//------------------------------// // Chapter five, in which Piercing Strike is offered to get rid of the annoying neighbour // Story: Off-season // by Cloud Ring //------------------------------// Baltimare is the frontier city. In the east, it all but plunges into the narrow Celestial Sea, beyond which the griffons’ continent lies. To the northwest, next to its six- or ten-story humble towers — this singular ponies-built true city of south-eastern edge of Equestria is of no comparison to the skyscrapers of Manehattan — is a dense mixed forest of pines and cedars. Locals call it Long Forest for a reason: those who can find cardinal points and keep walking south or north leave it quickly, but along the barely used railroad that goes north-west to central Equestria, Long Forest stretches on the north side for days and nights, silently peeping into windows, touching trains’ roofs with coniferous paws, leading passengers to its viscous resinous dreams. The mines north of Baltimare are still inhabited by non-ponies, especially hectic in recent years, and only to the south foals can really walk carelessly, diving into grasses of high plains, basking in the warm sun and catching the salty wind of the nearby ocean on their coats. The wind is quite safe too — the ancient pact with sirens and their mentors, lamias, is still in force and in action even during Off-season, so there are no unnecessary voices in this wind, unless one goes out into the southern plains after midnight by the full Moon; but even then moonlight will be gentle and surely will not harm the maybe-casual listener. Piercing Strike — it was the real name of a pale grayish-blue unicorn with big scarlet eyes — hadn't really loved the sun for as long as she could remember, even before she and her family moved to Baltimare. She could put up with it, especially when the pegasi’s special detachments corralled loose clouds to the better half of sky, distributing moisture coming from the ocean with powerful winds. But in the summer — thanks to the Princesses, a short summer, although her mom said that it used to take three or four months — she went out of her room only on three occasions: either to school, or for the big Summer Sun Celebration, or closer to night, when the air stopped being a quivering white haze. In general, she had no real friends. A lateborn foal, sick one on top of that, and — as she understood much later — there was a reason why adult neighbors were whispering, "They say her parents give her blood", "You can't believe them at all, not a word they say, and check their bits too — they could be fake for all I know!", "You’ve looked into the second row of books in their bookcase? There is dark magic, I’m telling you!”.  But what can you do with adults? Younger ponies did not refuse her though, whether they were her nieces or classmates, never passing up a chance to drop in for a visit at her home, or to share a hot bun, or to recommend a good book to read. The adults did not allow their minors to linger next to her for long — long enough that would matter. Piercing Strike learned to read very early, by the age of four. She learned to dream about a big city enveloped in a summerish shallow twilight a little later, by five. Even later, on her sixth birthday she saw the first photographs from an alien world behind one of Littlehorn’s great portals, and begged her mom to make her a present despite mom’s obvious reluctance — not just separate photos but the entire album. Even a wandering merchant — a middle-aged earth pony, shaggy from the endless roads — was again and again asking her in surprise if she really wanted this particular volume, “There is nothin’ to read, you see. Only pictures. You will be bored, little one. They are strangers. And don’t get me started on how much they exhausted me while I was bargainin’. If I had the seed from the Tree of Harmony, they'd say it was too small, and if I had the gem from Princess Celestia’s torc they'd say it was gaudy. They took some of my honest bits, as if they’re doin’ me a favor. I’d need to find somethin’ else for a change, or tell a story about Equestria... oh well, let it be. I'll give you twenty percent off the whole album, ma'am. Even twenty-five for those eyes. By the way..." he went to Glancing Strike and whispered to her, thinking that the little unicorn would not hear; she heard and remembered, but that day neither understood nor considered it important, buried in the album, "A special filly… not easy to raise her, I imagine?"  "No. I am fine," her mom sternly said. She was barely looking up from the album for months. She was going to bed with it, bringing it along to school, to the yard, to the roof. The dragonfly-like wings of aircrafts, so unlike ones of pegasi; wide open milky white or pale blue terraces and rooms, glowing from the inside, marked with thin columns along imaginary borders; tall, slim and fragile ponies, always at a distance from each other, but always as if tied together by invisible force; iridescent shine of the sky illuminated by either one or two giant moons; avenues converging to a point above the horizon; dunes of snow sparkling in the night, neatly uneven, attracting the eye with each evidently excess hole or hill of a meticulously designed structure made from fleeting material; power transmission towers, thin and expedient, resembling the one next to which she liked to read outdoors the way porcelain resembles clay; a giant hemisphere woven of triangles from which a blinding white ray shot up into the sky. Even holding the answer literally before her eyes — there were enough solo portraits in the album, including close-ups — she did not immediately understand who was looking at her from the mirror, and even more so she did not immediately find the right question to approach her mother. The preparation for the question also took time and effort. First, it was necessary to guard and reinforce her firm belief that she really was neither a burden on mom’s back nor an adopted filly — otherwise her little campaign would have ended in futile tears even before the question. Had she failed this step, she would not be able to return to the topic, never again, because with each attempt she would have imagined the worst in advance: bitter tears were already rising to her throat, threatening to make her breathless, wordless. Last but not least, she needed to figure out how exactly foals’ features are determined by biology. In this she was equally helped by books and acquaintances. Of course, she was confused at first, but the aspect of reproduction that Piercing Strike was most interested in was using methods of math, and in this field the little unicorn felt at ease; so, going forward with the question, she was already sure that her appearance is not accidental, and the question was spelled out, face to face. The concept of adultery flew through her big fluffy ears without stopping, but she caught the result and meaning, and believed that she should not talk to her dad about it. Glancing Strike was afraid that her daughter would stop caring for her father and loving him, would register him as a stranger — but, of course, that was the worry of a silly grown up mare. Long walks with her dad, diving into a quiet and dark forest, picking up mushrooms and his stories about life and long hikes to central Equestria — it was absolutely irreplaceable, although sometimes her stomach was ticklish with a pleasant anxiety, and she honestly promised her mother that she would neither actively look for her biological father nor would she be angry with him would he appear out of nowhere due to his incomprehensible reasons. The years passed, the disease gradually progressed, there were fewer friends and there were fewer walks, but those that were remaining mattered more; she learned to cling to her father's back like a little filly and ride on him that way. She could avoid her weakness, catch his warmth and admire the large and bright world around; the sun, however, was still annoying, and she still heard even the quietest vile whisper from the other side of the street. Also, if she closed her eyes, she almost began to see the world through the eyes of other ponies. This talent slowly grew in her, and at some point it was enough to say a pony’s name to herself and imagine a face in order to see and understand where this pony was, what they were doing, where they were going and what they saw before them. So she rested, lying in her bed and learning to look at other ponies’ lives, in which she was not weak; but Piercing Strike never told her parents about this talent, reasoning that it would be better to help them than worry them. And indeed she helped them several times, warning in advance about unwanted guests, about good news in the mail and about a lost distant cousin who was visiting the city on her way to griffons; she made sure these uses are few and far between, so adults would write it off to accidents and coincidences. She asked her mother to pick up more materials for her about the world lying on the other side, and — when the order landed in their yard in the form of two heavy wooden boxes — she swallowed a hundred of books and albums over a few weeks’ course, then made up a separate rack for them to keep nearby. What was not going away with time, contrary to her breath and her hooves’ strength, was the ridicule and barely diluted poison in the words of adults, and now that she knew that in many ways adults were right, it was rather difficult to say to herself “They’re just stupid” and move on as it had been in early foalhood. Questions came to her. They hung off her mind and did not rush her anywhere. They were staying with her, waiting for her to decide and give an answer, "Am I Equestrian?", "Is my home there, behind the portal, or here, with my mom and dad?" "Are my dreams mine own or alien?", "Do they love me here?", "Do I want to return home?", "Am I needed here?" and no matter how hard she tried, not all the questions were answered similar to mathematics textbooks — accurate, unambiguous and unchanging. That was her life, and often she was deeply lost in her musings, only to wake up from the polite but still too loud call of the teacher, or from her father's question "What are you thinking about, little pin?", until one quiet starry night she decided to change the playfield, rules and goal altogether and to split herself into two ponies. She designated these two new Piercing Strikes ‘Solar’ and ‘Lunar’. Then she replied to the questions from both sides of the mirror glass. It worked, and she learned to wear the right masks and be herself either way. The body belonged to ‘Lunar’ Piercing Strike, thus ‘Solar’ was left with a guest role, staying there to make good-natured contacts with Equestrian ponies. Over time, they sometimes began to quarrel over who would be outside and in control more often... but in general, they took care of each other. Also, by this time they both knew they had a friend — exactly one true friend to stay at their side. And yet, after one short summer she got an offer and a chance to get rid of the duality by separating the extra part into her own — healthy! — body, she could not help but think about the offer. Melting from the unbearable heat, screwing up her eyes which were burning even despite the glittering curtains over the windows, Piercing Strike, fractured along her two personalities, disagreed right away— —and was ready to agree.