It had been several days since Nimbus had “gone away,” but Twilight still dragged herself from her sleepless bed early every morning so she could watch the sun rise from the top balcony of her castle. It was a quiet, peaceful, and healing time for her soul to think that somewhere out there, there was another pony much like the golem who had been at her side the last few days and likewise enjoyed their special time together. Her friends had been an endless source of support in this trying time, with Applejack stopping by just after every dawn in order to bring a fresh-cooked breakfast, and even Rainbow Dash putting forth the herculean effort of assembling a morning cloud display for sunrise, although she vanished for intensive naptime later.

Sometimes, Twilight was even able to keep from crying when watching the sunrise.

This morning was not one of those times.

“Hey. Ma’am?” There was a faint flutter of wings outside of Twilight’s tear-blurred vision and the sound of a pegasus settling down on the balcony next to her. He was not the most graceful flier because it took several tries for him to get his hooves settled on the balcony rail, and nearly hit Twilight in the face with one of his wings during the attempt. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

The last few days had been hellish for Twilight to go out in public, because she kept hearing little flickers of conversations and words that made her heart surge with hope, only to have the stallion or mare turn out to be somepony she had known ever since moving into Ponyville. This time, she was almost sure the voice was his, but after Twilight Sparkle blinked away her tears and looked at the concerned stallion, the joyous lifting in her heart sank again. He was a rather ordinary pegasus, of a pale, washed-out shade of what Rarity would call Cantaloupe, but Twilight still thought of as Orange Marmalade, and sported a ruffled dark-blue mane that had been cut short enough that the natural curls in it did not tangle as much as Pinkie Pie’s. Well, that was an unfair comparison. Nopony had a tangled mane like Pinkie Pie. Rarity claimed that at least a dozen combs had been consumed by the fierce manemonster that lived inside it.

Still, he had a very compassionate gaze, even though his sparkling green eyes looked bloodshot and tired as her own eyes must have looked. She wiped away an errant tear and tried to draw herself up in a proper princess pose as Rarity had been training her, although she still must have been a terrible mess. “I’m fine.”

“Fine pegasi don’t sit out on a balcony and cry,” said the stallion. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“No.” As responses went, it was blunt, solid, and unmistakable. Even a Princess of Friendship had times when she felt unfriendly, and this was most certainly one of them. Twilight turned her head and looked back over the Ponyville valley, ignoring the unwanted interruption in her brooding.

“Oh.” There was a faint rustling of feathers, but the stallion did not fly away as Twilight wanted. Instead, he asked, “Can I just sit here for a bit? I slipped out of my room for a quick flight this morning, and I didn’t want to overdo it.”

She did not respond.

“I’m Pyro, by the way.” After a little more silence on her part, he added, “So, do you work here?”

“You could say that.” Twilight stole a quick glance at Pyro, who seemed to be scrunching up his face and squinting at her in the bright rays of morning sunlight. “What’s wrong? Can’t you see me?”

“Not really. The nurses confiscated my glasses to keep me in my room. I’m really, really farsighted without them.”

“Nurses?” Twilight looked over the stallion again, but this time spotted the plastic wristband around his foreleg. “What are you doing in the hospital? What are you doing out of the hospital if you’re injured?”

“It was just another little crash,” said Pyro with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “I was glide surfing this high-altitude Rossby wave last week when it hit an updraft from a high-pressure confluence that tossed me up far enough to black out. Next thing I know, there’s this cute nurse changing my bedpan. It’s been a few days, and they still haven’t let me go back to Cloudsdale or even get my gear back to check the recordings, so I don’t know most of the details.”

“Oh. That still doesn’t mean you should be flapping around town,” said Twilight, feeling defensive, but still curious. “Is taking atmospheric readings part of your job?”

“Cloudsdale Meteorological Office hired me for that, yes.” Pyro stretched out his wings and held them rigid. “The secret to happiness is to find something you love doing and get paid for it. Three days of high-altitude pressure wave surfing gives me about three weeks afterwards to do data analysis and recover from the experience. It’s a Win-Win deal, and I get health benefits. Now,” he added, folding up his wings and squinting to look Twilight in the eyes, “it’s your turn. What has you so down?”

Twilight Sparkle could not look back at his narrowed eyes, but stared down at the balcony floor instead. The leaden lump in her chest that had once been her heart had lightened over the last few days of mourning, but still weighed her down enough that she had not been flying since the last time Nimbus had flown by her side. Fluttershy told her getting that feeling out into the open would help, but Twilight found she could not separate the memories of her far too short time with Nimbus from the sorrow of his passing. Still, it was worth a try, even if she had to confess to a stranger.

“I… lost a friend. Not what most ponies would call a friend, but he was special in a way no other pony could ever match. I’d look into his eyes and see him looking back just like he was real. Sure, he was different, and he frightened some other ponies, and I didn’t get the mouth stitched quite right, but he had a really compassionate heart. Well, not a real heart, because of all the stuffing, but a neuro-thaumic feedback loop with fractal learning adjustment and…” Twilight looked up and caught the expression of pure bafflement on Pyro’s face. “He was a Type Six cloth golem I made to help with my dating problem.”

“Oh!” Pyro blinked several times and squinted harder at her. “You’re Princess Twilight Sparkle. I’ve heard about you. The nurses are running a pool on when your next victim… I mean date shows up at the emergency room.”

“Gee, thanks.” Twilight could not keep the corners of her mouth from tucking into a sharp frown, which she was fairly sure the squinting stallion could not see, but he picked up on her tone of voice entirely too quickly for her comfort.

“Don’t sweat it,” said Pyro with another dismissive wave of his hoof. “I’ve had my share of emergency room dates. I’m pretty comfortable cruising along a Fraffenhoofer eddy at altitude, but I’m a klutz near the ground. After listening to the nurses, I can see why you’d build a golem to practice with. They’re a lot tougher than ponies. We have a couple Type Fours back at Cloudsdale we use for hurricane instrumentation or tornado tracking, but I’ve never seen a Type Six.” The stallion cocked his head to one side and squinted at her. “So, are you feeling better?”

“A little,” admitted Twilight.

“Good. I probably should be getting back to the hospital since they’re probably worried about where I’ve gone. Are you going to be okay?”

Twilight nodded, because she could not suppress the little quaver in the back of her throat that she suspected would start up her tears if she talked.

“Cool beans. I’m set to jet.” Pyro cocked his broad wings and sprang from the balcony, but only managed to get a tail-length away before coming to an abrupt stop and falling. The reason was obvious, because Twilight Sparkle had put one princess-powered hoof down solidly on his tail.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

“Um… Cool beans?” came a voice filtering over the edge of the balcony from where Pyro was dangling.

“No.” Twilight took a quick breath. “The other.”

“Set to jet? It’s just a phrase we use around work, since we’re normally surfing the jetstream.” Pyro wriggled a little, but his tail remained stepped-on and immobile.

“What’s… what’s your name?” Twilight’s voice was very low and trembly, but she lifted her hoof off Pyro’s tail when he flapped up a little and maneuvered himself to land awkwardly on the balcony again. “Your whole name,” she added, nodding at the reddish anvil cloud cutie mark on his flank.

“Yeah, it’s a little long, since my parents were both forest firefighters,” said Pyro. “It’s actually Pyrocumulonimbus, after a kind of cloud that forms during fires.”

“You mean cumulonimbus flammagagenitus, the types of clouds that form over volcanic eruptions or forest fires by twisting ordinary clouds into high-altitude persistent structures, although the Cloudsdale Meteorological Association doesn’t recognize them as distinct cloud types and insists on calling them ordinary cumulous types despite their different internal structure,” said Twilight in a rush.

“You’re right.” Pyro gave a short nod. “You’re the first pony since my parents to know that. I’m just glad they didn’t name me that, or my initials would be CF. That kind of nickname would stick with a pony, particularly since I keep flying into things.” He added a smile and a waggled eyebrow before his expression straightened out into something a little more serious. “Are you feeling all right, Your Highness?”

Twilight nodded again, despite the tightness around her chest and her pounding heart. “Could I… escort you back to the hospital? Just to make sure you get there in one piece,” she added quickly.

“Are you sure?” Pyro squinted at her. “I don’t want to bother you.”

“I… may have an ulterior motive,” confessed Twilight. “It will make more sense if I explain it on the way.”

“I insist on buying lunch if I’m being taken advantage of by a beautiful mare—” Pyro stopped and squinted at her. “At least I think you’re a beautiful mare.”

“I’m a princess,” said Twilight with a subdued giggle that cut through her stress with welcome humor. “When we get back to the hospital, I’ll make the nurses give you back your glasses and you can judge for yourself.”

“Fair enough, M’lady.” Pyro drew a hoof up to his chest and bowed. “But a princess doth not need dine upon meager hospital fare. We can slip out the back door at noon for—”

“Hayburgers?” Twilight felt the first warm smile of several days begin to slip onto her face in stages, a happy impulse made only more rapid by Pyro’s near-instant response.

“And waffle fries!” Pyro stepped off the edge of the balcony at the same time Twilight did and flew by her side, with both of them giving each other enough room for the occasional wobble or bob in their flight path.

“By the way, and just for curiosity’s sake,” said Twilight Sparkle as they glided along, “do you have stinky wingpits?”

“Miss Sparkle, Airflow Monitoring Specialists can be in the air for three days straight.” Pyro gave her a straight look, with one raised eyebrow. “By the second day, everypony has stinky wingpits.”

It made her laugh out loud for the first time in far too long, but she decided not to ask him about snoring. It would wait until later. Or until she found out for herself.