2 After Storm Moon

It had taken me the better part of a moon to catch up on my schoolwork. My teachers had given me some leeway, since I'd been on Earth, but it was frustrating to be behind like that, and so I'd worked extra hard so that I wouldn't fall even further behind.

And I had lots of curious ponies who were asking me all sorts of questions about Earth, so it was never boring at lunchtime and between classes. They had some questions about Julia that they’d been too embarrassed to ask her, and even though it was kind of rude to gossip, it wasn’t really gossipping when I didn’t actually know her, I thought.

Plus there was a lot that I had to catch up on, too. A lot of things happen in a year!

The only sour part was that there were a couple of stuck-up unicorns who didn't think I'd deserved to go, which was maybe because their applications had gotten rejected.

Sometimes I did wonder if being a pegasus had given me an unfair advantage, 'cause Miss Chestnut had said that there weren't many who went. But hopefully that would change, now that I'd showed that I could get a pilot's license and fly around and follow the rules, and even help out people with stormwatching and trying to fight tornadoes.

And when I wasn't working on my schoolwork or flying and practicing with clouds—far enough away from everypony else that they wouldn't laugh at me and how clumsy I was with them at first—I was working on my guide for pegasuses so that they could go to Earth and get their own pilot's licenses like I had.

Miss Chestnut helped me with that when she could, because I wasn't so good at writing a book.

I’d gone back to Chonamare for the first weekend, just like I’d planned, and it was really good to be home. The whole weekend was a long welcome-back party, and it felt so good to sleep in a cloudhouse and to smell the sea and visit the market and the tavern. And I gave mom and dad and my sister their camelbacks. At first they were a little bit confused by them and why they’d want to wear them and if they’d chafe their wings or back and I had to show them how to make the straps work right. Mom was still a little doubtful, ‘cause she was sometimes pretty traditional, but I knew once she’d gotten a chance to use it some, she’d really like it.

The second evening that I was back, me and my sister just sat on the edge of a cloud and looked down at Chonamare below us, at the little stone houses with their thatched roofs and the winding paths that twisted between them and we didn’t talk, we just watched as the sun went down behind us and the lamps in the village got lit, one-by-one, and we finally flew back home by the light of the moon and stars.

I'd been readjusting to life back in Equestria, and while Earth was still on my mind a lot, I was getting used to not being there anymore, and the fresh pain of leaving my friends behind had kind of faded to a dull ache.

Meghan had sent me a letter saying how much she missed me and that made me cry, but there was good news ‘cause she said that she had had an interview already and it had gone really well and next time she’d get to talk to a pony and she was looking forward to that, and she said that Aric missed me too but he wasn’t so good at writing so she had to do it for him.

And I'd sent letters to Aquamarine and Gusty and Cayenne, and it was funny how we could talk about things that other ponies didn't really understand at all, 'cause they'd never lived on another world.

I'd written to Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn, too, and our letters must have crossed paths in the mail, 'cause it wasn't a reply to the letter I'd sent them, but just the same they told me that Wisteria was doing really well at Kalamazoo College and that they'd found out that she'd gotten the letter I'd written for her. They'd moved from Kalamazoo to Ohio to help Sparklesnap and while it didn't seem quite right for them to not be in Kalamazoo, maybe humans were nomadic.

So I hadn't been expecting to get another letter from Mister Salvatore so quickly after the first, and I was thinking that maybe he'd found out if I could get camelbacks imported into Equestria, so I was eager to to open the letter, and then when I read it it was like a buck in the ribs, 'cause he told me that Conrad had died.

He'd included a really nice obituary but I could barely read it through the tears in my eyes, and I put on my saddlebags and I was still thinking clearly enough to leave a note for Denim telling her what had happened, and then I got my journal and I grabbed the first book of poetry I saw and put it in my saddlebags, too, and the letter as well, and I flew off to the coast.

I knew right where I needed to go, and the whole flight kind of passed in a blur but once I got close to Chonamare, I knew all the landmarks, and I swooped down along the beach, towards the little cluster of rocks that had always been my thinking spot, and I sat on the sun-warmed rock and for a while I just listened to the waves booming against the coastline.

The wind gusted little spits of sand into my rock-nest, and I thought about the twisted trees that lived by the shore and got shaped by the winds and the storms and each one left its mark on the tree and it grew a little stronger after each one and put its roots down a little bit deeper and still proudly held its leaves to the sky, and the sea tried to forget but the trees always remembered.

I thought about his smile and the little twinkle in his eye, and how every day and everything seemed to be so full of wonder for him, and I remembered how much he'd loved my poems, even though they weren't as good as any of the poets who he'd taught us. And I thought about how he'd told me that I had an innate love for the sky, back when I'd thought that we'd traded a part of ourselves away when we moved the first cloud.

And I knew he wouldn’t want me to be sad, but I couldn’t help that my cheeks were wet as I read his obituary again, and then I put it aside and got out the book of poetry which was Walt Whitman and that was good; that was the first poet I’d learned about. So I read Leaves of Grass and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, and then Song of Myself.

It was getting dark enough that it was hard to read anymore, so I put the book back in my saddlebags and went out of my little tumble of rocks and flew up to the top and perched there and let the wind blow through my coat and ruffle my feathers and watched the distant sails bob and the waves crash upon a shore that Conrad would never see.

But I would see it for him.