//------------------------------// // Chapter 18. Old friends // Story: Learning to see Luna, the story of Vivid Colour. // by Hope //------------------------------// The air had a different feeling to it, Vivid realized. The air, the magic, the dirt under her hooves were all older, softer. The whispered exclamations of surprise from all around her were accented with the same lilt in their voice as she had, some had an even stronger accent and she imagined her Equestrian friends would have difficulty understanding them at all. She knew her magic had been stretched to it's limits. It seemed to be a habit of hers to impulsively throw magic at a problem until she was depleted. She'd have to work on that. "Vivid?" She turned towards the shocked voice. Best she could figure without using her magic and risking a horrible headache, she'd relocated herself back to her birthplace. The small town of Fain in Suffolk county, Bitain. Across the ocean from Equestria. "It is I," Vivid confirmed. "And who speaks?" "Lemon. Vivid, it's your friend Lemon!" Hoofsteps approached as Vivid smiled. "Lemon Tart, you're still in this little town?" She chuckled. "And you're still alive apparently!" He rebutted. "Where did your boat land? How did you survive?" "I think that is a tale for just the two of us and not the crowd. Guide me to your home," she said in a commanding tone. "And I'll reveal all my secrets." Lemon obliged, taking Vivid along a familiar path from the park at the center of town to his cottage at it's edge. Along the way, Vivid could hear whispered conversations about her, most of them seemed to be focused on her clothes. The circlet and cloak. Only a few could tell who she was. "So!" Lemon said as he closed his door behind Vivid. "The mare returns victorious! Well, alive. Alive is victory 's far as I care. Sit down, I'll get you something warm to drink." Only then did Vivid realize how much colder it was here, compared to Equestria. Bitain didn't have pegusi controlling their weather, it was left to it's own cycle. "Appreciate it," Vivid said as she found the old worn couch that she'd slept on so many nights as a filly, and flipped unceremoniously onto her back with her legs up in the air. "Ahhh... how's your couch so soft? It damned near rivals Luna's bed!" "Luna bein' the name of a mare you've slept with?" Lemon asked curiously. "Well, yes. But that's not the whole story." Vivid paused, thinking, until she felt a cup tap against her horn. Instinctively, she wrapped her magic around it. The way they'd interacted years ago felt so natural. She sat up just enough to sip the tea, as she tried to piece together what to tell her old friend. "Luna is Alicorn Celestia's sister," Vivid finally said. "What?! The devil mare herself, dark sister of the goddess?" He asked, aghast, as he returned and sat in his own chair nearby. "I knew you liked troubled mares but this takes the cake, Colour!" "She's not like that!" Vivid snapped. "And besides, they're not goddesses. Alicorns might have more power than you or me but their normal ponies who don't want to be idolized." "Oh. Well 'course their normal ponies," Lemon said sarcastically. "After all, so normal to be immortal, in control of moon or sun, and twice the size of another pony. How incredibly normal." Vivid took her cup in her hooves and sipped her tea as she illuminated the room in magic so she could see, and picked out a pillow on the couch to toss at her friend with quite a bit of force. "Well your aim is certainly better," Lemon mumbled as he removed the pillow from his face. "But you've got to agree that it's a bit air headed to think that the Alicorn sisters are just normal ponies. Just as air headed as thinking we're normal. Me, a lonely gay stallion in a town so small there may not be another for me to even meet, yet i don't leave. You, exiled to the sea and come back in an explosion of magic, apparently from the land of alicorns-" "Equestria, I came from Equestria where Luna rules," Vivid interrupted. "Ah yes, come back from the land of dark and stars in a silvery cloak and apparently romancing the most demonic creature in history bar Discord or Tirek. They're not normal, Vivid." She huffed. "Fine, not normal, but not goddesses. That's where i draw the line. And Luna isn't evil by any measure. She may have been jealous and reclusive hundreds of years ago when they last visited Bitain, but Celestia broke beneath the weight and nearly killed Luna before being banished to the sun." They were quiet for a little while, both sipping their tea as they mulled over the subject. "Any chance she's lying? Banished her sister to take the spotlight?" Lemon asked weakly. "I got to know her pretty well. Don't think so. She looks forward with hope to her sister returning in a few hundred years," Vivid replied, just as quietly. "So... The goddess Luna controls the sun and moon, and--" "She prefers Princess. Or just Luna. Please, it makes me very uncomfortable," Vivid insisted. He sighed, and rubbed the side of his head with the tip of one hoof. They both sipped more of their tea, and he resumed. "Luna controls everything. The nation of Equestria as well, and Lady Celestia--" "Not a godde--" "I said Lady, just a shred of respect from my end, alright?" Lemon shouted, clearly full of frustration and reaching the edge of his discomfort with discussing religion. "Lady Celestia, she's stuck in the sun, right? Banished?" Vivid nodded. "So then why hasn't Luna plunged the whole world into darkness?" he finally concluded. "She's the lady of darkness and the moon, why bother keeping the sun around?" "Because she loves her sister, and her ponies!" Vivid declared. "Regarless of how good or holy she is, she cares. I know that as sure as I know my own horn." "Then what of the church? All those prayers to the sun, just a waste?" he asked incredulously. "Are we-- they praying to a devil now?" "I don't know. I really don't know," Vivid admitted, sighing as she huffed the warm fumes from her cup. "It's all so... I started a church to Celestia in Equestria. I started a church, had access to all these manuscripts, then one argument uncovered all this... All this 'they're not goddesses' thing, and now I don't know what to do, I don't know how to cope." "So, did Luna know that you were raised in a church before she dropped that bombshell on you?" Lemon asked dryly. Vivid shook her head, curling up a little and feeling very very small. "I don't believe anymore," Vivid whispered. "What don't you believe in, Lady Celestia?" "It's more than that," Vivid shook her head, eyes focused on some far off point. "The concept of good was based on her. My ideals. My hopes. I'm losing my faith and the way I saw the world, and i can't talk with the one I love about it without wounding or angering her. This is the loneliest I've ever felt, and it's my fault for thinking these things through." "Have you... tried talking to her about it?" Lemon asked after a few moments. "Of course! She didn't want to be worshipped, she didn't think her sister would want to be, either!" "No, no, not her... I mean religion as a more general subject. Have you... Theological debate. That's the word I was looking for," he said proudly. "Have you tried having a theological debate with her, without focusing on her and her sister specifically?" Vivid paused, before finally shaking her head. "No... We... don't talk about difficult topics like that. She's... a princess, a ruler of a nation, I can't take her time to have complex difficult conversations that might sway the way she leads her nation," Vivid tried to excuse. "So, maybe you need to actually speak with her about this, instead of letting your entire worldview fall apart," Lemon proposed tentatively, smiling a little. Vivid laid her head down and thought on it, sipping her tea and enjoying the familiar smells and sounds of her childhood while she thought of what she could do. "How about you, Lemon? Found a colt to ease your loneliness?" Vivid asked to break the silence. "Oh, definitely not," he sighed. "No others like me in the town, and I'm not about to move. So I'm content to being alone." "Why can't you move? You could come to Equestria, I've heard of other queers like us there, and I'm publicly known as Luna's consort, so it's certainly more kind than Bitain." "Is that why you wear that cloak?" Lemon asked. "You have a dress code as consort?" "No, not at all. This is from being court mage," she said with a laugh as she flipped up the corner of her cloak in her magic. "To be fair, it's a post I don't think I would've got if not for her interest in me." They shared a chuckle, then Lemon abruptly switched topics. "We could file for mistrial, you know." Vivid's smile faded and she turned back to her cup, hunching her shoulders and tucking her legs in close, closed off. "Vivid, I'm sure it's a sore subject, but you've got clout now, and you survived the exile. If we filed for mistrial then you could be here legally!" "I've always been illegal in one way or another," Vivid said with a bitter tone. "Why stop now? Filly fooler, butch, illegal gardener, murderer, I'm sure I've gathered more titles while i was gone, haven't I? Liar perhaps? Thief?" Vivid... your pain because of all that... Why would you just charge onward, trying to make it worse instead of working to make it better?" Lemon asked. "Because it won't make it better," Vivid muttered. "There's not promise that I'd be forgiven, and I might just be kicked out again. At least in this I can have control. I can come and leave as I wish." "But if you can prove that you didn't kill--" "But what if I did?!" she asked, setting her tea aside and standing, gritting her teeth. "What if I did kill those boys? What if I deserved that exile, do I get exiled again? Put to death? What if they can't.... stop me?" she had walked up to him until she stood with her nose to his, rage in her eyes, He actually looked scared, and she felt a thrill in her heart, stirred by the power over him and forcing him to see that she was right. "Stop this, Vivid. I know they've hurt you. I know those boys hurt you, but you never meant to kill them," he whispered, standing up to her for once. Vivid backed down, stepping away and visibly drooping. "It'd make more sense if I had," she muttered. "You were sobbing, shaking so badly you couldn't stand when they found you," Lemon whispered. "If it wasn't for that big shot lawyer, you never would have been exiled," he insisted as he stood and put a foreleg around her in a hug. "I was also covered in their blood if you remember," she continued. "They were flying over you when it happened," he sighed. "They also found dirt all over you, and on the kids' hooves. You never mentioned it but they were tossing dirt on you, weren't they?" Vivid didn't answer. She didn't like thinking about this, about her past as a whole and even more she didn't like thinking about the event that had led to her trial. "You don't have to talk," Lemon finally admitted. "But you need to stop building yourself up as some kind of monster. Feeling tough isn't worth the pain." "It's worth it if I can keep putting one hoof in front of another. Celestia knows the truth anyway," she muttered. "And if Celestia isn't some all knowing being, and just another pony like you and me, then..." Lemon led her back to the couch, tone so gentle with her. "Then I'm screwed. Then everything I've done doesn't matter, and I'm just a run of the mill monster. When I die, I'll rot in the ground and the only ponies who will remember me will spit on my name." Her tone was bitter and angry, but the tears on her cheeks showed how much it hurt her. "I'll remember you as a heartfelt and quiet mare who loved the world but was too scared of it to live in it," Lemon whispered. Vivid's body shook as she sobbed, and Lemon held her. "How gaily a poem could you write of a life of sorrow?" Vivid rasped. "Not as bright one as you deserve my dear friend," Lemon insisted. "Not as bright as your future could be, if you put forth the effort." "Effort," Vivid seethed without pushing him away. "Another word for suffering, for embarrassment, and public shaming. My trial was bad enough, and it has been how many years? I have not gotten better at speaking in public." "Haven't you?" Lemon asked, pulling away enough to look her in the eyes. "Court Mage, consort to a princess, and you cannot speak to ponies you do not know?" Vivid bit back her more aggressive response, and sighed. "When I have power. When I can control the situation, I... I feel better. I can demand things, enforce my will." "Then gain diplomatic immunity. Simply gain Luna's blessing to act as envoy and ambassador of Equestria. Then, even if they don't pardon you, they cannot seize you. You'll still be able to return home," he proposed. Vivid grimaced. She was still conflicted, and did not yet want to return. On top of that, she still hadn't resolved her conflicts with her religious roots. "I'd like to visit the church first," she said softly, turning her head away from his. "Just... see where I grew up with my magic. No reason to see my home though, I'm sure it was given away." Lemon shook his head. "I bought it. Kept it clean." She sat up, wide eyed as she tried to find the words, finally whispering "Thank you," as she pulled him back into a hug. "I'd like to go home. Right now." Lemon helped Vivid up, and made sure her tears were dry before going out. It was a comforting remnant of her past, when Lemon would make sure her appearance was in order. He understood being picked on for one's appearance, his own body was more feminine than most stallions. They then left the house and made a straight path through the meandering dirt roads until they came to the familiar path flanked by bushes, where Vivid had walked so many times. She froze,as the smells and the dirt under her hooves brought back the memories of the last time she'd been in that spot. The dirt on her back, the blood pooling around her hooves and running down her legs. The screaming. "Vivid. Vivid, I'm here. You're safe." Vivid sat, and shuddered before spreading her magical sight wide. She could see there was no pegusi overhead, no blood around her. But she could see her garden, like she'd never seen it before. Rich in vines and flowers. She could see her little cottage and the tree in front of it. Her breathing calmed, and she stood, walking up to her door before pushing it open with the gentleness of a mare that thought she might break the very memories the place held.