//------------------------------// // Family // Story: The Ash of Fallen Stars // by Wings of Black Glass //------------------------------// “Sable, are you awake?” I blink blearily as the room I’m in starts to come into focus. It looks like it belongs to a young foal. Toys in a box in the corner, a few posters for musical groups, and a plastic sword that looks like it belongs to part of a nightmare night costume. Everything here is covered in a surprisingly thick layer of dust. “Would you like breakfast?” The voice belongs to a stallion on the other side of the door. A pony which two days ago I thought I’d never see again, my Dad. “I’ll be down in a minute.” I listen carefully to his hoofsteps as he descends back to the first floor. Despite what I told him, I don’t really want to get up. I don’t really want to face what I’ve done. But I can’t avoid this now, my chance at that passed when Twilight stopped me from running. I had almost let her fall… The thought hits me right in the gut, doubling me over, and I pull the blanket over my head as if it could give me some manner of protection. I have to gasp for breath, and I refuse to fight the tears I can feel coming. It’s far more than a minute before I can bring myself to stand and put my coat on. By some minor miracle, my wings haven’t dissolved even after all the stress of the last few days, so at least I don’t have to re-cast that spell. The smell of cooking pancakes wafts up to my room, and my stomach complains loudly. My body doesn’t seem to care about what my mind is doing. Before I go downstairs, I take one more look around my childhood room, it’s going to take some time to clean it up. Later. “Good morning.” The light blue pony smiles at me when I arrive downstairs, my Mom, trying to be supportive. Both my parents are waiting for me around the table, three plates loaded with pancakes. Still mildly unwilling to speak, I sit down and face my plate rather than them. My breakfast is a small pile of thin pancakes only a little more than an inch across each, drizzled with maple syrup. “Don’t you want them?” Dad questions me when I don’t dig in immediately. “I thought you might enjoy your favorite.” “They are?” Silence. I risk a glance up. Both my parents are eying me with some worry and confusion. “Don’t you remember? I would make them on special occasions.” “What makes today special?” “Sable…” my mother gently brushes a hoof down my mane. “You’ve come back to us. We’re a family again. There hasn’t been a day as special as this.” “Not to us, anyway.” I think she shoots my father a glare for the comment, but I’m still staring at my food. The smell of the mini-pancakes is more than I can resist, and I take one to taste. The little circle isn’t hard or overly crumbly, just the right degree of smooth. The warmth of the fresh pancake rests on my tongue, and the maple is complimented by just a touch of vanilla. It is, undoubtedly, one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. “Sable? You OK?” I can’t wipe the tears away, somewhere between joyful and painful. Even knowing they would be better one by one, I still can’t stop myself from stuffing the tiny disks into my mouth, leaving no time to chew. I almost don’t even stop to breathe and nearly gag when I try to swallow too many at once. “Why? Why did I run?” I have to choke it out before I start to sob again. “Why was I so stupid to ever give up on this?” “They’re just pancakes, Sable.” I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so distraught. “On you! On just being here!” All I can see is a blur, not even shapes, past the tears in my eyes. “I didn’t just steal your life, I stole mine!” Arms wrap around me, both my parent’s. Reflexively, I try to jerk away, but I can’t do more than flinch. They probably don’t even notice. “You’re here now." “We can rebuild that life.” After everything I’ve done to them, and to myself, I don’t think that will ever be true. “One breakfast at a time, if we have to.” Equinox lifts the old book with the black cover from atop the stack in the old trunk and flips through it. It’s some kind of old journal or something, but the quillwork is so terrible that it’s near to the point of complete illegibility. “Here, pack it with the others.” He passes it to Stardust, filling a barrel with the other books pulled from the trunk. “Is there some reason you are having me move these from one container to the other?” Stardust similarly flips through the old journal before setting in the barrel with the rest, going so far as to flip it over in a futile attempt to read it. “It’s the trunk I want in my shop, not the books. I don’t carry books, old or otherwise. There are other antiquity dealers who do, as well as specialty shops. They can worry about appraising them.” He recently acquired the old trunk from an acquaintance out west, and it got shipped to his house for some stupid reason instead of the shop. He didn’t know at the time it was full of books. It’s more weight than he’s willing to drag all the way down there, so he got Stardust here to help unpack it. “I can think of a pony or two in Ponyville who would probably be interested.” The two of them are outside, just inside the gate, where the delivery pony left the trunk. “Good, I’ll get in contact with the antiquities dealer there. I’ve got a few items they wanted restored that I’ve finished going there soon anyway, we can send the books with them.” Equinox pulls the last couple of books from the trunk and checks again to be sure it’s empty before shutting the lid and passing the tomes to Stardust for storage with the others. “Where do you want them until then?” Stardust hauls the barrel full of books into the air without much effort, and Equinox is once again jealous of the younger pony’s magical ability. “I’ve got a cart out back.” Equinox gestures with his beret, somewhat irritably, at the smaller of the two buildings on his property. “We can haul them both back to the shop.” Stardust nods and heads to the rear of the old building, returning a moment later with the cart in tow. “I was wondering what this other structure was for.” “Way, way back when there was more than one old pony living here, it was used as a guest house. These days it’s pretty much empty space. I used to use it as storage.” “You’re sure it’s empty? If we’re hauling stuff back to the shop, we should check it out, maybe there’s something still of value in there.” Stardust eyes the trunk and the barrel, and then the cart. “There should be plenty of space.” Equinox looks over at the decrepit guest house, tapping his chin. “You know… I don’t even remember the last time I even went inside. We might as well, I forget what state I left it in.” The elder Unicorn leads Stardust inside, having never locked the door. A very long time ago, he had intended to go back and fix it up. A thick layer of dust swirls around their hoofs as they step inside. The interior is in awful condition, even in comparison to Equinox’s home. The veneer on the walls is peeling off and cracking, the floor creaks noisily, and mold grows in dark blotches in the corners. Although the place is clear of animal detritus, dusty spiderwebs hang like a thick sheet about a foot off the ceiling. “Hey, it’s not as bad as I thought.” Stardust gives a short laugh at the terrible joke. The main hall has three doors along its length, and a staircase at the end leads up to the second floor. The first two rooms are empty aside from more dust and spiderwebs, once upon a time, they were a dining room and the kitchen. Even the stove has been pulled out. The third they can’t get into, the door is badly warped and binds in the frame even when Stardust rams it with his shoulder. “Stinking door.” “I can get us inside if we really want, although the door might not survive.” Stardust’s horn glows, readying a spell. “Don’t bother; judging from the other two, it’ll be just as empty.” The younger pony shrugs, his aura dissipating. “What about the second floor?” “I dunno. I don’t remember emptying it, but it’s been so long.” “Then, there really might be something up there.” Stardust heads up first, the stairs creak and bend worryingly under his hooves. Equinox follows more slowly, being sure that each step can take his weight before committing. Upstairs is all bedrooms, aside from a small sitting space and a little circular window overlooking the yard out front at the other end of the hall. A couple of the beds were never pulled out, in downright terrible condition. “These aren’t worth salvaging. It would take way more bits than I would get for selling to get them back in usable condition.” “At least it only took a couple of minutes.” Stardust turns to leave, then the floor suddenly cracks badly and gives way. The younger pony yelps and jerks his leg free of the collapsing floor, stumbling aside and kicking up a small cloud of dust. “Maybe not as good an idea as I thought.” Equinox peers down through the hole, through the dim light he can see it was the third room they couldn’t get into. “Oh, that’s the old library.” There are still some shelves along the wall, with some little things on it he can’t see through the dark. “Just a minute.” A static charge in the air sets Equinox’s hairs on end. He looks up just in time to see Stardust pop away, cracking the air like a thunderbolt. A second thunderclap and flash in the room below follow, barely an instant later. “Celestia’s rump! Don’t startle me like that! Give an old pony a warning, why don’t you?” “My apologies.” Light fills the lower room as Stardust opens the curtains. Hoofsteps and creaking floors for a moment, and then silence. “Well? Anything down there?” “I’ve found something, I’m just not entirely sure what.” “Oh? See if you can get the door open, I’ll be right down.” Equinox makes his way back over the gap in the floor and then back down the stairs, taking his time in case the floor is any weaker than he initially thought. Wood strains and groans as Stardust works on the door until something gives and snaps loudly. Equinox gets to the door just in time to see it fold nearly in half, revealing a startled and dust-covered Stardust. “I got the door open.” He has the nerve to try and sound innocent. Equinox simply rolls his eyes and steps into the old library past the other pony. Most of the books are long since gone, the few that remain worth nothing as collector items. “What was it you found?” Stardust doesn’t even say anything, he just points. All along one wall, from the door to the window, is an ancient diagram. “Oh… I had forgotten this was here.” The immense chart reaches from the floor to the ceiling. Equinox looks up at all the lines and names. “It’s my family tree.” “This was your family?” Stardust tries to take it all in, hundreds of names and tiny profile pictures. “How far back does it go?” “Thirty-eight generations.” Equinox sighs. “Over a thousand years of history, back to the time of the two sisters. Maybe even to the founding of Equestria.” His eyes track the lines as they slowly converge to a single solitary picture… the last picture. “If you look hard enough, you’ll find some names out of the history books up there.” Equinox taps the family tree on a name about halfway back. “Like this one here.” He moves aside and starts searching for something on the shelves while Stardust examines the name, batting off some of the dust with his beret. “Eclipse Corona?” “Where was that? Yeah, he helped save Princess Celestia from some kind of coup or something, I forget the details. He was given a medal too, it’s still here, I think. The family never would have gotten rid of something like that, and I never would have sold it.” Using magic, he cleans off some of the dust coating the objects on the shelf until he finds the ancient medal, a small heart-shaped medallion with golden wings. “Take a look.” He passes it to Stardust. “A pink heart of courage? Impressive. The princess doesn’t give these out like Nightmare Night candy.” Stardust gives it back, and Equinox sets it down where he had taken it from. “I’m going to guess everything else in here has a similar story.” “Maybe, I don’t remember them all.” Now Equinox gestures to the few remaining books. “My father was a historian, he wrote everything down.” Stardust examines one, reading the title aloud. “Volume Seven of the History of the Noble Astral family.” His neon-blue eyes shoot over to Equinox, questioning. “That’s not an exaggeration, either. Once, long, long ago, my family was nobility. Back when that meant something.” “So, what do I call you now, your excellency?” “My name works fine.” The elder pony rolls his eyes. “I’m no noble.” He taps his chin as he thinks for a moment. “Maybe I do technically have some minor title, I don’t even know.” He sits down facing the big family tree, eying the very last names. “Doesn’t matter anyway. The so-called noble line of the Astrals ends with me.” “I doubt that. There are so many ponies here, surely some of them had descendants.” “I don’t know. Maybe there is some distant cousin or illegitimate child out there we never knew about. If there is, they don’t know it either.” Stardust walks along the wall length family tree until he finds Equinox’s name, and then looks at the line coming from him to another image. The last name, the last picture, scorched and burned. The younger pony looks from the diagram to the elder, curious. “What happened here?” “My son…” Equinox sighs heavily. “I did that myself in a fit of pique when he ran off.” The pain is so old, it barely even aches anymore. “Ran off? Why?” “I didn’t approve of his marefriend… I tried to forbid him from seeing her. No points for guessing how that ended.” “What was wrong with her?” “She was an Earth pony… ah, I can’t even remember her name.” The shame is more than he can stand, and he turns away from the younger pony momentarily. “I fail to see how that matters.” “It doesn’t. Not in the modern world. Take a look at that family tree again, and look close.” Stardust glances up at it, his eyes sliding from one profile to the next. “They’re all Unicorns…” “My family is old, Stardust. I’m old… I was old when my son up and ran off, I just didn’t know it. With that age comes old ideas that have no place in Equestria anymore.” He shakes his head slowly. “By the time I learned that it was too late. He was gone. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” Equinox sighs again, rubbing his hoof on the burned image in a useless attempt to wipe the stain on his conscience away. “I haven’t seen or spoken to Earl Grey in some thirty-odd years.” Stardust’s wing spell shatters, the glass panels flashing as they break apart and disappear. He starts coughing as he sucks in a startled lungful of dust. “You alright there?” The young pony wheezes a few more times, nodding sharply after a moment. “I’ve been holding that spell for a while now, trying to break my record. This makes a week. Yay.” For some reason, Stardust’s eyes keep darting to the family tree and then to Equinox. The disruption in his train of thought brings Equinox back to what brought them here in the first place. “Well, enough moping.” Despite saying this, he deliberately avoids looking at the family tree again. “We should get that trunk and barrel down to the shop.” Equinox steps out of the room without waiting for Stardust, who follows a moment later. The younger Unicorn is silent for some reason up until they get the cart loaded and just about ready to go. “I was thinking.” He stops and looks at the old mansion’s two structures. “All those things in that old library. Do you want to move them up to your house?” “Eh? Why?” “I was watching your face in there.” He jerks his head towards the shorter of the two residences. “It was clear it all means something to you, and you said yourself you would never get rid of it. Even if… especially if you never plan on using this place ever again, then it all belongs somewhere you can admire it.” Equinox glances at his home and the auxiliary, back when he sealed the library, there wasn’t a place for all those things in the main house. Now, however… there is plenty of room. “We’ll never get that family tree outside. It’s part of the wall. I don’t think there is any room for it up there anyway. I don’t know where I’d put it all.” “One step at a time. We can get it all just inside so you won’t forget about it.” Once again, the Unicorn seems to think he is clever. “You can sort it out later.” Equinox pauses with the cart’s harness in his aura, considering Stardust’s suggestion. It might be nice to have it where he can see it. Maybe he’ll read through the old histories, look back at everything the family has done over the long years. If nothing else, he can at least decide who among his acquaintances gets what when he’s gone. “Yeah, alright.” He sets the harness down, and then they spend the next half hour or so carefully moving all the old treasures of the Astral family into the main house. Throughout the process, he catches Stardust eying him strangely almost every time he comes out of the old library. Once everything is all arrayed in the front hall, Equinox looks over them, remembering all the stories and legends surrounding them. He struggles to fight back a tear and feels compelled to remove his beret. “Thank you.” His voice comes out almost cracked with emotion, he had forgotten just how much all this old family history meant to him. Stardust is silent, for which Equinox is quite grateful.