• Published 28th Apr 2012
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Your Wings Were Made For Angels - Still Breeze



When the universe is in trouble, it's going to take more than the magic of friendship to save it.

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The Art Of Sacrifice

Chapter 9: The art of sacrifice


“Well, I’d best be heading back now…” Cantor said, taking a step towards the edge of the balcony.

“Wait.” Celestia called, causing the stallion to stop in his tracks.

“Yeah?” He asked.

“Are you not hungry?”

Cantor really was hungry. He’d been up for twenty four hours and had raised the sun, who wouldn’t be? “A little.” He replied.

“Well we’re just going to have breakfast now. There will be plenty of time to make your way back to Ponyville.” The larger princess explained. Luna was making her way through the door towards their dining room, leaving Celestia and Cantor on their own in Celestia’s bedroom. Cantor stared longingly out over Equestria in a humble silence.

“Don’t worry about it, Cantor.” Celestia said in a comforting tone. “You still have the whole year… Now lets get some food in us.”

Cantor sighed, the princess' last statement failing to make him feel any better, and followed her to the large table in which Luna was sat speaking to a slate coloured unicorn dressed in formal attire. Cantor guessed that he was a waiter.

“What would you like for breakfast, Cantor?” Celestia asked as they walked.

“I’m not really sure, princess, not something too complicated, maybe just some toast…” Celestia smiled. “If that’s okay…”

“Of course.” She cleared her throat and out of nowhere a second burgundy unicorn with pale blonde hair and tidy
moustache appeared in front of them.

“Yes, your highness?” He spoke with his eyes closed in a droning voice.

“Could I please get an Autumn salad and two slices of toast for the gentlecolt, here.”

The other stallion opened his eyes and lost his composure for a second. “Certainly, princess.” He said, sizing up Cantor through his dark green eyes. “If I may be so bold, princess, may I ask who is our guest?”

Celestia looked at Cantor, urging him to speak. “I’m Cantor, nice to meet you.” He said, extending a hoof.

“Quite.” Replied the unicorn who then trotted off to a door in the corner of the room.

Cantor took a seat next to the white princess on an unnecessarily long oak table with a long red strip of fabric down the centre opposite the midnight blue mare who had recently received a plate of thin, golden pancakes which were steaming ambiently.

“Your wings are rather large.” Princess Luna brought up from nowhere.

“They are quite a lot bigger than most pegasi I’ve seen.” Cantor replied, stretching his wings vertically out behind him to display his feathers. “Though I must say, they’re going to take some getting used too.”

“You didn’t have wings before?” Luna asked. Celestia, meanwhile just sat eating her salad, listening to the conversation.

“No,” Replied Cantor, “neither did I have magic powers.”

“So what were you before you became like us?” She asked. Cantor had to try really hard not to say ‘a monster’ and instead opted for “Just a… different thing…”

“Oh, okay…” Luna remarked, taking another bite of her honey-covered crêpes.

After breakfast, Celestia bid farewell to Cantor as he went to take off from one of the many balconies that were scattered throughout the castle.

“I’m glad our second meeting went better than the first.” Celestia remarked, smiling broadly. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“So do I. Thank you very much for breakfast, your majesty.”

“Please, Call me Princess, or Celestia. Whatever takes your fancy.”

Cantor smirked and winked at the princess, “What about Tia?”

“Oh, go on, you!” She said playfully, smiling through a frown.

Cantor grinned even more and turned to take off. That’s when the realisation hit him. “Oh. My. God.” He shuddered.
“What’s wrong, Cantor?” Asked Celestia, rushing to his side.

“I left my vest on the hilltop. I’ve got to see if it’s still there!” he spread his wings wide and bent down low. “Thanks, princess, I’ll see you round.” And with that, he took off with alarming speed for a pony his size and build, his wings creating powerful winds that blew Celestia’s mane backwards for a change. When the gusts subsided and the princess’ hair returned to normal, she watched Cantor fly out of sight towards Ponyville. Her deep thought was interrupted by her sister’s voice coming from behind her.

“Well, sister, what do you think?” Asked Luna, drawing up to her much larger sister’s side and gazing in the direction of Ponyville with her.

“I think he can be trusted, but let’s keep an eye on him… just in case…”




Cantor rocketed through the air. He vividly remembered the view from the hill he stood on last night. Nopony could see him. The castle knew who he was, but if Ponyville found out he was an alicorn, they would go berserk! Another alicorn spotted on his own? That wouldn’t go down well. For now, he realised, he would just have to hide in plain view of everypony, using his stagecoach story as a cover-up.

“There!” He shouted as he spotted an empty hill quickly approaching him. As he dove downwards, he prepared to land successfully this time. When he was a foot above the ground, he tilted sideward and rolled along the ground. “That’ll do.” He said as he got up and raced to where he remembered taking the vest off from. “Were is it!?” He cried desperately. The view was the same, so was the one tree in the field. But no vest. He became very worried. “No matter!” Cantor fretted, “I can always get another one.”

On the second frantic search, he found that the brown garment lay in a pile at the base of the hill; it had blown around in the night. Feeling a wave of blissful relief wash over him, Cantor trotted down the hill to his vest. Though it had caused him so much pain already, Cantor knew it would save him from worse. He pulled it over his head with magic and, saying ‘goodbye’ to his wings, folded them up and smoothed the vest over them. Though it was uncomfortable, this was the sensation he was used to the day before, so he just accepted it.

At peace that now nopony would suspect him, he slowly began his way back to Ponyville. His body felt three time as heavy as it should as the extreme lack of sleep set in. He trudged through the outskirts of the town, knowing that he would probably have to go another twelve hours at least before he was allowed to sleep again. Groaning, Cantor wondered whether Red Bull existed in this world before realising he still wouldn’t be able to pay for it.

As he crossed the town centre, a few ponies were already out and about, observing the town around him, he wasn't looking streight ahead and he ran into a certain mail courier mare. “Oh,” Said cantor, a little surprised to have walked straight into somepony. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t really watching where I was going.” The grey mare remained silent, facing the letterbox. “Hey, are you okay?” He asked, tapping the young mare on her flank.

“Hi!” She said, pivoting around instantly, causing Cantor to stumble backwards.

“Derp-!” He began to say before covering his mouth with a hoof.

“Hi! My name’s Derpy Hooves! Nice to meet ya’! And don’t worry about me, no harm done!”

“Oh, well uh… It’s… very nice to meet you, Derpy hooves!” Cantor remarked, extending a hoof. “My name’s Cantor.”

“Great to meet ya’, Cantor!” the cross-eyed pegasus practically yelled in her coltish voice, furiously shaking Cantor by the hoof.

Derpy quickly scooted around Cantor and pulled the velcro strap over the bag on her side, “I’m sorry, but I have to go; lots of letters to deliver!” She called, slapping her saddlebag and taking off into the sky with a gentle wave. Cantor waved back.

“Bye, Derpy!”

“See ya’ round!” She replied, flying further across the town a little lop-sidedly.

“Wow…” Remarked Cantor to himself. “Everypony’s so nice…” He continued to walk, a little more power in his step after the delightful encounter with Derpy Hooves.

Cantor crossed the town square, waving and smiling towards anypony who did the same. But when he turned to go down an alleyway as a shortcut to the library, in which he needed to consult the sign only once to find the way, he drew himself around a corner to come muzzle – to muzzle with a coffee-coloured stallion. Being the over-reactive pony that he was when it came to ‘jump-scares’, Cantor only stood there, screaming in the other stallion’s face until he realised that he wasn’t a monster.

“Oh, God. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting anypony to be here.” He apologised, starting to make his way around the smaller, brown Earth pony. The other stallion made no attempt to move. “Oh, um… excuse me, please, I’m just trying to get to the library…”

“I saw you last night…” The smaller stallion answered.

“What?”

“I saw you flying.”

“You must be mistaken. I wasn’t flying.” Cantor lied badly.

“No. it was you, alright. I can see it in your eyes… They’re exactly the same…”

Cantor could swear he knew this voice from somewhere. “So, what would you say if I told you it was me flying?”

“Nothing.” Replied the dark-maned stallion. “I simply wish to ask you a few questions.”

Cantor paused for a long moment before replying. “You’re not… you’re not… are you?" He asked half in disbelief, half in fear.

“That’s what I thought...” The smaller brown stallion said, walking away from Cantor and as he turned, he showed his hourglass cutie mark. “Come with me.” He ordered, and Cantor obeyed. They crossed through many more alleyways until they reached a dead end. The light brown stallion drew a complicated looking device from his mane and held it in his mouth. The end glowed brightly and it made an annoying buzzing sound. In the corner of the alleyway, something Cantor had never seen before, but instantly recognised materialised. The words ‘Police Box’ were inscribed on the top.

“Wait, wait, wait. How can you be here!?” Cantor cried.

The other stallion turned to face him. “How can you?” He asked with piercing blue eyes.

“I – I have to save this world…” Cantor replied hesitantly. “Why are you here?”

“I'm on holiday.” He answered cockily, stepping inside the blue box. He caught on to Cantor’s wonderment. “Want a look?” He asked openly with a proud smile.

“Really?” The alicorn stared in disbelief.

“Of course.” Said the other stallion, stepping further inside.

It was not the first time in his short stay in Equestria that he gasped in awe. “Wow!...” He sighed, gazing around the huge room. "It’s bigger on the inside!”

The coffee coloured pony chuckled. “Yep, that’s what they all say…” He then leapt up onto the main terminal and began switching a variety of levers and buttons, causing the machine to make all kinds of strange noises.

“Where are you going now?” Asked Cantor in a raised voice above the whirring.

“Wherever I fancy…” He replied cockily.

“I’m gonna stay here.” Cantor replied, backing out of the doorway.

“What made you think I’d let you come with me anyway?” Asked the Earth pony, draping his forehooves over the handrail, a childish smirk plastered on his face.

“I don’t know, you’re a strange man.” Cantor remarked. The other stallion turned around and flicked a few switches, silencing a horrendous crunching sound that had started.

“Wait, just who exactly are you?” Asked Cantor, who was now stood on the outside of the box and looking in.

The brown stallion’s ears pricked up and he turned around slowly, and obviously trying to be as dramatic a possible. A cheeky smirk crept onto his face and he began to speak. “I’m the Doctor.”

“Of course.” Cantor remarked, shaking his head dismissively.

“Could you get the door?” Came a cry from inside the Tardis.

“Yeah. I’ll se ya’ round, alright!” Cantor replied as the air around him became excited.

“Yeah! See you later!”

Cantor pulled the door shut with magic just as the big blue box wheezed its self from existence. As the papers that littered the alleyway fluttered to the ground silently, Cantor was left alone once again. “Wow…” He uttered once more, “What a morning!”.




He dragged his heavy hooves along the ground as he approached the library. He strode towards the inviting tree-house and peeked through the window. As he was hoping, there was Twilight, hunched over a desk, scribbling away with a feather quill. And as usual, a small brew lay steaming in the corner. Sighing in relief to finally be… back at Twilight’s, Cantor drew himself up to the heavy wooden door bearing it’s lit candle engraving.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. Cantor knocked four times on her door, trying to refresh himself as he heard her approach. The door opened to reveal a Twilight that didn’t look massive amounts better than him. “What happened to you!?” She cried in alarm at the sight of the dirty, zombie-like pony stood in her doorway.

“Rough night.” Cantor replied, waiting to be let in. “You look tired as well. Did you sleep okay?”

“Well, yes and no.” Twilight said, walking back inside, ushering Cantor to follow. “For the most part, that is…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I went to bed at about one in the morning, right?”

“Right…”

“And as I remember, I woke up at five.”

“Oh, god.”

“So I’m feeling really sleepy…” Twilight groaned, swaying a little.

“And then I remembered!” Twilight began, seeming a lot less tired all of a sudden, “I was supposed to take you to see princess Celestia! I’m so sorry! It completely slipped my mind! It- It wasn't on my list.” She looked angrily at the floor.

“Hey,” Said Cantor, “It’s alright. Actually, I’ve already seen the princess.”

“You have!?”

“Yeah, last night.”

“You got the late-night train?”

“No, I f- walked.”

“You walked to Canterlot and back!?”

“Yes.”

“Have you not slept since last morning?”

“No. I’m actually really tired. I don’t usually get this tired.” He continued with drooping eyes.

“Do you want to sleep here now?”

Cantor wanted to say no, but the thought of sleep was too appealing. “Actually, do you mind if I had a nap on your sofa?”

“Not at all!” Twilight replied cheerily.

“Thank you…” Cantor sighed as he made his way over to the soft, inviting, furry couch. He climbed aboard it and laid down, resting his head on his front hooves. No sooner had his eyes mercifully closed, they were violently torn open again by ear-splitting screams of pure terror.

“What the HELL is that!?” Cantor asked, pulling himself up from the softness, his voice laced with fear. Not at the situation, but towards that horrendous sound.

“It sounds like Rarity!” Twilight cried, leaping from her seat and rushing to the door. She flung it wide open with tremendous force to see her white unicorn friend galloping towards her, her mane a mess and her eyes were streaming tears.

“TWILIGHT!!!” She screeched as she tripped and fell at the purple mare’s hooves.

“What’s wrong, Rarity!?” Twilight gasped. By now, Cantor was in the doorway too and Spike followed quickly after.

“Rarity! What’s the ma- AHH!” The baby dragon toppled from the top of the staircase and landed with a crash on the floor. But that didn’t deter him. “What’s the matter!?” He cried, sprinting and leaping onto his carer’s back.

“My boutique!” She yelled, more at Twilight, rather than simply telling her. “It’s on fire!”

“WHAT!” All three, Twilight, Spike and Cantor cried at once.

“Please! Help me!”

“I can’t do anything! Have you called the fire bigade!?”

“Of course!” Rarity screamed. It was obvious she was distraught and on the edge of a panic attack. “But they’re on the other side of Ponyville! It’s going to take four or five minutes for them to get here!” The three ponies and one dragon had by now bolted from the library towards the flaming boutique. Twilight didn’t lock the door. She didn’t even close it.

Rarity’s flow of tears increased dramatically, streaming her perfect face with black mascara. “I’m so sorry, Rarity.” Twilight said sorrowfully. “There’s nothing I can do!”

“PLEASE!” Rarity screamed in desperation. “The children are in there!”

Cantor replied first this time. “What!?” He yelled in dispair. “Not lives.” He thought. “Not children…”

“Please help!” Rarity pleaded again, still keeping hold of her desperate tone.

“Where are they?” Cantor fired at the white unicorn.

“In the cellar!”

“Why are they there!?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Rarity bellowed, her voice carried more anger than terror. “Just please, DO something!”

“Alright” Cantor spoke calmly and definitively. “I promise.” He didn’t know how he was going to stop this blaze, but what he did know was that no lives would be lost this day.




The huge carousel towered in front of them, fire roaring and crackling loudly as the inferno engulfed the building.
Rarity roared in horror as one of the windows on the upper floor blew out, causing a massive flare to lick the sky. “Come on… Come on…” Cantor urged in his head for the fire to extinguish, but when faced with a fire of that size, only after experiencing small embers at the will of his magic, a wave of overwhelming pain shot through him. He dropped onto one knee before standing strong again. “Water won’t work. Neither will wind; the building is too structurally unsound.” The stallion thought helplessly to himself. He didn’t know what to do until he heard the deep sound of bowing rafters that he grabbed Rarity firmly by the shoulders.

“Where’s the basement!?” He spat, causing Rarity to recoil. “WHERE!?”

“Through the front, the first door on the left.” She replied in submissive fear.

Cantor dropped Rarity and raced towards the inferno.

“Cantor, wait!” Cried Twilight as the white stallion thundered, quite literally, through the front door. The heat was far too intense, where Twilight was standing to even look at the fire for more than a second, let alone to charge straight at the source.

Inside, the boutique was filled with smoke and the white alicorn quickly became a dirty shade of grey. He could hear muffled screaming and crying from somewhere below. “Hang on, kids!” He shouted as loud as he could without screaming, his voice barely audible to himself over the roar and hiss of the fire. Nearly instantly, he began to sweat, the temperatures in the room reaching well above 300 degrees Celsius; enough to instantly kill any ‘normal’ pony. He took a massive lungful of air, only to be greeted by searing heat and soot. He choked violently and stooped low to the floor, taking in gulps of what could be classed as ‘fresh air’ in these conditions.

Snapping his vision to the left, he noticed the outline of a door under the smoke. Cantor clocked the direction and stood up again. He galloped the short distance across the room to where the door was. To his surprise, the door was shut. “Clever foals.” He remarked, before taking it back when he realised the door was also locked. With his magic, he turned the door into splinters and rushed through, falling down the staircase on the way. He landed in a heap at the foot of the first step.

The air down here was much cooler, relative to the temperatures upstairs: it was still pretty ‘toasty’. Very near by, Cantor could her the sound of fillies crying.

He galloped round the corner, past rows of colourful fabrics. When he heard the loud bowing sound again, followed by a deafening snap that seemed to shake the whole house, time seemed to slow down. He leaped towards the three fillies huddled together as the roof above them caved in. his mighty wings ripped apart the fabric binding them and he opened them up as wide as they would go, circling over the quivering fillies like a feathery umbrella. Just when he had landed, the first piece of floorboards struck his wings, causing great pain as they bent the wrong way.

Upon the new entity, the orange filly Cantor recognised as Scootaloo looked up with her innocent, but terrified violet eyes.

Somehow, under the bombardment of flaming wood and sharp mannequins that had splintered and gouged deep holes in Cantor when they struck him, the alicorn found his voice. “Keep your heads down, kids!”

Scootaloo obeyed, pulling her two other friends closer in a fearful embrace.

The debris continued to plummet, lacerating his wings, ripping out feathers and gouging chunks from the stallion. Ripples of intense pain rocketed through his entire body, especially when the weight of the house balanced on his wings caused the bone to break. The stallion was not deterred, though. He held his wings open, only his muscles supporting them. The seven seconds he stood there felt more like seven hours. The house smashed to pieces around him, deafening him. But he heard nothing; he was alone in his head, grinding through the nearly unbearable pain.

The pain was only just tolerable up until he heard a massive crashing above him, much louder than the usual crashes and bangs. A heavy metal oven landed right in the middle of his back, creating a loud snap as his spine broke in two and the tension of his skin loosened worryingly. He writhed in pain and screamed in agony as his legs nearly gave in underneath him, but he stood strong as the house finally began to stop falling apart. Protecting these younglings was his only concern.

His body swayed due to the lack of alignment. The pain was so nearly unbearable, he didn’t even notice the warm, pleasurable sensation on both of his flanks.

Cantor drearily looked behind him when he heard a muffled and frantic voice shouting “et’s – ome water – this thing!” He turned his attention back to the girls and brought his heavy head, stained by smoke, sweat and copious amounts of blood down to the foals. He pretty much choked out the words, but they were clear, never the less.

“Girls, you’re gonna be okay.” And with that, summoned all of his power to within an inch of his life and blew the tons of wood, brick and metal from atop his wings with a final eruption of powerful magic, scattering the debris for miles around.

With every last piece of his being gone, the dirty alicorn collapsed forwards, finally being allowed sleep after the ordeal. His bloody wings still covering and protecting the screaming fillies as several pegasi rushed into the small crater that Cantor had made of the boutique’s foundation. The last thing they expected to find were any survivors, much less a beaten-up dead alicorn smothering them.