Songs of Innocence

Chapter 23: Avian Ambience

"Found my Element." Sun smirked. She turned her head to look at Twilight, but the alicorn was buried deep in a book, with a fixed look of concern and focus. Sun glanced over to see what had her so worried, but she could barely make out the contents of the page before Twilight shut it closed to stop her from seeing it. A shiver ran down the princess' spine as she looked at Sun with a look of utter horror. Her pupils were near-microscopic with fear, and her lips quivered. She knew something Sun didn't.

"T-Twilight, are you okay?" Sun asked, beginning to become quite concerned herself.

"Sun... I... You need to leave. I need to think." Twilight replied calmly, barely masking the emotions that she was trying desperately to hide.

"What? Okay, but why?"

"Sun, you need to leave."

"Alright, I'll go. But-"

"Sun! Just go! NOW!" Twilight commanded, and Sun complied, fleeing the castle as soon as she could. The very second Sun left the castle's entrance, Avalonia voiced her confusion to her.

"What was her problem?"

"Yeah! It's like I'm always in a state of having things being hidden from me, or getting an answer that doesn't even make sense."

"Well, maybe it was something serious that she had a right to hide from you. We don't know."

"Yeah, but now I'm in a bad mood. You mind just summoning that one bird demon that can give me wings? I'm thinking of trying to fly home." Just like she asked for, a pair of familar black wings appeared on her sides, and Sun took to the skies, feeling lucky she was able to have Avalonia as a friend. However, Sun quickly found out that she wasn't very good at flying. In fact, she was horrible, and it was quickly becoming dangerous how incompetent she was at it. She was practically battling gravity itself every single second.

Nearby, a pegasus was lying down under a shady tree, holding a notepad and a pencil. She rose her head to the clear, blue sky as she focused, her various thoughts and new ideas accumulating. She looked back down to her notepad, and wrote,

"The light of the summer sun has passed us by, and the moon of winter has risen with its cold moonlight

We beg the sun to return and warm our frostbitten land

And when the sun finally shines down on us once again, we can finally forgive nature's brutal ways

I really hate winter if you couldn't tell by now"

"No, that's not good." she groaned, flopping backwards to rest on the tree, putting her two front hooves behind her head. She closed her eyes briefly, sighed, and opened them back up to gaze off into the blue abyss that is the sky. Amidst the unmoving clouds, she noticed a mare who was struggling to fly - frequently rising and falling in altitude as her wings flapped desperately. The observing pegasus uncaringly watched the pony struggle. However, when the pony began to dive towards the earth below, the pegasus sprung to action, and launched towards her.

The pony flailed and shrieked as she braced for impact. But then, an electric, blue, yellow, and white-colored streak zipped towards her. A pegasus appeared from the blur, and, fortunately for the mare, saved her. The pegasus carried her, and dropped her delicately onto the ground as she hyperventilated. 

"You okay?" the pegasus said, wiping sweat from her forehead, before uttering in confused realization, "Oh... You're a unicorn..." The mare took a deep breath, and nodded. "How'd you get wings?" the pegasus said in an accusatory tone, accentuating her speech by showing off her own wings as she spoke. 

The unicorn cupped her head in her hooves, and spoke, "I u-used magic..."

The pegasus chuckled softly, "You unicorns can do, like, anythin', can't ya?" With a friendly smirk, she extended her hoof to the unicorn. "Name's Tempera Ash." The unicorn sat in place, confused. After a second, she extended her hoof as well, and the two shook hooves. 

"I'm... uh... Innocent Sun." she said meekly. 

The two ended their hoofshake, and Tempera blushed, explaining, "Sorry. I just like bein' formal."

"That's okay."

Then, their back and forth was interrupted with a light breeze, accompanied with the sound of pages flapping. It was the notebook. Tempera's face went pale with horror. Without a second to pause, she turned around and dived towards it, shielding it from Sun's sight. She awkwardly chuckled, "Heheh... Sorry... It's personal stuff..." The unicorn didn't even know what she was talking about. Tempera discreetly closed the notebook as she stood back up and turned to the unicorn. 

"Hey," she asked, "are you, like, new to flyin'? I mean no offense, but it looked like you were when I saw you plummeting towards the ground. I can teach you if you want!" Sun took a second to consider it. 

"Thanks," she replied, "but I'm probably gonna be taught by Rainbow Dash. I dunno if you know h–" 

Tempera zipped towards her, delightedly interrupting her, "Rainbow Dash?! As in, like, the?!" 

The unicorn was taken aback, and corrected herself, "W-well... Yeah... I don't know if she's actually gonna teach me. She's more, like, helping me, I s'pose..." She was planning on being taught by her, but she chose to downplay it, thinking of it to be more of a friend-to-friend relationship than a teacher-to-student relationship. Tempera inched even closer to the unicorn's face. 

"Well, I wanna be helped! My skills are good... kinda... But... I wanna be taught by her! Please?" she begged.

Sun smirked lightly in sheer awkwardness, looking towards the direction of Rainbow's house as she replied, "...I'll, uh, see what I can do."