It’s been two months since she’s returned and North can honestly say that she’d prefer the mines and the strange presence of Ruffalo to the suffocation she felt in Cloudsdale. In her early years before the horrible summer the only issue she had about Cloudsdale was the lack of reading material (she ready everything in the one sole library which only amounted to around a hundred books)
The one bookstore she found specialized in sport and flying books with the occasional weather one and even the foal books were all about flying to win the race, defending Equestria as a Royal Guard like her dad was, or contributing to Weather patterns like her mom. While the frustration towards lack of reading material had mounted, North had felt nothing else and figured she could always go to Canterlot or maybe even Ponyville (before the Return of Nightmare Moon of course, she did not want to get involved in any of the events.)
Now? The moment her hoof touched the cloud it was like everything had screamed and she passed out right in front of Wind Scar and her dad, or Bow Hothoof. She wasn’t sure he deserved the title of Dad from her anymore.
She woke up on Bow’s back and was given a slight scolding for being dramatic and not giving a proper farewell and gratitude to the stallion who put aside time to train her all summer.
Mining was supposed to be training? Then she recalled Scar’s warning of not telling her parents the truth and wondered exactly what they thought happened to her during the summer with her wings bound.
Her mom provided the answer, albeit an unwanted one,
“We’re so glad that you went along with your uncle, we were so scared he wouldn’t be able to help you but he assured us that they would deal this ability of yours. Ooh I can’t wait to see what he taught you,” North just stared at the deluded mare, looking down at her nearly starved form and the marks on her wings.
Whatever. She went passed the mare to the table, grabbing a sandwich and going upstairs to the normal room, only to no longer see her name next to Rainbow Dash’s.
Ok, maybe they moved her to the next room.
Unfortunately, the room she assumed to be hers turned out to be a shrine to her older sisters. Looking down the stairs where she could hear her parents whispering together, she sighed and went further up the stairs to the attic which wasn't all that stuffy thankfully.
Downing her sandwich, she moved several boxes, finding winter coats but setting them aside and eventually finding an old hammock that she couldn’t really remember where it came from. It did not take long to put it up, and she laid out a winter coat before curling up and going to sleep.
It did not get better from there and North honestly didn’t know why she rejected Ruffalo’s offer in favor of returning to this place.
It felt like she was being suffocated every day and every night when she went to sleep the same dr- no nightmare appeared of a certain factory. A nightmare resembling certain fan videos she remembered from her previous life and she tried to make sense of it or at least get a different dream, but it stayed.
Whatever happened when her magic freed itself started affecting her senses in protest of her refusal to release it. It wasn’t present in her house but the moment she stepped outside it felt like a pressure on her shoulder blades that increased the closer she came near the factory or the schoolhouse (which sucked because she had to go to the latter every day.)
This just made her even more determined to find answers, and she waited for the perfect moment to go to Canterlot.
Which was difficult when her parents were on her case for things like refusing to flying at all to subtly (for them) blaming her for Dash’s absence from meal times. The latter stopped when she stopped going to meal times and left a note under Dash’s door telling her not to be worried about running into North Wind and that her younger sister would miss meal times to make her perfect life easier.
North couldn’t help the desire to add that little bitter note.
If Rainbow Dash felt anything from the note she did not reveal it, nor did she try to approach North at school even when her younger sister’s classmates were giving her a hard time about being an ‘egghead’ and failing as a pegasus
Should North feel guilt at the fact the filly meant to grow up to be the Element of Loyalty was proving the opposite of that trait, maybe; and should she herself feel guilty about upholding Rainbow Dash to the mare she wouldn’t become for another decade?
After a moment North decided it did not matter, she had no plan on getting herself involved with the major characters and Rainbow Dash distancing herself worked.
Even if the hurt remained.
“I’m glad you came with me to guard training North, I guess Wind Scar knew what he was doing after all,” if Bow Hothoof had seen his daughter’s flinch, he might have thought differently, might.
“Right,” North chose not to say anything else. It had taken careful maneuvering and conversations to convince her parents she had seen the error of her ways (even if the whole avoiding mealtimes stayed)
The balloon landed in Canterlot and Bow placed is daughter on his back before flying to the castle. They arrived at the guard quarters where he placed her on the floor.
“Watch Daddy train with the others okay,” she nodded and he beamed before joining his men. North forced herself to watch the entire session, glad that Wind Scar wasn’t there, even as his name was mentioned as a top ranking guard with a rare pegasus talent that had made him so feared in the army. It made North sick, knowing that if he was this highly regarded, there was no way she could destroy his reputation unless she had the right resources. At six no one was going to take her seriously until she was finished with school and had her Cutie Mark.
But skipping grades in Cloudsdale couldn’t happen till she was at least eight or nine, and she needed to prove beyond anything that she held the knowledge that their twelve-year-old graduates had. Which meant she had to familiarize herself with the biased pro-pony propaganda that this EEA (didn’t take long to find out who was responsible) brandied about.
North took a deep breath, finding the weight from Cloudsdale slide right off of her even as there was a different sort in Canterlot. Much more manageable and she tried to think up a plan to get down here more that did not involve Royal Guards fighting against one another. Then she could focus on her goals much more easily and work on what Master Ruffalo had told her.
Goal One: Study up on magical theory and see if she could apply it to her own, or at least lead her to other areas of magic to look for.
The areas of magic available for study among pegasus were just as restricted as their libraries were, and North was hoping to find more branches, at least ones in control. Gaius taught her meditation and how to look inside for her magic, and even gave her several steps to follow each day to avoid ‘accidents’, but she still wished for it to be gone.
Goal Two: Look up all knowledge on speleology and spelunking because she needed to be more prepared before the next summer (even if Wind Scar didn’t plan on sending her there, she was not going to young flyer’s camp.) She needed to meet up with Ruffalo and Gaius again because so far they were the only adults in this world who knew her ability and did not condemn her for it. Whether they were wishing to use her North did not care, and a bonus of helping Gaius was the collection of pearls and other jewels that were set aside for her. She didn’t take them with her, instead she put them in a box and with Gaius permission put it in an opening no one else could reach in the pit.
Goal Three: Avoid her family and find the easiest way to get emancipated so that Wind Scar couldn’t influence her through them anymore. Something that was getting easier every day with their utter obliviousness and favouritism towards her sister. Not to mention she found out by accident that her parents were feeding Rainbow fish secretly to make her a ‘stronger’ flyer. North made a note to get her own food. The magic grew restless from lack of nutrition and she didn’t want to put anyone in danger.
Goal Four: Earn her Cutie Mark in anything not flying or Pegasus related in the hopes this cursed ability of hers would calm down till she could get rid of it. She studied everything about Cutie Marks as soon as she started understanding what they were (her memory of the show a bit spotty, so she wasn’t sure.) While the whole naming convention of foals that somehow led to their Cutie Marks resembling them annoyed her, she ignored it in favor of an unsettling observation about the Pegasus in Cloudsdale. One that gave her yet another reason for getting out as soon as possible with the bonus of never returning to the place without an excellent reason.
Goal Five: Use the magic in other ways to avoid build up and find someway to get to the ground without them getting suspicious so she could figure out the walking on walls trick. A bit Naruto, but she knew way more about that show than this one, to be honest. She barely knew the storyline of My Little Pony apart from the major characters and what they represented, which concerned her a bit because of timeline issues. Then again, this could be a completely different alternate universe and it would be far safer just going her own way.
Until she could fly safely, or not at all, she will have to focus on cloud hopping to get her through the sky, without earning a Cutie Mark in it of course.
“North!” her dad scooped her up with one of his wings and she tried not to stiffen as he plopped her on his back, “Did you have fun, you know, I was thinking we could go get some ice cream and talk about the benefits of early guard training,” they were halfway out the gate when one of the unicorn guards called his name, stating there was an urgent meeting, “Oh,” he set her down, looking a bit disappointed, “Looks like that won’t happen today sweetie, here,” he gave her a small bag of bits, “Get yourself lunch and I’ll meet you,’ he trailed off, thinking about it, she didn’t want to but she still suggested it.
“The library? That way if I’m done with lunch I can go somewhere that won’t kick me out for staying too long, and it’s the only building closest to here,” he looked at her for a moment and she thought maybe he was going to deny it, instead he smiled.
“Great idea! Perfect place for a little filly to pass the time, tell me if they’ve updated their comic selection okay?” he disappeared through the gates and with a sigh she went towards the library, stopping at the nearest cafe where she grabbed a sandwich and water bottle.
Finishing the last of her lunch right before the entrance, she checked for crumbs before going over to the magical theory section.
Which of course only contained unicorns, some of which gave her odd looks she paid no mind to in favor of grabbing the lowest books on the shelves and going towards the science section to find a table and some books on speleology.
Dead end. She found books on geology and one tiny book about spelunking adventures, but apparently cave studies was not a big thing in Canterlot.
Which was on a mountain, a very tall mountain, no doubt with a large cave system that might or might not have pony-made passages leading into the castle (not that she would go for that very purpose, of course.)
Taking out a scroll, she started on making notes, writing them in the Ruby dog script that reminded her a bit of Japanese kanji (which was a kind of funny since Ruffalo looked like a Shiba Inu.) She would need examples of griffin script but from Gaius’ accent it might be like Gaelic script and while she wasn’t familiar with it, he promised to teach her or find some way of giving her a language primer.
(“Might be nice to have someone interested in learning our language,” he grumbled underneath his breath, she pretended not to hear it.)
Letting the quill drop from her mouth, she rubbed her sore jaw and tried not to let her jealousy show at the sight of the unicorns using their magic to write notes.
“What I wouldn’t give to have hands,” ‘again’ she thought the last part to herself, why couldn’t she have been reborn as a Minotour, those existed here right? Glancing at the clock and her remaining books, she sighed and put them all on a cart where the librarian would return them after hours and made her way back outside.
Finding the nearest bench, she made herself comfortable and kept an ear out for Bow’s voice, soaking in the sun and finding herself dozing a bit.
A blast of powder caught her off guard and before she could even react she was already asleep. Water in her face woke her up and spluttering, she shook her head, glaring up at her kidnapper which turned out to be a unicorn filly only a little older than her.
With a light aquamarine coat, gray cyan mane with white highlights, and gold eyes observing her, North could only wonder why she felt the need to kidnap other fillies.
“Ok,” a light shone in her face and North flinched back, “Tell me everything you know!” the demand made her blink.
“About what?” the filly huffed,
“Don’t play dumb, I heard you talking in the library, you know something!” her hoof nearly hit North’s face as she pointed and the six-year-old sighed.
“Can you please get to the point so we don’t go in circles?” the light turned off, and a picture was slammed against the table she’d been placed at.
“What do you know about humans,” she stared at the picture for a moment before pointing at the mouth.
“I know that not all their teeth are pointy, there are a few pointed ones for eating meat but most of them are kind of flat, and humans don’t have tails either,” the picture was taken away, and she stared at the filly who was looking at her with tears in her eyes, “Um, did I-” her question was cut off by being tackled to the ground and it was only the size of the filly’s hooves that stopped her from stiffening at the sudden contact.
“Finally, someone else knows about humans. When I heard you say hands, the options were Minotaurs or humans,” the tears in her coat were increasing and North wondered if she should’ve denied it after all.
“Ok, but why kidnap me?” the filly flinched and pulled back, looking a bit sheepish as she rubbed her eyes.
“I didn’t know where you lived and did not want to ask you in public where ponies could hear us. Humans aren’t a popular subject right now, and I was close to giving up on researching anything about them. Last night I even wished on a shooting star for a sign,” and she was being hugged again, “And you came!” North was a bit bemused, and opened her mouth to reply when the door to the room they were in burst open and a mare with a darker coat but similar features to her kidnapper stood, Bow right next to her still in his Royal Guard uniform.
“Lyra Heartstrings! I did not believe it when this stallion came to me with the news of you kidnapping another filly but here you are, I hope you have a goo-” her eyes fell on the picture and the scowl made Lyra flinch back, which North did not like.
“I see,” the mare breathed out through her nose, “Instead of giving up this stupid pursuit of yours, you decided instead to rope an innocent filly into your theories. Humans are nothing but a myth and from this point on,” the picture was lifted and burned into ash, “There will be no more talks, I apologize officer,” North watched Lyra stare at the ashes, ears flat against her head and gritted her teeth at the hopeless look the filly had.
“What’s wrong with believing in humans?” her question caught the adult’s questions, the mare blinking.
“Sweetie, what Lyra has to-” she cut the mare off, ignoring Bow’s disapproval.
“I knew about humans before Lyra came to me, and they may be myths now, but myths start from somewhere. She might have kidnapped me, but if she went this far based on a comment I made, then she must want someone to confide in that cannot be found in her own family.” she slipped out of the ropes, (the filly wasn’t good at tying knots.) And sat next to Lyra, who was staring at her with wide eyes.
“There’s nothing wrong if she talks about humans with me, is there, and doesn’t kidnap anyone else?” it took a moment before the unnamed mare finally responded.
A week later
Lyra stared at the visitor, mouth a bit open.
“You came back,” she squeaked, flushing at the amused look.
“Do you have anywhere private that we can talk?” Lyra looked taken aback but thought about it,
“Well, there is my great-uncle’s old observatory,” it wasn’t far from her house and Lyra tried to think about what the filly could want. She was still surprised that her Mom didn’t banish North from the house or got mad at her. Instead, the mare sent them off with a pensive frown and said nothing the whole week about the incident.
They took the secret route to the place (since technically Lyra wasn’t allowed in there) and Lyra helped hold up the loose panel for North to get in.
“So, I’m surprised your parents are letting you talk to me, although I foal napped you,” there was a small scoff from the pegasus.
“Took little actually, so long as I ask about ‘seeing’ Bo-Dad’s guard practice and do all the exercises he wants me to do, they don’t really care much. Besides, I asked if it was alright to befriend a unicorn and dared them to say no,” Lyra’s brow furrowed.
“Why would that work?” North shrugged, taking a broom and to Lyra’s shock, stood on her back hooves and started sweeping.
“We live in Cloudsdale and there’s a sort of mentality there about pegasus superiority. With him working as a palace guard, if there’s any talk of him refusing to let his daughter befriend a unicorn, there might be talk. But now, so long as I have a friend that does not live in Cloudsdale, I can visit even when there is no Guard practice,” the unicorn frowned.
“Are we friends? Sounds like you are using me as an excuse or something,” she took a broom as well and tried to imitate the other’s posture but the pain made her fall back down, “How are you doing that?” her curiosity warred with the weariness at the other filly’s reasons.
North put down the broom and Lyra watched as the pegasus lied down,
“You can say it's an excuse, but you can also say that we both have interests we want to do that are hindered by adults. So long as they think we are doing ‘safe’ activities, they won’t bother us. I’m studying certain objects and need the library in Canterlot to do it, and you want to learn about humans while hanging out with someone who does not make fun of you. If we do become friends in time, then that’s it, but right now getting to know one another is important,” Lyra thought about it. It sounded like fun, sort of, and it’s not like she had anything else apart from those stupid tutoring sessions.
Huh.
“Okay, but as part of whatever agreement we have, promise that it will not be a one-sided give or take thing,” North looked offended.
“It won’t,” she stated, holding out a hoof, “Now, my name is North Wind, I’m six years old and wish to study magical theory, speleology, and to earn my Cutie Mark in something that has nothing to do with my name,” Lyra hesitantly took the hoof.
“Lyra Heartstrings, I’m eight years old, and I wish to study humans, music, and to earn my Cutie Mark in Music as well,” they shook and she couldn’t help but giggle a bit before stopping, “So what do you want to do first? Go to the library? They don’t have a vast selection of human books,” North pointed a hoof towards the center of the observatory.
“Cleaning,” Lyra tried to protest, then ended up coughing on some dust from the previous sweeping.
“Right,” guess they were starting this ‘friendship’ with cleaning.