Silver Star was born for great things. He’d known it from his earliest memories, when he looked up on Moonrise in the middle of a lunar night, when the air outside the shelters got too cold to breathe.
Of course he didn’t have a vent of his own—Whites didn’t get to live in the sky-towers built after the model of the ancient Alicorns and their wisdom, but low in the caverns themselves, where the pipes were old, and the water was cold by the time it got to them. But while other creatures crowded around in a public shelter, hoarding every scrap of warmth they could, Silver had bigger ambitions.
The cavern opened to him then, and wearing an extra jacket was more than enough for him to cope. He didn’t fully understand why so many creatures made such a big deal about the cold—but he wasn’t about to ignore a gift fate just handed to him. It meant whole days when he didn’t have to worry about the guards dragging him back to break rocks and dig tunnels.
“Stop!” somepony shouted, loud enough that Silver jerked to one side. He dodged a blow reflexively, even though one never came, then slipped through half a dozen layers of insulation and out into the icy cold of the lunar night.
He pulled up his thin hood, mostly to keep his face hidden from any guards who happened to be watching him. If they didn’t see him, maybe they’d imagine that there were wings tucked under his coat, and he was the Voidseeker out on patrol, ready to cut down any creature who defied her.
He dodged a frozen puddle of something that should’ve been in the waste system, glancing briefly up at the ceiling. There an ancient tenement building was tucked in close to the wall, its underside covered with pipes. But the night had brought an end to the leaks, freezing whatever was inside into an oily brown sheen.
Silver ignored the muffled voices from inside, knowing full well that no soldier was going to waste their breath chasing a White out into Moonrise during nightfall. Maybe if he’d been anypony important, but… Silver heard no hoofsteps behind him as he dodged through the service tunnels. Apparently these winding alleys had been something else once, the streets of the city itself. But now those were enclosed, fully protected with warm air circulated by the climate system.
That meant Moonrise was his domain. Well, his and the ghosts. They didn’t feel the cold either.
He slowed a moment, nose catching something on the wind. Heat and grease—food. His horn glowed for a second, and he focused his magic. It probably wasn’t necessary to waste any magic, but he couldn’t be certain. Stealing food meant a week without rations, and no reduction in his work shifts.
He’d survived that once. He probably wouldn’t again.
The old alleys gave way to the home of the Yellows, the ponies who pretended they weren’t as worthless as he was. Easier to pretend during the day, when the warmth of Moonrise made their cozy apartments almost as nice as the Reds.
And instead of packing you all into a stupid shelter until daytime, you get to live in a warm barracks, eating warm meals, and drinking fresh water. You won’t miss this.
Silver hesitated a moment, glancing both directions in the gloom. He didn’t actually light his horn—the spell was trivial, but would’ve made his homemade notice-me-not a tad pointless. But the darkness wasn’t anything to be afraid of, even if you weren’t a bat.
He closed his eyes, and let the moon itself show him where to go. Sound formed outlines in his mind, the suggestion of a heavy air door now hanging open. No guards outside checking pins. Nopony moving at all.
He opened his eyes again, and found only darkness, thick enough that even his icy breath was invisible. The kind of darkness that pressed up against his eyes and made resisting the urge to light it himself more difficult by the moment.
Then he walked. Any moment he might learn that he’d been wrong—the sounds of the city had lied to him, and there was new excavation under his hooves. He’d fall far enough to die from the impact, and his body would be found frozen when day came.
He might keep expecting the drop, but it didn’t come. He made it to the doorway, and found it right where sound suggested. He pushed, and it swung open. The smell was so close now.
He wasn’t imagining the smell of oil, either. Real peanut oil, fresh enough that his mouth started to water. Luxuries like this were usually reserved for Blues! He couldn’t even remember the last meal that hadn’t been some flavor of watery mash.
It wasn’t coming from a regular apartment door, as he’d first thought. The smell came from below, rising as the steam from whoever was cooking took the wonderful smell of fried food up with it.
He dropped down to the floor, feeling along it with a hoof until he found the crack, then turned sideways to peer down. There was a faint flicker of orange from down there, coming from a space he imagined might be a distant kitchen. He didn’t have a spyglass to see for certain… glass was expensive.
It wasn’t too far to teleport. But if he got the distance wrong, he’d end up splattered in the wall, until the stink got bad enough that someone had to do something about it.
It won’t matter if a spell kills me if I crawl into a corner and die first.
Silver Star closed his eyes, then… teleported.
It wasn’t the rote mastered through many months of diligent study by Blues with their fancy armor and real vegetables for dinner. Silver’s magic was more primal, somehow more… natural.
His world was always so cold, that it wasn’t much of a step forward to make the whole thing freeze. Suddenly the space between the regolith didn’t seem so thin, and he walked straight down in a blink. But it didn’t last—soon the eyes began creeping in, peeking in through the rock, appearing behind and above. Every little fleck of quartz in the rock became another one, one that could see where he had gone.
One that hated him.
The space around him cracked like a sheet of ice, and he was in the air. Silver fell, nearly an entire body length before his hooves finally found the ground. He caught himself easily—a few meters wasn’t going to hurt him.
His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light. There was a single portable electric torch, resting in the center of the room and glowing with warm orange. Not enough to keep frost from condensing on every surface, or to make his breath not fog up the air.
It looked a little like an apartment, if the apartment had been built by a nervous ghost with only a vague idea of what civilization ought to look like. The floor was rough and entirely unfinished, and only naked stone was on the walls.
He could see no doors either, no ladders or obvious cavern entrances. Was that thin crack the only way down here?
If it was daytime and the apartment was lit, I never would’ve seen the glow.
Behind him was a bedroom of sorts, with sheets so fine they seemed to shine in the electric light. Silk? Stars above, no! Silver stole food all the time—but stealing valuables from the Blues? Did whoever owned this place want to get marched to the surface and shot?
He might’ve turned and fled right then, if he had the strength. But a teleport was incredibly energy-intensive, and anyway the smell of food hadn’t gone. It wasn’t leftovers he was smelling—the oil was actually bubbling and steaming now, with food still in it.
He took a few hoofsteps closer, following the smell of fresh hay and veggies. Whatever the secret thief had stolen, he would help himself to a portion and be gone before they returned.
They must be a unicorn to have an entire stove down here. Not a makeshift oil burner either, but the same kind he’d seen in the restaurant he’d helped excavate a year ago, which cooked using a near-invisible purple flame and used some kind of detachable fuel-tank.
Then somepony screamed. She spun rapidly, spreading her wings wide as she squealed.
Well, she spread one wing. The other was a mangled stump, with what seemed to his starving mind to be an actual bone protruding from gray flesh. The pony was small, shorter than he’d been the year he got his cutie mark. Her voice was high and shrill, even more than the bats he’d known. “Eeeeeee!”
He screamed too, retreating a few steps from the horribly-injured pony. “Hey!” He lifted a hoof, backing away from her. “Relax, okay? I didn’t think… If you’re that loud, one of the patrols might hear you.”
She stopped abruptly, big eyes fixing on him in the gloom. They almost glowed with the reflected electric light, far too wide for him to see the slits. Her one good wing and one mangled horror snapped to her side as though they were both equally functional, and she advanced on him. “Who the buck are you to be sneaking up on me, warmblood?”
Her accent was so thick, her words so clumsy, that he almost couldn’t make sense of them. But despite what Regent Rockshanks might say about worthless children of Whites, Silver was clever. She saw through the stealth spell without even trying. She’s not wearing a jacket. She’s so small.
She might’ve been cute if she wasn’t so horrifically injured.
“I’m, uh… Silver Star,” he said. “Who are you?”
She made a frustrated squeak, pawing at the ground. “That’s it? No… bleeding eyes? No bursting into flame? No… nightmares swallowing you alive?”
He just stood there, open-mouthed.
The pony scoffed in frustration, scooping up her fallen spatula and turning back to the stove. She had to stand on a little stool like a filly to reach the pot of oil and start fishing the hayfries out. “Just goes to show. Everything gets weaker away from Equestria, including the magic. Stupid… normal pony sneaking up on me.”
Silver’s mind raced as he put the pieces together. Some part of him still wanted to flee. He would probably be strong enough to teleport out soon, and now he knew how far the trip was. It wouldn’t be impossible.
But then she lifted a dozen hayfries from the pot, and they instantly started to hiss and contract in the cold. But they weren’t frozen yet. Hot food. There’s hot food right here.
“Why the buck is a unicorn out in the cold in the middle of the bucking night?” the bat muttered to herself as she worked, her single good wing spread beside her and twitching in her annoyance. “Too cold for warmbloods out here. Unicorns are too valuable to be out. Somepony important?”
Has this pony been alone so long that she’s talking to herself?
Silver knew the feeling. It probably wouldn’t be long before he started doing the same thing. Assuming he lived long enough.
“Hey, uh… bat? Whoever you are… could I have some of that? I’m not gonna threaten you or anything, but… you’re really small, and that’s a lot of hay for one…”
She turned, baring sharp fangs at him. “Tell me this, Silver. Who sired you that you’re out in the naked night with just a jacket? Shouldn’t you be hypothermic by now?”
He shrugged. “Probably. My brother, uh…” He looked down, a little confidence draining. “He wasn’t as good about the cold as me. There wasn’t a lot of room in the shelters, so…” He straightened, advancing on her. He was bigger, probably older, he wasn’t going to let her dig up painful memories. “Look, will you share or not? I can probably, like… help you or something! No way this thing you’ve got going is legit. Bet you could use a powerful unicorn on your side.”
The bat twitched, mouth hanging open as she stared. “Guess… only one of us needs this,” she grumbled, then pulled out another plate from a drawer. It looked like a rich pony’s dresser, with a front of real wood. But he would stop being amazed for the steaming plate she pushed towards him. “Go on then. Skinny as you are… probably gonna snap in half if you don’t eat something.”
She carried her plate over to the table, which like everything else looked like it was stolen. This one was big enough to take up a good portion of the corner of the room, its surface entirely wood. Ancient and warped, long spoiled by thousands of heatings and coolings. But more wood than he’d ever seen in one place before.
It took enormous willpower to make it to the table, but he managed. The plate still steamed in front of his face, the grease and oil turning his mind to butter. Real food, right in front of his eyes. More than he got in two days.
“You don’t have to buck it, kid. Keep staring at your plate like that, and I’ll take it back.”
He levitated a bite up towards his mouth—without a fork, since she hadn’t given him one. He didn’t really know how to use it anyway.
It tasted better than it smelled, even if the heat was rapidly bleeding away. As he chewed, steam issued from between his teeth, rising around him. I’ll be able to smell this for a week.
“Damn,” the bat said, suddenly right beside him. How had she sat down in the chair next to his without him noticing? Her eyes glowed as she stared at him, filled with… longing? “I thought you were some twisted new Nightmare experiment, but… you really are alive. You’re actually eating that.”
He was actually finishing it. He pushed the plate aside, nodding gratefully and settling his chair back. “Th-thank you for being so generous. I’ll… stop bothering you now, bat. I apologize for intruding on your… secret… whatever this is.”
“Wait!” She pushed the other plate towards his seat. “Eat this one too. I haven’t seen a pony eat in… centuries. And breathe—I know they’re all doing it, but… look at you. Is it hard? Do you forget sometimes?”
Without the promise of food, Silver’s sense of self-preservation probably would’ve been enough to make him run. He ran a hoof through short white mane, glancing back at the crack leading up. He didn’t actually have to be standing below it to teleport, though the straight line was easiest. If he didn’t look through it right before he jumped, there was a chance he’d misjudge the distance and end up in the wall.
Silver hurried forward, settling back into the chair and pulling up the other plate. He stopped before taking a bite, staring sidelong at her. “You sure? You’re pretty short yourself. Maybe you need this more than I do?”
She actually smiled at him. “I’m flattered that you’re so good at pretending not to be disgusted, but you don’t have to pretend. We both know I’m only eating it for the taste. I’m really just letting perfectly-good food go to waste. Even if the taste is the same… the reward just isn’t there, you know? Like, when you’re alive, eating feels good. You know you’re getting something you need. Or… I think it was like that. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
In the horrifying chill of the cavern, food cooked less than five minutes ago was already cold and going stiff. But he didn’t care. He’d probably lick the oil off the plate if he didn’t have her strange eyes on him every second. “Hold on. Are you trying to say you’re… dead?”
She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah?” She rose from her chair, trying to hover there beside him—but with only one wing, she flopped to one side and had to catch herself awkwardly.
“Because…” He pushed the second empty plate aside. He’d eaten it too fast—he knew he’d be feeling sick before too long. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t change her mind about letting him have her food if he’d already eaten it. “Because you’re a Voidseeker. One of the… one of the Lost Servants of the Moon. Neither living nor dead…”
“And now you see why I’m hiding,” she said settling onto her haunches and glaring up at him. “Could you imagine ponies talking to you like that all the time. ‘Oh, mythical servant of a goddess! Please, share your wisdom and don’t kill me!’” She squeaked in frustration. “At least the last part meant ponies used to run away. The one useful myth isn’t there anymore.”
“Myth?” he repeated, confused. “You are one of them. That’s how you got down here… a unicorn didn’t bring you, you traveled through the shadows with… all this stolen stuff. And that’s how you’re down here without freezing. You could probably walk up on the surface without an air shell!”
“You bet,” she said. “Free to wander for centuries through the freezing sand. Free to let the rancid ichor in my blood freeze and shatter like my poor wing.” She glanced to her left side, sighing deeply. “And free to be abandoned, because I slowed everypony down. It was pretty great, shadow-walking across the moon to try and find this place. At least you’re making yourselves easier to find these days.”
“Sorry.” He looked away. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t understand how it could be a bad thing. Never feeling cold, never feeling hungry or like you’re suffocating. Never getting tired after a day of excavation.”
“Excavation?” she repeated, indignant. “A teleporting, strange-blooded unicorn is being used to dig holes?”
He nodded. “Well, yeah. The Regent’s army doesn’t need to take chances on ponies he can’t trust. It’s all about your parents—good parents, good life. But if nobody knows, then…” He gestured with a hoof. “Seems like you know what it’s like. Living without a name. Hiding down…” He hesitated. “Wait, why are you hiding? If you’re a Voidseeker, aren’t you a Black? You don’t have to play this game.”
She glanced briefly at her wing, pawing awkwardly at the ground. “When I was last in Moonrise, the princess sat back and let…” She stuck out her hoof. “My name’s Magpie. You’re Silver Star? I could use somepony to talk to. If you’re not going to freeze to death down here.”
“Probably won’t,” he said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to turn your stove off first. I do still breathe, and I’m pretty sure you’re burning oxygen faster than it can get through the crack.”
“I have no idea what that means,” she said. “But sure. Turn it off, then maybe you can tell me what’s happened in Moonrise in the last…” She trailed off. “How long has it been since the Voidseekers left?”
He winced at the question—trivial for a pony with a proper education. He was just lucky to be able to read. “Five centuries,” he said, awed.
“Yeah.” She slid past him into the living room, curling up on the stolen couch. “That sounds about right.”