Cirrus

By ~Master~ Button Mash

• December 3, 2012




Age: 19

Gender: Male

Species: Pegasus

Cutie Mark: A wispy cirrus cloud, inset by a swept-back set of wings, and crossed vertically by a wrench.

Personality: Finally being able to fly completely changed Cirrus' life, but it's a long road (or airway) ahead. With only 2 years of flying under his belt, compared to most other pegasi having a close to 2 decades of flying, he obviously has a lot to learn. Everyday he seeks to further increase his wingpower (last clocked at roughly 5.7). He grew up a loner and a loner he has mostly remained. Overall an introverted pony, he mostly chooses the shop and his sketchbook over mingling with the ponies of Ponyville. He's slowly changing, however. With his cutie mark finally formed and his flying abilities improving everyday, he is slowly becoming more sociable and open, finally feeling like the full pegasus he was meant to be. In fact, maybe even forming a bit of a pride-streak? (A dash of Rainbow Dash, anyone?). Overall, the shop is still the place he feels most at home, and 9 times out of 10 you'll find him here. (The other 1 time? Just look up.) While in the shop he has a strong work ethic, similar to Applejack's work ethic on the farm. When there's a job to be done he won't stop until whatever needs fixing is in better-than-new condition. When nothing needs fixing he still continues to craft his own creations, many of which end up being displayed outside the shop.<br /><br />His ultimate dream is to one day move to Cloudsdale and opening a repair shop of his own there. However, as of late, a new dream has begun to grow in his mind. With Rainbow Dash proving that it is possible for a pony to break the speed of sound, he often finds himself thinking back to the new dreams he'd been having recently - in which the fields of Equestria were rocked by the thunderous roar of his own sonic boom. Every time, waking with that same old sense of intuition from his years as a flightless blank-flank, he turns to the metal wings perched at the ready next to his bed, then to his sketchbook placed on his night stand. He picks it up, grabs a pencil, and opens a new page...

Backstory: A bird born without wings might not consider itself a bird at all. Just as a cheetah born without legs might not consider itself a cheetah at all. Such is the sad story of Cirrus, a pegasus born without wings. While still endowed with the power to walk freely on clouds and manipulate the weather, he lacked the one thing necessary to make full use of these powers - only two protruding nubs extending from where his most important feature should be, the feature that truly defines what it means to be a pegasus, the feature that makes a pegasi's life worth living. Each day, to watch the other pegasi streak across the skies, experiencing the ultimate freedom, the ultimate sense of what it means to be alive, Cirrus could only watch in tearful agony with his hooves firmly planted on the ground, where they would always stay, and he was powerless to change it. To make things worse, he was a blank flank, completely lost to his talents.<br /><br />Regardless, flight did not evade him completely. He often dreamed of flying, of the feeling of the fresh Equestrian air on his face. He passes near a cloud and runs it’s wispy edges through his hoof, looking down at the landscape which he can only escape in this alternative reality. The feeling is absolutely heady - the dreams feel more real than the waking world. When he finally wakes...a feeling remains, a feeling that doesn’t come when he dreams of other things. It’s a feeling like what he experienced before wasn't a dream...but rather...a vision of the future. An omen.<br /><br />If his destiny wasn't among the skies, maybe it might be among the machines? Since he was a filly, he worked at his father's repair shop, which fixed the various machines the ponies of Ponyville used for their daily lives. Eventually it netted him the nickname “Rusty,” by which he was known throughout Ponyville. He liked it, preferred it, even, to his real name. He did not feel he had earned the name Cirrus. That was the name of a flyer, which he was not.<br /><br />He had more than a knack for repair. He dealt in steel and iron the way the most proficient unicorns dealt in magic. He fixed what was thought to be broken beyond repair. He dreamed fantastic machines, even built a few, including a portable steam engine small enough to carry on a pony’s back. He was sure this was his destiny, he was sure that one day he would wake to find his flank graced with a cutie mark signifying his place as a machinist, but day after day, month after month, year after year, the mark never came.<br /><br />Then one day he was struck with an idea, an idea that he even thought was overly fantastical for a minute. In his room, paging through his sketchbook, at the page on flying machines, he glanced at the page, glanced at the micro-engine placed on his nightstand, and then at the nubs on his back. He immediately went to work. When the quenching steam cleared, the sounds of tools faded, and the slag heat faded, what was left was a set of artificial wings, powered by his engine and manipulated by the nubs on his back. His first flight lasted...4 seconds, careening into the bushes just outside the shop. However, with time and patience he refined his creation as much as his equilibrium. His wings became sleeker, the engine more powerful, lighter. Until one day he decided to make his move.<br /><br />The air was crisp, the sun just peaking over the eastern horizon. Rusty, wings equipped, looked out east at the rolling hills. He began to run, the engine on his wings roaring to life. With one swift motion he lifted himself off the ground, pitching himself upward and rocketing toward the clouds. With the most intense feeling of deja vu, his dream memories came flooding back - the same rush of air, the same feeling of the clouds on his hooves (he swore...the cloud...it was the same, the exact same). The warm exhaust of his wings painted thin, whispy clouds in the crisp morning air. He stayed up there for what felt like hours before finally deciding to land back in Ponyville.<br /><br />He landed in town square, everypony around gazing in wonder at the spectacle before them. While the citizens of Ponyville were busy ogling the strange device one of their own had used to fly, Rusty was busy looking in awe at his flank. Looking at his newly-formed cutie mark, and the contrails still whisping through the air, he chose to go from then on by his birth name, a name he felt he finally earned - the name of a pegasi - Cirrus.<br /><br />At the age of 17, he finally found his destiny, and his cutie mark. In the end, his place was among the sky after all, among his fellow pegasi, just with a set of wings forged by his own hooves.<br />