Cyclosa

by NorrisThePony


The Frozen North, Pt. II

iv

 
There was nothing but starry sky all above and beneath me. It was as though I was suspended in some great celestial plain where any manner of meaning had long ago passed.

It was most certainly a place I had been before, and confirmation came as a booming voice carried by every corner of the infinite void I had awoken into.

“CELESTIA, YOUNG MARE OF CYCLOSA.” The voice… whose words I knew well, despite seeming like it had been years since I had last heard them, came from something most certainly not pony in origin. Still, they had a distinctly female quality to them, even if they did not seem possible for any mare to be speaking them.

“YOU ARE NOT ORDINARY.”

As I had expected, it still had no source. Still booming out from the sky itself, and from the space below the starry bridge I was standing on.

“YOU ARE NO UNICORN. YOU ARE NO EARTH PONY. YOU ARE NO PEGASUS. THERE ARE NONE LIKE YOU.”

“I know,” I called back. “Trust me, I know.”

“AND YET YOU REFUSE TO SEE.”

I blinked. The last time I had heard this voice, it hadn't responded to me. It had been some message, surely, but not a conversation. Whatever this being was, whatever vision I was having… it was communicating with me directly, now.

“YOU ARE HOPE. YOUR SISTER IS HOPE.”

“So I've heard,” I replied. “But I don't know what to do.”

“DO YOU WISH FOR THE REIGN OF CHAOS TO CONTINUE?”

“No, of course I don't!”

“DO YOU WISH FOR BODIES TO CONTINUE PILING UPON THE STREETS? FOR THE DARKNESS AND COLD AND SORROW TO CARRY ON? FOR HOPE TO FINALLY FADE COMPLETELY?”

“No!” I screamed.

“THEN YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT TO DO,” the colossal voice returned. “YOU ARE HOPE, AND HOPE IS THE PATH TO HARMONY. YOU HAVE KNOWN THIS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT ALLOWED SUCH HOPE INTO YOUR HEART.”

“What are you?!” I screamed.

The voice was silent for some time. Even with no visual cue, I could tell it was thinking, letting my words reverberate through it's mind, thinking how best to answer.

“DISCORD'S GREATEST FEAR IS HOPE,” it finally replied. “YOU, AND YOUR SISTER… YOU ARE EQUESTRIA'S HOPE. AND AFTER YOU, THERE PERHAPS MAY NOT BE HOPE AGAIN.”

At that, I frowned. Equestria was a word I hadn't heard… and yet it seemed to be deeply rooted within my mind all the same. Like I had heard it a thousand times, like it had once been something so significant to me that it had formed the basis of my being… and yet I was certain I hadn't heard it even once in my life.

When I awoke to the freezing cold of the tent, my wing and the rest of my wounds aching once again and the world blending back into focus, the word was still on my lips.

Shaking my head, trying to bring myself back into wakefulness, I quickly noticed Luna's eyes upon me.

“You too?” she asked, her voice low, as though it were some well-kept secret.

I simply nodded.

v

 

Still feeling like I was in a trance, I accepted the steaming mug that a Crystal Pony was handing me, sniffing cautiously at the liquid within.
 
“Sik'sitsa!” The Crystal Pony declared cheerily, wearing a proud smile, catching my wary gaze and bowing politely as I took the mug.
 
I blinked, narrowing my eyes at the cowering mare. The Crystal Ponies seemed to have about them a certain air of passivity in their interactions with me and Luna. It seemed odd that the greatest foe to Discord’s rule were such quiet, easily-spooked ponies.
 
Then again, Sombra seemed an exception to such. He was hardly as passive as the Crystal Ponies, and seemed to have an affinity for commanding them about.

“What?” I said brusquely.
 
“You’ll have to forgive them,” Sombra said. “They don’t know much Equish. She just wants you to know that the drink is tea. Crowberry tea.”
 
“Not much Equish?” I asked. “The hell?”
 
“The Crystal Ponies didn’t know any Equish when I first found them. All they spoke was their native tongue, which they call K’anquitut.”
 
I had a reply on my tongue, but it was lost when a bolt of pain shot through my wing.
 
“Hey! Watch it, you crystal freaks!” I yelled, as yet another Crystal Pony mare flinched at my verbal assault, quickly readjusting her hoof to a less painful part of my broken wing. “How much longer are you going to be rubbing all my wounds with your creepy voodoo crap?”
 
“Probably hours, considering ‘your wounds’ now make up more than half of the total surface area of your body,” Sombra replied. “Did you by chance take a dive into a woodchipper on the way over here?”
 
“Shut up, Sombra,” I growled. Across from me, at the other side of the long wooden table, Luna snickered, unintentionally causing some soup to bubble upwards and splash her face.
 
It had been almost an entire day since the Sisphys had landed into the Crystal Pony settlement. And, as fearful as I had been towards the intentions of the nomadic tribe, it quickly became obvious that, true to Willow’s assertions, these ponies had nothing but respect for me and Luna.
 
Amazingly, Sombra, their apparent leader, was included under such umbrella. He’d quickly assured me that he’d have some of his ponies take a look at the Sisyphys, fuelling her and doing their best to repair the damage my reckless flying had caused her.
 
Luna and I had been given a tent to ourselves, which, given the small size of the nomad camp, was surprising to say the least. That wasn’t to say it had boasted much—simply a set of cots and a fireplace—but it was a much better affair than our shoddy room in Cyclosa.
 
And the food! I didn’t know quite what animal it had belonged to, and I had my qualms about eating most meat not belonging to rodents in the first place, but for a starving mare, the food the Crystal Ponies had given us had felt like it had single-hoofedly saved our lives.
 
“That’s quite the ship you have.” Sombra’s voice, and another sharp pain in my broken wing, drew me back to the present. “Amazed she made it here from Cluster 13, all things considered. Without a gun or rockets, no less.”

“I’m amazed, too,” I replied. “How the hell I came across you again, of all the ponies in Erisia, is beyond me.”
 
“I told you, Celestia. We would find you. And we did, didn’t we?”
 
“I wish you’d tell me how.
 
“Well, you know what they say about magicians, Celestia,” Sombra replied, smirking. “The simpler truth is, destiny willed you here, and so here you are.”
 
“There you are,” I growled. “Going on about destiny again.”
 
“I don’t know how many ponies need to say it to you before it becomes a reality, Celestia, but you are destined to—”
 
“Enough,” I said, rising. The Crystal Pony still working on my wing jumped in surprise at my sudden movement, her plate of strange, shamanistic medicine falling to the dirt floor of the tent. “I’m going to my tent. Luna, come on.”
 
I made it as far as the opening flap of the tent when I realized Luna wasn’t following me.
 
Luna,” I growled. “Come on.”
 
“I wanna hear what Sombra has to say,” Luna refused softly, not looking up from her food to meet my eyes.
 
“I can have one of my ponies take her back to your tent, Celestia,” Sombra said. “I wouldn’t mind having a chat with Luna, anyways!”
 
“Well, I would. I’m… look, I’m not trying to be rude, and I appreciate all the help you ponies are giving me, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t fill her head with dangerous ideas.”
 
“Maybe you are right,” Sombra replied evenly. Then, he rose from his seat, pointing a hoof at a Crystal Pony and sternly telling him something in K’anquitut.
 
“Luna, Muktuk is going to lead you back to your tent,” Sombra said to Luna in Equish. “We can talk later. Celestia, a word with you before you follow?”
 
Luna gave me a cold, angry glare as Muktuk rose, leading her with a warm smile towards the flap of the tent. Sombra growled something else in K’anquitut, and the moment he did the mare working on my wing also followed, giving me another bow as she exit.
 
“So what are those ponies?” I asked Sombra, as soon as we were alone. “They your slaves?”
 
“What?! No! I’m their leader.”
 
“Cause those are mutual exclusives? Sorry, no, not buying it. You’re, what, twenty five? Definitely not old enough to predate a language. They existed before you,” I replied. “So what? You came along, said, ‘hey, a stupid nomad tribe I can use!’, and claimed them?”
 
“They fled Discord’s rule about three generations ago. I’d heard stories about them, and decided to seek them out. When I did…”
 
“You made them yours,” I rephrased, bluntly. “For a heroic cause though, so who cares? Right? That’s what you want me to believe?”
 
For the first time since I had known him, Sombra gave me a cold, offended look. “You’re quite the paragon of morality to be telling this to me. Refresh my memory… how many ponies have you killed to get this far?”
 
“That’s not the same!”
 
“Don’t pretend to know what my relationship with the Crystal Ponies are,” Sombra returned. “This isn’t even what I wished to talk to you about. I wish to inquire towards your plans.”
 
“My plans.”
 
“You have made clear your distaste towards Luna’s desire to follow her destiny. So what, then, do you feel your destiny truly is?”
 
“Destiny. You keep saying that, like it’s a thing. Look, if destiny is so important, why don’t you and your Crystal Ponies go pray to it instead of me and my sister? How the hell do you know my destiny, anyway? You got some sort of crystal ball?”
 
“Celestia, have you ever had visions? Dreams you cannot explain? I cannot really describe it, but up here, in the North, so far from Discord… there is a sort of… Presence. I think that, were you and Luna to spend some time with me and the Crystal Ponies, you would come to feel such a presence, too. I can help show you.”
 
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I replied. “What you’re describing sounds more like insanity then hope. I’ll take my chances with the North.”
 
Sombra laughed, taking a step closer. In contrast to his warm laugh, however, I felt my body become enveloped in a magic aura that felt more akin to freezing to death than the usual warm glow I’d grown to expect from my own magic.
 
Sombra focuses his magic around my head, roughly forcing it upwards so that he could look directly into my fiery eyes. I tried my best to worm my way out of Sombra’s grasp, but he was strong, and without magic of my own thanks to the horn inhibitor, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere.
 
“Do you know what lies beyond this settlement, Celestia? Have you any idea?”
 
It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother to answer.
 
Death. That’s all. The Crystal Ponies have a word for it, they call it ‘angujaktuat—means endless blizzard’—but really, what they mean is death. This land will kill you as quickly as a knife to your throat, Celestia. And trust me when I say that they, of all ponies, know.”
 
“Then I’ll go East. West. I don’t care. Point is, I’m not staying here.”
 
Sombra took another step past me, examining the rest of my form—my body, covered in scars, my tattered and ragged mane that probably looked more grey than purple. He stopped moving when he was behind me, seemingly focusing on my cutiemark-less flank.
 
“Is that so, Celestia?”
 
I grimaced a little—every second alone in the tent with Sombra was giving me more and more cause to get as far away from this stallion as possible. There was no logical thought behind it—I’d been restrained with magic before and that alone was hardly enough to throw me into a panic, but there seemed to be something unnerving about the way Sombra was speaking to me. As though he saw me as fit for the claiming as the Crystal Ponies had been.

For all the trust I was putting into him, he hadn't really given me any solid evidence towards his intentions being entirely selfless, either. Beyond his utterances about 'destiny', I didn't even know why he had such an intrigue in me and Luna, but I knew without confirmation that it wasn't simply for the 'well-being of ponykind' or any such nonsense.

Indeed, I didn't even know what his cutiemark was, if he even had one. To be fair, many ponies didn't, but Sombra seemed to always be wearing a cloak even in the relatively warm tent. If I hadn't grown so accustomed to wearing a cloak for the purpose of hiding something, I most likely would not have assumed such, but as it stood I couldn't shake the feeling.
 
“And why is that? Why do you feel the need to quell what even your own sister sees as hope?”
 
“Because when the last thing you care about in your life is a ten year old filly, the last thing you’re thinking of doing is putting her at the front lines of a death march!” I shot back. “Just what do you understand? Did you ever have siblings, Sombra?”
 
“No. I grew up in an orphanage. In Pillory. Ran away to see the world when I was thirteen.”
 
“So, what? I’m supposed to connect with you cause of your ‘tragic upbringing?’”
 
“Actually, I remember my life in the orphanage rather fondly. Nonetheless, you are getting far off-track, Celestia.”
 
“Yeah, well, the mind tends to stray when you’re being forcibly held by a creepy, insane unicorn.”
 
In response, Sombra extinguished his magic, instantly leaving me to stumble back a little ways from the sudden release.
 
“Celestia, no matter where you run to, you will never reach the destination. You and me both know that you have one and only one way to save your sister. Me and the rest of the Crystal Ponies have already given up our lives for alicorns like you.”
 
“Look, don’t guilt trip me here,” I growled. “You think I’m blind to what Discord’s done? You think it doesn’t make me sick to know that ponies are dying out there in that snow and cold because it’s me he wants? But I never wanted any of this! If I had a say, I’d be back in Cyclosa, fixing airships for pennies! But I didn’t have say. I never did.”
 
“Now, you do,” Sombra replied. “I can promise you support and love from my Crystal Ponies. I can promise you my own companionship. You’re hope, Celestia—the first alicorn these ponies have seen in centuries—and they will gladly lay their lives before you at even the inkling of a possibility of you succeeding against Discord.”
 
“That’s all nice,” I said. “But my mind was made up long before I landed here. And as soon as your ponies have got the Sisyphys all fixed, I’m going to keep on flying North, with or without Luna’s agreement.”
 
With that, I turned my tail to Sombra’s frowning face, forcing my way through the heavy tentflap separating me from the blizzard outside.
 

vi

 
Luna wasn’t exactly happy with me when I returned.
 
“You know, you don’t have to be so mean to these ponies,” she said. She had her back to me, carefully examining a hoofknit scarf that one of the Crystal Ponies had given her. “They’re only trying to help.”
 
“Well, we’ve made it rather far without their help,” I returned.
 
Luna said nothing, although she gave my entire form a scrutinizing gaze, as though wordlessly objecting simply by bringing her attention to my body riddled with injury.
 
“By the way, one of the Crystal Ponies left you this.” Luna roughly threw a sturdy-looking bonesaw  in my direction, seemingly uncaring if she hit me with it. “For your collar and horn thingy.”
 
I took it with frantic haste, grasping the long chain attached to the choke collar and unwrapping it to its full length of about two yards. Figuring it’d be easier to detach the chain over the collar, and as eager as possible to no longer have to lug the long length around me at least, I made it my priority. Even if it were still latching onto my neck, the collar at least didn’t inhibit my movement nearly as much.
 
It was slow, tedious, and occasionally painful work when I screwed up my angle of attack and dug into my own flesh with the bonesaw. It took all of an hour to even make it through the chain, but when I finally did I felt like letting out a long whoop of euphoric joy.
 
Instead, I settled for a proud smile in Luna’s direction, but it was quick to falter when I saw that, under the cover of sparks and squealing metal, she had slipped out of the tent, back into the dark wasteland beyond. Scowling, and kicking the detached chain aside, I grabbed my cloak and wrapped it several times over myself before setting out to find Luna.
 
Outside, the blizzard—anjugaktuat, as the Crystal Ponies would’ve called it—had died down to a calm and serene snowfall, large bits of snowflakes the size of marbles falling between the nomad huts and frozen pines.
 
It looked as though there were still fires going in most of the huts, but they all were obviously deserted, since a greater fire had been erected next to the Sisyphys’s hovering body. There, it seemed like the entirety of the Crystal Pony camp had gathered, all circling the great flame licking higher than any of the ponies surrounding it. The sound of music and song was drifting faintly—the strong wind had been blowing away from my tent, so I hadn't heard it earlier, but now it became clear that some sort of celebration had unfolded in the time I had been focused on removing my collar.

I squinted, and through the blinding firelight I could make out Luna's jovial form, dancing with the rest of the Crystal Ponies, singing along with them in a language she didn't even know.

Sombra was there, also, holding in his magic what looked to be a stringed instrument. He wasn't playing it beyond a few key-setting strums—simply the bare minimum required to keep the Crystal Ponies in melody. Even at what was apparently a celebration, Sombra seemed to feel it necessary to keep the Crystal Ponies under his command, to the point that letting them deviate from his melodies was unwelcome.

“Hey!” I called out as I approached. “You watch yourselves with that fire around my ship!”

“Celestia!” Sombra said cheerfully, ignoring me. “Glad you could join us! Still wearing the collar? Is it a fashion statement at this point?”

“I was in the process of removing it, when I discovered Luna had wandered off without my permission,” I replied. “Get over here, Luna, now. Back to the tent, right away.”

Luna, who had only now stopped dancing, gave me a firm stare in response.

“No.”

In an instant, I was storming over, roughly forcing my way through the crowd of oblivious Crystal Ponies until I was looming over her.

Right now, Luna.”

“No,” she said again. “I'm having fun here.”

“She's not hurting anypony,” Sombra offered.

“You shut up!” I snarled.

"No," Luna said for a third time. "What are you going to do, Celly? Kill me?"

At that, my glare faltered a little.

Then, it was back with newfound intensity. Just what had Sombra and these Crystal Ponies been saying about me? Regardless, Sombra's motive seemed quite clear: if he couldn't get me and Luna on his side, then at least one alicorn on his side was better than none at all.

If Luna and I had been close, it never would have worked. But, while I don't deny our love for each other, it was love built on idle assumptions about each other, and such were beginning to crumble day by day. For what did Luna know of me, truly? Her whole life, I had been like a ghost, rarely seen, always in the Scrapyard, coming and leaving when everypony else was fast asleep. Her memories of me were formed around assumptions, and by her groggy mind's recollection when I was a bit too careless and accidentally awoke her as I myself got ready for bed.

I loved Luna, and she loved me, but our love was like a poltergeist. We both knew it was there, but we would never be able to see it with clarity or even prove it existed at all.

“Celestia, if we're disturbing you, go back to your tent,” Sombra said. “But these are my ponies, and this is my camp. You may be an alicorn, but you're also our guest and should start acting like one. I've been patient with you thus far, but commanding my ponies around is crossing a line.”

“My sister is not your pony,” I replied levelly.

“So she's yours?”

I faltered. If I'd any words on my mind, they didn't seem to be able to make it to my tongue.

Instead, I marched back from the crowd of Crystal Ponies, away from Luna, to a lonely patch of snow far enough away that I was beyond range of interaction with any of the Crystal Ponies, but still close enough that I could watch them and hear their song.

Luna was quick to once more involve herself with the rest of the Crystal Ponies, ignoring my interruption entirely and ignoring me save for a few cold glances at my lonely form. None of the Crystal Ponies approached me even as the hours crept on.

I didn't dare admit it, but there was something cathartic about watching Luna in such a state. It was a jovial state I couldn't ever recall seeing her in—certainly not amidst the slums of Cyclosa. There was no fear, no judgement, and while it was clear that the Crystal Ponies saw Luna as something to be respected, they did not seem to be treating her with any manner of worship. She was dancing and singing as one of them, her wings and horn be damned.

I was brought back to the deck of the Sisyphys again, to what Willow had said, about my own sister being afraid of me. How Luna's respect for me had been waning, shifting from her idolized view of what little she saw of me in Cyclosa, to disgust at the survivalism-driven-savage I really was. Screaming bloody murder at the burning wreckage of the Damask Rose, lashing with hostility at Willow for daring to let Luna feel anything but inadequate…

I didn't feel sorry for trying to protect Luna. I knew that any slip on my part could mean unspeakable horrors falling upon her. We were walking a tightrope, and I wasn't about to let my guard down and let anything befall her…

And yet, here was Luna, with no guard at all. Simply being, enjoying herself around ponies who respected her. My skepticism towards Sombra ran deep, but the Crystal Ponies…

When Sombra had said that they would gladly die for Luna, I found it difficult to doubt him.

It was only a matter of time before my stubborness gave way to emotion, and I gradually began creeping back towards Sombra, still watching without interacting, having leaned his instrument against a pile of firewood.

He gave me an acknowledging sideways glance when I sat next to him, but did not immediately speak.

“I'm sorry to villanize you like that, Celestia,” he said after several minutes. “Especially in front of your sister.”

“No, I was being a bitch,” I replied. “It's just… confusing to see her acting this way. Like, something should be wrong for her to be like this.”

Sombra laughed. “Welcome to Erisia.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Somepony should do something about this Discord jerk, huh?”

Sombra laughed again. “Such a pony would surely be psychotic.”

Amazingly, I found myself smiling. “Dangerously psychotic. I'd bet they're almost as dangerous as those ferocious alicorn beasts.”

This time, Sombra's laugh was loud enough that a few Crystal Ponies and Luna herself turned to look at us. I saw Luna's eyes examining the two of us, both smiling and talking, and a small grin beginning to form on her face.

“Celestia… I know you don't want to hear it, but.. you know that there's nothing up there. No food, no water, no shelter—we're the last free tribe out there.”

“No food? Then how are you surviving?”

“I'm being serious. Even if you don't want to go fight Discord, please stay with us. I promise you—”

“Stop it, Sombra,” I interrupted, my smile vanishing in an instant. “Not now. I'm here until the Sisyphys is fixed. Plenty of time to consider the prospect.”

“Tell you what,” Sombra donned a mischievous smile, picking up the instrument once again. “If I play something, and you sing, I'll totally drop it.”

I scowled. “What are you? Seven years old?”

Sombra didn't reply, at least not vocally. Instead, he strummed a couple of disjointed chords, not quite a melody, but seemingly the inklings of one.

“Look, I don't sing,” I said. “Not in front of ponies. I'd probably sound like shit.”

Still no reply beyond the sound of the guitar. Luna had stopped dancing, looking in my direction, a mix of intrigue and anticipation on her face. She was no fool, and it seemed rather clear to her what Sombra was playing at.

Eventually, his chords started to make sense, forming into a basic sort of melody.

And eventually, I couldn't help myself. Perhaps it was Luna's anticipating smile, or perhaps it was simply my desire to cast away what disgust she still had towards me. Either way, when Sombra's playing hit its stride, I began, softly, cautiously, my voice low enough to almost be drowned out by the still-boisterous Crystal Ponies around me.

It was a song I'd heard in the Scrapyard. One whose source I probably could never hope to trace—I'd seen so many travellers and workers and guards come and go, and so many of them had sung whilst they worked, simple and easy-to-remember words and melodies that lived long after whatever pony had sung them had long left.

Alongside Sombra's soft, simple playing, and with the howling winter winds woven within his chords like droning ambience, I sang softly;

“This world is full of trouble and woe,
This world is full of trouble and woe
All I see is trouble, everywhere I go
I'm gonna sing the trouble that I know,


“This world is full of sadness and tears
This world is full of sadness and tears
They fill us full of sadness, and full of fear
I'm gonna sing until my eyes are clear.”

The Crystal Ponies song had ceased, as had their dancing. I afforded myself an upwards glance, but quickly returned it to Sombra when I saw that every pony was watching me intently, surprise and intrigue on their faces, even if many did not even know the meaning of the words I was singing.

My voice wavering a little, I continued nonetheless.

“Gonna dig deep down into my heart
Gonna dig deep down into to my heart
Gonna dig deep down, I'm gonna do my part
I'm gonna sing, sing a brand new start,


“This world is full of joy and mystery
This world is full of joy and mystery
This world will be our joy, I believe it will be
When we know what it is to be free.”

Sombra had apparently read in my voice that my song was ending, for he followed my final stanza with a final, bittersweet chord that was at odds with the near-silly smile still plastered on his face.

Silence followed. Luna's smile… I don't believe I'd seen such a wide smile on anypony's face, much less my own sister. And, as rich as the embarrassment and fear and paranoia ran within my own stomach, I felt the same joy Luna had within me, too.

Clearing my throat and rising, I looked to the watching Crystal Ponies and spoke in a language that meant nothing to them.

"Alright, so... you ponies have finally got your alicorns. Let's hear what you've got planned for Discord."