Chapter 4
Before the Dawn
Featherfall trotted along the busy train platform dragging a bag along behind her as she struggled to find her way through the crowds of ponies traveling for Hearth's Warming. She watched with a smile as traveler after traveler found their loved ones amongst the sea of colorful faces. Everywhere around her was joy, ponies crying out greetings to one another and embracing. Finally it was her turn when she caught a glimpse of orange coming through the crowd.
“Torch!” she called out, waving. The stallion's eyes lit up as his sister galloped toward him with her bag bouncing along behind her. The harness broke loose a few feet shy and the bag skid to a halt as she tackled him, wrapping her forelegs around his neck.
“Frosty! It's so good to see you!” he said, hugging her tightly.
Featherfall dropped back to all fours and quickly collected her bag. “It's been too long,” she admitted guiltily.
Torch only smiled. “You're here now,” he said. “That's all that matters. Let me get that for you. There's a coach waiting for us.”
The beat-up luggage hovered into the air and followed after the unicorn as he led it, and his sister, off the platform. In the sanctity of the coach his expression sobered.
“How have you been, Frosty?” he asked somberly. “I can still call you Frosty, right?”
“Of course you can Torch,” she said softly.
“So how are things? Everything's okay, right?”
She couldn't help but sigh. Of course he had heard about the altercation with Shimmer. “I'm fine, Torch, really.” She smiled for him, but the concern in his eyes remained.
Eager to change the subject Featherfall dug into her satchel and pulled out a little box, nearly wrapped and adorned with a cheery red bow. “I got you something!”
“Aw you didn't have to do that,” Torch said.
Featherfall could feel her brother's telekinesis taking hold, but she didn't let go. “You have to wait until tomorrow,” she explained.
The unicorn chuckled. “Well alright, I suppose I can wait.” A glint caught his eye. “Is that your badge?”
She traced his gaze into her satchel. “Uh... no,” she said. Quietly she withdrew the item lying on top. A silver horn file with a gold-inlaid handle. The ruby in the center had caught his eye, as it so often did.
Torch seemed bewildered by the item held before him. “Is that your old horn file?” he asked, nose wrinkled in confusion.
“I use it as a letter opener,” she explained. All at once her throat felt a little dry. “Snowy used to write me, twice a week.” Despite long disuse, there was still a bit of red wax stuck between the file's ridges. Featherfall couldn't say which letter had provided it; there had been so many. She couldn't take her eyes off of it until she felt her brother's hoof on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath and put the file back into her satchel. “Yeah,” she lied. “I'm fine. I promise.”
If Featherfall found herself jobless, Torch would be there for her. He always had been, as long as she could remember. In the back of her mind a memory lingered of a young filly about to have a very bad day.
As a blossoming young pegasus she found her wings developing into the splendor of adulthood. New flight feathers emerged at a near-frantic rate, replacing those that were old or broken. A light blue carpet of feathers strewn like flower petals lead to a gangly adolescent pegasus rather than an altar.
A brush on her vanity had a few broken feathers snagged between its bristles, but trying to snag all of the loose feathers with the brush was like trying to scratch an itch on the center of her back. She freed more feathers wallowing on her back on her bedroom floor than she did with the clumsy tool. Frosty preferred a more traditional method of preening. Her nightly ritual began with her primaries and worked meticulously through the rest of her feathers, freeing the well-worn and broken with a gentle tug.
The door was shut tight as a matter of habit; one of several small steps Frosty took to avert her mother's attention from her grooming habits. Despite her best efforts, somehow Merry always found out. One evening her mother decided to put an end to her clandestine preening.
Frosty wandered into her room shortly after dinner and started to push the door shut behind her. Only, she didn't hear the latch click. One of the servant mares had caught the door and nosed it back open. A second, much younger mare followed close behind. She was only year or so older than Frosty.
An irate Frosty scowled at the intruders. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded.
The young servant looked uncertain of herself. She opened her mouth to say something but was cowed by her supervisor's withering glare.
“Just get it done,” the older said.
“What's going on? You can't just barge in here!” the indignant pegasus shouted, raising a hoof toward the door.
The younger mare paused long enough to give Frosty an apologetic look and circled behind her.
“Your mother's orders,” the older explained.
A little while later Torch found her huddled on her bed, trembling. Her spread wings hung limp at her sides, a small rivulet of blood trickled down one side, staining blue feathers an ugly purple before dripping onto the bed.
“Frosty? ...Are you okay?”
“They're too rough,” she whimpered.
Torch's eyes were drawn to the brush. A few healthy feathers were caught in it, ripped out by the servant's mad rush and inexperienced touch, made worse by her bawling and struggling charge.
“I don't know how Mom found out...” she said, sniffling.
Torch frowned and placed a sympathetic hoof on her shoulder. “The brush leaves a pattern,” he said. He lifted it off the table and gently ran it along the grain of his sister's wing, picking up several mangled feathers. “Just relax,” he said softly. “I'll take care of it.”
Featherfall shuddered a little as the memory passed. The new ritual became a somber bond between them, fellow prisoners living beneath the iron hoof of Merry Lights. The burden rested heavy on their shoulders. Sometimes surviving was the best revenge.
“So... are you going to go see Mom?” Torch asked, breaking the silence.
Featherfall looked at him like he'd just sprouted a second horn. “What? No. Are you crazy?”
The stallion looked contritely at the floor. “Right, sorry.”
“I didn't think she was even talking to you,” she said, watching for his reaction.
He frowned toward his hooves. “She came looking for me yesterday. Said you were up to your old antics.”
My 'antics'...?” Featherfall asked.
Torch lifted his head and looked her in the eye. “Frosty, they arrested Candle Nights yesterday for Waxworks' murder.”
“What?” Featherfall blinked a few times and shook her head back and forth. Had she heard him right? “Candle? That doesn't make any sense. Candle couldn't... wouldn't do a thing like that.”
“He was going to sell to Waxworks,” her brother explained. “The family business has been going downhill. He told me himself a few weeks ago. Waxworks was a good guy. Offered to buy him out at a premium. Only problem is, they hadn't got it started yet. So there's no paperwork, nothing.”
The detective sighed and looked out the window. The fields she had played in as a child were drift past. “And of course the business will bounce back now that Waxworks is gone which gives Candle Nights a good motive in Foresight's eyes.”
“Mom's been talking with Blaze and Candle for weeks about it. Maybe if you talked to them...”
A sharp glare from Featherfall silenced him.
“I'm just trying to help,” he said dolefully.
Featherfall sighed. “I know,” she said. “But it doesn't matter. I'm off the case. Me being involved at all jeopardizes the integrity of the case. I'm already in trouble over turning up in that warehouse with Shimmer.”
“You got in trouble for that?” he asked in disbelief.
Featherfall nodded. “Yeah,” she said sadly. “A lot.”
At last the coach came to a stop in front of a little cottage nestled in the hills. “This is the place!” Torch announced. He scrambled out of the coach and settled up with the driver while Featherfall retrieved her luggage. She had it halfway up the cobblestone path before it lifted off of its own accord and fell in step behind her brother. He grinned as he trotted past.
“You're going to love it,” he said cheerfully. “I just got the place finished a few months ago. The guest room is in the back. In case it gets chilly I put an extra blanket in there.”
“Featherfall smiled as she explored the modest halls. “It's very nice,” she said. “Suits you well. Now you just need a mare to share it with!”
“Actually,” Torch said with a grin. “I'm seeing somepony. Her name is Melody. She'll be by tomorrow. You'll love her!”
“I'm sure I will,” she answered. Out the guest room window was a snow landscape interrupted only by a two-story home with smoke pouring from its chimney.
“Shimmer lives there with her boyfriend, River Run. He's...” Torch hesitated. “Well I've only met him once.”
Featherfall arched a brow. “Didn't like him?”
Torch shook his head. “Gave me a bad vibe. Hardly said a word. They came by when I finished the cottage. Haven't seen them since. Good riddance if you ask me,” he sneered.
“What about Blaze?”
Torch frowned. “He's not really around much. Lives in the old house with Mom. At the rate he's going he's going to work himself to death.” Just like Dad, seemed to hang in the air, unsaid but still heard. Hesitant glances communicated understanding.
“She can't know I'm here,” the pegasus warned. “Crackshot wasn't happy about me coming to visit, but you're not a suspect in the case and you're family and I'm not on the case so... but if something happens, I stand to lose my job over it. Okay?”
Torch's face twisted up in confusion. “Shimmer's a suspect?”
“What? No. I don't know. I don't think so. I'm not on the case. But she was in the warehouse and she works for Candle. So...”
“Like I said, I haven't seen her in months. It will be fine.” His tone was reassuring but the pegasus couldn't help but think of the badge in her luggage. It was hers to lose.
The siblings were cleaning up after dinner when a knock came at the door. Featherfall bristled as she cast an anxious glance toward the window. Shimmer's house loomed threateningly close on the horizon. “Expecting somepony? Melody?”
Torch started for the door. “She has a key...”
Featherfall started for the opposite hallway. From the guest room she could hear the argument advancing down the hall.
“You can't just barge in like this!” Torch protested. “This is my home”
“And I am your mother!”
A fire flared up in Featherfall's gut. She sat in the middle of her room, just waiting for the door to slam open. Merry did not disappoint.
“Frosted Lights!” Merry growled. “What do you have to say for yourself?!”
Torch stood just behind her and mouthed an “I'm sorry!”
The pegasus met her mother's gaze with a cold and unflinching glare. Righteous indignation boiled just beneath the surface. “My name,” she said evenly, “is Featherfall. And I have nothing to say to you.”
Merry straightened to full height and glowered at her daughter. Her breath reeked of alcohol. “You are a part of this family, Frosted Lights. Now you listen to me. What you have done to your uncle, your sister, your brother; your own flesh and blood is... is... Well you simply must call off this frivolous investigation!”
“I will not!” Featherfall snapped.
The older mare hung her head. “You were such a good girl before we sent you away to Cloudsdale. I never should have let you go. You changed so much in those few short years. Your grandmother poisoned you against us and this is how you repay our love. Accusations and investigations? There are detectives questioning your poor sister right now! On Hearth's Warming Eve!”
“Your... love...?” Featherfall asked, her voice shaking. Her entire body began to tremble. “Your love?” The word felt like an obscenity on her tongue.
Merry nodded somberly.
Featherfall's voice dripped with venom as she pawed at the ground. “You sent photos of Harmonica to our relatives. You sent them pictures of the maid's daughter and called her your own. I was your great shame. I didn't...” Her voice cracked. “I didn't know what it was like to be loved until I went to Cloudsdale!”
Merry's visage darkened. “You see? You see what she's done to you? I taught you culture and grace. An appreciation for the opportunities your dear father and I provided you. She gave you what you wanted, but I gave you what you needed.”
“Mother...” Torch warned, stepping up beside her..
Merry shot him a dirty look. “This is between your sister and I,” she said.
Torch stamped a hoof. “This is my house. You will not come in here and treat my guest this way!”
Hot, wet tears streamed down Featherfall's cheeks. “I'm going,” she said and turned to face the biting cold just outside the bedroom window. An icy blue feather found its way through the crack beneath the latch. She took a deep breath, hesitating as she stared into the unwelcoming dark. In the last moment she turned back to Torch with remorse swimming in her eyes.
“I'm sorry,” she said raggedly. With a quiet flash of light she vanished into the night, leaving a single white feather hanging in the air. Its fluttering descent to the floor came to a slow halt in the delicate grip of Torch's soft orange aura.
He presented it to Merry with his face twisted in rage, nostrils flared. “You. You should never have come here tonight.”
Wealth; culture; prestige; well-bred; class. All words associated with the Lights family. But nopony in Cloudsdale knew of the prestigious unicorns living in the golden hills of faraway Canterlot. She was just another would-be weathermare. Three years of Flight School. Three years of respite. For the first time in her life, Frosted Lights had finally found everything she really wanted. School brought homework and studies, friends and adventures. Sure, they were great, but they were not new ideas to the young pegasus. Snowy Sunrise brought something to the table that the young filly had never felt before.
Snowy Sunrise was a pegasus with fur as white as her namesake and an indigo mane as wild as the skies. Even in her old age she had a youthful sparkle in her eye. Every evening when Frosted came home, her grandmother would be there with dinner on the table. Snowy was a tutor and a confidant; somepony with a wing to cry under when things went poorly; somepony to cheer her on to victory.
Graduation was a bittersweet pill. The decision to return home would haunt her for years. Why? Why go back...? But then the letters began to arrive. Twice a week with clockwork regularity. The two shared adventures, successes, sorrows... Frosted Lights kept each and every one. But then... then came the letter that she had long dreaded. It was a silent horror buried deep in the back of her mind beneath a misty veil of willful ignorance.
Frosted Lights:
It is our sad duty to inform you that this morning at around 10 AM, Snowy Sunrise was found to have passed away in her sleep. You have our deepest condolences in this time of great loss. Please contact us post-haste to make funeral arrangements.
~Sunstrike,
Cloudsdale Hospital
Two days later she stood in front of a great picture of Snowy Sunrise, in all the beauty of her youth. Frosted Lights barely recognized her grandmother save that loving smile and her bright blue eyes, brimming with excitement. Beside it was the coffin. Her eyes felt like lead weights, heavy with tears as she looked up at the picture. Finally she pried her eyes from Snowy's smile and let them fall on the coffin: the final resting place of Snowy Sunrise. The priest rested a gentle hoof on the bereaved pegasus' shoulder. He looked uncomfortably around the near-empty room. The only other mourners were a few old mares from Snowy's apartment building. Frosted barely recognized them.
“I... we need to start soon...” he said with some hesitation.
Frosted nodded slowly, mouth shut tight. It was all she could do to keep herself together. She took her place on the front row, eyes fixed on the coffin. The priest began to speak but she didn't hear. She was lost in a cold, numbing fog deep in her own mind. All those days in Cloudsdale, gone forever. There would be no more letters. When the ceremony was over the priest gave her a hug, said Snowy was in a better place, and quietly excused himself. The old mares shuffled out after him.
The lone pegasus was frozen, sitting on the front row. Staring straight ahead through bloodshot, watery eyes. After a while she heard hoofsteps behind her, but she didn't turn to look. She couldn't look away. This was it, the last page in the story of Snowy Sunrise, and it would end on the whim of her granddaughter, when she turned and walked away.
“Frosted,” her mother said. “It's time to go dear. We need to pick your father up at the office.”
“You missed it...” Frosted said distantly.
Her mother sat beside her, studying the unfamiliar portrait. “We hardly knew her, dear. She wasn't really part of the family.”
The pegasus shuddered, trying to keep it together. “She was... part of the family...” she said, her voice quavering and hitching. “She took... care of me...”
“We paid her for your food and housing,” her mother explained. “She was just glad to have some company in her twilight years.”
“No...no you don't... You don't understand... ” Frosted turned from the coffin and looked her mother in the eye, backing away. “She... she loved me! She loved me!” She shouted, her voice choked with sobs. She turned and threw herself onto the coffin and buried her head against the polished wooden lid, sobbing. “She loved me!”
Her mother stood placidly behind her, waiting for the tears to stop. “You're overreacting dear,” Merry said, finally tugging her away. Frosted could smell wine on her breath.
“No! No I won't go with you! You're horrible! You didn't even come for her funeral! You were at home drinking!” She struggled out of her mother's telekinetic grip and brandished a feather. Lightning crackles ominously through it. “You're a monster!”
Merry opened her mouth to protest but her look of shock quickly gave way to indignation. “I don't have to take this,” she said. She turned and walked out, leaving her youngest lying on the floor, pouring out her grief to an empty room.
When the bereaved pegasus returned home she found a letter waiting. The following day she answered it in person at the Magical Crimes Unit headquarters.
“It's a new unit, focusing solely on crimes that are magic in nature or with connection to the crown,” Crackshot explained. “We have two positions left to fill and we'd like to offer you one. Now, there is the problem of your past criminal record: trespass on royal holdings and resisting arrest. Looks like you got off easy on it. We need to put forth a good appearance Miss Lights and that means squeaky clean. But a magic pegasus is too rare to pass up. So we've pulled some strings and the job would come with a new name and a clean slate. It's not glamorous work but it would put those talents of yours to use for the good of the kingdom. Think about it, and let me know in the morning.”
After a long night of soul-searching she returned and went straight into Crackshot's office.
“Good to see you,” he said, looking up from his work. “Have you made a decision?”
Frosted Lights nodded. “I have. I would like to take the job.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” the lieutenant said. “Settled on a new name?”
Through the night the sharpest of her memories revisited her each in turn. Showing off her tricks for the first time at Cloud Nine; Shimmer's rebuke; Standing on the firing range sweaty and sore, feathers falling down around her like snow, the color drained away with their magic. “Featherfall.”
'Frosted Lights' died with Snowy Sunrise, there on the floor of the funeral home.
Huddled by the chimney, Featherfall gazed into the white-hot center of a flickering blue flame burning atop a feather floating before her. It gently warmed her face and chest, softly burning away the stinging cold of winter's night. Below she could still hear her mother and brother shouting accusations at each other. Across the field in the failing light of evening she could see Foresight and Swansong emerge from Shimmer's house. A carriage waited to take them back to the train station.
Shimmer watched from the patio until they were gone, squashing Featherfall's chances of catching up to say hello. She went inside and returned a few minutes later with a dark blue stallion at her side. The two started down the road together. Featherfall's imagination plagued her with sordid conjurings of the sort of stallion that might take interest in somepony like Shimmer.
At long last Merry went on her way and Torch ventured out into the night to look for his sister. The gentle blue haze of her light made her easy to find.
He looked up at her with a deeply furrowed brow. “Mother's gone, finally,” he said bitterly.
“I heard,” Featherfall said. “I think all of Canterlot heard,” she added wryly.
“You're probably right,” her brother said with a chuckle. “C'mon, let's go inside. Aren't you cold?”
She joined him on the ground and flashed him a weak smile. “What, this? You should've seen me in blizzard training. Now that was cold.”