Dawn

by Amit

Fiat Radix

The door to the outpost had seen worse days; its sweating owner stood looking at it for a while, biting her lip.

The bold, magically-cut Pegasopolis and Unicornia Occupational Administration had been painted over haphazardly with Equestrian Provisional Authority; that had been covered by a simple, centred mark reading Equestrian Triumcaballate Northern Enforcement Division.

The old markings were the largest, however—extending from the top to the bottom—and were still very much legible. She put her hoof on the door and began to unlock it, noticing as she did a bit of graffiti somepony had scrawled on the wall next to it: a quote from an old earth pony poet.

I pity the nation which welcomes their tyrants with the trumpets of liberation and dismisses them with hoots of derision.

“It's not like I had a choice!” she shouted, and then shook her head a bit; she was arguing with a piece of graffiti, arguing with the words of somepony who probably died a hundred years ago. “Bucking hippy tourists.”

She might have grumbled further had she not been greeted as she entered the outpost by the noticeable lack of a white alicorn foal in the living room. If she wasn't too busy being worried sick, she might have found her own notation of the fact hilarious.

“Sundancer!” she shouted, looking about; the Pegasopolitan government had been very particular about being able to see their subjects, and the observation deck was entirely glass on reinforced wood. “Where the hay did you go?”

“I'm still up here, mom.”

“For b—” she began, and took a deep breath. “For heaven's sakes, Sundancer, you said you just wanted to see the sky turn. You've been looking at dirt the whole day?”

A sigh came from above her. “Yes, mom. I've been looking at dirt for the whole day.” There was a noticeable lack of hoof-beating; she was still. The unicorn architect that had built the place to amplify every single hoofstep; she used to want to scrape him off the rocks for it, but the presence of a foal made her realise its various applications. “I did see the sky, though. The sky's slowing down.”

“It used to go up. It turned back.” The mare groaned and began to go up the old stairs. “What's not going to turn back is somepony seeing you.”

She reached the top just in time to see her adolescent ward sit on the planks with a crash; the sight gave her a vague sort of unease, but she waved it away in favour of indignation.

“I'm pretty sure that some of them've seen me.”

“Before somepony that matters sees you.” The mare might have shaken her head again had she not remembered she'd done that to her so much it was more of a greeting than an admonishment. “I saw some fresh writing on the wall. The pony could've seen you. You shouldn't be looking at dirt anyway, Sundancer, especially not at your age.”

“Dirt. That's what they used to call the earth ponies, wasn't it?” Her voice was notably devoid of any sort of emotion. “Back when you found me. You never told me why they called you that.”

The mare sucked her breath through her teeth. “Because we were below, they were above. I've got a whole library; pretty sure they talked about it at some point. Mentioning the occupation won't get me to lay off you, missy.”

Sundancer spoke as if the mare hadn't continued. “Why do we call the jumpers that?”

The mare rolled her eyes. “Because we're above, they're below. Simple as that.” She shrugged. “Besides,” she said, walking over to the wall and putting her hoof against it, leaning against the unicorn-blown glass, “You just can't live with yourself if you call them 'ponies'.”

“I saw two today. While you were out buying stuff.”

“Ugh. I go out for an hour and the place gets messed up? Figures. Nopony's jumped for days.” She pulled the black book from her saddlebag; with the years-long summer, the vultures and heat came to fix the smell and the book had become the only thing that reminded her she still had a job. “What'd they say?”

“They didn't say anything. It was an earth pony and a pegasus pony, and they didn't say anything. They just looked at each other the whole way and smiled.” She put her hoof up on the glass, just like her guardian. “I wonder what their stories were.”

Probably overcome with the shame of being traitors to their tribes, but the mare didn't say that; instead, she let out a long, low whistle. “Look, kid, there's a reason I don't want you to come up here and look. You're beginning to sound like a mass murderer.”

Sundancer looked into the mare's eyes, prompting a shudder. “I saw them jumping. The pegasus was relaxing her wings and the earth pony wasn't curling up, so I knew they'd die and so did they. I knew they'd die and I'd live, mom. I knew I couldn't save them, and I knew they didn't want to be saved.”

The alicorn looked back out the glass. “I could never understand them, and they could never understand me. Is this what it feels like to be a powerless god?”

“I take that back. You're sounding like a poet.” She let herself have a bit of a bitter laugh. “Imagine that. Three years ago, the biggest word you knew was 'mama'. I guess the books really paid off, huh?”

She took a glance at her own wings; her horn pulsed very gently. “I'm serious, mom. I've read all the books on myths.”

“Yeah, yeah. You're gonna live forever, and all that.” The mare shook her head. “Sundancer, you're the size of a ten-year-old and you're talking like you're thirteen. I appreciate the speed—I'd hate to have to change your diapers for a hundred years—but think of it this way. Heaven's gonna fall before I conk out.”

That gave Sundancer the slightest cause to smile; she did. “The lies you tell to children.”

“Like 'dinner's getting cold'?” she said, grinning. “The plates're getting washed up in the future. You don't want a time paradox, right?” She turned to go downstairs, and the hoofsteps behind her came reassuringly; they always washed the dishes together. The racket tended to halt any conversation—another wonderful application of unicorn architecture.

Dinner was a bunch of sliced zucchini thrown with tomatoes into melted cheese; Sundancer never complained about her guardian's bachelor cooking, and neither did she of her careful preparation. They ate alongside each other.

“So, why can't people see me?” she said, swallowing a mouthful, “Why can't anypony see me?”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “I've told you at least three times.”

She shrugged in return. “Tell me.”

The words came out as well-practised as before; there was an air of restraint to it. “You're too special. You'd make everypony else feel bad about themselves. You'll have to wait until you're older, so you can tell the foals they'll be just as pretty as you when they grow up.”

Sundancer put her hoof down on the table and let go of her fork. “Saying something that isn't true three times doesn't make it any righter. You're not the kind of pony to care about other people feeling bad about themselves, mom.” She looked aimlessly off to the side. “No offense.”

The mare gave her a strange sort of smile, exposing her cheese-saturated teeth. “That doesn't really mean a lot coming from somepony who only knows one middle-aged mare.”

“I've read books, mom.”

She sighed deeply. “Fine. I suppose I've got to tell you the truth somehow. Soft or hard?”

“You always ask that question.”

“Fine, fine. Hard it is. To tell the truth,” she said, rushing through her speech as though she were pushing through a door, “You're an abomination.”

Sundancer didn't react.

The mare, on the other hand, winced at her own words. “Too hard?”

“Go on.”

She continued. “Your entire body's a mish-mash of different parts. You've got earth pony muscles with pegasus wings. Imagine if you saw a stallion who had mare parts, Sundancer. How'd you think that would look to everypony else?”

“Bad?” she said, looking up at the ceiling and folding her forehooves together. “I guess.”

The words came easier for her, now, and somewhat more heated; she put down her fork. “Not just bad. You're a gross bastardisation of everything that everypony ever fought for, Sundancer. You look like something Princess Platinum would've made to kill us, you look like something Commander Hurricane would've got her kids t'dream up to buck us even deeper into our little holes.”

Her face had turned from sombre to furious, then; her hooves were shaking. “I've gotten used to it, I've read about alicorns because I had to read to stay sane by myself out here and even I'm kinda sick at the sight of you. But everypony else would be completely disgusted with you, Sundancer.” Her voice croaked a bit as she hit the last few words. “Everypony would want to kill you.”

She blinked and found her vision obscured by tears; as she looked at the rather impartial pony tapping her forehooves on the chair, looking at her expectantly. “Are you done yet?”

The mare put her forehooves up against her eyes and her carpi on the table, and took sharp, gasping breaths. “I'm sorry.” She might have continued on to try and justify herself and talk about the wars and the pain and the memories, but she couldn't talk past them and so she simply closed her eyes and cried. “I'm so sorry.”

The alicorn sat watching for a while, as though waiting for more, before she spoke.

“I already knew,” she said. “I read books.”

“I'm a horrible mother,” she said, and wiped the tears off her face in a single, rough sweep, laying her head with its closed eyes on the table in such a way that she might have passed for a cadaver if not for her moving lips. “I'm a traitor and a collaborator and a horrible damn mother. I'm an earth pony corpse-dancer vet raising some immortal pegasus-unicorn thing I've only heard about in old mares' tales by myself and I'm telling her just how much everypony hates her.”

The mare felt a pat on her shoulder, and looked up to see her ward's smiling face. “Think of this way, mom,” she said; something about her ward's speech calmed her. “I read that it's a lot better to tell foals the truth so it doesn't hit them too hard in the real world.”

The mare looked at her for a while, and did not move.

“Besides.” She settled back in her chair, picked her fork up and continued to speak through a full mouth. “I stopped seeing the disgusted shudders a year ago. You're getting better.”

The mare tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a choking sound.

They ate quietly and then washed the dishes together, like they always did.

Comments

[Amit]

1150418
I was quite intentionally trying to make it ambiguous whether her neck or the world had turned white; both are correct, so I thought I'd keep it that way.

[Pilate]

Stark.

I love it, it's a great take on an origin story. That said, I think the critique from last chapter still applies: the setting description has gotten better but could still use a little work.

[Burraku_Pansa]

Best chapter so far; Celestia's character is fascinating. I'm confused on one point, though: where exactly is their home? There were times when I got the sense that it was in the clouds, but I doubt it... Is it on that cliff from which everyone jumps?

[kingtiger666]

Is that a Paul Simon reference, or are you just happy to see me? You're happy to see me? Well I'm happy to see you too!

[PhycoKrusk]

Part of the enjoyment, I think, is figuring out what the chapter titles mean. It's a nice touch, for sure. I'm enjoying the take on the Celestia origin story, as well, particularly how with each successive chapter, we get a slightly more in-focus look at how dystopian and apocalyptic the Old World was. The grudging end of who knows how many wars, the barest toleration of others, the years-long summer, the winter that will probably last just as long while the sky stays so far away.

I just talked myself into favorite-ing this. No joke.

[milk experiment]

This is outstanding. You're doing a great job of deconstructing the Hearth's Warming myth and turning it into something darker, something more like what we might expect to see in our own world. And, in so doing, you're starting to reveal why a young goddess would feel compelled to transform her broken world into something better: the Equestria we see in the show.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes from here. So far, the show has given us a loose enough framework of canonical past events that there's room for a thrilling epic of historical fan fiction to string them all together. No pressure or anything.

One small problem I spotted:

She might have grumbled further she not been greeted...

There's a missing "had" between "further" and "she."