“You’re designing new uniforms for the Wonderbolts? Oh, how exciting!”
As ever, the textile shop cashier was effervescent. She squealed as she hoofed Flaire’s total into the register, ringing up several reels of cotton and elastane.
“That’s right,” Flaire said through a tight smile. “They’re seeking, ah, a new vision for their look.”
“Does that mean… have you met General Flash?” The cashier’s hoof fumbled for the register crank. She began to giggle as the receipt rolled out to pool across the counter. “Oh stars… if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you mention my name to him? I did sell you the fabrics you’ll be turning into their amazing new uniforms after all!”
Flaire glanced at her nametag, which read: Paisley Pincushion. “Certainly… Paisley. Though, I do believe General Flash is married.”
Paisley scoffed in mock affront. “Do you think I'm some kind of homewrecker?” She giggled. “A mare can dream. Anyway, I'm just trying to stay in the picture. This is newsworthy! An independent couturier designing uniforms for our nation's heroes? That's a story for the era!”
Paisley clutched her chest in a semi-swoon as she slid the receipt across the counter. Flaire stuffed it into her saddlebag between her freshly bought fabrics.
“A lovely thought, dear,” she said. “But a doubtful one. Designers aren't remembered alongside heroes.”
The past days, Flaire had pored over her history books, tracing the lineage of the Wonderbolts’ uniforms back to the days of the E.U.P. She absorbed the sartorial canon of styles and recurring silhouettes, attempting to secure mental borders of inspiration around the requirements Flash sent her. Glossy portraits of eminent Wonderbolts from days gone by filled the pages. If the designers of their sleek caps and jackets were mentioned at all, their names were relegated to the margins.
Paisley's perennial laughter followed Flaire out through the door. “Trust me, Flaire d'Mare. You're going to make history!”
—
Fairy Flight came knocking at half-past-noon. Flaire’s neck prickled at the sound of her quick rapping, the same tempo against her door as the night of the Summer Sun Celebration. Languid trails of smoke were rising around her and Flaire banished them with quick snaps at the air from a stray scrap of fabric. She crushed her cigarette into the ashtray, tossing her tape measure over her withers.
“I’m here for my fitting, lady!” Fairy Flight announced as the door opened. She was in the nude, her dusky rose coat illuminated by the crisp afternoon light. Without her cap, her cropped auburn mane was permitted to sweep upward, as though blown by an errant wind. If Flaire wasn’t mistaken, it shone with a faint slick of gel.
Fairy carried her rakish air into Flaire’s boutique. She trotted alongside a row of ponnequins dressed in glittering ball gowns. “Do these things ever freak you out?” she asked, prodding one’s featureless snout. “I know I’d feel a lot better after drawing some funny faces on them or something.”
“That would defeat their purpose.” Flaire extended a graceful foreleg across Fairy’s path, encouraging her toward the center of the room. “They’re meant to be blank, a generic body, so you may imagine yourself in the garments they’re displaying.”
Fairy laughed. “I don't think I would for any of these. Not my style. But, show me one dressed in polka dots and that'd be a whole different story.”
Flaire arched a manicured eyebrow. “Pardon?”
“Polka dots! Hooves down, the best pattern for clothes if you ask me.” She squinted, surveying the surrounding racks. “Yeah, like this!”
Fairy pulled out the flat skirt of an a-line dress. It was decorated with broad gold circles, an offering from Flaire’s summer collection that was on the more pedestrian side.
“Now we’re talking. Have you got any more of this fabric lying around? I think it’d look really nice for our new uniforms.”
Flaire’s tape measure nearly slid from her shoulders. “You’re joking.”
“Pretty often, but in this case, I’m dead serious, lady.”
Once more, Flaire was directing Fairy Flight away from the displayed dresses. Licking her lips, wrestling back a craving for a cigarette, she said, “I doubt General Flash would appreciate something so far out of line from the Wonderbolts’ aesthetic tradition. Now please, step up here.”
Fairy rose onto the fitting platform with the spindly grace of her namesake. Her chin bobbed to a rhythm in her head as Flaire approached, tape measure held aloft in her pink aura. Circling the stand, her lithe white figure appeared in triplicate in the tri-fold mirror behind her, an audience of specters.
“If I showed up snout to tail in polka dots, I bet I could talk Flash into it,” Fairy Flight went on absently as Flaire bent to measure her inseams, fore and hind. “I mean, I’m only in my first year in the ‘Bolts and I already got him to approve a whole new flight formation. I’m gonna call it the ‘Ringlet.’ Think it’ll stick?”
Flaire jotted down the measurements in her notepad. Without looking up, she muttered, “It’s rather basic. And what is it with you and your fascination with circles?”
Fairy stuck out her tongue. “Come on, lady. Just the other night, you were the one going on about how important designs are. It’s a good shape. Makes me think of my favorite myth, the one about how if a ring of mushrooms appears in the ground, it’s actually a secret portal to another realm. They’re called fairy rings, if you didn’t know.”
Passing beside Fairy's haunch, Flaire glanced at her cutie mark, unsurprised to find a circle there — a ring of gold, encircling a pair of gossamer insect wings. It was the most whimsical mark Flaire had seen on a Wonderbolt, so many of them bearing blunt symbols representing speed and ferocity in the air.
Stretching her measure across the width of Fairy’s chest, Flaire looked up and asked, “Isn’t that an earth pony legend?”
“Told to me by my mom. Who was an earth pony.” Fairy grinned, her eyes half-lidded. “You’re not the only one with an inter-tribal family, lady.”
Overcome with mild chagrin, Flaire ducked to wind her measure around the circumference of Fairy Flight’s pastern. From above, Fairy’s buoyant voice asked, “Anyway, what’s your favorite shape?”
Rising, Flaire let out an indelicate huff from her nostrils. “I don’t think anypony’s asked me that since I was a schoolfilly.” She wrote down her next line of numbers. Her quill feather brushed against her lips, pensive. Deep in her chest, an old wound ached. “Back then, I probably would have said ‘lightning bolt.’”
There was a balmy gold halo around the memory, drawn in the light from the kitchen window of her childhood home in San Palomino. Clarity is scribbling at the table, filling a page with her vivid crabbed strokes of crayon. A glass of orange juice, wobbling from the motions. The smell of toast, singed two minutes ago. Clarity beckons her over with a curl of her feathers. A sleepy smile on her face, she overturns her page to reveal the flash of a jagged yellow shape — and her head drops. Hits the table. Mom canters in, murmuring assurances, and Flaire is staring at the drawing: a lightning bolt against a wax-azure sky.
“Like the Wonderbolts’ insignia? I’ll be darned, lady.” Fairy laughed. “There must be some flock in you after all. Maybe even a little ‘Bolt. Altius Volantis!” She brought her wing to her forehead in a brisk salute.
And there was something unique to the gesture. An ever so slight slope to the curve of her feathers, a tilt beyond the flexibility of most pegasi.
Flaire’s brows furrowed. “Your wings are different,” she said.
Fairy blinked. She extended both wings, raising and lowering them in a gentle flap. “Huh. You could tell from just that?”
Flaire approached, her hoof reaching to skim along Fairy’s feathers, coming to rest at the joint beneath her coverts. “I’ve seen hundreds of pegasus salutes before. They’re usually stiff, but your radiale hyperextended, just slightly.” Her eyes flicked upward. “Have you had a previous injury?”
Fairy nickered. Her wing fell slack from Flaire’s retreating grasp. “Lady, I’m not even sure what bone you just referred to, and it’s my wing.” She shook her head, the stiff sweep of her mane going undisturbed. “But, nope, never been hurt there before. What you’re seeing is actually way more interesting than that. Check this out.”
With absolute nonchalance, Fairy Flight extended a foreleg, pressed her hoof firm on the platform — and bent her knee backward. The joint jutted in the wrong direction.
A startled spark leapt from Flaire’s horn. “You—!”
Fairy was laughing, straightening into a relaxed posture. “It’s a rare genetic thing. Apparently something that can happen when you’ve got an earth pony and a pegasus for a mom and dad. I’ve got the hollow pegasus bones, but not the rigid joints. The doctors call it hypermobility. I just like to say I’m kinda stretchy. Here, check this out!”
Securing a grip on the hide at the base of her neck, she tugged with both hooves. The skin stretched like latex. Fairy’s teeth grit into a conspicuous grin.
When she let go with a snap, and returned to standing on four hooves, Flaire once more swept up beside her. Her careful touch hovered over Fairy’s shoulder. “It seems to affect all of your connective tissue. Are you able to fly safely?”
Fairy nodded. “Oh yeah. Flash would’ve never elevated me from cadet status if I didn’t show some serious skills. With my extra bendy wings, I had to learn pretty quick how to accommodate for strong updrafts that try to push me around. And by ‘accommodate,’ I mean ‘get used to doing hundreds of daily wing-ups to firm up my muscles.’”
Fairy flexed her wing, a tight, toned bicep raising under her feathers. She stuck out her lips, making a show of kissing at the rounded jut of muscle, then let out a bark of laughter at her own aggrandizing.
“Anyway, this is the only thing that gives me trouble sometimes.” Again, she extended her foreleg. Her fetlock bent backward when she put weight on it, rocking the joint. “It can mess with my landings. I'm still working it out.”
Flaire’s ears drooped and she cast her eyes down. “I apologize for my behavior the other day. I shouldn’t have been so rough with you like that on the stage.”
Fairy blinked. “Hey, you didn’t know. Besides, General Flash had my back. Literally.”
Flaire pursed her lips. “Does he… always look out for you?”
“Always. And I’m ridiculously grateful. Stars, he was my personal hero for forever. I went to all of his shows as a filly, and watching him fly up there made me want to do the same.” Fairy Flight sighed and crooked her wings akimbo on her hips. “Flight school was brutal though. They tried to deny me cadet status more times than I can count. Until, that is, I got a chance to show off in front of Flash. And you know what he said? ‘We need ponies like you in the Wonderbolts. Will you fly with us?’”
Droopy-eyed, she flashed a grin worthy of a poster; Flaire envisioned a four-pointed sparkle glinting from her teeth. Fairy swept her wing in a broad coaxing gesture, a perfect mimicry of the same enthusiastic show of welcome General Flash performed to pegasus foals who came to his speaking events in Canterlot city square, asking his signature line, “Will you fly with us?”
Flaire gazed at the floor, reeling up her tape measure into a tight roll. “You’re very fortunate to have been given that opportunity.”
Fairy’s jaunty air faded. She smiled, pushing up a dimple in her cheek. “It’s not just me who’s fortunate, but everypony who’s… you know — like me.” A new sincerity entered her voice. “Do you know how many pegasi have been admitted into the Wonderbolts who weren’t totally able-bodied?”
Flaire shook her head.
Fairy held up a single primary feather. “One,” she said. “Me.”
“Oh,” Flaire said, because that’s all she could say to such a statement.
Fairy nodded. “You know, they actually published a news story about me a while back. ‘Wonderbolts Soar Higher — Promising Young Aviator Fairy Flight Becomes First Disabled Recruit.’ The headline was something corny like that.” She scratched behind her ear. “Made me feel kinda weird at the time. Like, it was the Wonderbolts’ thing instead of mine. The only thing that ever kept me from my dreams was them, and the only one who made them happen was them. Where’d I fit in, you know?” She laughed. “But, no matter the cause, I’m here. And I gave up on cause a long time ago; I want change!”
Splaying her long legs, she puffed out her chest. “See lady, the Wonderbolts have a whole history of these legendary squadrons, each contributing something special to the ‘Bolts. Admiral Fairweather, he led the first. His squadron was recognized for establishing and building the Wonderbolts barracks!”
As she spoke, Fairy’s wings swept in broad, grandiose gestures. A lightness began to creep into Flaire’s chest, an unburdening she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Anyway, there’ve been six notable squadrons so far. And I’m going to lead the seventh.” Fairy winked. “I’m gonna be so good at what I do, they’ll promote me up through the ranks! Mark my words, lady: you’re looking at Future-Admiral Fairy Flight. And I’m gonna make sure my squadron is made up of ponies like me. Pegasi who had to work a little bit harder than most to earn their place as a ‘Bolt.”
Spotlighted under the warm boutique lights, posed on the fitting platform, Fairy embodied a heroic Wonderbolt paragon in every degree of her manner. No poster artist could have drawn that out of her.
—
Long past collecting measurements, Flaire offered Fairy tea and entertained her in her living room. Fairy held her cup with a new air of belonging, kicking her hooves up on the arm of Flaire's couch.
“So, lady, how’d you come to know so much about bones and connective tissue?” She took a swig with an audible swallow. “Somepony as fancy as you, I figured body parts would gross you out.”
Flaire’s ears twitched backward with each of her indiscreet gulps. “Not nearly as much as ponies who pair socks with sandals. Or slurp their tea.” She coyly glanced above her raised cup, taking a delicate sip. Lowering her tea, her eyes centered on the ripple rings bobbing back from the rim. “I was a student at the Canterlot Institute of Medicine for several years.”
A captivated glaze was over Fairy Flight’s eyes, her pupils wide. “Whoa, that’s an impressive school. Color me surprised. Thought you’d be the type to have always wanted to go into fashion.”
She set her teacup on her belly, gaze drifting toward Flaire’s unconcealed flank. Her cutie mark was conspicuous, suggestive of a seamstress rather than a surgeon: a pink spool and raised needle, haloed by a golden flare.
Catching the path of her gaze, Flaire said, “Oh, don’t get me started on the subject of my marks. My peers were relentless.” She tsk’ed, flicking her tail. “They’d ask, ‘After a surgery, are you going to stitch up your patients with a needle and thread?’ And I’d say, ‘No, I’d use a suture and silk, just like the rest of you.’”
“Yeesh. What a bunch of featherbrains.” Fairy downed the remainder of her cup, clinking it onto the coffee table. She stretched her wings behind her head. “Why’d you quit instead of sticking around to show them up? I mean, I’m assuming you quit since nowadays you're stitching up clothes rather than ponies.”
Flaire’s eyes dropped to her cup. The memory was watery, below the surface of her tea, the same color as the oil-lamplight cast over the wood-paneled walls of the operating theater. There is a body on the dissection table. A pallid modesty sheet conceals its face, protruded by the breathless snout. Its coat is pale primrose — motionless pink hooves. And a flash had gone off in Flaire’s brain. Counting… One… Two… Three… Her professor dragging her out from under the table. Her weeping eyes covered by her hooves, mane soddened by spilled formaldehyde.
“I couldn’t stand to operate on the cadavers,” Flaire said.
She rifled in her table drawer and withdrew a pack of Marelboros. Slid the filter between her lips, lit it with a magic spark. Blew out, flinched, and crushed it in the ashtray. Muttered, “Sorry.”
Fairy’s brows were upturned. “Hey, I know I was just getting on your case about body parts, but I seriously can't imagine it would be easy to mess around inside a dead pony.”
“It should have been, though.” Flaire massaged her temple. “It was my dream for so long to be a doctor. I just… I wanted to help ponies.”
“I’m sure you help a ton of ponies now.” Fairy sat up, hooking her pasterns over the arm of the couch. “You make them feel good with pretty dresses and stuff.”
Flaire thought of her customers, a hundred smiling faces that had passed through her boutique. Elation, pride, and admiration always shone bright in them as they stepped before the mirror in their new attire, twirling their skirts and envisioning themselves at their upcoming soiree. It should have been fulfilling to see them so pleased. It should have been her one and only purpose. But dressing a pony in something beautiful was like applying a bandage to a gaping wound — a temporary relief from the fraught condition of living, the knowledge you could die at any moment.
“I do make them feel good. But, good doesn't always feel like enough.”
Flaire finished the last of her tea, setting it beside the ashtray. “When I was younger, I imagined myself as somepony who could make a difference. Who could help ponies in a real way. Solve medical anomalies, prevent tragedies…”
“I’m gonna be a hero one day. Like in the legends, like Flash Magnus.” Clarity would say this with her drowsy head tipped back over the edge of her bed. Icy teal-blue mane spilling down the cover, wings spread victory-wide. “Then I'll be like Mistmane!” Flaire exclaims. “And I'll make you your uniform. Something beautiful that can protect you from any danger!” So many whispers shared in the private corner of that bedroom, where everything was big and real.
Flaire let out a sniveling chuckle. “Such idealism I had. Such idealism from a mare who couldn’t even make sense of her maladjustments.”
With her magic, Flaire reached out to her shelf. She pulled down a hefty textbook, her copy of Neigh's Anatomy. It was a weight that had strained her spine for four years in her student saddlebag, her back aching through the long nights at her desk, alternating between studying and sewing dresses by independent commission to make ends meet.
“Ohh. That’s the book with all those freaky anatomical models in it, right?” Fairy fluttered to sit beside Flaire on her chaise, bouncing onto its plush cushion.
“Useful anatomical models,” Flaire insisted, flicking through the pages. Fairy peered over her shoulder. “I’ve read it cover to cover time and again. And yet, there’s still so much missing from it, information we don’t know about our own bodies, despite living in them every day.”
“And that’s not freaky?” Fairy laughed.
“That gap in knowledge certainly is. But not the images. The images are… comforting. And that’s because of the information they hold.”
She landed on a clean rendering of the skeletomuscular system. It was an elegant illustration, a cross-section of the equine body, degloved of its hide to reveal the striated intricacies of flesh beneath.
Fairy piped up, “Anything in there about my stretchiness?”
Flaire shook her head. “I don’t believe so, no. The original text was written over a hundred years ago. The intent was to depict the… the norm of equine physiology. As such, much is still missing. That includes rare disorders.”
“Bummer,” Fairy murmured. Absently, she extended a wing to flap through several more pages.
Flaire halted her when she landed on a broad, maze-like drawing of the brain. Fairy “hmm-ed” and cocked her head.
Pulse thrumming in her neck, Flaire stared at the diagram of the nervous system. The logic-driving cerebrum, so easily overrun by ancient, prey-animal terror. The lightning-strike paths branching from the vagus nerve, electrifying the body with anxious energy.
“Something of mine is missing from this book, too. You see, there's a fear in me that's chronic.” Flaire’s eyes traced the inked lines of gray matter. “An anger. An unpleasantness. I… worry. I am never not worried.” She ran her hoof along the page. “I don't think we have the words yet to describe it. It's a disorder of the brain, of the nervous system, I'm sure of it. The brain is comprehensible, drawn out like this. But the mind is still a mystery to us. Such a complex locus of magical energy, it would take the work of both wizards and physicians to know it fully.”
Flaire pressed the hard covers together, raising her chin. “One day, when a new edition of this book is written, I'm certain the thing that's wrong with me will have a name next to it. But for now, I do what I can without knowing. For that is all I can do.”
There was a soft rustle. A sudden touch alighted on Flaire's shoulder, and she gasped. Fairy was draping a wing around her.
It had been so long since she felt a pegasus embrace, the cool filaments of feathers catching on her coat. Such a temporary yet deep relief of ancestral contact that unicorns of purer stock could never understand.
Clarity would sit behind her on the bed during a thunderstorm, running gentle brushes of her feathers down Flaire’s cheeks and neck. “Count to thirty,” she whispers in her little voice. Little sister, always brave and dreaming, her head too full of imagination to be scared of anything.
Beside Flaire’s ear, Fairy softened her voice and said, “Well, lady. If you’d been born with wings instead of a horn, you’d be more than welcome in my squadron.”
A breathless giggle lifted from Flaire's chest. The tickle of Fairy’s wing across her withers eased her submission to the fantasy. She thought of phantom feathers reaching out from her shoulders, an embrace unable to be returned.
“Thank you,” Flaire whispered.