//------------------------------//
// Mending 
// Story: The Child of Sun and Moon 
// by Darkest Night 
//------------------------------//

He thought that death wasn’t supposed to involve pain.
He climbed back out of a dark pit of unknowing blackness first to his nose, smelling that he was in a clean, warm room that had several unknown scents, but also two that he knew.  Princess Twilight had been in the room, as had Summer Dawn.  But there were six other scents that he did not know, four unicorn, one earth pony, and one pegasus, and all but two were fairly old.   Two unknown unicorns had been in the room very recently, but the rest had not been.  The room itself was warm and enclosed, with no smell of outside reaching it, smelling of tile and cotton and rich oak wood.  As he puzzled over these alien smells, he became dimly aware of both his ears and his eyes.  The room was quiet, strangely so, and it was well lit.
And just the effort of paying attention to his senses had been enough to exhaust him to the point where he tumbled back into oblivion.
He awakened again, how much later he didn’t know, to a different texture of scents in the room.  It was still warm, well lit, and quiet, but the smell of Summer Dawn was strong in the room, and now he could smell familiar and welcome scents, the scents of his parents and his siblings. His family had been in the room, and they had been there very recently, within the hour.  He struggled to remember how his body worked, but eventually, he worked out how to open his eyes.
He was laying on his side in a large bed.  A blanket covered him, and he could feel bandages wrapped around his chest and his wing.  His broken wing was completely immobilized, he could feel something tied to the wing spikes of his broken wing to keep it from moving.  It had to be night outside, because his wings were out, and the dull throbbing ache in his left wing reminded him that it had been shattered in the same blow that had delivered the mortal wound that ultimate should have killed him.
It took him a long moment to remember how he got there.  Moonblade…it had been the thestrals.  He remembered looking out the front door after looking out the balcony door to try to figure out why the horns were blowing, and seeing Summer Dawn in the distance, floating up over the buildings towards the apartment.  Then he saw Moonblade swoop in and strike her, drive her down out of sight.  She had attacked Summer Dawn to draw him out, and it had worked.  He wasn’t about to let that witch hurt her, so he went out to rescue Summer Dawn.
Yeah, that went well.
But what he didn’t understand was why he was still alive.  He was mere seconds from death, his lungs fully constricted from the bleeding in his chest.  He’d been unable to breathe, losing consciousness, but had enough presence of mind to make sure that he took Moonblade with him.  Even if he hadn’t been moments from being suffocated, being impaled by that wingblade was mortal…how was he still alive?  Not even the healing tonic he carried would have been able to save him from those ghastly wounds.  How was he still alive?
Given how much he was hurting at that moment…maybe it would have been better if he died.
He was about to try to go back to sleep, but the door opened.  It was within his field of view, so he opened his eyes and saw Summer Dawn limp in.  She had a cast over her right foreleg and a bandage wrapped around her head, flattening her pink hair as it went around her horn.  She looked at him and her eyes widened, then she rushed over to him as fast as she could manage.  “Starjumper!  Oh, Star, you’re awake!  Nightsong!” she screamed.  “He’s awake!  He’s awake!”  She reared up and put her uncasted forehoof on the bed, then dared lean down and kiss him exuberantly on the side of his muzzle.  “Oh, Star, are you okay?  I was so worried!”
“I’m very tired,” he replied in a bare whisper.  “Where am I?”
“In the hospital,” she replied.  “Princess Twilight used magic to save your life,” she said before he could ask.
“What happened to you?” he asked, his eyes looking down to the cast.
“Oh, this is nothing,” she said dismissively, lifting up her cast.  It had been signed quite a few times.  “I must have broken it when I was knocked into the café.”
“I…don’t remember,” he said hazily.  “I remember waking up to see you crash through the window.  I don’t know how I got there.”
“You were unconscious.  A pony hit you when you were in the air and you crashed into the street.  I got to you before they did and carried you away, but they caught up to me,” she told him.  “I woke up here in the hospital.”
Behind her, there was the loud clatter of hooves on the wooden floor, and his mother and father almost pushed her out of the way.  Nightsong leaned down and pressed her forehead against his muzzle tenderly, then his father Comet Tail did the same.  “It’s so good to see you awake, son,” his father said, concern vibrating in his voice.  Comet Tail was a very large stallion, as burly as an earth pony, and the combination of his size and Nightsong's size made it almost destiny that Starjumper would be big as well.  He had a soft tan coat and a black mane that he had cut very short, and the white and blue comet cutie mark on his flank was barely visible from that angle.
“Mom, Dad,” he said, turning his head enough to look at them.  “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s better to see you, son,” Nightsong told him, leaning down and kissing him on the forehead.  “You had a very close call.”
“It was more than a close call,” he said quietly.  He remembered feeling that wingblade go through him, how curiously relieved he felt, like it had helped him rather than hurt him.  And that reminded him of why it was there.  “Is Moonblade dead?”
“No,” Comet Tail answered.  “They managed to save her as well.”
“Well, that’s disappointing, but not a shock.  If they could keep me alive, I guess they could save her too.”
“You’re going to explain why you did that, Star!” Summer Dawn demanded.  “They told me what happened, what you did.  Why?  Why would you do that to yourself!”
“Because Starjumper is more thestral than unicorn,” Nightsong said simply.
“What does that mean, Nightsong?” she pressed, looking up at her.
“It’s the final act of defiance,” she answered.  “When the Gray Mare comes, a thestral will make sure that she doesn’t come for her alone.”
“What’s the Gray Mare?”
“Death,” she answered, looking down at the slender unicorn.  “It’s an old thestral fable, that the Gray Mare comes and takes the soul of a thestral beyond the gray veil when they die.  There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than a thestral who knows she’s about to die, Summer.  She will do everything she can to take you with her.  Remember that the next time you tangle with them.  Moonblade made that mistake.  She should have known that I would raise Starjumper properly, without all those silly unicorn niceties.”
“Dear,” Comet Tail said evenly.
“Simply put, ducky, Starjumper knew he was already going to die, so at that point doing something like impaling himself with a wingblade wasn’t going to make a difference for him,” Nightsong said, approval clear in her voice.  “And like a true thestral, he tried to take his killer with him.  He would have, if the Princess wouldn’t have saved their lives.  What he did with the wingblade was a bit melodramatic, but it’ll make one awesome story to tell our future grandfoals.  It’s how a true thestral meets the Gray Mare.  With company, in a blaze of glory,” she added cheekily.
He could tell from the expression on Summer Dawn’s face that she was equal parts mystified and horrified by his mother, how such an amiable, chatty, entertaining mare could at the same time so be cold-blooded and casual about talking about her son effectively killing himself.  But that was the duality of thestral personality.  Thestrals were warriors at heart, and as such they did not fear death the way other ponies did.
“Mom, Dad, give us a minute,” he said, looking at Summer Dawn.
“Sure thing, son,” Comet Tail said.  “We’ll go wake up your brother and sisters so they can come see you before you go back to sleep.”
“Alright.”
Summer Dawn stayed with him as they filed out, and she looked down at him with questioning eyes, as if she’d never seen the truth of him until that moment…and she was repulsed by it.  “I warned you,” he told her.  “That I wasn’t a unicorn.  I’m a Lykan, Summer.  That means I’m as much thestral as I am unicorn.”
“It’s not that, Star.  I mean, I can understand wanting to—I mean, what you did.  But why do that?  Why kill yourself?  Why didn’t you just zap her with magic?”
“Because by then it didn’t matter,” he told her in a weak voice.  “I was mortally wounded, I was going to die any second.  It was the only way to make sure I took her with me.”  He reached out with his foreleg, his hoof trembling violently, and she cradled it with her own hoof.  “I am so sorry, Summer,” he whispered.  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.  I didn’t want you tangled up in my secret.  But I nearly got you killed.”
Her expression changed in a heartbeat, smiling down at him with exquisite tenderness.  “I forgive you, Starjumper,” she told him.  “I could have left the clock on the porch, but I didn’t.  I wasn’t afraid of your secret then, and I’m not now.  I knew that who you are meant that I may face danger.  You are my friend, and I will stand with you even when things get scary.  What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” she asked with a smile.  “And I do believe, mister, that you owe me.  I saved your life,” she said with insincere haughtiness.  “I think that means that I don’t have to pay you to tutor me anymore.”
He just had to laugh, and that sent a searing jag of pain through his chest.  “My, we’re getting pushy now,” he returned after the pain eased.
“You’d better get it out of your mind that this is getting you out of our deal,” she told him.  “You haven’t taught me how to teleport yet.  You haven’t taught me everything you know yet.  And you will.”
“You may be better off having nothing more to do with me, Summer.  I’m sure your parents are absolutely furious right now.”
“They are, but not at you,” she answered.  “They’re way more mad at the thestrals for attacking me than at you.  As far as they’re concerned, you saved me from them.  You did kind of rescue me.  Right before I rescued you,” she winked.
“They came after you because of me,” he said soberly, looking away from her.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said airily.  “It was my decision.  I accepted that risk, and I choose to keep accepting it.  I won’t abandon you because of this, Star,” she declared, holding up her casted foreleg.  “And you’re going to need me.  I…I don’t think you’ll be too surprised to know that the whole city knows what happened.  And they know what you are.”
He sighed, closing his eyes.  “I did more or less change right there on the street,” he grunted in a low voice.
“The Princess made a declaration about it.  She explained who you are, why the thestrals attacked you, and she made real sure to tell everypony that the old stories about were-ponies were just made up hooey,” she assured him.  “And while I don’t know about everypony, I know that my parents are more curious than anything else.  They really want you to come over for dinner, Star, and they told me to tell you that you don’t have any more excuses.”
He gave her a look, and she grinned at him impishly.
“And you should know that my parents met your family, and they like them.  They’ve been here waiting for you to wake up, but it’s the middle of the night right now, so they’re at home sleeping.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days,” she answered.
He closed his eyes.  “What happened to her?”
“She’s in a room on the other side of the hospital, under guard,” she answered.  “The rest of them are all in jail.”
“They’re not sending them back to the Nightlands?”
“No, because they attacked me,” she stressed.  “The Princess said if it had just been you, she woulda had no choice but to just banish them.  But since they attacked me, she could arrest them and put them on trial.”
“Huh.  Well, you turned out to be good for something after all.”
She gave him a tart look, then laughed helplessly.  “If you’re picking on me, then you’re feeling better,” she grinned.  “Let me go get your family, so you can see them before you go back to sleep.”   She dared lean down and kiss him on the muzzle again, then turned and hobbled out of the room on her casted foreleg.
He closed his eyes, considering all that information.  And part of it was his worst nightmare.  He’d been exposed to Canterlot, and now everypony knew what he was.  While he wasn’t ashamed of being a Lykan, that meant that now he had to guard against ponies that wouldn’t accept that he wasn’t dangerous, ponies like North Star—he had to be dancing in his parlor right about now with this kind of information to use against him—but he also had to guard against ponies that would try to somehow use his condition for their own ends.  There was no doubt that there were a few enterprising potion makers that would realize that bits and pieces of him had magical potency for quite a few magical potions and draughts, as well as ponies like the Princess that would want to study his condition in the name of magical research and general knowledge.  He honestly had no idea what was going to happen now, how his life was going to change because Equestria knew his secret…but he was fairly sure it wasn’t going to be all that good.
But that was a worry for another time.  He smiled earnestly when his family rushed into the room, Summer Dawn limping along behind them, and he gave a pained wheeze when Dancer dared jump up on the bed and give him an entirely painful hug.  “Dancer!” Nightsong barked, which made her give a horrified look at his expression and quickly scramble down.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, brother!” she said quickly.  She was the youngest of his siblings, the very first foal in her kindergarten that got her cutie mark, the red outline of an eight-pointed star with a silver and blue horseshoe pointed down inside it, a mark Starjumper suspected represented her immense magical potential and her athletic nature, and she took after her father in almost all ways.  She had his same tan coat and nearly black mane and tail, a unicorn horn sprouted out of the poof of fluffy bangs, and she was bigger than every foal in her kindergarten class, inheriting the size of both her parents.  The only way she didn’t take after her father was the single fang she showed as she smiled, with the corresponding tooth on the other side missing.  And if she had a fang on one side, she’d have a fang on the other.
If Dancer took after her father, Songbird took after her mother.  She had the same color coat as Nightsong, the same near-black, but her coat was all one color.  She also had her mother’s midnight blue mane, which she wore long and a bit unkempt.  Like her mother and brother, her wings were oversized for her body, and in her case the tips of her wings extended well past her tail when she folded them.  Because of that, she kept them open most of the time.  Her cutie mark was a blue bird with outstretched wings with two very small musical notes coming from its beak, the notes white.  She was a year older than Dancer, but she was the same size as her sister, which made them look more like twins.
The wild card was Silver Moon.  He had traits from both his parents, but he was mostly all his own pony.  His coat was a snowy white similar to Summer Dawn’s, but he had a patch of black that ran down his muzzle that started between his eyes and went all the way down over his nose and ending at his mouth, making his upper lip black and lower lip white.  His forehooves were also black, like socks, and he had a patch of black right on his rump around his tail, which caused one of the most unusual colorations that truly made him stand out.  Silver Moon’s mane was a rich chestnut brown, but his tail was black.  His cutie mark cut right through that patch of black on his rump, a simple crescent moon that was a brilliant silver.  It was very easy to see on the top half, where it was over the black, but hard to see at the bottom, where it was over the white.  And while his eyes weren’t yellow, they were a deep, vibrant blue, they were vertically slitted like a thestral’s eyes, and he had fangs like his mother and siblings.  But the one way he took after his father, and a true champion of the Astra bloodline, was in that he was absolutely huge.  He was half a head taller than his father, who was taller than Starjumper.  Silver Moon looked like an intimidating, hulking brute, but the reality was, he was the most gentle pony Starjumper had ever known, and growing up with his reading problem made him introverted.
“How are you feeling, brother?” Silver Moon asked, putting one of his massive hooves on his shoulder, very carefully.
“Like I’m not going anywhere for a while,” he answered, giving his brother a weak, earnest smile.  Starjumper and Silver Moon were as close as Songbird and Dancer were to each other.  “You should see the other pony, though.”
Silver Moon gave a low chuckle.  “We heard that you spanked nearly the full squad of Night Blades.  Good on you, bro.”
“That’s my big brother,” Songbird said brightly, rearing up and putting her hooves on the bed and touching her nose to his.  “The doctors said you’d be going home soon.  They’re using Dad’s tonic on you.”
“I brought half of our sale inventory with me,” Comet Tail said modestly.  Comet Tail was a skilled potion maker, and he brewed and sold potions in the shop in addition to general merchandise.  And many of his potions, tonics, and salves were in demand in Baltimare for everything from healing minor hurts to repairing broken objects to making plants grow with magical speed.  He didn’t hoard his skills either, he taught potion making to others for a fee…and made sure that the ingredients his students needed to make their own potions could be bought in his shop.  That way, he didn’t have to spend all his time making potions to meet the demand for them, yet also continued to profit off the potion making trade.
Comet Tail was a savvy businesspony.
Comet Tail was a powerful and accomplished unicorn magician, but what made him famous in Baltimare, and made Saddler’s Supplies so popular, was the potions he could make.  “Enough to get you up and about in a few days, but you won’t be running any races for quite a while.  They want to study the formula,” he chuckled.  “I don’t see why, I got it out of one of the most common potion making recipe tomes around.  But I was happy to sell them several flasks.”
“Canterlot unicorns don’t fool much with potions.  I think they think them to be low-brow,” Silver Moon said, then he coughed awkwardly and looked down at Summer Dawn.  “No offense,” he added.
“None taken,” she smiled up at him.  “And you’re actually right.  Most magicians think that potions are a lazy unicorn’s excuse for not properly studying magic.  And that’s a bit of a silly point of view, in my opinion.”
“Good for you, Summer,” Comet Tail told her approvingly.  “Magic is magic, no matter how it’s practiced.”
“How long until sunrise?” he asked.
“About five hours,” Nightsong answered.  “Your father made sure to treat your wing, so it should be out of that brace in a couple of days.  But you won’t be flying for a month, given how badly it was broken.  Really, son, when you decide to break your wing, you don’t go halfway.  The doctor said your main bones were broken in three places each and all four of your spars were broken in so many places that your wings were moving like they were cloth.”
“Blame them, not me,” he returned in a weary attempt to be cheeky.
He was very surprised when two new ponies pushed in with his family, and saw that it was Summer Dawn’s parents.  Fancy Pants was without his customary tuxedo and monocle but still looked quite suave and dashing, and Fleur de Lis looked as incredibly beautiful at midnight with her mane slightly askew as she did when she stepped out in the morning with every hair just so.  “I say, my good Starjumper, it’s good to see you awake,” Fancy Pants said with honest warmth, smiling down at him.  “We were starting to worry.”
“I thought you were at home,” Starjumper said honestly.
“It’s only four blocks to our house from here, Starjumper, and they sent a message as soon as you woke up,” Fleur de Lis told him, her expression genuine and warm.  “We’d have been here sooner if my husband didn’t think that being out of breath makes him look undignified.”
Dancer couldn’t resist a giggle.
“I heard that, young missy,” Fancy Pants said with entirely insincere arrogance.  “And it does make me look undignified.  But the important thing here is how you feel, Starjumper my lad.  Feeling alright?”
“I’ll live,” he replied.
“The doctors said that thanks to your father’s impressive healing tonic, you should be up and about in a few days.”
“I hope so,” he said, not entirely comfortable looking Summer Dawn’s parents in the eyes.  He was the reason she was in that cast, had that bandage around her head.
He listened as his parents engaged Summer Dawn’s parents, Nightsong quickly doing so after hearing his response and no doubt knowing how he felt.  It was clear to him as he listened that over the time when he was asleep, they’d gotten to know each other very well.  It wasn’t a surprise when it came to his mother, she was almost criminally charismatic and never failed to subvert everypony that came across her into her large stable of friends, but it was much more interesting to hear his father and siblings talk to Summer Dawn’s parents, as well as hear Summer Dawn interact with them.  Summer Dawn was entirely comfortable with his family, and what was more telling, they were entirely comfortable with her.
That…was actually something of a relief.  Summer Dawn’s parents weren’t acting like they were upset or angry with him or his parents over what happened.  But he was still upset with himself.  He almost felt sick, waking up to see her flying through the air like that, crashing into that umbrella and through that window, it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
She was three months older than him, but despite that, she was too young to be facing the kind of danger he’d brought into her life.  She was a Canterlot unicorn, she was born and raised here where nothing ever went wrong and the most danger she may face in her entire life was a flowerpot falling from a window sill.  She hadn’t been raised to prepare for danger the way he had been.  She should be worrying about what dress she was going to wear to the next big party, not if she was going to live to see the sun set.  The only enemies she should ever have were jerks like Nova that would threaten her social status, not ponies that wanted to kill her.
She had nearly died, because of him.
She was now the sworn enemy of the thestrals, because of him.
Her life was irrevocably changed, because of him.
The shame of knowing that made it hard for him to look her parents in the eye.  Even if they didn’t blame him, it was still his fault, and that would always be there.
After a few minutes, Nightsong looked down at him, then took control of the situation.  “Star looks about ready to pass out, so we should let him rest,” she declared.  “We can visit him again in the morning, after he gets a chance to rest.  So come on, all of you, out!  Out!” she said with a good-natured yell, opening her large wings and shooing them towards the door with them.  Starjumper noticed that his mother was quite careful not to push Summer Dawn’s parents towards the door, and they hung back after meeting her gaze.
His mother did all but know what he was thinking more often than he felt comfortable to admit.
After the others were pushed out of the room and the door closed, he took a deep breath and tilted his head to look up at them.  “I am so sorry,” he said sincerely.  “I never wanted her caught up in who I am and what it means.  I tried to keep her away, but I failed.  I, I needed the money she offered to have me teach her, and I thought that I could just keep things professional.  But she was just so…so nice,” he said, closing his eyes.  “And thoughtful, and sweet, it was impossible not to like her.  And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could have just one friend, that it would be okay, that me being a Lykan wouldn’t matter.  And I nearly got her killed,” he said, a tear forming along the border of his closed eyelids.
“I taught my daughter long ago to do what is right, even when other ponies tell you that it’s wrong,” her mother said simply.  “And she sees so much right in you, Starjumper.  You have no idea how much she respects and admires you.  And now that we know the truth, we can’t help but admire you too,” she declared.  “You’ve come a long way while carrying such a heavy burden, and that demands respect.”
“And the change in our daughter is worth…this minor inconvenience,” Fancy Pants continued.  “You have no idea how much she has changed since she met you, young stallion.  Before, she was unsure of herself, hesitant, and felt that her struggles in school made her somehow inadequate compared to her peers.  But to see her now,” he said proudly.  “She’s confident.  She believes in herself, and we’re seeing the potential that we always knew was there start to show itself.  And it’s all because of you.”
He looked up at them, then closed his eyes again and took a deep, cleansing breath.  “You can help her now,” he said.  “The problems she has are because she can’t read.”
He heard both of them gasp.
“It’s not because she doesn’t try.  She has the same problem my brother does.  There’s something fundamentally different in how she sees the letters on a page compared to everypony else that makes it impossible for her to discern letters from each other.  I thought my brother was unique, that it was some strange problem that only he had, until I met her.  And since I’ve seen it before, I knew how to help her.”
“I…I can’t believe that,” Fleur de Lis said.  “She always seems to be reading when I come to her room!”
“She’s learned to hide it,” he told them.  “And you can thank that school of hers for that.  They taught her from a young age not to ask questions, that the questions she asked were silly and stupid and they didn’t want to hear it, and it trained her to keep it a secret.  Even from you.”
“I…I never would have believed that,” Fancy Pants breathed.  “It’s the best school in Equestria!”
“And that’s why they taught her from an early age to hide her problem, because she didn’t fit their image of the perfect student,” he said bluntly.  “I’ll bet she’d ask basic questions about what they told her to read that would exasperate her teachers to the point where their responses scared her so much she just stopped asking.  They trained her to hide her problem, even from ponies that would have helped her if they knew.  Like you.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this sooner?” Fleur de Lis asked.
“Because she doesn’t know that I know, and it wasn’t my secret to reveal.  Given what you know of me, I think you can understand that I take secrets very seriously, even secrets that aren’t my own.  I wouldn’t even be telling you now if not for the fact that Summer Dawn may need your help.  I…I may not be here for her.  And I need your help to help her.  There’s a spell,” he said.  “A spell I found in a book a few days ago that creates a voice that reads aloud from a book.  It was created by a unicorn that went blind, and needed the spell to read his books aloud for him so he could continue his magical studies.  I haven’t learned the spell yet, I was going to learn it and teach it to her, but things got so crazy, I didn’t have the chance,” he sighed.  “I want you to teach her that spell.  It will let her learn what books have to offer her without me there to help her.  Just don’t tell her why.  Tell her it was a spell I was going to teach her as part of her tutoring, because it is a fairly difficult spell to cast.  If she knew I knew her secret, it may crush her.  She’d feel violated, deceived, like I was secretly laughing at her this whole time,” he said in a quiet voice.  “And you shouldn’t tell her either.  When she’s ready, she’ll tell you.  Until then, it’s best if you just leave her be.”  He took a breath.  “And if you would, give a copy of it to my father, so he can teach it to my brother.  My father knows about my brother’s problem, so it won’t look strange if it comes from him instead of from you.  He needs it too.  It’s in my apartment, upstairs, the shelf on the far right, third shelf from the top, second book on the left.  The book’s titled Magic to Assist the Blind, Deaf, or Mute.”
The two of them looked down at him.  “I’m sure that you’ll be here to teach her that spell, Starjumper,” Fancy Pants told him.
“If she was smart, she’d walk away from me and never look back,” he said in a quiet voice.
They both chuckled.  “If you know her as well as you think you do, you know that is the last thing she would ever do,” Fleur de Lis told him.  “And not because she isn’t smart,” she added lightly.
“I may not give her that choice,” he admitted in a charged voice.  “I nearly got her killed, and all because I was feeling lonely.  I’ll never forgive myself for that.”  He closed his eyes.  “Never.”
“But we forgive you, Starjumper,” Fleur de Lis told him, putting a gentle hoof on his bandaged shoulder.  “This wasn’t your fault.  This was their fault, not yours.”
“And if you care anything for Summer Dawn, you wouldn’t be talking about running away now,” Fancy Pants said calmly.  “Not only is that not the stallion we’ve come to know from talking to her and your family, but it would hurt her.”
“I—she’s not—we’re not—” he said quickly, but Fleur de Lis cut him off.
“We didn’t say that you were,” she told him.  “But it can hurt just as much when a friend cuts you off from them, and you don’t understand why.  She believes that now more than ever, you need her, Starjumper.  She won’t abandon you when she thinks you need her the most.  That’s not who she is, and I think you know that.  And if you think that we’re going to stand in the way of that, that we in any way blame you for everything that happened, well hear it from us right now.  We do not.”
“Here here,” Fancy Pants agreed.  “You have shown only the best interests for our daughter since the day you met her, Starjumper.  It’s abundantly clear to me now, given what you just told me.  This little secret of yours does not matter when it’s the pony you are that we see,” he said, looking over his head and at his wings quite deliberately.
“It’s that secret that almost got her killed.”
“And it’s that secret that brought out the very best in her,” Fleur de Lis challenged.  “You took her in and you taught her far more than just magic.  You taught her diligence, discipline, persistence, you showed her that she is more than she ever believed she could be, and you have given her a passion and a strength that would make any parent proud.  She believes in herself, she will be the shining star we hoped that she would be, and that’s all thanks to you.  This secret of yours makes you strong, Starjumper, and you have imparted some of your strength into our daughter.  How could we possibly blame you for that?”
He looked up at them, at a complete loss for words, then put his head back on the pillow and decided to simply say nothing.  He didn’t want to sound like an idiot.
“Don’t blame yourself for something that nopony else believes was your fault, my young stallion,” Fancy Pants told him gently.  “Like my wife said, we blame them for this, not you,” he almost seethed.  “They were the ones that came here to start a fight.  They were the ones that broke their promise.  They were the ones that attacked you, and did it like complete cowards, I might add,” he said hotly.  “Using our daughter to get to you, that is the epitome of cowardice.”
“And that’s why she needs to stay away from me,” he protested weakly.
“That’s why you need her beside you now more than ever before,” Fleur de Lis retorted, her eyes steady and her expression determined.  “You are not alone, Starjumper.  And the more ponies that stand with you, the more likely it is that they never try again.  If they see that all of Equestria will stand behind you, they will leave you alone.  Alone, you are vulnerable.  When Equestria stands with you, you are invincible,” she said in a powerful voice.  “And if that starts with your friend and her parents, then that’s a fine place for it to start from my point of view.”
He gave them an honestly surprised look, humbled literally beyond words.  That…that was the last thing he ever expected to hear from any pony that was not his family.
“Now, I think you need to get some rest.  And since you are literally a captive audience, I have one more thing to say to you,” Fleur de Lis said with a smile, then she leaned down and gave him a kiss on the muzzle.  “Rest well.  We’ll see you in the morning.”
He was just…stunned, watching them incredulously as they walked out of the room.  To hear the mother of the mare he almost killed with his childishness say that to him, he just, he didn’t know what to think.  What to say.  It was shocking, it was humbling, it was confusing.  It was against everything he believed when it came to how ponies would react to his secret, and she had given him something entirely new to think about it, the idea that if the ponies of Equestria supported him the same way that Princess Celestia did when she forced the Night King to agree to the treaty, the thestrals may never bother him again.  If they saw that Equestria would defend him, they may think twice about making another attempt.  But that was something he never believed would happen.  The old stories, he was sure that the ponies of Equestria would fear him, reject him.  And some would, like North Star, either because of superstition or because it was convenient for them to do so in order to further their own plans.  But the idea that he might be…be accepted, despite what he was, it had never crossed his mind.  Once.
Ever.
Maybe that was the wrong way to think, but it was what he had always believed.  And the price he would pay if he was wrong made it too much of a risk to believe anything different.  It was his life on the line, and to put his life in the hooves of ponies that he didn’t know….
But that was a moot point now.  All of Canterlot knew he was a Lykan…and that secretly terrified him.  It was a good thing his family was here, that was going to be the only reason he’d have the courage to step out of the hospital when the time came.  But at least he had time to come to terms with it, at least in the short term.  How he’d feel in a month…that was another story.
Well, he did have options.  He could just leave Canterlot, despite what the Princess wanted.  What was she going to do, throw him in the dungeon?  Equestria was a huge realm, there were plenty of places he could go where he could simply disappear.  He’d learned the stoneshaping spell, so he could make any home he wanted just about anywhere he pleased.  He could shape a large home for himself on one of the many mountaintops in the realm, one that would have a breathtaking view of some valley, or maybe the ocean.  The ocean sounded better.  Between stoneshaping and transfiguration, he could make it as comfortable or as opulent as he wanted, able to use magic to make any furniture he wanted.  He could shape a magnificent mansion rivaling the Waterfalls on that mountaintop if he wished.  He didn’t need any money, didn’t need another pony.  He could do it all himself.  Alone.
But…that magnificent home high on that mountaintop would be empty.  There would be no laughter, no warm smiles, no Summer Dawn sitting on her cushion, the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips as she bit her tongue while working on a new spell.
There would be no Summer Dawn….
He closed his eyes, refusing to admit it to himself, yet knowing it was true.  He would miss her.  Living away from Canterlot would mean that he would not be with his friend, and he wanted to be with his friend.  She was the only pony he’d ever known outside his family that had ever accepted him for who he was without ever pushing for more.  She accepted his secrecy, accepted his silence, and never once complained.
And he nearly killed her!
And that was his conundrum.  He loved being around Summer Dawn.  She was funny, she was smart, she was sassy, she kept him on his toes and gave him somepony to pick on when he needed a little harmless diversion.  And Celestia, was she powerful.  He felt a very solemn duty to finish what he started, to teach her everything he knew and then watch with quiet pride as she eclipsed him, as she became more than he could ever be.  It was there.  It was within her.  She just needed to unlock the gates.
But he nearly got her killed.  No matter how much he loved to teach her, to be around her, just be with her, she almost died because of him.  SHE ALMOST DIED!  That brilliant light, that amazing mare, was nearly taken from the world because of him, because he wasn’t mature enough to be able to handle being alone for just a couple of weeks, because he was so weak, so immature, so childish, that he put his own needs over her safety.  He had pulled her into his uncertain world arrogantly believing that the dark stain of his curse would not touch her, and he had been wrong.
Wrong.
He didn’t know what to do.  He felt…lost.  He had nearly killed the only pony in this entire world outside of his family that he cared about, and he was torn between wanting to honor her wishes that nothing change and living with the crushing guilt that he would feel every time he looked at her, knowing that she had come this close to dying, and it was because of him.
He did not want to be without her.  Yet being with her was going to destroy him.
The thestrals were right.  He was cursed.  And he hadn’t understood what it was or what it meant until that moment.  The curse wasn’t about who or what he was, the curse was the dark reality that he would never have a life where other ponies could be in it.  He would forever yearn for what other ponies had, only to know that everypony he touched, every life he entwined with his own, was doomed to suffer.
Because of him.
He knew that he would forever be alone, but now he understood it for the curse it was.  He didn’t understand what it meant until that moment, that it was not the noble solitude of a hermit, but the tormented isolation of a pony trapped at the bottom of a well, screaming and screaming and screaming for help for the rest of his days, knowing that it would never come.
He gave a single, quiet sigh and closed his eyes.  Maybe he was being too negative.  Maybe things would look better in the morning.
But he knew they wouldn’t.



Starjumper found out the next day just how adorably, obnoxiously determined Summer Dawn could really be.
He had the feeling that her parents had ratted him out.  They’d told her about his worries and fears, and about his apology to them, that could be the only explanation for her behavior.
For one, she had seemingly so entwined herself into his family that she was acting like a part of it.  She had all three of his siblings all but following her around like little puppies—even his brother!—and had his little sisters almost fighting each other for her attention.  She even had his parents eating out of her hoof, and as they all stood in his room, she gave him a direct, challenging look, as if daring him to try to distance himself from her when she was worming her way into the core of his life.  She was doing it so his family would come down on him if she cried to them that he wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t talk to her.  It was blatant manipulation, a Canterlot society pony showing just how well she knew how to pull on the strings she was tying around his family, and he had no answer to it.  This was a socialite using her social skills to put his family in her saddlebag.  He knew she was doing it, she knew he knew she was doing it, and she was utterly unrepentant even as he glared at her.
For another, she made it absolutely, abundantly clear whenever she talked to him that as soon as he was ambulatory, her lessons would continue.  He could rest and recover while she practiced, to the point where she talked his father into helping her move his bed downstairs, her excuse being so he didn’t have to go up and down to the get to the kitchen, but her real motive was so he could lay down while she practiced.
And as far as that went, she also made it abundantly clear that she was going to be the nurse that oversaw his recovery, since she was going to be there quite a bit anyway.  She asked all sorts of questions of the doctors and nurses when they came to check on him, and the wording of her queries was in no way subtle or alluding.  She asked direct questions about things like what he should eat, how much activity she should allow him to have and so on and so on.  He had quite a few things to say about that, but he didn’t get the opportunity to get her alone so he could disabuse her of that notion.  She took the coward’s way out and made sure she was never alone in the room with him, since she knew that he wouldn’t yell at her when she was in company.
He knew she was smart.  He had no idea she was so devious.
His recovery was going quite swiftly thanks to both whatever it was the Princess did to save his life and the liberal application of the Astra family healing tonic.  The tonic accelerated the natural healing rate by nearly ten times, and while it did cause him to rapidly heal, it also caused him to eat almost obscene amounts of food while he was under its effect.  He burned a lot of energy healing, and that energy had to be replenished to keep his accelerated healing going.  The pain had diminished greatly since he woke up the night before, but he was still very tender and couldn’t move without wincing.  But, during the day, his horn meant that he didn’t have to move to get things done.  He was able to use magic without hurting himself, at least spells that required little or no effort, so levitation was easily within his convalescent repertoire.  But, he found that using magic around Summer Dawn caused her to go absolutely ballistic.  She had it in her mind that any effort on his part was somehow slowing his recovery, and a single icy glare from her was usually enough to make the golden glow vanish from around his horn.
Really, that sassy little mare was just walking in and taking over his life.  And he was letting her!
He also saw that Summer Dawn’s parents were moving right in along with her.  Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis moved through his family like it was some kind of party, talking to all of them as if they’d known them for years, showing as much interest in Songbird and Dancer’s foalish rambling as Silver Moon and Comet Tail’s talk about the business of running a shop.  They were quite happy to look very surprised and impressed when Dancer showed off the newest magic spell her father had taught her, but the look of awed wonder in their eyes was not in any way feigned when Songbird and Nightsong sang for them.  The two of them had very different voices, but when they sang together, they blended into a haunting harmony that seemed to bring all activity around them to a stop.
The fun part was sunset.  He was awake for it this time, awake to feel his wings grow in, and then the icy, nearly debilitating pain as his broken wing bent at the breaks before his father and the doctor could stabilize it with magic, since it had no cast or support.  And that sudden movement put pressure on the multiple smaller breaks in the spars, the bones between which the membranes stretched, and that caused a sheet of pain to rip through his wing.  It was enough to put him back on the bed, shuddering as he tried with every shred of his awareness not to move, knowing that moving would only make the pain worse, allowing them to splint his wing.  And on top of that, he felt almost…awkward with the idea that the doctor and Summer Dawn’s parents had seen him change.  In a way, it was an intensely personal thing for him, a core of his identity that he kept secret, and he honestly didn’t know how to process the idea that ponies he barely knew had seem that most private part of him.
But, that was just a stark reminder of what waited for him beyond the door of the hospital, he supposed.  He’d have to get used to the idea that Canterlot knew his secret.
Because there was no real way that they could splint every break in every bone in his wing, he ended up on his side with his broken wing resting carefully on the bed behind him, the same position in which he’d awoken the night before.  And to make absolutely sure he didn’t move his wing, the doctor put it in traction of a sort, tying cords to the spikes at the tips of his wing bones and securing them to a frame to completely immobilize the wing, but doing it very carefully so those secured points didn’t pull the bones out of alignment and cause his wing to heal incorrectly.  He felt them apply a fresh batch of his father’s tonic to his wing, the liquid growing hot before it absorbed into the skin and membrane, and it soothed the pain somewhat after it worked its way into his wing and set to work.
“Better, son?” his father asked as he settled down.
“Some,” he answered, resting his head against the pillow and closing his eyes.  “How much longer am I going to be tied down?”
“Judging by how fast this tonic works, the smaller breaks may be set enough to allow you to move around by the morning after next,” the doctor answered from behind him, his voice professional.  “So, two more nights in traction.  The breaks in your main wing bones are going to take much longer to heal to the point where they won’t need to be splinted.  Maybe two to three weeks.  And you won’t be flying for at least a month.  The main bone extending out from your back will need time to fully heal, given how much stress flying puts on it.  If it’s not fully and completely healed, you’ll just break it again the first time you try to take off.”
“It’s never taken this long for the tonic to heal my wings,” Starjumper protested.
“You’ve never broken them like this before, either,” Comet Tail answered him.
“I broke my wing two years ago and the tonic mended the bone in a week,” he said, almost indignantly.
“That was a clean break of the radius, son.  This is multiple fractures in both the radius and ulna, and two fractures in the humorous bone that absorbs almost all the stress flying places on your wings.  And there’s more breaks than I can count along the spar bones. You even broke the bone in your thumb claw, Star.  It’s going to take the tonic time to repair this much damage.  It can only go so fast.”
“Well, isn’t there some bone mending spell?” he complained.
“Magic doesn’t work that way, and you know it,” the doctor chided.  “If I can’t see the damage I’m trying to mend with magic, I can’t do anything about it.  So, while I could mend your lacerations and abrasions with a magic spell, there’s nothing I can do about your internal injuries.”
“Hmph,” Starjumper snorted, which made Dancer and Songbird both giggle.  “Yeah, keep laughing, you two, I won’t be in this thing when the sun comes up,” he threatened, which made them laugh harder.  “Why can’t you use the spell that mends broken objects?  That doesn’t require line of sight on the internal structure of the object.”
“Have you ever tried to use that on a living thing?” the doctor challenged.  “Trust me.  Don’t.”
“Well, then transfigure my wing from a broken wing to a whole one,” he said.  “You can do that, Summer.  I taught you permanent living transfiguration.”
“Oh no I’m not,” she retorted.  “I may know what your wing looks like on the outside, Star, but I have no idea how it works on the inside.  I’d ruin your wing!”
“Well, I know how it works,” he fumed.  “But I can’t use that magic on myself without my horn.”
“Then I’d say you’re pretty much out of luck, Star,” Nightsong said without much compassion.	“I just love being surrounded by ponies that are so helpful to me,” he muttered darkly.
“My, somepony’s getting snippy,” Nightsong said evenly.  “I think this churlish mood is from lack of sleep.  We have kept you up for a fairly long time, and the tonic does exhaust a pony when it’s working.  So we’ll clear out and let you sleep, son.”
It’s not like I can do much else,” he complained.
After the doctor shooed them out and gave him one final check, he turned off the light and closed the door.  He was just about to drift off to sleep, but a burst of magical light roused him out of his reverie, and he found himself looking into the eyes of Princess Twilight.  She’d teleported into the room.  She used magic, a spell he knew, which caused a dome of silence to surround them.  “Your Highness.  Excuse me if I don’t get up,” he said with dry humor.  But instead of making her smile, it instead splashed a pained look across her face.  “Are you alright?”
“I need to talk to you,” she said in a low, depressed voice.  She sat down in front of him, her golden-shod hooves scraping across the wooden floor, then she lowered her head and sighed.  “I came to apologize,” she said.  “This is all my fault.”
“I don’t see how,” he told her honestly.  “You weren’t going to keep Moonblade in her room outside of locking her in.”
“No, Star.  I had the chance to stop this, and I didn’t,” she said, looking up at him with intense guilt in her eyes.  “We thought—there was—“ she floundered, then she took a deep breath and raised her head, looking him in the eye.  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I think you deserve to know the truth.  We thought you were the subject of one of the ancient prophecies, Starjumper.  When Moonblade attacked you, I held the guards back because we thought it was a necessary part of the prophecy coming true.  But we were wrong.  I was wrong.  And you’re in here because of it,” she said, looking down again.  “You almost died, Starjumper, and it was because of me.  Because of me,” she whispered.
He looked at her, and for a strange moment, he could only think of his own guilt over Summer Dawn.  He knew how she was feeling because he felt the same way, he knew what kind of pain that kind of guilt could cause because he felt it as well.  It wasn’t long ago that he was apologizing to Summer Dawn’s parents with as much sincerity and emotion as she was showing him now.  And it was strange to be on the other side of it.  Now he knew how his parents felt, how Summer Dawn’s parents felt, when they told him that it was alright.  That while he had made a mistake, they could forgive him for it because he didn’t make it out of malice.  They knew he would never have done that on purpose, put her in danger on purpose, and because of that, they could look beyond it.  As he looked at her, he realized that he couldn’t be angry.  She didn’t do what she did out of malice, she was acting in what she thought was the best interests of all of Equestria, and he owed Equestria too much to hold that against her.
“When I was born, Princess, the thestrals came for me,” he said quietly, looking at her from his bed.  “My mother and father couldn’t fight them all.  They would have taken me.  They would have killed me, if not for Princess Celestia.  She saved my life, Princess Twilight, and she never asked for anything in return.  Because of that, I’ve always lived up to my responsibilities of the treaty, out of respect for her and what she did for me.  I owe her my life, Princess, and that means that I also owe Equestria.  I’ve lived here all my life, and while I’ve never truly belonged here, I knew that here, I was safe.  If you truly thought that what happened between me and Moonblade was necessary to protect Equestria, then I forgive you.”
She looked up at him, her teary eyes wide and her expression surprised.
“I know that you’d never let this happen unless there was a reason so important that it would make you cry when it was over,” he said gently.  “That being said, come closer.”  She leaned forward a little, her eyes quizzical and a bit perplexed.  “Closer.”  She got up and stepped up to him, until her muzzle was barely a foot from his own.  He raised his foreleg and tapped her lightly on the top of her muzzle, which made her recoil a little bit.  “Bad Princess.  There, now you’ve been punished, so you can move on from feeling guilty about it.”
She gave him a shocked look, then burst into helpless, relieved, heartfelt laughter.  “Starjumper Astra, you are something special,” she told him with a shiny-eyed smile, daring to lean down and touch her nose to his forehead, a very matronly act.  “But I’m still going to feel terrible about it.  The prophecy—“
“No,” he warned.  “I may still be the subject of it, so I can’t know anything about it.  Any knowledge I have of it might cause it to fail, because I’ll change my behavior based on what the prophecy predicts.”
“The awareness divergence theory,” she said with an impressed voice.  “You really have studied.”
“We have a book on divination magic in our family library,” he told her.
“But, I already told you about the prophecy—“
“I’m a Lykan, Princess.  If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pretending that a secret doesn’t exist,” he told her easily.
“I…alright,” she nodded.  “I’ll leave you to get some rest, Starjumper.  You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Thank you for coming, Princess.  I think I needed to hear what you had to say.”
She gave him a gentle look, then took a step back.  Her horn flared, and then she vanished in a circular burst of purple magic.  He laid his head back down as the dome of silence shimmered and vanished, considering what she said.  And he did need to hear that.   To hear Princess Twilight’s apology put his own guilt in this situation in perspective, that if he could forgive her, then he could accept that the others would forgive him.  It still made him all but terrified for Summer Dawn’s safety, that she may be hurt because of him…but he really didn’t have too much control over that.  If Summer Dawn was the one pushing her way into his life, then it was her choice, her decision.  And given she was older than him by three months, that meant that she clearly had the maturity to understand the situation, understand the potential danger of it, and accept it.
He didn’t have the right to tell her how to live her life, even if he vociferously disagreed with the decision that she was making.
And he couldn’t lie to himself, a part of him didn’t want her to go.  She was…she was the only part of Canterlot that made this place bearable.  She was his friend, his only real friend, and he didn’t want to lose that.
He didn’t want to lose her.
So, that decision being made for him, it only gave him one real option.  If he could not make her stay away, then he had to arm her with every weapon he could find so she could protect herself.  If she was ever put in danger again, she was as sure as Luna’s beautiful moon not going to be hurling snowballs at her attackers.  If he had taught her better, been more realistic about his situation and hers, the very first spell he would have taught her would have been the Mana Bolt, the staple attack spell for any serious unicorn magician.  While it may not have done her much good against the Night Blades thanks to their spell dampeners, it would have still given her options.  She was smart and she was creative, she would have found a way to use the spell to get at them, the way he had by using it on the cobblestones in front of the Night Blades that attacked him to shower them with stone shards and blind them.
But the first thing she needed to learn was teleportation.  Armed with that spell, she would always have a means to get herself to safety in a way that her attackers could not follow.  If he’d taught her that spell sooner, she could have teleported herself and him away when she came to his defense, that moment she told him about where she defended him when he was unconscious.  If she could have teleported, then she wouldn’t have been hurt, and he wouldn’t be in that hospital bed.
This was his fault, he could see, but because he had been too lazy.  She was capable of learning faster than he was teaching, he should have been teaching her at her pace, not his own.
Well, that was something that he could fix.  And fix quickly.
He gave a long sigh and relaxed, and he was almost surprised by how quickly sleep rose up to claim him.



He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt so vulnerable in his entire life.
Wincing a bit against the bright winter sunshine on a crisp, cold day, Starjumper hobbled slowly out of the front door of the hospital with his parents behind him and Summer Dawn right beside him, hobbling a bit herself on her casted foreleg.  It was a cold winter late morning, almost noon, the sky clear but clouds being banked up to the west to prepare for a scheduled snow shower.
He could almost feel eyes on him as soon as he came out onto the street, walking a bit gingerly.  Four days of care from the doctors and constant doses of his father’s healing tonic had gotten him ambulatory, but he could feel the tightness through his chest and back, the path the blade had taken when it went through him, which told him that he was nowhere near healed.  It would be another week minimum before he’d feel healed as a unicorn, and maybe another week or two after that before his wings were healed enough to allow him to fly when he was a thestral.  Until then, he felt vulnerable, and knowing that every pony in Canterlot knew his secret made him feel even more vulnerable still.
He could almost feel their eyes on him.  He could almost hear them whispering behind their hooves.  It was a supreme act of will not to just teleport to the apartment, and had considered doing that when he was discharged.  The whole city knew about that too, so there was no reason to hide it now.  But Summer Dawn had somehow managed to talk him into walking, and it took directly challenging his courage to get him to do it.  She’d told him that just ‘porting to his apartment was the coward’s way, and to just get it over with now.  He couldn’t hide in his apartment forever, after all.
Seriously, he had no idea why he was putting up with her.  She’d gotten way too sassy the last few days.
The cold air outside was almost like a knife in his healing lungs, and he had to stop a moment to get his breath.  “You okay, Star?” Summer Dawn asked in concern.
“It’s the cold air,” he said, breathing shallowly.  “Give me a minute.”
“Feeling alright outside that, son?” Nightsong asked.  “Any weakness? Your chest feel alright?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” he answered.  He glanced to the side when a familiar face tickled the edge of his vision, and he saw Summer Dawn’s parents trotting up to them.
“Sorry we’re late, we got a bit held up,” Fancy Pants declared.  “Ready to escort the patient home?”
“Silver Moon should have everything there ready,” Comet Tail answered.  “We can only hope that the fillies haven’t gone through every cabinet and broken half the glassware yet.”
Fleur de Lis laughed.  “Those two are a hoof-full, aren’t they?”
“Oh yes, they’re definitely acting like proper thestrals.  Nothing like his side of the family,” Nightsong said with a bit of a roll of her eyes, pointing her hoof at Comet Tail.
“You are just never going to forgive Silver Moon for being a proper unicorn, are you?”
“You may have won with Silver Moon, dear, but both fillies are definitely mine.  Silver Moon is way too well-behaved to be my foal.” 
Summer Dawn and her parents all laughed.  “I thought a foal wasn’t yours when they were getting in trouble, not when they were in trouble,” Fancy Pants noted lightly.
“You clearly know nothing about thestrals,” Nightsong said airily, putting her nose up and cantering forward a few steps.
“So, were you Nightsong’s foal when you were younger, Star, or Comet Tail’s?” Summer Dawn asked impishly.
“I refuse to answer that,” he replied, which made his parents laugh.
“That one is all mine, ducky,” Nightsong winked.  “He was my consolation prize for Silver Moon being the most singularly unexciting foal in the history of motherhood.”
“I’m sure he’d love to hear your honest opinion of him, Mom,” Starjumper called.
“He knows I’m utterly disappointed in his complete lack of mischief as a colt,” she replied shamelessly.  “If a foal is no trouble, then he’s no fun at all!  And by now, any mischief he makes is obviously staged just to make me feel better.  It’s not honest mischief, so it’s an insult!”
Starjumper just had to shake his head, which made Summer Dawn burst out laughing.
And that was Nightsong.
While he wasn’t going to teleport back to the apartment, he also wasn’t going to just walk down the street, either.  That was too far for him to go feeling the way he did.  Lucky for him, he had another way to get there, one that would be less taxing on him.  His horn flared with golden magic, the light surrounded his body, and he picked himself up off the icy stones outside the hospital.  Summer Dawn grinned at him and did the same, and Comet Tail and her parents did the same; Summer Dawn had taught them the trick of self-levitation, and they’d known how to do it long enough to be fully competent.  And both Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis tried their best to look suitably humble, even as they seemed quite smug about being able to do something that most other socialites had yet to learn.  Canterlot socialite humble-bragging in action by means of magic, Starjumper supposed.  Nightsong opened her wings and joined them as they rose up, then flapped along, slowing down so she could stay with them.
In that way, Starjumper’s arrival in Canterlot had caused something of a seismic shift in their social order.  Summer Dawn had taught her parents the trick of self-levitation, and now it was the magic trick that every socialite just had to learn how to do.  Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis were trendsetters in Canterlot social circles, and them showing off a bit with that trick had caused a sudden run on tutors capable of teaching the technique to other socialites.  It was a technique that most unicorns would be able to pull off, it really wasn’t that hard to do.  A unicorn didn’t even need the raw strength to pick up his entire body weight, but did need enough strength to pick up about half of it to use the technique, due to the way the magic was applied to overcome physics.  Summer Dawn’s parents both had more than enough strength to use it.  It was just that the amount of skill it took to use safely meant that most Canterlot unicorns, who didn’t do anything dangerous, had never learned it.  The technique could cause serious injury if the unicorn messed it up, which was why the school wouldn’t teach it.  And if the school wouldn’t teach it, Canterlot social elite wouldn’t do it.
That mentality was a good example of Canterlot society in general.  They were almost timid as a lot, afraid to take risks.
It amazed him sometimes that Summer Dawn was a product of that culture.  She was way more adventurous than most of her socialite peers.
His mother kept the group suitably entertained as they floated across the city without need of following the streets, going over the buildings.  And he couldn’t help but notice that the unicorns of Canterlot were staring up at them, watching him.  It was Nightsong that was probably getting their attention, but once they were looking up at them, their eyes were settling on him.  His ability to remember what he saw allowed him to glance down at them and remember their expressions, searching for any indication that they were repulsed by the sight of him.  And while there was quite a bit of slightly affronted looks, nothing was outright hostile.  But that might have something to do with Nightsong and her loud, irreverent bantering.  She was way too impertinent to gel well with Canterlot snobs.  They took themselves way too seriously to be ready for his mother.  He was honestly surprised that Summer Dawn and her parents liked her so much.
And they’d be even more shocked to find out how uncivilized his mother could be.  Behind that audacious and cheekily amusing exterior beat the heart of a predator, a mare that had it within her to fight and kill, and do so with neither reservation nor remorse.
They landed on the apartment balcony, and Silver Moon opened the doors and stepped out as the others landed behind him.  “Easy trip, brother?” he asked, stepping up and putting a hoof on his smaller sibling’s shoulder.
“Much easier than if I’d have walked,” he answered, looking up at Silver Moon with a smile.  “Where are the fillies?”
“Making cupcakes,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
Starjumper winced.  “Well, there goes my kitchen,” he sighed, which made Summer Dawn laugh.
And sure enough, there was a thin pall of flour in the air when he stepped into the apartment. On the far end of the large main room, the fillies were standing on their rear hooves on the kitchen stools at the island counter, mixing something in a bowl, and they had flour everywhere.
“Aww, you’re here too soon, brother!” Dancer complained.  “We wanted to surprise you!”
“You just did,” he said with a disapproving look at the sorry state of his kitchen.  But the two fillies were utterly unrepentant, Songbird continuing to stir the batter by clinging to the spoon, allowing her to manipulate it fairly easily.
“We’re almost ready to put them in the oven!” Songbird declared.  “Where do you keep the stuff to make icing?”
“Oh Luna no,” he retorted, which made Silver Moon chuckle behind him.
“Aww!  We’re not babies anymore, brother!”
“Look at my kitchen, you two little terrors!” he retorted, pointing at the flour-encrusted hoofprints on the ceiling.  “Did you have to track flour on the ceiling, Songbird?  Why would you even do that?”
“Better your kitchen than mine,” Nightsong trilled as she came in behind him, which made Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis crack up.
“Dancer wouldn’t bring the bowl down,” she accused, looking at her younger sister.
“You kept trying to put in the vanilla before it was mixed!” she retorted.  “The vanilla’s added after you have the batter mixed!  That’s how Mom does it!”
“Girls,” Comet Tail said in a commanding voice, which made the two of them look away from each other, in a bit of a snit.
Outside of the girls redecorating his apartment with a flour motif, he saw that they’d made a few changes.  The bed was now down in the living room, set in the large empty space in the center of the room so they didn’t have to move anything.  They had turned both of the divans to face the bed, and the writing desk had been pulled over to sit beside the bed so he could use it without getting up.  He barely had time to look around before he was being pushed towards the bed by a stern-faced Summer Dawn, putting her shoulder against him and pushing gently but inexorably.  “I’m not crippled,” he protested.
“The doctor said you should be in bed unless you have a reason to be out of it,” she replied firmly.  “The more you rest, the faster you recover.  So lay down and let us take care of you,” she ordered.
“Us?” he challenged.
The stare she leveled on him made all four of their parents chuckle.  He was about to square off against this increasingly overbearing little mare, but he found himself being picked up by levitation magic, the color of it betraying his father’s meddling.  Comet Tail floated him over and set him on the bed, then pushed down using his magic until he folded his legs and settled on his belly.  “She’s right in this case, son.  The doctor said bed rest for the next three days,” he said mildly.
It was an interesting continuation of what he’d seen over the last four days.  Summer Dawn and her parents had gotten more and more comfortable being around his rather unusual family over the days he recovered, since they visited quite often and had taken his family out to see Canterlot when not in the room with him.  He’d gotten to know her parents over the last few days, and he’d been honestly surprised by them.  He had no idea how they acted in public, where they were paragons of Canterlot society, but in private they were both warm, intelligent, funny, kind ponies, and he could see so much of Summer Dawn in them…or more to the point, he could see so much of them in Summer Dawn.  She had her mother’s tomcoltish playfulness, adventurous spirit, and curiosity, and her father’s wit, humor, and grace.  If Summer Dawn was an exceptional young mare, it was because of how well her parents had raised her.
She did seem a bit, well, overwhelmed by the chaos that was so common in the Astra household.  With four siblings and parents that were rather unique in their own way all sharing an apartment over the shop, the rough and tumble nature of things in their family seemed to both mystify and intrigue her.  He guessed that growing up in that huge mansion and being an only pony meant she was used to a much more, well, sedate home life, not the constant chatter and ponies moving all over the place, not to mention the mischief that the fillies seemed to constantly get into.  Both of them were almost too energetic, curious, and didn’t really care if they got into things they had no business being in.
But, the one advantage of the way they’d set up the apartment was that it put him within easy reach of everything.  As his father chatted with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, and his brother, mother, and Summer Dawn were in the kitchen helping the fillies with their cupcake project, he teleported the book holding the spell he wanted Summer Dawn to learn down to the writing desk.  When it appeared in a circular burst of golden magic, it caught the attention of Summer Dawn’s parents.  “I’m almost tempted to see if you can teach me that spell, my young stallion,” Fancy Pants.  “I tried to learn it when I was younger, but couldn’t quite get it right.”
“Did you ever manage to pull it off?” he asked.
“Once.  I managed to go about two feet, and I completely burned off my mane,” he replied, a bit sheepishly.  “My tutor told me that a reaction like that meant that the spell was simply beyond my strength.”
“Your tutor was an idiot,” he replied immediately and bluntly.  “If you can get the spell to go off, you can use it.  Period.”
“Really?” he asked in sudden interest.
“The power required to use the spell is all about making it work,” he answered.  “How strong you are does dictate how far you can make something go when you teleport it, but if you can get the spell to work, if you have the magical strength to breach the otherspace, then you can use the spell safely.  Your tutor had no idea how the spell really works.  Never hire that tutor again.”
“Well now,” he said with sudden animation, sitting up a bit on the divan.  “Perhaps I could talk you into explaining where he was wrong, and perhaps helping me fix the mistakes I was making,” he invited.
“And maybe you can teach it to me.  I never managed to get anywhere with it,” Fleur de Lis added.
“When I have time, I’d be happy to help both of you.  It’s the least I can do to thank you for all you’ve done for me,” he replied, glancing at Summer Dawn, who was giggling and laughing with the fillies as they iced the cupcakes.  “But I have a lot of other work to do.”
Fleur de Lis didn’t miss that.  “You’re teaching her the spell,” she realized.
“She asked me to teach her everything I know,” he replied simply. 
“Can she do it?” she asked in a low voice.
“There’s nothing she can’t do when it comes to magic, Fleur de Lis,” he answered her in a calm voice, looking at her.  “She’s the most powerful unicorn I’ve ever seen that’s not an alicorn.  That school almost ruined her,” he said darkly.
“Seriously?” Fancy Pants asked, looking over at his daughter.
“Beyond any doubt,” he replied.  “She’s so powerful that I’ve honestly had trouble teaching her.  I won’t let her practice new spells unless I’m there to throttle it if they get away from her.  As strong as she is, a misfired spell could blow up the entire apartment.”
“And to think that we never knew,” Fleur de Lis sighed.  “That she may never have found her true potential if she’d never have met you.”
“That’s reason enough to celebrate you coming to Canterlot,” Fancy Pants chuckled.
“Though I’m sure others aren’t quite so thrilled,” he grunted, looking at him.  “What are they saying?  About me?”
“There’s been some talk, but that’s why you have us, Star,” Fleur de Lis smiled.  “We’ve been stamping out those rumors before they can take hold.  After all, we know you.  But I will say, North Star certainly isn’t giving up.  His rumors have gotten progressively more and more nasty over the last few days.  He’s been trying to work up the city based on the old folk tales.”
“Which is why I’ve always kept it a secret,” he sighed.  “I’m sure the more gullible are hiding their foals about now.  And checking them for bite marks every morning.”
Fancy Pants gave a bit of a dark chuckle.  “The fangs do make you look a little intimidating, my young stallion,” he said with a glance.
“Which is nothing but a big fraud, once a pony gets to know you,” Fleur de Lis winked.
“Brother,” Starjumper called.  Silver Moon trotted over from the cupcake icing party, licking a bit of icing off his nose.  “Did Dad teach you the spell?”
“We’re still working on it, son,” Comet Tail answered.  “The spell’s surprisingly complex, due to the fact that the spell has to be able to deal with books that have complex formats, like columns and pictures that break up the text.  I’m still learning it.”
“I know,” Starjumper nodded.  “The last four days gave me the chance to learn the spell.  I didn’t really have much else to do when you guys weren’t there,” he shrugged.  “I even used it a few times.  It’s pretty useful even for a pony that doesn’t need it.”
“We’ve been working on it together,” Silver Moon said.  “When he learns something, he passes it on to me.  I can’t thank you enough for finding that spell, brother.”
“It’s half the reason I came to Canterlot, to find spells to send back home,” he said modestly. “You should buy a trunk, Dad, I have a bunch of books I’m sending home with you.”
“Stealing books out of the library, Starjumper?” Fancy Pants asked slyly.
Starjumper rolled his eyes, which made his parents laugh.  “I taught him a spell a long time ago that copies the contents of one book or scroll onto a blank one,” Comet Tail replied.  “To sell in the shop.  That way I only had to buy one copy of a book.”
“Isn’t that illegal, Comet Tail?” Fleur de Lis asked.
“Can you prove the books I’m selling are counterfeit?” he retorted, which made her blink, then burst out laughing.  “Did you shrink them, son?”
“Not yet,” he replied.  “But even shrunk, it’s gonna take a big trunk.  I’ve been spending a lot of the money Summer’s been paying me on blank books and scrolls.  You’re gonna have to build at least two new bookshelves in the study to fit them.”
“You know the shrink spell?” Fancy Pants asked in surprise.
“It lets me keep a lot more inventory than other shops, we just shrink down all our backstock and store it until we need it,” Comet Tail said with a smile.  “I think that and the reversal spell were the first spells I taught the boys when they started helping out in the shop.”
“When Dad goes out to collect new magic spells, he always looks for magic that we can use in the shop,” Silver Moon said.  “To make things, or store things, or keep things orderly.  There’s nothing wrong with us using our magic to make a profit.”
“Nothing at all,” Fancy Pants agreed with a nod.  “And since there are so few unicorns in Baltimare, it gives you an edge.”
“Precisely,” Comet Tail chuckled.  The sound of breaking crockery got all their attention, then the unicorn sighed.  “And with those two in the shop, the mending spell is an absolute necessity,” he said, which made Summer Dawn’s parents laugh.
“I’ll go fix it,” Silver Moon said.
“Don’t bother, Summer Dawn knows the mending spell,” Starjumper said.  And sure enough, the pieces of the broken bowl rose up off the floor and swiftly reassembled themselves back into a green glazed mixing bowl with a yellow stripe around its top.
“I don’t think Summer was ever that energetic,” Fleur de Lis chuckled.
“Clearly you don’t remember that time she broke the Heart of the Hippogryph,” Fancy Pants noted lightly.
“I couldn’t imagine growing up in a house like that, all by myself,” Starjumper mused, watching Summer Dawn as she helped the foals ice the first batch of cupcakes out of the oven.
“I was an only foal and grew up in that house as well, Star, and I can tell you that sometimes it can feel very lonely,” Fancy Pants answered.  “You can go through ten rooms without seeing anypony, and everything is very beautiful, and very impressive, and I wasn’t allowed to touch anything.  Once I got lost in the house,” he mused in a distant voice, “and it was almost all morning until they found me.  I wasn’t about to have Summer feel like a guest in her own house the way I did when I grew up, so I’ve always encouraged her to have her friends over as much as possible, and I moved most of the really expensive things out of the rooms she uses most so she didn’t have to worry about the house stopping her from being a foal and having fun.  Her problem was wandering outside of those rooms,” he chuckled.
“We always did want her to have a brother or sister, but things just didn’t work out that way,” Fleur de Lis sighed.
“I can sell you one of mine,” Comet Tail said in a serious, deadpan voice that made both of them snap their eyes to him, then they both exploded into laughter.
“I’d rather have a new one than a used one,” Fancy Pants grinned.  “And one that’s not quite so…clumsy.”
“Oh, they’re not clumsy, Fancy Pants, they know exactly what they’re doing when they break things,” Silver Moon added, which made Starjumper laugh too.
“They know we can fix anything they break, so they don’t care about breaking it,” Comet Tail noted to his eldest son.  “It took me almost a year to break you of that same habit, as I recall.”
“That may work on Dancer, but not Songbird.  You can’t make her spend hours on end dropping a vase and mending it over and over and over and over,” he drawled.
“I’ll fix her by making her pay for everything she breaks out of her allowance,” Comet Tail said.
That made both Silver Moon and Starjumper splutter into sudden laughter.  “She’ll never get another bit until she leaves the house!” Starjumper blurted.
“Then it saves me having to pay her allowance, doesn’t it?” he asked easily, which made Summer Dawn’s parents join in.
“Swindling your own daughter.  Dad, you’re awful!” Silver Moon accused.
“Business, son, is business,” he replied unrepentantly.
All in all, his family and Summer Dawn’s family turned the first afternoon out of the hospital into an enjoyable diversion.  They stayed the rest of the daylight hours, snacking on cupcakes and talking, then Fancy Pants had a fairly large and sumptuous meal delivered to the apartment for everypony, made by Withers and sent over.  The conversation was about both big things and small, from talk about magic to life as shopkeepers in Baltimare to the workings of Canterlot society.  Right about when his clock gave its first warning, the doctor from the hospital arrived with a nurse, and they prepared things for Starjumper’s transformation.  After he changed, they applied his father’s healing tonic to his wing, then splinted the humorous bone in his wing to give it additional support.  The other bones were healed enough to not need to be splinted, though they weren’t fully healed yet.  The fingerbones and thumb claw in his wing were almost fully healed, and the radius and ulna in his wing were healed enough to be contiguous, but weren’t strong enough to handle the stresses that flight would place on them.  Once that was dealt with, his doctor and his guests decided to call it a night…except for one.
As he said his goodbyes to his family—and surprisingly, new friends—Summer Dawn intentionally hung back.  When the others were out of the apartment, she all but pushed him back to the bed and made him return to bedrest, then she tidied up the downstairs while he tried to make her stop.  “Seriously, Summer, go home.  I’ll be just fine,” he protested.
“I’ll go home when I’m sure you’re settled in for the night,” she replied calmly as she put a stack of books back in the bookshelves, her magic sending them into the void spaces in the stacks swiftly and surely.
“I was reading that,” he protested when she pulled the book off the writing desk and sent it back with the others.
“Then here,” she said, bringing it back and setting it on the moved writing desk.  “What is it, anyway?”
“The next spell you’re going to learn,” he replied.
“Ooooh, what is it?” she asked with sudden interest.
He took a breath, then exhaled.  “It’s a spell that makes a magical voice read a book out loud,” he replied.
She stopped almost dead in her tracks, giving him a long, almost frightened look.
“It’s a very complicated spell, and it’s a good introduction to the spellcasting techniques you need to learn to use divination magic,” he said in a steady voice, which wasn’t a lie.  It was a complicated spell, and it was a good introduction to divination magic despite the fact that the spell wasn’t divination itself.  He just didn’t tell her the entire reason he was going to teach it to her.  “To teach you the mirror spell, you need to learn this one first.  The same way you needed to learn shield spells to learn teleportation.”
The relief on her face was almost palpable, and it convinced him that he’d made the right decision not telling her that he knew she couldn’t read.  “But I can’t teleport yet,” she said.
“It won’t take you very long,” he told her confidently.  “Once you have the spell to where you can cast it, you’ll be practicing it while you move on to the next spell you need to learn.  And most likely I’ll have your mom and dad here when we pick it up again,” he warned.  “They want to learn the spell.  And you don’t have to keep that a secret from them, I told them you’re learning it too.”
“Oh, good!” she said brightly.  “That way we can all practice together!  Like a family activity!  You think my parents can cast it?”
“Your father already has, so him certainly.  I’ll need to take measure of your mother before I know for sure about her.  Is she good at magic?”
“Oh yes, really good.  It’s just that she’s always been super-busy with her modeling career, so she never really had the chance to learn the advanced spells,” she replied.  “So, when are we starting my lessons again?  I’ve been going almost crazy wanting to practice!”
“Tomorrow,” he replied firmly.  “It’ll give me something to do, and I can do it while on bedrest.”
“Awesome!  I’ll be over right after they take this off!” she said eagerly, holding up her casted leg.
“Already?”
“Your dad’s healing tonic is awesome, Star,” she grinned.  “I’m not going to be running any races, but the doctors said it’ll be healed enough by tomorrow morning to take off the cast.  I think the doctors at the hospital are afraid he’ll run them out of business!”
He had to give a grim kind of chuckle.  “I don’t think you realize how long it took him to make the tonic he brought here,” he said.  “Or how much it cost to make it.  I told you once before, that potion is neither easy nor cheap to make.  It takes nearly two weeks to brew one small vial.  What he used on you alone was probably worth close to five hundred bits and took him two months to make.”
“Wow, really?”
He nodded.  “But while Dad’s a total shark when it comes to business, he’s very generous when it comes to family.  Or friends,” he added, which made her smile.
“I do like him.  And your mom.  Shoot, your entire family,” she told him.
“I’m just amazed that your parents didn’t have a complete cow when you got hurt.”
“I told you, they don’t blame you.  Maybe now you’ll finally believe me.”
“I guess,” he said in a bit of a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes a bit.  “Though I know it’s really not a good idea to believe you about most anything.”
She gave him a tart look.  “Don’t you start with me, young stallion,” she said in an authoritative voice.  “Don’t you ever forget, I’m older than you.  That means I’m the boss!”  He gave her such a direct, deadpan look that she just couldn’t keep it together.  She burst into helpless laughter and cantered up to the bed.  “You feel ready to get through the night on your own?  Need anything?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he told her.  “I don’t need a nurse.”
“Well, you stay in bed,” she ordered.  “The doctor said the more you rest, the faster you heal.  The leftovers are in the cold box, and there are some cupcakes in the box on the counter. I’ll be over as soon as they take off my cast.”
“I’ll be here,” he said evenly.  “Now go home, Summer.”
“I will, but not because you told me to,” she said with a smile and wink, then dared to lean over and push her muzzle up under his chin, nuzzling him a little.  “See you in the morning!” she said exuberantly, then she trotted over to the balcony door and stepped out.  She closed and locked it, and for the first time in almost a week, it left Starjumper completely alone.
He laid down on the bed, very carefully laying on his side so half of his broken wing was laying on the bed behind him—the rest was hanging over the bed, which forced him to fold his wing enough to take the stress off of it—and closed his eyes.  He was tired, he could admit it, and his wing was a dull ache that struggled to punch through the soothing of the healing tonic doing its work.
But, this was a good step.  An important step.  He was healed enough to come home, healed enough to be left alone for the night, which meant a night’s uninterrupted sleep instead of being woke up every time a pony went up or down the hall outside his hospital room.  Thestral senses made them very light sleepers.  He was looking forward to a good long nap without being woke up, then he would study the book reading spell.  He could easily study magic while a thestral, he just couldn’t cast any spells.
The first day of a very different life, he knew.  The city of Canterlot knew his secret, and now he was out of the hospital where he’d start to experience the consequences of that.  There might be good ones, but he was honestly expecting it to cause him nothing but trouble…and dreading it.  North Star alone was going to be a royal pain in his flank, he just knew it, and there was no telling how many other ponies were too wrapped up in the old folk stories to even give him a chance.  To them, he was a Lykan before he was a pony, a monster their stories told them drank the blood of foals to survive, could turn other ponies into were-ponies by biting them, and went into a murderous rage during the light of a full moon.
Of course, if those stories were true, then he’d be dead, since the stories also said that Lykans burst into flames when exposed to the light of the sun.  But those ponies wouldn’t care about that.  They’d believe what they wanted to believe and ignore everything else, no matter how much that everything else told them that the old stories were just that…stories.
But, he did feel a small bit of hope, and that was with Summer Dawn’s parents.  They weren’t afraid of him, they actually seemed to like him, and he could admit that having them on his side was going to be a huge boon.  They were the paragons of Canterlot society, so they had a tremendous amount of influence over just about everypony in town.  They were already helping him by countering North Star’s rumors, and he was indebted to them, indebted to the point where he would be quite happy to teach them teleportation in return for their kindness.
But that sassy mare…oh no.  She was paying.  And seeing the adorably irritated look on her face when he told her that would make it worth it, even if he was tempting fate a little bit.  She was starting to give back as good she got, and that made messing with her even more fun.
In that respect, he was all thestral.  If there was no danger involved, it wasn’t worth doing.  And there was a unique kind of danger involved in teasing Summer Dawn.
Summer Dawn.  She really was something special, and not just because she was the most powerful unicorn he’d ever encountered.  Everything about her was amazing, from her looks to her enthusiastic personality to her smile to the way she glared at him every time she realized he was subtly teasing her.  She was dynamic, she was almost exhausting with her endless energy, and she constantly challenged him and surprised him both with her magical ability and her intelligence.  She was, by far, one of the smartest ponies he’d ever known, and that was saying something given how smart his father and mother and siblings were.  She learned so fast, so incredibly fast, and she was far more aware of the subtle realities of Canterlot society than he anticipated.  She was brave, and she was kind.  She was perceptive, and she was compassionate.  She was sassy, and she was bold.
She was…perfect.
He opened his eyes, nearly glowing in the darkness of the room, then closed them again with a more serious expression.  Yeah, she was perfect…and he was a Lykan.  She was the richest pony in Canterlot, and he was an outcast.  She had a bright future ahead of her, and he may be dead in a month.  And the last thing he ever wanted was for her to end up dead along with him, because of him.
It was best for everypony if he never forgot that.