Curvature: The Price of Freedom
220 AL
Curvature paced.
She was not, as a rule, particularly prone to pacing. Nevertheless, here she was, tracing a now-familiar path back and forth across the ornate atrium of the Eternal Hope.
It was a vast space, originally intended for both the boarding and disembarking of thousands of colonists. But that purpose had been fulfilled decades ago, now; instead, on most days it was filled with petitioners and would-be courtiers to the princes, all seeking admission to fawn or plead with the colony’s erstwhile rulers. This morning, by royal order, the only two guests were Curvature and Far Horizon.
Like the ship itself, the atrium was styled after Canterlot Castle; the grand entryway, with stairs (escalators, in this case) leading up and further into the ship. The sound of Curvature’s hoofsteps echoed off of the vaulted ceiling.
She reached the end of her path and turned, about to start anew, when she felt Horizon’s hoof grab on her shoulder. “Enough,” said the pegasus firmly.
It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get her to stop, but this time she acquiesced, taking a deep breath and sitting on the chair beside Horizon. She fidgeted, and beside her she knew Horizon was rolling his eyes.
In the chair beside her were her saddlebags, laden not just with yesterday’s data but with the data from all the observations she’d made over the past months, as well as those the observatory had from years prior on the behavior of the system’s bodies. Each had a folder, a date, and—this thought made her wince—a big red label marked with an incident number.
Yesterday, when the only target of her anger had been Horizon, it hadn’t seemed so bad. But now, given that a meeting with Dreamchaser loomed ahead, something like shame was warring with her, fighting to the forefront of her mind. She felt like a teacher having to hand back a semester’s worth of F’s. No, she corrected herself. She felt like a doctor having to deliver bad news to a hopeful patient. No, that wasn’t right either. She frowned, eyebrows knitting with nascent frustration. What did it feel like?
It felt like she was here to condemn her family. She realized with a jolt of guilt that it really was that simple. She chided herself for trying to deflect her feelings behind the guise of professionalism.
In her kitchen, she knew, there was a trashcan full of unsent letters. Her terminal’s draft folder, too, was packed with things unsaid. So many times she’d tried to reach out, only to be unsure of what to say. A bin full of unsent letters, yet here she was with reams of paper criticizing his work...
Once, when they were both younger, they had talked so regularly, so freely. About anything and everything. They had been family. She felt another twist on the guilt lodged deep in her gut. Now, when it mattered most, she did not want to say anything. She did not want to go.
Or, the greater part of her said, the part that was still angry despite her anxiety, the part that understood what the colony required, or you could go up those steps and do your job. He’s an adult now. He’s an alicorn to boot. He can take what you have to dish out—he has no choice.
Still, as she sat there and waited, it felt like a great weight had settled somewhere deep in her barrel.
Other than Curvature and Horizon, the room had only two occupants, both royal guards, as stoic and impassive as the ones Curvature remembered faintly from her foalhood. For the princes, equity and duality were paramount, and here was no exception: one was a grey-coated unicorn stallion dressed in Stargazer’s red and bronze, and the other an earth pony mare, the star silver and lavender of her armor standing out against the cool, deep brown of her coat. The stallion’s gaze was distant, focused but absent, while the mare had done almost nothing but watch Curvature since she’d arrived.
Curvature shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, trying to look anywhere but at the eyes she knew were on her. The attention put her teeth on edge. And, she thought, this isn’t even the most important pony who’s going to be staring at me today. Beside her, Horizon sighed, and Curvature huffed, crossing her forelegs.
“I took a job working with satellites and telescopes so I wouldn’t have to talk to ponies,” she muttered, brows knit unhappily and a scowl on her face. “You know I’m not good at it.”
The only response from Horizon was a click of the tongue. Curvature’s left ear flicked irritably.
Motion from the guards drew her eyes forward again. The stellar guard pressed a hoof briefly to the side of his helm, nodded, and murmured something too quiet for Curvature to hear. But it was the somniant guard who spoke.
“The Princes are ready for you,” she said, and both she and her counterpart stepped aside, tacitly granting access to the escalator behind. “Green Tea will meet you in the lift bay.”
“Finally,” Horizon muttered, pushing himself off the seat with his wings and stretching as he trotted forward without waiting for Curvature. The earth pony scrambled to her hooves, pulling her saddlebags up and over her shoulders, onto her back, where they settled unevenly. She trotted hurriedly after her companion, staring down at the floor to avoid the gazes of the guards as she passed. By the time she reached the top, she’d lost track of Horizon, and scrambled in the direction of the lifts.
Green Tea came into view as she rounded a corner, the deep brown of her coat standing out prominently against the silver-white of the ship’s interior. Curvature slowed to a stop and looked up, mouth opening slightly, as the elder kirin caught her gaze and gave a slow nod.
Kirin had a tendency to look sleepy, and, despite the fact that she was tall enough to look Princess Twilight in the eye, Green Tea was no exception. The shape of their faces, with the wild, lion-like mane, curved horn and scaled snout, drew one’s gaze inevitably to their eyes, which, even half-lidded, put the lie to the look. Green Tea was watching Curvature intently, her eyes—the same deep color as the kirin’s namesake—seeming to immediately catch on to the turmoil in Curvature’s own.
All she said, in a voice as serene and mellow as a Zen garden, was, “Good morning, Curvature.”
Right now, Curvature wished for some of her preternatural calm. The earth pony had to blink a few times to draw herself back from Green Tea’s deep gaze. “Uh… hi.”
She looked away from the kirin. Horizon was leaning lightly against the wall, watching her with his usual dour look. His head jerked back in Green Tea’s direction while he raised a hoof to indicate the arcane symbols on the wall, showing the lift descending from some higher deck. Slowly, Curvature placed her attention back on Green Tea.
The kirin watched her for a moment, then slowly said, “The princes have been informed of your coming.”
“Good,” Curvature murmured, ears pinned back.
Green Tea gave a gentle smile and turned. The doors next to Horizon opened soundlessly, and the three moved onto the lift. Curvature came last, fumbling for something to say, before settling, somewhat lamely, on, “You haven’t changed at all since the first time I met you.”
Green Tea seemed to consider this for a moment. “It is said in kirin legend that our forebears were dragons,” she mused. “Whether it is true or not, it is a useful means to explain our longevity, which is great even in comparison to that of earth ponies.” As they ascended into the upper decks, the window in the lift’s back wall shimmered and turned translucent, showing the city in the distance seeming to descend beneath them. “I was a student at the School of Friendship the year Lady Luster Dawn moved to Ponyville,” she added.
She said it casually, throwing Curvature off balance. She found herself staring open-mouthed at the kirin.
“If you are keeping track,” Green Tea continued, “that puts me at slightly over two hundred years old. So I suppose, to you, I have not changed. I was assigned to the princes to be a landmark, an island of constancy in a world that, for them, will devolve into rapid change.” She seemed totally unperturbed by Curvature's shock, and finished her thought, voice turning briefly dour. "Though even then, if they are anything like Princesses Celestia, Luna, or Twilight, one day they will need to learn to live without me."
The statement seemed to fill the space of the lift, bouncing back and forth from wall to window to doors. The elder kirin had said her piece, descending into inscrutable silence. Curvature hunched slightly, unsure what to say, or if there was anything to say.
This, the earliest planetside memory:
She’d been all of eight, a good three years before her cutie mark and a further three years before she could really grasp what it meant to have an alicorn for a cousin.
There had been so much fuss. The ship had landed just weeks prior and only the most basic of structures had been laid down for the colony. Everypony still lived on the Eternal Hope, the habitation blocks abuzz with excitement and hope and expectation, waiting for what could be. So much was yet to be and ponies kept themselves busy with dreams, and rumors circulated about the cramped blocks like wildfire. Two mares had conceived during the voyage, and both, it was said, had gone into labor within minutes of each other.
Comet Chaser and Golden Hymn had been escorted out of the hab blocks and to the medical wing, and the whole ship waited for the first foals to be born under an untamed sun. But from the medical wing had come only an awful, terrible silence. A telling silence.
Rumors circulated, as they were wont to do. Assumptions made, of tragedy and horror, a slow upwelling of regret, an influx of doubt.
Curvature’s mother had been pacing about their hab for what felt like days when the comm crystal for their room lit up, flashing urgent red. Her family had rushed to the device, crowding about the crystal and blocking Curvature’s view as the hologram flared to life.
She didn’t remember the conversation that ensued, the hushed, urgent tones exchanged between adults, words and ideas that sailed far above her head. She pushed against her parents, trying to find a way through to see her aunt. Comet Chaser sounded exhausted and anxious, and no one would tell Curvature what was happening. Her father’s umber corona kept grabbing her and gently pushing her back. She fussed, using her earth pony strength to push back against his magic. It availed her nothing except a bruised snout when she toppled after her father finally yielded, her parents parting to allow her, at last, to see.
Comet Chaser was a pegasus, her coat the pale blue of the sky in the moments just past evening twilight, her mane a deep violet streaked with silver. She was sitting up in one of the medical ward’s beds, holding her foal in her forelegs.
“Curvature,” she said, her voice tired and strained, but with a wild and fierce pride in her eyes. “This is your cousin, Dreamchaser.”
His colors were almost the same as his mother’s, but… somehow more vibrant. A deeper blue to his coat, more silver shot through his plum-colored mane. At first, she thought he was a pegasus. Then she saw the nub of horn poking out from his forehead.
“He’s an alicorn,” said Curvature’s mother, voice wavering, as though she could barely believe the sight.
Curvature stared at the foal, watching him squirm restlessly, his teal eyes alight with curiosity. She didn’t understand.
There wasn’t much of a throne room.
Back when the ship was still serving its primary purpose, the space had been the captain’s quarters. The captain, a unicorn stallion, had something of a predilection toward luxury, and the utilitarian design of most of the rest of the ship gave way here to paneled floors and walls, real wood from trees lightyears away. It was a large room—certainly larger than Curvature’s own foalhood hab elsewhere in the ship, large enough to entertain audiences, though now, save for Curvature’s entourage, it was empty. In the intervening years, since the princes had formally taken up residence aboard the Eternal Hope, it had become slightly more ornate, draped in royal purple and gold, and decorated here and there with sigils of the blazing eye and the winged galaxy, the princes’ cutie marks.
Like Horizon’s office, the back wall was a projected image, this time a view of the colony in the distance. Where once there had been one chair, now there were two daises, and upon them sat the colony’s own princes.
“Your highnesses,” intoned Green Tea, bowing her head slightly. Behind her, much closer to the door, Curvature and Far Horizon knelt. “I present to you Curvature of the Astrological Society, and Far Horizon of the Space Agency.”
Dreamchaser spoke first. “Rise,” he said. The enthusiasm in his voice was unmistakable. Curvature stood and stepped forward as Green Tea stepped aside. The kirin moved around the edge of the room, taking a seat close to the back wall in a less ornate seat halfway between each of the princes’ own.
The somniant prince was leaning forward in his seat, wings spread slightly in a mix of curiosity and excitement. He was smiling, an enthusiastic and infectious smile that Curvature almost reciprocated. He was larger than she was now. Not by much, but it seemed, at last, that his growth to full size was beginning in earnest. Dreamchaser’s teal eyes seemed to glow against the deep blue of his coat, but Curvature couldn’t meet his gaze. A sudden onrush of guilt turned her head away, toward the only other figure she could see.
Prince Stargazer wasn’t looking at her, but that came as no surprise. Stargazer rarely looked at others. His ears, at least, were still pointed in her direction, but his gaze was aimless, directed somewhere over Curvature’s shoulder, distant. Unlike his counterpart, the stellar prince leaned back upon his dais, regal and disinterested. His coat was bright white and immaculate; not the gentle off-white of Princess Celestia, but sheer, clean, almost painfully bright. His mane and tail were the color of fire, orange and red intermingling untamed, masking the fact that he was the smaller of the two.
“Curve!”
The earth pony let out an undignified squawk as she found herself grabbed by a deep blue corona and dragged forward, toward the darker alicorn. Her saddlebags slipped off, landing with a weighty thump on the floor. Dreamchaser hopped off of his throne and pulled her into a hug.
“Sun and stars, Curve,” he said warmly. “It’s been too long. I missed you.”
She raised her forelegs to return the hug. Some of the knot in her chest loosened. “Hey… Uh… I’m here on business…”
“I know,” he admitted, only a little petulantly. “But let me have this, for a sec, okay?”
His hold was firm, but restrained. She remembered the last time she’d seen him, his hug felt like it had nearly snapped her spine. He’d also been much smaller, then…
Sure enough, after a moment, Dreamchaser let go and stepped back. Curvature let out a nervous chuckle and returned to her saddlebags, clearing her throat as she opened each side.
“If it please you…” she started, but Dreamchaser spoke over her.
“Curve,” the somniant prince said, waving a hoof. “You know what would please me? Relax. There’s no pretense to uphold here. You know I don’t like it when you treat me like a prince first, family member second.”
This comment earned a reaction at last from Prince Stargazer, whose eyes flicked briefly in his counterpart’s direction before settling off again.
Curvature swallowed. “Unfortunately,” she said, “what I need to say is something that I need to say to the princes, not to my family member.”
Behind her, very faintly, she heard Horizon’s sigh of disapproval.
Prince Stargazer murmured something too quietly for Curvature to hear. Dreamchaser’s ear flicked in the stellar prince’s direction, but his only response was a slow shake of his head. In the expectant silence that followed, she reached into her bags and pulled out a single folder. As she looked up again, she could already see the way Dreamchaser’s ears pinned back.
“As you know,” Curvature began, opening the folder and holding it out toward the alicorns. It glimmered green as Green Tea’s corona grabbed it, floating it forward. “Unlike our home system, this system possesses multiple planets and satellites. Since your ascension, the… well, what appears to be the natural order of the system has been disrupted, and those bodies have fallen under your control…”
“This is about last week, isn’t it?” Dreamchaser asked, resigned.
“The gravitational fields of large bodies,” Curvature continued, trying to keep her voice firm, “have a substantial effect on each other. Princess Twilight Sparkle manages both the sun and the moon back in Equus System, and though she does have magical aid and the assistance of the princesses emeriti Celestia and Luna, she has gone on record multiple times stating that even after centuries of practice, finding a delicate balance is difficult.”
She paused. Prince Stargazer’s lips moved, and she heard, very faintly, “...lecturing us about basic physics…”
“That’s enough,” said Dreamchaser firmly to the stellar prince, before turning his attention back to Curvature.
She pressed on. “This being the case, and being that you, Prince Dreamchaser, are responsible for two bodies and five satellites, including this planet’s…” She took another deep breath. “I understand your job is difficult. I can only imagine the delicate balance of the system you’ve had dropped onto your shoulders—all I have are numbers and projections, and you have something much more intimate.”
Dreamchaser seemed to have shrunk slightly upon his dais. Prince Stargazer’s face had gone from dispassionate to slightly annoyed. The knot in Curvature’s chest began to tighten again.
“Eight days ago, it was observed that the third body’s moon slipped out of its orbit for a period of about an hour,” Curvature went on, pulling another folder from her bags and offering it to the elder kirin’s corona, which took it and passed it on. “This happened late at night locally, and while the effects weren’t noticeable to the naked eye, they were very noticeable from the observatory. The entire system wobbled in space while you… struggled to grab hold of that moon, like a top teetering on its point.”
For the first time, Stargazer spoke up, though he still refused to look at her directly. His voice stood in sharp contrast to his fiery, bright appearance; it was high and cold, a silvery tenor, and it put her in mind more of a frigid mountaintop than the sunlight he supposedly embodied. “It was an honest mistake.”
“With respect, your highnesses,” Curvature said, “whether it was an honest mistake or not is irrelevant.” She tapped the side of her saddlebags. “The Astrological Society has records on your activity going back fifteen years, and while it—while we…” She had to stop and take another breath. “I acknowledge that you’re still learning, and that you’ve had to learn a lot very quickly, the lives of thousands of ponies are in your hooves every day. An honest mistake could kill us all.”
Stargazer’s expression hardened further, but Green Tea chose this moment to step in. The elder kirin, taller than both of her charges, stepped between the twin daises and rested a hoof lightly on the stellar prince’s shoulder. “Let her speak,” she said gently.
Green Tea was attendant to the princes, or, put in terms that more accurately described her job, their handler. Few ponies were allowed as close to Dreamchaser and Stargazer as she, and she took to the job with more dignity, grace, and patience than the alicorns she served. In many ways, she seemed to embody the ideals of her kind: reserved, quiet, a pinnacle of self-control, with a legendarily long temper. Not once had Curvature ever heard of Green Tea going nirik. The princes only rarely left the ship; more often, among the ponies of the colony, Green Tea was their face and their voice, her muted amber mane and brown coat standing at odds with the two she represented.
Curvature squared her shoulders and continued. “A moment’s lapse means a planet flies away, alienated from its system, lost forever. A small blink in concentration could lead to moons colliding and sending shrapnel to who knows where. There will come a time when you don’t have to foalsit an entire star system, when every local body will settle into its new routine, but right now your attention to it is paramount.” Curvature’s gaze was steadily sliding downward, away from the princes and toward the floor. “I know you’ve heard this before. I know others have told you. I thought maybe if I came myself, it would be different. I… I just want you to understand.”
She did not dare look back up. She could practically feel the shape of the silences in front of her. Stargazer’s was seething, and Curvature felt an urge to back away, to flee from it; Dreamchaser’s was awkward, abashed, and she wished, she wished very badly, that she could go to him and tell him she didn’t mean it.
But she did mean it. She had to mean it. If she didn’t mean it, then why was she even here?
Stargazer broke the silence. “If you intended to come in here and lecture us about how to do our job—”
“No, Star,” said Dreamchaser. His voice was still firm, and Curvature could feel his intense eyes trained on the top of her head. “She’s right. Curve…” He paused, giving her a chance to reply which she did not take. “Curvature. Look at me, please.”
The knot in her chest felt like it was weighing her down horribly, but she did, eventually, bring her head up to look at the somniant prince. Dreamchaser smiled a sad smile, which sat uneasily on his face. His ears were still pinned back.
“I don’t…” He trailed off. “I don’t know quite what to say, except that you’re right. I’ve made quite a lot of screwups, and I’m in a position where any mistakes I make are, you know… a big deal. I promise it’s not for lack of trying, and I’m doing better every day. I know you’re concerned. You have every right to be concerned. But I’ll get it right this time, okay? I promise.”
His smile had turned from apologetic to hopeful. But there was something about it that bothered her. She raised a foreleg, still looking at him, and felt her hoof brush against her bags, against the last fifteen years of honest mistakes.
The knot in her chest snapped. Before she could help herself, words tumbled out of her mouth.
“Don’t give me platitudes! Don’t give me that—that look, that tone. You’re just—you’re just placating me, ameliorating me.” She stomped the floor, and her saddlebags tilted, spilling files across the carpet. “I’m trying to get you to understand and you’re up on your throne treating me like a foal—”
She knew immediately that she'd crossed a line, her hoof clapping across her mouth as Dreamchaser flinched. Despite the size difference, he seemed somehow smaller all of a sudden, like he was looking up at her rather than down. She had a flash of a memory, a much smaller Dreamchaser bouncing at her hooves, begging for her approval, and then with a flash of gentle blue the alicorn in front of her was gone.
"Dream, wait—" she began, too late.
The wing buffet caught her across the jaw before she could properly see it coming, sending her tumbling backward hooves over head. She caught herself, just barely, as her back hoof brushed against the wall. She rubbed her cheek for a moment, working her jaw to make sure nothing was broken. There was a blur of motion in front of her, and her gaze was drawn inexorably upwards to meet Stargazer's.
The alicorn loomed in front of her, and for the first time, Curvature understood, really understood his name. The prince's eyes were smoldering orange, and as they bored into her Curvature felt her whole body tremble under the terrible weight of the sun. This was why Stargazer never looked at anyone: when he saw you, really saw you, there was nothing to hide. The burning gaze of the stellar prince stripped away pretense and left guilt standing naked in its place. Unlike his counterpart, Stargazer had taken quite quickly to the natural authority that followed alicorns around, and he wielded his anger like a weapon deadlier than any blade or spell.
"How dare you?" he demanded.
Her mind was blank as she struggled to pull herself back from the intensity of his gaze. Unconsciously, she shoved herself back against the wall.
“Lest you forget,” the stellar prince snapped, “we are not here by choice. We have been elevated to this position due to the circumstances of our birth. Our horns and our wings have marked us as princes, and you have turned us into slaves. You came to another planet hoping for change, but when fate gave you alicorns, you set about re-establishing again the very thing you left behind, placing burdens on our shoulders, weighing our blundering against the experience of centuries. We are the price of your freedom—freedom to embrace what you are too afraid to release.”
Stargazer took a step forward, but, from beside her, so did Far Horizon, opening a wing and interposing it between Curvature and the prince.
“Out of the way, pegasus,” Stargazer commanded.
“I don’t think I can do that, your highness,” the pegasus replied firmly.
“My temper is directed at the mare, little pony. Do not make me direct it at you.”
Horizon’s wing was blocking Curvature’s view, but she could feel the prince’s burning stare all the same; his voice was like sunlight on snow, distant, cold, but blindingly, horribly intense. Even with her vision blocked, the earth pony raised a foreleg to cover her eyes.
“I know a thing or two about being frustrated with Curvature,” said Horizon sharply. “But at no point does striking anypony even cross my mind.”
“I do not need this insolence—”
“STARGAZER.”
The voice rang out across the room in tandem with a wave of heat. Horizon took a step closer to Curvature, keeping his wing raised. Curvature slowly lowered her foreleg. What she could make out of Stargazer indicated that his attention, too, had been pulled away by the outburst. Further forward in the room, in front of the daises, she could discern the source.
The light bent strangely around Green Tea, the elder kirin’s eyes blazing white as the space around her seemed to darken. The air around her face seemed to shimmer with heat. Looking at her hurt, somehow. To Curvature’s eyes, it seemed as though she could not decide what colors to be, flickering back and forth between her normal colors and a photo negative of herself. Through it, her eyes remained steady, solid white.
“That’s enough,” she said, with an air of finality that brooked no argument.
The stellar prince didn’t say anything right away, nor did he move. His gaze was fixed on that of Green Tea’s, and Curvature could only imagine the terrible war being waged between blazing orange and brilliant white. But he did, in the end, yield, turning his head toward the floor, expression sour. When it was clear that no more argument was forthcoming, Green Tea relaxed as well, and the light in the room slowly returned to normal as the elder kirin’s strange flickering ceased.
“I’m sorry,” Curvature said, or tried to say. It came out breathy and weak, and she could not bring herself to pull away from the wall. “I’m sorry.”
Stargazer said nothing.
Green Tea took a deep breath. “It seems we have all lost our tempers somewhat,” she admitted, though whatever had possessed her before seemed to have totally gone, and she was as mellow as she’d been when Curvature had first seen her belowdecks. “Perhaps a recess.”
“Why?” asked Stargazer, not looking at Curvature. “I am fairly certain she has made her point.”
“I’m sorry,” breathed Curvature again.
She was dimly aware of Horizon placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Are you alright? … Curvature?”
The earth pony didn’t look at him. Her eyes slid off of Stargazer and past Green Tea to the empty dais marked with the winged galaxy.
“I’m sorry, Dream. I’m so sorry…”