home to clean up before the Mayor writes up a complaint or something.” She rolled over onto her back, the cloud she already had more than comfortable enough to sleep on despite the chill air.

“Yeah, whatever,” Thunderlane said as he curled up beside his saddlebags. “That stuff Coalback gave me is already making me dizzy,” he mumbled.

The heater was shut off and packed away as sleeping arrangements were made. Some of the Pegasi decided to sleep next to each other despite the chill being nothing their blood couldn’t handle, some Pegasi were less built for the cold than others and the warmth of each other’s down was very inviting. But soon it became glaringly obvious that one member of their group had not yet gone to sleep, especially when his voice gently cut through the darkness.

Coalback’s voice rose and fell in a soft but growing song, wordless now but symphonic. Soon Coalback’s voice quelled itself as he finally took a breath. “I’ve heard there was secret chord,” his voice rose, singing in unsure Equestrian but surely in tune, “that David played and it pleased the Lord. But you don’t really care for music. Do you?” he sang, and his voice drew the other Pegasi away from their sleeping preparations.

“It goes like this: the fourth; the fifth; the minor fall; the major lift! The baffled king composing! Hallelujah!” His voice rose until it was shouted to the skies and somehow the happy words felt mournful. The Pegasus weather team slowly edged around the cloud, collectively fearful that if they made too much sound they would halt what they felt was a rare event.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah. Hallelujah! Halleloooojah,” he sang in rising and falling notes. The chorus soon stretched and stretched on a single breath, longer still than the singing that had first drawn the others to witness it.

“Your faith was strong, but you needed proof! You saw her bathing on the roof! Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you!”

Finally the audience crested what little cloud separated them from their performance. And seeing the large knight with his head lifted up to the sky and his eyes closed with a soft, happy smile was entirely incredible to see. None of them, most so Rainbow Dash, had even realized that Coalback was capable of singing so well. His performance in the bar had colored her perception just a tad too much, it seemed.

“She tied you to a kitchen chair! She broke your throne, she cut your hair! And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah!” he shouted to the skies, suddenly his voice alive with emotion that was yet to be truly defined. And then once more he relaxed and the chorus poured from his lips like satin. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah. Hallelujah! Hallelooojah!”

“Baby, I’ve been here before. I know this room. I've walked this floor.” His wings slowly unfurled and the slightest sway became visible as he kept time. His voice was at the same time mesmerizingly soft and hypnotically intense, it was as if he could rock them all to sleep or draw their attention at any moment. “I used to live alone before I knew you!”

“I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch! But love is not a vict’ry march! It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah!” Once more his voice rose. A shout and a coo all in one, as if it demanded answers to questions unsaid and accused of crimes done in inaction. And then it was gone, as if the energy had drained from him in that emotion and all was left was the beautiful chorus.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah. Hallelujah! Hallelooojah!” he mourned to the southern night sky.

“I did my best, it wasn't much. I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch. I’ve told the truth. I didn’t come to fool you.” Coalback’s wings spread wide, spread as if to embrace the stars and the moon that hung far above him. “And even though it all went wrong!” he sang, that strange emotion and energy back again. Enough to tighten skin and raise hairs, a kind of feeling that sent chills up spines. “I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!” His voice echoed briefly along the clouds still hanging around them.

“Hallelujah,” Coalback sang plaintively. “Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Halleloooo … Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelooooooo …” he sang. The words somehow fell away and now it was simply a long, solid note that howled away into the night. And it went on until the onlookers were certain his lungs would run out of air and continued still more before it slowly, almost painfully, ended.

Coalback’s legs buckled under him and he fell onto his rump. His shoulders slumped and his wings rested against the cloud below him. He sat, and stared out at the silver lined clouds.

The weather ponies were left flabbergasted, unsure how to pull their mouths closed again. It was still so shocking to have witnessed so much emotion in the previously stoic as a statue stallion. That façade had fallen away rather quickly, and they were surprised they’d been able to bear witness to it.

However, soon the silence drew out into an uncomfortable pause. They looked to each other in some hope that one of them had a reasonable idea of what to do, they silently mouthed and shrugged but couldn’t manage to piece something together. Coalback sighed, though the sound was mostly sucked away by the open space and the slight wind.

“You all can go back to bed, I apologize,” Coalback said as his shoulders slumped.

Rainbow silently let out the breath she’d been holding and motioned for the others to go back to bed. Thankfully, unlike the last time he’d burst out into song, he hadn’t had a total breakdown. She understood, but she worried that the others might not think so highly of him if he’d freaked out on their first meeting. Something told her this was less grief than before, at least the song hadn’t seemed so sad. It had felt more bittersweet than anything.

Once they’d all slipped back behind the hill of cloud, Rainbow stepped down from her makeshift bed and stepped over to Coalback. She felt like she needed to say something, anything that might comfort him. He certainly seemed at war with himself over something, though she wasn’t sure what. He’d seemed happy only a few minutes ago, but now it was apparent that wasn’t all he’d been feeling.

Before Rainbow could say anything, Coalback said, “Thank you.” His voice felt raw and lacking in emotion, especially compared to his singing. A lot had to be held back by whatever walls Coalback put up between himself and everypony around him.

“For what?” Rainbow mumbled. She hadn’t expected to be thanked, if anything she thought Coalback might tell her not to worry or to leave him alone.

“For inviting me to be part of … this,” Coalback mumbled. He turned his head and looked at her through one, tired eye. “I haven’t felt like part of a … part of a group … in years. So, thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rainbow said. She shuffled her hooves and took a seat next to him.

“I haven’t had … friends … for a long time,” Coalback admitted to her. Her ears perked up and she looked at him in surprise; she hadn’t expected him to say anything else. “I would like if I could call you friend,” he said.

“I already told you, dude,” Rainbow said and gently punched his arm, “we are friends.” She slid herself down until her forelegs hung off the edge of the cloud and turned back to the starry view that peaked out from between the higher remnants of the storm clouds. She felt rather than saw Coalback follow her example, his considerable weight deformed the clouds all around him and she had to fight to keep her balance and not slide down into him.

“Thank you,” he mumbled again. “Would you sleep next to me again, tonight?” he asked.

“Sure, dude,” Rainbow said, and slid down until they were pressed together. She had to admit, it was nice to have another pony’s warmth beside her on such a chilly night. She didn’t tell him that she noticed the redness in his cheeks, but neither could she deny the warmth that bloomed in her own. It was a little weird being so intimate with someone she’d only known for a short while. But it was nice.

The chilly night wasn’t exactly silent; the wind and rain far below granted a constant background noise, as well as the occasional rumble of distant thunder. However, the relative quiet was gently broken. The sound started softly, so softly that neither Rainbow nor Coalback noticed it at first. Rainbow’s ears pricked up first as she caught the wavering notes of another, bodiless voice.

“What is that?” she asked, though the question wasn’t directed to anypony in particular. Coalback jerked beside her, and when she looked she just caught him turn away from her to look in the direction of the singing.

The notes became audible again and she too turned to face them, though she couldn’t help but notice Coalback tense beside her. The notes rose and fell, and whoever it was was certainly a talented singer. Every note was smooth and drifted to the next like a hypnotic lullaby. Soon more voices joined it, but only briefly before the distant singing ended.

“Seriously, what was that?” she asked. This time she turned to see Coalback staring off in the distance as if he could spot the singer if only he stared hard enough. His ears were angled forward and his arms and legs were tense, as if he planned to leap up at any moment and go out looking for them.

“Family,” he muttered.

Author's Notes:

I managed to get around to uploading this for you guys. I'm looking forward to writing the next few chapters but I have yet to start a draft for them and it may be a while yet until I can get around to that. I have a lot of new, challenging classes to concentrate on now that I'm in college and free time is pretty limited. Not to mention the Mad Max game is coming out today and I plan to wreck myself with that.

Anyway, as always leave me your opinions on this chapter. I love to read them and I really do read every one. They help me out a lot.