Laws of Motion

by mushroompone

1. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.

Fleetfoot brought me a blanket and a pillow and I fell asleep on the couch while the squad studied. No one acknowledged me. They soaked in an awkward silence for about thirty minutes before they all got in a heated disagreement about energy conservation. I tried to block them out by pulling the blanket over my head, but it was cheap and thin and didn’t help at all. I didn’t sleep well—my nightmares about airshow disasters blended with the squad’s quabbling and became nightmares about failing physics exams.

Eventually, the morning light fell over my shoulder and projected tiny squares of sunshine through the open-weave blanket onto my still-covered face and shoulder. I’m not sure if the sun woke me up or if I was already awake. But it smelled like food.

I pulled the blanket away from my face and squinted in the harsh light. Blaze stood over a frying pan, pushing something around with a spatula.

Wait a minute. Blaze was cooking.

“Hey,” I said groggily.

Blaze turned to look at me. “Hey! I was hoping the smell would wake you up.” She slipped the spatula under the thing in the pan and deftly flipped it over—an omelet. A really good-looking omelet. “Hungry?”

I pushed myself upright. “Since when do you cook?”

She chuckled. “Cooking was one of my tributaries,” she said. “Funny, huh? Some of it stuck around after counseling. They say it happens more often than you’d think—you get ‘bonus talent’ after a road test sometimes. But, as fun as the cooking stuff is, the engine stuff’s a little more useful.”

As she spoke, she lifted her wing and exposed her flank to me. Once upon a time, her cutie mark looked a lot like mine: a flash of chaotic fire, but with direction. Energy. Whipping itself in a circle, like a streaking comet with a flaming tail. Now, though, it was the tiny controlled flame of a bunsen burner.

Actually, Blaze used to look almost exactly like me on all counts: her coat and mane were only a shade or two off my own and, when we were both in uniform, the only way you could tell us apart was by the subtle ombre of my own Wonderbolts coif. Now, though, Blaze wore her mane down. When she turned her head, little threads of gray flashed near her temples. No one could possibly mistake the two of us for each other.

“Huh,” I said, at everything and nothing.

“Seriously, come eat this.” She slid the omelet onto a plate. “I can whip up another in no time.”

She didn’t have to ask again—I was starved. I tore the blanket off my lap, rolled off the couch, and crossed the room. Blaze set the plate down on the counter as I approached. Little wisps of steam curled off the omelet and into the air.

“Thanks,” I said as I took the plate. “So, uh… this whole counseling thing…”

“What about it?” Blaze asked as she cracked two more eggs into the pan.

“Must really work or something.” I pulled open a drawer and sifted through silverware. “I remember when you were a cadet and pulled a shift in the galley—gave the entire reserve team food poisoning from raw kidney beans.”

Blaze chuckled. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “But, yeah, the counseling does work. It’s been sort of a miracle, especially since I was aging out of aerobatics anyway.”

I tried not to react to that. I’m not totally sure I was successful. I filled the silence by grabbing a fork and bumping the drawer closed with my thigh.

“Are you thinking about going?” Blaze asked. “To counseling, that is?”

I shrugged. “Fleet’s making me.”

Blaze laughed again. “Or what?”

“Or I can’t crash on the couch.”

Blaze shook her head and pushed the eggs around the pan. “Right. Makes sense.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Y’know, there’s a spare room in here, too. The couch thing was a total power move.”

I rolled my eyes and plopped down at the table.

“You can’t get too mad at her, though,” Blaze said, returning to the pan. She sprinkled in a dusting of cheese and gently folded it inside. I could see how maybe being this methodical with an omelet could translate to being pretty good with engines. “She’s… passionate. But she’s got her reasons. Good ones.”

“Sure. Righteousness and the good of ponykind, or something like that.” I took a bite of the omelet—perfectly underdone in the center, just the right amount of pepper. “Mm. You really could have been a cook in another life.”

“Ha. That’s exactly what Dr. Bloom told me.” She smiled a little. Mostly to herself, I think. “And… yeah. I happen to think those are some pretty good reasons.”

“They’re certainly lofty reasons,” I grumbled. “Self-important reasons.”

“I think most ponies would say they’re the opposite, actually,” Blaze argued, shooting me a sideways glance.

I shrugged. “She thinks she can save everyone,” I said simply. “How’s that not being self-important?”

“Maybe she can.”

I grunted. “Even if she could, what’s she going to get for it?” I asked. “I’ll tell you: she gets to spend the rest of her life on a spaceship. She never gets to fly again. That was supposed to be her purpose, Blaze—she gave it up for good.”

“Some ponies would say that a life spent on a spaceship is a life spent flying,” Blaze said.

“Eugh.” I stuck out my tongue in disgust. “Did they find a poetry tribu-whatever in your scans, too?”

She just chuckled and shook her head again. It made me feel like a foal, sitting here at the kitchen table, eating the breakfast she made me, watching her laugh and shake her head with a wistful ‘kids say the darndest things’ air about her.

I dropped my fork on the plate and pushed away from the table. “Thanks for the food. Do you know when Fleets will be up?”

Blaze glanced at the clock. “Soon. She doesn’t sleep much past nine, even when we’ve had a late night,” she said. “Why?”

“Figured she’d want some assurance I’m actually doing the crap she wants me to do,” I muttered.

“Oh, I can walk you down to Dr. Bloom’s office,” Blaze said. “It’s in the building just across the way, but the signage is a little confusing. I wanted to stop by Dr. Streak’s anyway for a few last-minute questions anyway.”

“Streak?” I echoed. “As in Fire Streak?”

Blaze laughed again. “I guess no one told you—he’s our professor,” she said. “Remember? He retired from the ‘Bolts to teach flight school. He basically got a promotion after counseling.”

“Oh.”

“Y’know, I bet he’d love to see you!” Blaze clicked off the stovetop and served herself her omelet. “You should come sit in sometime. I mean, who knows? You might be joining the class soon, eh?” She gave me a cheerful wink.

I didn’t want to say what I really thought, which was ‘there’s absolutely no way I’m letting that happen’, so I just made a small uncomfortable sound and shrugged and smiled innocently at her.

Blaze sat down beside me at the table. As she ate, she reviewed for the day’s exam, running her hoof across the notes she’d scribbled down the night before:

The first law of motion: An object at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.

---

The Middle-Equestrian Scientific Campus (MESC, or MESS as some ponies seemed to affectionately refer to it) existed, quite literally, in the shadow of the Middle-Equestrian ship. It included living quarters, classrooms, cafeterias, take-out restaurants, a library, a gym, and a health center. Ponies got around either by walking or by taking small electric carts that were parked in banks just outside of every building. The unicorns wore magic-dampening rings on their horns. The pegasi wore wing-belting vests. Everything was cool and dark without the light of the sun.

Blaze led me from the apartments—or perhaps ‘dorms’ was more appropriate—to the health center along a winding sidewalk. Her wing-belting vest matched her mane and had the campus’s logo embroidered on its hem, running right alongside her new cutie mark.

When we reached the door to the health center, Blaze held it open for me. “Don’t be nervous,” she whispered as I passed her.

The lobby was enormous—large enough that my skeptical scoff doubled back on me. The ceiling was vaulted and made primarily of glass, which would have flooded the room with sunlight if not for the artificial shade that covered the campus. It probably would be glaringly bright later this afternoon, when the sun peeked out from behind the skeleton of the Middle-Equestrian ship. There was a desk at the back of the lobby, though it looked less like a piece of furniture and more like a giant, white river rock; it was long, low, and flat, every corner rounded, and its bottom edge lifted up and away from the reflective tile floor, making it appear to float.

Behind the desk, a mural spread across the white wall: an abstract collection of curving lines that started as a tight bundle on the left and slowly frayed apart as they slithered rightward. It reminded me a bit of a downed, dead tree.

The pony behind the desk looked up. “Ah, Spitfire!”

I looked back at Blaze for help, but she only shrugged and waved goodbye from the other side of the glass door.

“It’s alright!” the receptionist called, her voice echoing through the lobby. “Fleetfoot called ahead.”

“Oh, uh…” I shuffled my wings and considered darting back out the door after Blaze. Then I thought about what Fleetfoot would say if I bailed and decided to briefly play the part of an adult. “Right. Makes sense.”

The receptionist smiled at me. “I’ll just need you to sign an admittance waiver.”

“Oh, I—” My step hitched. “I’m not being admitted. I’m just, like… visiting. For an hour or whatever.”

The receptionist nodded. “That’s just fine! But you still have to sign the form before the consultation.”

I sighed as the receptionist pushed a packet of papers towards me. I was honestly jealous for a second that she probably never had to do a stupid consultation, and was adjusting to precisely nothing. Some talents, it seems, are simply timeless—we will always need receptionists. She’ll be doing the same boring crap on the Middle-Equestrian ship. If she lives long enough, she may even be doing the same boring crap on another planet. Good for her.

“Great,” I grunted. “I love paperwork.”

The receptionist giggled a little—a rehearsed, customer service giggle with a crinkled snout—and said, “don’t we all?” Then she turned back to her own work.

The papers outlined the myriad of permanent and semi-permanent changes I may or may not go through as a result of counseling. I made a private vow to not let anyone touch me with any instrumentation, drugs, or needles, and just signed the paperwork as quickly as I could. Whatever could get me to the end of this moronic—but ultimately temporary—arrangement with Fleetfoot.

“Here,” I said, pushing the papers back.

The receptionist flipped through them. Then, apparently satisfied, she said, “Dr. Bloom will see you whenever you’re ready. Her office will be the first door on your left.” She gestured to a hall with a similarly vaulted ceiling, then she turned away.

Whenever I’m ready.

I assessed my readiness. Given that I didn’t know what to be ready for, I decided that I was as ready as I could be, and marched with purpose down the hall to stand resolute before the closed door. I knocked lightly and, not waiting for a response, pushed inside.

The pony inside was young. Maybe not excessively so, but young enough that I thought, for a moment, I’d walked into the wrong room. She didn’t look like she had enough life experience to be called an adult, let alone a doctor; she had no crinkles at the corners of her eyes, no gray strands in her flamingly red mane—she was even wearing a pink bow at the end of a loose ponytail.

She looked up at me and smiled brightly, youthful amber eyes sparkling. “Well, howdy!”

“Uh.” I let the door click shut behind me. “Howdy.”

It certainly smelled like doctor in here. Doctor and, weirdly, a hint of the outdoors.

“You’re Spitfire!” Dr. Bloom said. “I mean—well, I normally ask for names, but I’m pretty sure I know a Wonderbolt when I see ‘em. Have a seat!”

Dr. Bloom shuffled papers into her desk drawers as I slunk into the room. It was decorated in a… well, the only word for it is ‘country’ theme. Everything was plaid, quilted, flannel, wooden, or some offensive combination of texture and pattern. Buried in all the rustica was an array of high-tech gadgets, including what looked like a little computer screen on a rolling terminal. A bundle of tentacle-like wires dangled from one side, each complete with a little sucker on the end. There was absolutely no way that thing would be touching me—not today, not ever.

I sat down in a small wood chair against the wall. Thankfully, it didn’t rock.

“Tell me about yourself,” Dr. Bloom said. “How’ve you been keepin’ busy since the shift?”

My favorite question. “This and that,” I replied nonchalantly.

The more I looked, the more I noticed another recurring motif in the decor: apples. There were little apple silhouettes on the curtains, apple slices in amongst the plaid, a painting of a whole bushel of apples in a wood bucket hung on the wall… and that’s what the smell was, too. Not outdoor smell—fresh-cut apple smell.

Finally, my eyes landed on the nameplate on her desk: Apple Bloom.

“Wait a minute—you’re an Apple?” I asked. “As in… an Applejack Apple?”

Apple Bloom giggled. “That’s my big sis.”

“Shouldn’t you be, uh… farming?” I asked. My tone betrayed my true meaning: I don’t believe you’re a doctor with all this crap on the walls.

Apple Bloom’s smile turned from warm to tense in an instant. “Y’know, I’ve been a fate and destiny scientist for the past decade,” she said. “I’m what they call a pioneer in the field. ‘Specially since the field only got started around, ooh… a decade ago?”

That was nicer than what I would have said: Shouldn’t you be flying?

“But that’s just an estimate,” Apple Bloom added in a coy whisper.

“My mistake,” I grumbled.

“I won’t hold it against you,” Apple Bloom said, that hint of country sass curling in the back of her throat. She shoved away the last few papers on her desk and retrieved a little brown notebook from a lower drawer. At the top of a fresh page, she wrote my name as two separate words: Spit Fire. Before I could comment on it, Apple Bloom looked up at me with her sparkly, youthful eyes and cleared her throat. “Now. Your old pal Fleetfoot told me you’ve never attended destiny counseling before?”

“Uh-huh.”

Apple Bloom scribbled something down. “And why’s that?”

“Didn’t feel like it.”

Apple Bloom squinted at me. She looked me up and down, eyes resting momentarily on my unchanged cutie mark, then on my wings, before finally coming back up to my face. “Oh?”

I shrugged.

“Even with your, uh…” Apple Bloom tapped her pen on her lips, then zig-zagged it over my entire form, lingering ever so subtly on my wings. “Lifestyle changes?”

I arched a brow. “And what would those be?”

Apple Bloom snorted. “Usually it’s me asking that questions, but… well, I happen to know that The Wonderbolts were grounded indefinitely about two years ago now,” she said. “And Fleetfoot let me know that, at that point, it had already been a few months since you’d last performed. Is that accurate?”

“I had an injury.”

“What sort of injury?”

“Wing.”

Apple Bloom gave me another knowing smile. “I’m a doctor, ma’am. Could you be a little more specific?”

“It’s not relevant,” I said.

“I think it is.”

“It’s not,” I said.

“All due respect, ma’am? I’m the one behind the desk today,” she said, tapping her pen on the top of her little brass nameplate. “Do you even know why you’re here? Do you have any idea what Fleetfoot signed you up for?”

“Yeah, actually,” I said. “She wants you to take away my talent so I stop being a problem.”

Apple Bloom sighed and shook her head. “I don’t want to take anything away from you.”

“Never said you did. I said Fleetfoot did.”

“Well, if that’s what she wanted, she brought you to the wrong pony,” Apple Bloom said with a snide smile.

“Oh, yeah?” I folded my forelegs tightly over my chest.

“My goal is change, not a cutie-ectomy. And, believe it or not, change is natural,” Apple Bloom said. “Unusual, maybe. But natural. It happened to a lot of folks at the start of the shift—no counseling required. Some purposes just aren’t permanent, and that’s okay!”

I scoffed. “You call that ‘change’. I call that not having a backbone.”

Apple Bloom’s expression changed. “Fine. If you’re gonna act like a foal, I’ll give you the foal talk.”

Apple Bloom rolled her chair to one side, revealing a diagram framed on the wall behind her. It looked like the mural behind the receptionist’s desk—a bundle of lines that slowly frayed into a tangled mess.

“Destiny is like a river,” Apple Bloom said, gesturing broadly to the image. “It starts out as one big bundle—before you get your cutie mark, you’re a little bit of everything. We get some of our destiny from our parents, some from our friends, some from the world around us. When we find the right fit, we get our cutie mark! But the cutie mark only represents one of a theoretically infinite number of outcomes—one tributary on your river. Have you learned that word in school?”

I leaned back and pressed my forehooves together in my lap. “Ha, ha.”

Apple Bloom flashed me a condescending smirk. “Destiny counseling is two things: first, it’s building a map of your river. Just like this one here,” she said, tapping on the picture. “We learn what all your tributaries are and which one you’re sailing on today. Then, if you want, I can help you hop from one tributary to another. A lot of ponies like you—ponies who lost their livelihoods with the new magic radiation guidelines—want to hop tributaries.”

I couldn’t help it: I scoffed again.

Apple Bloom pretended not to hear me. “It’s a difficult process, and it gets more difficult the further you want to travel. If you want to jump to an adjacent tributary, that’s really no sweat—in a lot of cases, your cutie mark won’t even change. But if you want to travel to the other side of the map…” she traced her hoof slowly down, across all the tributaries on the diagram. “You have to ford a lot of rivers. You have to experience a lot of versions of yourself. That can have consequences”

Her tone was dark. I thought of Blaze’s cooking skills, Sunburst’s forgetfulness—imprints of other selves that hitched a ride after fording mental rivers. Like leeches.

“But,” Apple Bloom continued, “not hopping can have consequences, too. I think you probably know that.”

I shrugged.

“I’ve had a lot of ponies come to me depressed because their purpose has been taken from them. Hopping helps,” she said. “It gives you purpose again.”

I cleared my throat loudly and authoritatively. “So ponies come to you, and you… counsel ‘em, however that works, and they walk out of here completely different,” I summarized. “New cutie mark, new brain—plus a bunch of other issues from ‘fording rivers’, or whatever you said. Sounds great. Sign me up.”

“Spitfire, your talent has been outlawed,” Apple Bloom said. “You really want me to believe you’re okay with that?”

I waved my hoof dismissively. “They can outlaw whatever they want. As long as I still have my wings, I’m gonna keep flying. That is my destiny.”

Apple Bloom furrowed her brow. “You’re still flying?” she asked.

“What of it?”

“You don’t think that’s a bit… selfish?” Apple Bloom asked carefully.

I clenched and unclenched my jaw. “A lot of ponies have been calling me that lately.”

Apple Bloom held up herself defensively. “I ain’t intending to pass judgment,” she said. “Just pointing out a perspective you may not have thought about before.”

“Listen.” I leaned forward. Apple Bloom leaned forward, eagerly, to meet me in the middle. “I get it: you’re young. You’re at the top of your game. You think you’re unstoppable. But I’m twice your age—”

“I doubt that.”

“—and I have more experience than you in the realm of neglected purpose,” I said firmly. “You get a couple good years before no one needs you anymore. Then you get dropped for a newer model—the next cutie-prodigy or whoever that beats out your research and makes you irrelevant. That’s what life is: it’s fighting to stay relevant.”

Apple Bloom offered me possibly the fakest smile I’ve ever seen. “Thank you for explaining my field to me,” she said, her voice treading a razor thin line between saccharine sweetness and utter rage.

I stammered something nonsensical. “There’s just some practical experience you don’t have yet, kiddo.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“And I’m fifty-six, so…” I sat back in my chair. “I actually am twice your age.”

Apple Bloom reprised her fake smile. “Great,” she said. “I’m guessing there’s no chance you’d like to participate in the mapping activity?”

“Not really.”

“Does it help if I tell you it’s a non-invasive procedure?” Apple Bloom said, though she had already moved on to her next task—she closed her notebook and started digging around for a different file in her desk.

“Does it involve that thing?” I asked, pointing to the console with the dangling wires in the back corner.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s invasive. Pass.” I stood up and stretched, making sure to spread my wings wide enough that my primaries trembled. “Nice meeting you.”

“Oh, Likewise.” Apple Bloom looked up from her files. “You know Fleetfoot paid for an hour-long session?”

I glanced at the clock—less than fifteen minutes. “I really don’t care.”

Apple Bloom pushed the drawer on her desk shut with a hearty slam. “I guess that makes sense for you, don’t it?”

I bristled. “I’ll see myself out.”

“I think you’d better.”

---

The squadron was nowhere to be found. No one had given me a key to the apartment, so when I got back I had to pound on the door to be let in. When that didn’t work, I switched to shouting. Then shouting and pounding together. After a few minutes of being ignored, the pony from the night before stuck her head out the door again. I have no idea how long she stood there watching me quietly before she finally spoke up:

“They’re taking their physics exam,” she said.

I paused and looked over at her. She was small and pale with a bedraggled mane, still wearing those enormous glasses. “Oh,” I said. “Right.”

I sort of hoped she would invite me into her own apartment, but she just stood there and said nothing.

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” I asked.

She blinked and adjusted her glasses. “You’re Spitfire, right?” she asked. “The old captain?”

“Uh…” I shuffled my hooves. “Yeah. From way back.”

“They talk about you sometimes,” she said.

I chuckled nervously. “All good things?”

“No.”

“Great.”

“They just wish you’d change,” she said simply.

I scoffed. “Is that all?”

“Change your cutie mark,” she corrected. “They think you’d be happier. I think they’d be happier, too. They miss you.”

I made a dismissive, wordless sound. “If they want me to change, then they don’t really miss me.”

The mare in the doorway—Moony, I think—didn’t reply. She just looked at me. She looked long enough that it started to make me uncomfortable. Then, at last, she said, “The exam ends in an hour. You should wait outside until they get back.”

And she disappeared.

With very few options left, I decided to follow her suggestion and find a place to wait outside the dormitory. The campus was still in the shadow of the Middle-Equestrian ship. It probably would be until late afternoon. It occurred to me that this whole living-in-darkness thing served as a nice preview of life on a spaceship. I hated it.

I found a bench under a streetlight that did not remotely approximate daylight and plopped down into it. After a few minutes there, I realized I’d rather not be caught waiting for the squadron to come back like a lost kitten, and instead decided to wander the campus and see all the futuristic amenities that everyone who lived here always wanted to brag about. Maybe I’d even grab a cup of coffee somewhere. That almost sounded nice.

The longing to fly hit me in the chest so hard I nearly fell back down into the bench. That is what would make this almost-nice thing into a beautiful thing: flying.

I looked around. It must have been exam season—there wasn’t a soul outside the buildings in any direction I could see. The campus was dead. Not that it had been particularly lively before, of course, but still…

It would be quick. A zip there and back. Even if I was caught, what would happen? I’d get a scolding and a lecture? I had seen far worse.

I stretched my wings. I cast nervous glances over each shoulder, waiting for someone to sneak up and slap a vest over my barrel, but no one came.

So I flew. A short trip, made exhilarating by its illicitness. The air was chilly in the shade. I felt those extra wisps of magic spilling off my primaries and I didn’t care where they landed. In fact, I took a bit of private joy in knowing I had poisoned this perfect place. I was the lone user of magic—the only one brave enough.

The coffee was hot and bitter. I drank it in one breath. I shook it down into my hooves and leapt back into the air.

It was the trip back that was the mistake. I shouldn’t have risked it. I was lucky not to have been caught the first time, but the second? I was asking for it.

The squadron was arriving back at their dormitory as I sailed around the bend. They were gathered in a little huddle and talking fervently amongst themselves—sharing test answers, I guess—when they spotted me. First Fleetfoot. Then the rest of them. I tried to hide it, but it couldn’t be hidden.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Fleetfoot bellowed. “Still?! I forgive you, I let you stay with us, I-I pay for your therapy! And you still can’t do this one thing?!”

Soarin took a small step forward. “Hey, Fleets: let’s give her the benefit of the—”

“No way!” Fleetfoot smacked away Soarin’s hoof, then refocused on me. “You have got to be one of the most egotistical ponies I’ve ever known. Do you get that? Do you get how disrespectful it is for you to stay here, on this campus, and waste magic like that?”

I snarled. “Oh, sure. Like I’m the only one. You’re way too trusting, as usual.”

“I’m not finished!” Fleetfoot reared up and pounded her forehooves on the ground. “You really are the only pony who’s acting like this—throwing temper tantrums and acting like a rebellious teenager. Everyone else is learning and moving on, and you’re just stuck. It’s sad, honestly. Just… just really sad.”

None of the other members of the squadron would meet my eyes.

“I’m sad?” I repeated. “No. This is sad. This is pathetic, actually.”

Fleetfoot faltered. “Ex-cuse me?”

“You think I’m acting like a teenager?” I spat back. “You’re the ones living in an actual college dormitory in your fifties!”

“We’re bettering ourselves,” High Winds said flatly.

“Oh, please. You don’t even know who you are,” I said. “Let alone who you’re bettering.”

Fleetfoot scoffed. “I know exactly who I am,” she said.

I rolled my eyes.

“You’re not going to be staying with us anymore, Spits,” Fleetfoot said.

Something flashed in Blaze’s eyes. “Wait a sec, can’t we talk about—”

“Like you wanted me around in the first place,” I growled. “You actually had a spare room? And you made me sleep on the couch? Talk about an ego trip.”

Fleetfoot stuck her snout in the air. “I wanted to know you were serious.”

“You wanted to punish me,” I retorted. “But fine. You want me gone? I’m gone. I shouldn’t have ever left my stupid house. You all should have just left me there to rot. That’s all I’m good for, isn’t it?”

Maybe I meant it and maybe I didn’t. It’s the sort of thing that just falls out of your mouth when you’ve spent years steeping nebulous anger. What matters is that the squadron hesitated. Not for very long—just a moment or two—but long enough for my words to echo back to me and boil in my chest. Long enough that, for a split second, I actually believed them.

This was my destiny: to burn bright and burn out. To be forgotten. To rot.

And, in that moment, something changed.

I hadn’t felt this particular change in half a century. It started as acceleration, then weightlessness at the apex of a climb… my forehooves came off the ground. I was warm. It lasted a moment, and then it was over.

The squadron was all yelling over each other. I wasn’t listening. I just looked back at my flank. A golden shimmer still lingered around my new destiny: no longer a flame, but a pile of ash.

Comments

[darklight731]

While I do think that Spitfire is being rude and selfish, I sympathize with her. And I completely understand why she does not want to go with the counseling, and agree with her reasoning on that particular issue. Changing your cutiemark is literally changing your active skills and talents, your personality. It is like changing your very soul.

Ironic, that she ended up changing it herself.

[Venerable Ro]

I wonder how much magic gets burned flipping through hypotheticals of destiny like a rolodex. Mark-manifestation is big magic, divination is big magic, putting the whole entire population through a mulligan sounds like some pretty gorram big magic.

It would be hilarious if this lean magical economy scheme is accelerating the decline.

For that matter, I also appreciate the irony of Apple Bloom espousing an opinion of specific Marks not mattering because a different more convenient one can be gotten just like that. I wonder if she's shuffled her Mark...

[Mousse]

mush entered the contest everyone pack up. go home. it's over!

[Thought Prism]

*double checks the tags to see if self-harm is there*

Well ok then.

[daOtterGuy]

Oooooh, love this character focus. That throughline on the emotional resonance on inertia without the push to change is incredible. Loving this so far and looking forward to the next installment ~!

[Panem et Circenses]

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Natural change isn't forced change, isn't therefore conversion therapy.