Chapter 3
Hard Lessons
Featherfall found Crackshot waiting for her in the lobby. He had been pacing back and forth but stopped and shot her a cold look when she met his gaze. There was no doubt in her mind that this was about the fallout at the Waxworks' murder. “In my office. Now.” Yup.
They passed Foresight in the hall. Featherfall gave him a nervous grin but he couldn't seem to his his frown. She could see the worry written on his face. She flinched when Crackshot slammed the door behind them. She took a deep breath, determined to get out in front of the flanke-chewing she knew was coming.
“Listen, I can explain,” she started, but quickly stalled, finding It was hard to not wilt under the lieutenant's disapproving glare.
“No. You listen,” he growled. “I've been getting angry memos all morning from Murder Squad and the Northwest District about your involvement in their case. It is an outrageous conflict of interest to have an agent on the scene investigating her own family. If that weren't enough, I've got official complaints from Blazing Lights and Shimmering Lights. They're saying we're trying to sabotage their business by siccing their estranged sister on them!”
“I didn't even know it was their warehouse!” Featherfall shot back. “And when I figured it out I told Foresight we had to go. Shimmer came up the stairs before we could leave.”
Crackshot heaved a sigh. “There's a thirty foot sign in the lobby that says Summershine Candles.”
“The super took us in through the back. I'm off the case. I get it! You can lay off.”
“You have an attitude problem, Featherfall,” Crackshot said. He took a seat behind his desk where he could glare down at her. “We might not be in this situation if you had handled yourself better. It says here you told an officer Iron Shield that it 'wasn't a big deal'. What you do; what you say, reflects on this office. Now I know you think you're well seasoned. Three years on the job now. But let me tell you, there are unicorns on the force who have been working a beat for twenty, thirty years chomping at the bit for a detective shield in our department. It took a lot of work getting a pegasus assigned to Magical Crimes.”
Featherfall's heart sank. “It was an accident!”
Crackshot didn't budge. “But your behavior afterward was not.”
“I'm sorry...” she said, ears drooping.
“You're on desk duty for two weeks. Swansong will be assisting Foresight in your absence.”
It was Featherfall's nature to protest, and she could feel one bubbling up in the back of her mind, but reason won out over passion, and she slunk out of the lieutenant's office without the slightest attempt to pretend nothing was wrong. Foresight followed after her but could offer little consolation to the crestfallen pegasus, particularly with Swansong impatiently waiting for him by the door.
“It's fine,” Featherfall said, shooing him away. “I'll be okay.”
She fought back tears after he had gone. Fired. She hadn't been yet, but the thought loomed heavily in her mind. She might never walk out that door with a badge around her neck again. Eventually she gathered herself, took a deep breath, and dug into the paperwork. She hadn't seen so many forms since her admittance to flight school.
Those had been good days, living in Cloudsdale with Snowy Sunrise, her grandmother. Proper-fitting clothes... She had arrived in one of Shimmer's old dresses. It was nice, but lacking in one area of particular importance: a cut for her wings. It looked a little lumpy on the blossoming pegasus, so eager to begin her education with a new outlook on life and a new cutie mark to boot: a candle with a snowflake for its flame. There was some hemming and hawing by friends and family alike over what it meant. She had always wanted to be on the snow delivery team for Hearth's Warming Eve, and to her that was all that mattered. Her grandmother saw to a proper dress, and her cutie mark brought her new friends.
Like the little spark of magic the holiday brought to everypony, there was a little spark of magic residing in the young pegasus. Her unique talents were a big hit at the school in Cloudsdale. There was, after all, the Lights family legacy behind her. All three of her siblings, her father and many of his siblings, his father, the list went on of Lights family unicorns performing well in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Of course, there had never been a Lights family pegasus. Not until Fading Lights had taken Snowy Sunrise to be his wife. They had only one son, Dawn, a unicorn. The Lights family breathed a collective sigh of relief for Blaze's birth and then for Shimmer's. By the time Torch was born all worry had been abandoned. Until Merry had her fourth and final foal and surprised them all.
Frosty's talents were tricks, mostly. She could charge a feather with magic and fling it into the air where it would burst into fluffy white snow and drift down over those gathered around her. Her teachers would shake their heads in disapproval. Plucking primaries was dangerous, they had told her. Maneuverability, speed, sustaining flight; all of these were jeopardized when feathers were missing.
Featherfall didn't miss the homework, but she did miss Snowy. The Cloudsdale snowglobe on her desk was a gift from her grandmother on the day of her graduation from flight school. Oh how she missed Snowy...
She gave the bauble a little shake and watched the snow drift down. Once it had settled she stood with renewed resolve to save her job and retrieved the Sweet Bread case files. New developments. Pumpkin “Punkin'” Bread had arrived at the local police station and reported his mother had returned and left with his father and neither had come back overnight. There was a stack of interview cards from the numerous friends and acquaintances whom local officers had interviewed. It would be dark out before Featherfall finished going through all of them. Several more prominent entries were transcribed into her own notebook. Each letter flowed from the tip of her plucked feather, scorching itself into the page and cementing the words firmly in her mind. Recall was a gift she didn't have, but one she could make.
“You're here late...” Coldhorn observed from behind. Featherfall nearly jumped out of her seat.
“Coldhorn!” she gasped. She quickly gathered herself. “I'm on desk until the Waxworks case blows over,” Featherfall explained. “I kinda mouthed off to a local uniform.”
Coldhorn shrugged. She was in her natural form. Featherfall tried hard not to stare at the holes in the changeling's legs but this was not unusual.
“Can I.. help.. you...?” the pegasus asked hesitantly.
A bottle rose into the air between them, ensnared in the soft green glow of Coldhorn's magic. “Care to join me? Found it in Crackshot's desk.”
Featherfall's eyes widened. “Are you nuts?!”
“Pssht, relax, I'll replace it before he notices it's gone.” Coldhorn poured her a glass. 'Borrowing' the lieutenant's whiskey didn't seem like the best thing to do her first day on desk duty, but angering the changeling with a refusal didn't seem like a healthy career decision either.
“Thanks,” she said and took a sip.
Coldhorn's glass floated up to Featherfall's. “To the freaks,” she said, clinking them together.
“Right,” the pegasus said halfheartedly. “Coldhorn... doesn't that bother you?”
“No,” she answered without hesitation. She squinted at her glass and swished it around before taking a sip. Her pupils contracted to thin vertical slits for a few moments. Once they had returned to normal she gulped the entire shot down.
Featherfall watched the procedure with interest. “Never had whiskey before?”
Coldhorn shook her head. “Wasn't allowed for cadets.”
Featherfall had a hard time envisioning the changeling as somepony that followed the rules. She drank her own shot down and Coldhorn refilled both. Getting drunk with a changeling. Probably not the dumbest thing she had done in the past week. “So you were just a cadet when uh...”
Coldhorn looked down at her, squinting like she too was something new in the changeling's odd life. “When the changelings came and cocooned me, yes,” she answered the pegasus' unfinished question.
Her azure-pelted drinking buddy nodded dully and downed another. “That must feel frustrating,” she said, regretting the word choice almost before it escaped her mouth. To her surprise Coldhorn actually chuckled.
“That's the beauty of it, isn't it? You would think I would feel remorse over the life I lost, but I cannot. Part of me knows I would never have chosen this fate but in the end I feel a little...” she lifted her hoof and eyed Featherfall through one of the bigger holes. “...hollow.” She grinned, wickedly.
“Still...” Featherfall said uncertainly.
All at once Coldhorn became serious. “I did my duty,” she said. “I do not regret that. I survived, and my duties continue. I will follow that unerringly. Though I have changed, my loyalty— my creed — remains intact. What I am is different; who I am is not. Courtesy my rescuers. Another day and I might have gone drone.”
“Well that's lucky,” Featherfall said, wincing again on her words “That they found you, I mean.” Confounded by the words still coming out of her mouth she held up her shot glass, wondering how many she had emptied.
“So how 'bout you and Foresight?” Coldhorn asked, eyeing the pegasus with suspicion.
Featherfall felt her cheeks warm. “What about us?”
The changeling detective snickered to herself. “Are you... partners?”
“Wh-what? No!” Featherfall yelped, her wings fluttering anxiously against her back.
“But you've thought about it,” Coldhorn accused. She flashed a knowing grin at the now-paralyzed pegasus. “I can tell.”
“I... I uh...” Featherfall stuttered in protest.
“Boring,” Coldhorn remarked, rolling her eyes. She took a deep swig straight from the bottle and burped loudly. She grinned at the still off-balance mare. “Do your best Crackshot impersonation.”
“Uh... hmm...” Featherfall visibly relaxed as she thought it through for a moment. Then, in her gruffest and most self-important voice she growled, “Young lady, you have an attitude problem!” She broke into a giggling fit.
“Okay, my turn,” Coldhorn said, grinning wryly. In a flicker of green flames she vanished, replaced by the spitting image of Crackshot himself. “Ahem. Daily briefings are an essential part of a high-functioning unit!”
“Hey that's cheating!” Featherfall pointed an accusatory hoof at the changeling. “You have to do it without shapeshifting.”
Crackshot's stern visage erupted into green flames, revealing the nonplussed changeling's wide-eyed confusion. “I... what?”
Featherfall couldn't help but giggle at the odd expressions crossing the changeling's face. More giggling? Drunk already? It was a sobering thought. Getting caught in the office drunk off a bottle she'd stolen from the lieutenant would likely be a career-ending ordeal. Perhaps fitting considering how her career had begun.
Returning from Flight School was like coming home from a long vacation to find that the dream was over and the dreariness of life was back, this time to stay. On the coach ride home all Frosted Lights could think about was telling all of her friends goodbye at Cloud Nine and having one last rootbeer float with the pegasi she'd grown to love. Three short years flew by so quickly. Nopony had come to her graduation other than Snowy. That was not abnormal though; ceremonies held on clouds were treacherous for unicorns and earth ponies. What was abnormal was the general lack of excitement upon her triumphant return.
“I'm back!” Frosted sang as she trotted into the living room. She was expecting a surprise party, but on some level she knew it wouldn't happen. Her mother was sprawled on the couch reading with a glass of wine in reach.
“Welcome home dear,” Merry said, looking up for just a moment.
Frosted tried to avoid looking disappointed. It was a skill she had once mastered, but had rusted in the veritable paradise of Cloudsdale.
“Something the matter?” Merry asked.
“Mother I graduated,” her crestfallen daughter explained.
Merry nodded. “Yes I heard; Snowy wrote. Congratulations dear.”
“You don't seem very excited...”
The book came to a rest on the end table and Merry rose from the couch. “Of course I am, you passed Flight School. I'm sure you'll find a nice job as just another weathermare.”
Frosted scowled.
“Shimmer your sister is home!” Merry called up toward the balcony. “Come say hello.”
“Just?” the pegasus asked, hurt.
“I love you Frosted,” her mother said. “That is why I must be honest with you. It's hardly prestigious work, the weather. Why, you'd be out in the sun all day with all sorts of ill-mannered rubes.”
“Those rubes are my friends!” her daughter shot back, indignant. “And it's honest work and very important to the kingdom!”
Her mother sipped at her wine. “I'm sure they told you all about that at Flight School. But listen, before you throw yourself into this... career,” she said with a disdainful sneer. “Why not talk to your sister? Or Blaze? They could get you in a respectable job at the palace.”
Shimmer poked her head around the corner. “Now, why would I do anything for her?” she asked snidely.
“Fine. I see how it is,” Frosted said, shrugging off her bag.
Merry shook her head. “Don't worry Frosted, I'll talk her into it. It'll be okay. She's family Shimmer, surely you'd do this for your sister?”
“No! No it is not okay!” the pegasus shouted, stamping her hoof. “All this family cares about is magic! Blaze and Shimmer get huge parties with all our friends and relatives. Then I come home from Flight School and you can't even stop drinking long enough to stand up and congratulate me. I was in the top five percent of my class! I graduated with honors! Or did you even know that?!”
Shimmer and Merry exchanged shrugs. Not even the decency to feign embarrassment? “Fine, magic. I can do magic you know. I learned a lot at school.” Frosted Lights plucked a feather from her wing and pressed the tip of it against her forehead. Thaumic energy locked it in place. The pegasus gritted her teeth and strained as a faint blue glow surrounded the feather. Unsteadily, as though in the grasp of a schoolfilly's magic, Merry's book rose wobbling into the air. It hung there for a minute, in the stunned silence. Panting, she dropped it back on the couch. “There,” she said, glaring at her sister in defiance.
Shimmer's eyes narrowed. “Is that it? A fake horn you can make use to make a book wobble?” She smirked, gripping the book in her own magic. It soared around the room, sparkling dust falling from the pages as the story took life in little holographic images on all the walls. Standing proudly among all her creations, she eyed her little sister up and down. “So you can fly and do magic. Ooh, so special! What do you think you are?” Shimmer asked, prodding at the glowing feather with her hoof. “A princess?”
“What? No I just...” Frosted Lights tensed up. The feather came loose and fluttered to the ground, drained of its icy blue color.
“I thought not,” Shimmer said coldly. “You're just a fake, Frosted.”
The blue-tone mare stood her ground. “Nopony ever said a pegasus couldn't be a princess.”
Shimmer smirked, a malicious grin crawling across her face. “That's just it. It doesn't have to be said.”
“That enough Shimmer,” Merry said, blissfully calm. “Think about helping your poor sister out, okay?”
Frosted Lights hung her head so low that all she could see was the spent feather lay limply between her hooves, mocking her. How could she have thought it would impress them? Everything was just the same as it had been when she left. “When will Dad be home?” she asked, dejected.
Shimmer rolled her eyes. “Daddy's little girl,” she scoffed. “He'll be back at the end of the week. You can cry to him then if you want. I'm sure Torch is around to pander to your inane fantasies if you want. Real school let out a week ago.”
By the end of summer Frosted had hatched a plan. Just three months out of Flight School and the pegasus found herself on a campus tour of the most prestigious magic school in all of Equestria, established by none other than Princess Celestia herself. For the past eight years it had been home to at least one of her siblings. Torch was due to graduate at the end of the fall semester.
The tour stopped in the library courtyard. Beneath the shadow of the grandest old building on campus, would-be students lined up to try their best at one of the school's many and varied entrance exams.
“Here at the Solar Library our librarians have gathered rare books from across the kingdom for the use of students and the public alike,” the tour guide said, reading from her script. She was trying hard to be enthusiastic, but it came off insincere. No doubt a side-effect of conducting the same tour several dozen times per week. “Every summer beneath the shadow of the Starspire Clock Tower, hopeful candidates line up to test their skills at one of the school's many and varied entrance exams! It is considered by most to be impossible to prepare for the exam, as the professors may ask whatever they wish of hopeful students. Today, Bullseye has set up the target accuracy test. Our school has trained many of Canterlot's most famous, including recent bearer of the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle!”
Frosted watched as unicorns fired bolts of magic at targets fifty meters out. Most of their shots went wide. Cheers erupted when anypony hit the mark. She slunk away from the tour to get a better look. Standing on the line the targets seemed so far away.
“Next!” Bullseye shouted.
“Uh.. that's me!” Frosted said, stepping up to the line. Her heart was racing.
“Name?”
“Frosted Lights!”
The recruiter's pencil whisked across his clipboard. “Alright, show me your...” he trailed off as he looked up. “...stuff?”
“Alright, here I go,” the pegasus said, scraping at the ground with her hoof.
“Wait wait wait,” the recruiter said, stepping over to her. Before the mare could even begin to protest he began parting her mane, digging through it invasively with both forehooves.
Frosted stamped her hoof in indignation, glaring at the unicorn recruiter. “I'm not an alicorn!”
“Well that's certainly clear,” he remarked snidely. The tour guide appeared at his side, wide-eyed and bristling.
“Ma'am what are you doing? You need to stay with the tour group.”
The pegasus rose to full height and looked her in the eye. “I'm trying out.”
“Is that... allowed?” the tour guide asked, looking to the recruiter for help. He just shrugged. There wasn't any harm in it. What was one more crater in the shadow of Starspire Tower?
Frosted Lights returned to her position on the line. The feather she plucked thrummed with energy, lightning skittering across the icy blue stem. She sat back on her haunches, squinting at the distant target with her wings flared to steady herself. Her missile became snared in the breeze, swerving wildly left and right before a final skyward loop ended with the feather buried in the chewed up soil like a little flag to commemorate her newest failure. As if on cue lightning lanced down from the sky, searing through the air and blackening the feather and surrounding ground with its withering heat. A lengthy stone's throw away, the target was completely unscathed. The pegasus drooped, then turned in surprise to the sound of applause.
“Very well done,” the recruiter cheered, grinning ear to ear. “I've never seen anything like it.
Frosted lit up, her hopes raised. “So I can get in?”
“No I'm afraid not.” He pointed toward the far end of the field. “You didn't hit the target.”
“How many pegasi can even get magic onto the field?” she asked.
Bullseye frowned. “While your talents are certainly unique, there are many other candidates who can hit the target. We cannot and will not make an exception for a student because she is a pegasus. You are judged by your ability alone, Miss Lights. I am sorry.”
Rejection was a bitter pill to swallow. Frosted's head sank, only to be gently lifted by the recruiter's hoof. “What?” she asked. Mentally she braced for the comeuppance. A demonstration of why she didn't belong. She could feel the gaze of Shimmer's characters surrounding her again, mocking her.
But he only smiled at her. “Just because you didn't hit the target today doesn't mean you won't ever. You have a very special talent Miss Lights. Everypony that lines up before me does or they wouldn't be here. But the test isn't to measure talent because talent alone does not make a great magician. The test is a measure of your commitment to developing your talent into something great. Train yourself up and refine your skills, and when you're ready, come back and try again.”
The pegasus nodded slowly. She wanted to say that he was wrong, that she was worth the effort, that an exceptions could be made for an exceptional candidate, but feather to horn she was the least among those standing there and despite all wishes, this fact remained.
“Thanks...” She turned and slunk away.
Frosted found solace at a run-down campus bar with few distinguishing features. It was heavily laden with sports memorabilia, reeked of alcohol, and was crammed full of failures like her. Dimly lit and filthy, it was hardly Cloud Nine. The lone pegasus slid into a booth and waited for her waitress.
“Welcome to the Extra Circular,” she said when she arrived.
“Extra 'Circular'...?” the pegasus asked, squinting at the sign. She brushed a lock of her dark-blue mane out of her field of vision, but the letters on the sign refused to change.
The waitress grinned. “Nopony can pronounce 'curricular' by the end of the night! Now, if you don't mind my saying. You look a little blue.” She snickered.
Frosted scowled.
“It's just a joke...”
“I failed the entrance exam,” the pegasus explained. For a unicorn it would have gone without saying. The real party was over at the Lightning Rod. She could see it down the street, bustling with energy and vitality.
“Uh.. right,” the waitress said uncertainly. “I'll get you the house special okay?”
“Yeah sure.” The waitress left. All around Frosty were wouldn't-be students like herself. Comforting each other, telling them how it didn't matter.
“I knew I wouldn't get in but everypony gives it a go, right?” one was saying. Was he lying to himself? Had he known? The pegasus certainly thought she had a chance. Quietly she nursed her drink until somepony slid into the booth across from her.
“Don't see many pegasi in the Extra Circular,” he said. He was a unicorn, yellow as the sunrise with a brick red mane. “I'm Sunspot.”
Frosted eyed him up and down. “Frosted Lights. I failed the entrance exam. My brother, Torch, said this is where everypony goes afterward.” She took a long draught from her glass. “If they fail,” she added bitterly.
“Yeah me too,” he said. He waved the waitress down for a drink. “I'm told its a lot about horn position. I kept my head down, probably why my fireball hit the ground short. But I hear almost everypony does the first time.”
Frosted shrugged her wings. “My brother Torch didn't.”
Sunspot eyed her curiously as he drained the glass placed in front of him. “Is he a pegasus too?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Unicorn.”
“My sister's a pegasus,” he said, eager to keep the conversation moving along. “I don't think she's got a spark in her though. How close did you make it?”
Frosted stared into her drink, stirring it idly. “About half way down the field.” When she looked up, Sunspot had his eyes on her. He was brimming with curiosity. “Uh, yes?”
“How do you do it? Without a horn I mean,” he asked, fixated.
“My feathers,” she said, spreading her wings behind her. “I figured it out when I was really young. Just recently decided it might be worth getting some training.”
“Amazing!” he said, grinning. “And they didn't let you in? They don't know what they're missing! What all can you do?”
A smile appeared on Frosty's face. Finally some recognition! “Well...”
Sunspot raised his hoof and waved at the waitress. “Another round for my friend and I!”
At some point the mare lost count of how many glasses she'd emptied. There were several on her side of the table, but the waitress had collected a few already. Sunspot had been regaled with the sum of her meager magical career and was wobbling a little as he climbed out of the booth.
“C'mon Frosted,” he mumbled. “It's last call and I wanna see how you do this. We'll go over to the library and show 'em. Show 'em what we're made of!”
The drunken duo found the gate shut and locked for the night. It was a symbolic gesture at best. The unicorn warped across it and stumbled as the ground beneath him seemed to wobble about. The azure pegasus came down harder than she had intended and nearly crashed into her partner in crime.
Sunspot didn't seem to be doing very well. He became very quiet and took slow, deliberate steps. They had almost reached the firing range when he lurched and suddenly raced off the path. Frosted could hear him retching in the bushes.
“I had.. a little too much...” he confessed guiltily when he returned. He flopped over in the grass and curled up. “Just gonna... rest a minute... let me catch my breath...”
The pegasus sat on her haunches and waited, only to be ultimately rewarded with the sound of Sunspot snoring softly. The firing range lay before them. She wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.
“Horn position...” she repeated to herself. She plucked a feather and positioned it on her forehead. She stepped up to the line, lowered her head, and braced herself. Magic bubbled through her. A bright blue aura coursed through her feather-horn and coalesced into a glittering ball of white-hot flame. It sailed through the air on a weaving path and splattered across the dirt with a soft thud. The second went a little further, and the third nearly dripped down her muzzle, making a molten blob on the ground between her hooves. The feather, drained of color, fluttered down and landed in it, quickly reducing to little more than ash. She plucked another and continued on. Fwoosh. Boom. Hiss. Another three volleys and another feather gone. Gradually the fiery projectiles began to travel further. Minutes passed by in a blur of white and silver comets and feathers falling at her feet.
At some point in the night it finally happened. Amidst a veritable meteor storm a single glittering ball of white fire rocketed from the bedraggled pegasus' forehead and crashed into her distant target. Hot and sweaty and panting for air she was barely standing from the sheer exhaustion. Had her eyes deceived her? There in the pale silver light of the moon she could see smoldering wreckage where her target had been.
“I did it...” she said to the air, alone in her quiet victory. “I did it!”
But she was not as alone as she thought. “There! Get her!” somepony shouted.
Frosted whimpered. Oh right, trespassing. “Oh buck.” She bolted for the fence but a campus security officer suddenly warped into her path. She tried to leap over him, but nearly barreled into him when she made the unpleasant discovery that she couldn't find the air beneath her mutilated wings. She doubled back toward the library, sprinting at full tilt. Again and again she found him blocking her way. At last she was pinned against the library wall. Nowhere to run. There was a window above her head, but it was barred.
“Freeze!” the guard commanded. His horn began to crackle with electricity. “You're under arrest!”
“Not good...” the panicky mare repeated frantically. She hopped up against the wall and smashed the window. In went a feather. The guard's magic crackled against the stone where she'd just been standing. She plucked one last feather and closed her eyes tight. Vertigo took her and she found herself stumbling to regain her balance inside the locked up library. Her lungs ached and her wings ached, pain throbbing within them at every motion. Through the bars she could see the guard vanish. An instant later he was standing before her. She gave him a sorrowful look, trying to hold her head up as she panted for air. Nausea had gripped her. There would be no more running.
“I hit...” she said, gasping. “The target...”
And then she saw the crackle of lightning racing toward her. She cried out as she went rigid, then crumpled to the ground and curled into a fetal position. With fading vision she saw the last feather fall from her forehead and alight on her leg. She tried to smile. Victory.
Word got around about the pegasus that could warp. The incident landed her in the hospital for three days and the report eventually brought her to Crackshot's desk, with 100 hours community service and then the potential for a new and exciting career in law enforcement. It seemed a little backward to the young mare, but the Magical Crimes Unit was a new idea and it came with new rules. A clean record didn't seem to be one of them.
A sharp jab in her ribs brought Featherfall around. Coldhorn was eyeing her with concern. “You drifted off there Featherfall,” the changeling warned. “You should go home and get some sleep.”
The pegasus tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. “Coldhorn? How are you still sober?”
The other agent shrugged in answer. “Go home.”.
“Thanks...,” Featherfall answered wearily. “I think I will.”