The Queenly Mask

by spookyalice


Connections

A decade passed. The world returned to some kind of normal, and Haven got better at hiding the nagging pang of loss.

She trotted through the busy halls of the castle, where all hooves were on deck in last minute preparation for that evening's celebration. Everyone scurried out of her way, dipping their heads with polite "Majesty" before returning to their tasks; she offered every one of them a well practiced, picture perfect smile. It was easy, at least, to keep the scowl of frustration from coloring her features.

She had already completed her own preparations: mane and tail styled to perfection. Wings groomed so there wasn't a feather out of place. The harness for flight wires was already snug against her barrel, hidden from view by her fur (not that anyone knew to look for something awry, anyway), just in case she needed to spend time managing last minute disasters.

Or wrangling wayward daughters.

Haven had already stopped by Pipp's rehearsal to make sure her youngest was on schedule; she loved the glitz and glamour too much to drag her hooves, but on occasion she needed an extra nudge from Mom. Even if that nudge came in the form of directing her in which style to use for her mane. On this evening it seemed like she needed no such intervention, as Haven heard her running scales from outside the door. She moved on without even knocking, considering herself lucky that she had no great hurdles with Pipp. At least not yet. The princess was only twelve, after all.

That only left Zipp. A frazzled stylist had come up to her, just as she was leaving Pipp's studio, to confirm what she already knew: Zipp had vanished, and no one could find her. This was becoming an increasingly frequent - increasingly frustrating - habit of hers as she grew older. Haven had graciously thanked the stylist and dismissed her with a dip of her head, smothering down the anger that spiked in her chest and crawled its way into her throat. It was only thanks to years of practice that it did not tighten her smile into something in the realm of threat.

The wing that housed the royal library was empty of personnel. No clamoring of hooves, no cacophony of voices calling out to each other to make sure everything was running as smoothly as possible. Haven's ear flicked at the absence of that noise, filled only by the tapping of her own hoofsteps. It was only then, truly alone, that she allowed her mask to slip away into a Motherly Fury. She picked up her pace the last stretch to the library, where she knew with all the experience of a Mother that Zipp would be. As the filly grew older and had set into her surly teen years, she'd gotten ideas.

"Zephyrina Storm," she called as she opened the ornately carved door. It closed behind her with a thud far quieter than its size would suggest. "I know you're in here."

Her ears twisted for noise, and sure enough there it was: the quiet shuffling of someone tucked away towards the back, without the clamor outside to disguise her. Haven rolled her eyes and she released the huff building up in her throat, setting off through the rows of shelves. The shuffling of hooves and papers grew only louder as she approached, and her ears pressed back against her skull as every hoofstep only drew up more annoyance that was bubbling in her belly. She could hear muttering now, though soft enough to be unintelligible.

Rounding a corner of a stack of texts on aerodynamics, she finally came into view of her daughter. She was sat at one of the many tables dotting the library, surrounded by open books and sheets of paper. Too preoccupied with looking at whatever was in the books and scribbling down notes (and then double checking and cross referencing in a frantic display that was just like her father), Zipp did not move to acknowledge Haven. Her mane and tail were unruly, only half done as if Zipp had slipped away in the middle of her styling. Specks of dirt and blots of ink marred the snowy white fur of her fetlocks. The only thing in impeccable condition were her wings, her newly grown primaries groomed with loving care until they were pristine.

Haven stomped a hoof. "Zephyrina Storm," she repeated. "What do you think you're doing?" A question that carried not her authority as a queen, but her authority as a mother.

"What does it look like?" was the reply. Unfazed. Uninterested. Zipp paid her mother no further mind, flipping to the next page in the textbook she was engrossed in.

"Skirting your duties," Haven snapped. "We're on a schedule."

Zipp hummed, her tail giving an idle flick. She pushed aside the book and pulled a stack of papers towards her. "Why do I need to be there," she said, tone even and cold. "All eyes are going to be on Pipp anyway."

Haven closed the distance between them, and she had half a mind to snatch the papers away. But she smothered the idea down, though she didn't quite extinguish it, because there was no need to escalate. Yet. She took a deep breath, held it in her lungs, and let it out in a low, long sigh in an attempt to calm herself.

"You are Crown Princess," she said, voice tight for all she was trying to suppress. "And my daughter."

It was then that Zipp finally looked up, her jaw set in defiance and her brows furrowed. "I don't want to." She returned to her reading, picking up a pen and tapping it against her muzzle in thought. "It's stupid, and I don't want any part in this charade."

Haven rolled her eyes. She gave her head a shake, careful not to ruffle her mane. "You know why it's important." It was a familiar argument. She couldn't help the impatience seeping into the word's she'd heard so many times growing up, and had said herself so many times before. "We're giving hope to ponies."

"Hope to ponies my tail!" Zipp stomped a hoof, and then jabbed it at Haven. "If we were really about giving them hope, we'd be working day and night to figure out how to fix things!" She gestured at her work, at all the books on aerodynamics and aviation that they had. Information that scholars older and wiser than Zipp had poured over for centuries. "With science, not just sitting around waiting for magic to come back."

"You are fifteen years old." It was never ending with her. She spoke with a tone that any other pony would have cowered under. One that brook no argument. "You are not going to have a breakthrough that our top scholars haven't been able to see. You are going to do your duty as my heir tonight, and go get ready. Do you understand me?"

But Zipp was not just any pony. Her tail lashed and she puffed up the feathers of her wings, face contorting in her anger. "If Dad were here--!"

All the air was sucked out of the room. Zipp's jaw snapped shut and her ears flicked back, anger melting away to shame with eyes darting away from her mother. Haven's face remained cold and stony, belying nothing of the storm that raged in her chest.

"Mom, I--"

"Zephyrina. Go get ready." Tone flat, barely containing fury.

Without another word, Zipp moved out from behind the desk and slinked past Haven. Her head and tail were low, wings pressed tight against her flanks, all an effort to appear smaller. Haven did not move from her spot, though a trembling had settled into her withers and forelegs, until she heard the door open and close, leaving her alone. She sank to the ground, motherly mask cracking now that there was no one left to see what lay beneath.

"I wish you were here, Thunder," she said to the empty air. "Maybe you could get through to her."

No reply, of course. Her soul was awash in that familiar pang of loss, exacerbated by her inability connect with Zipp. She was so much like her father, and Haven simply couldn't compete with that. A sob built up in her throat, one of anger and frustration and a deep, desperate longing. And there was a flare of fear there, too. The fear that came with the lie, now laid naked by her own raw nerves: one day they would be discovered as frauds who couldn't fly, just like everyone else. And every time they flew, she prayed that it was not in her nor her daughter's life times that it would be found out. But some part of her knew that was selfish, because didn't every generation before her hope for that? Wasn't she just shuffling the blame down the line, just so she wouldn't suffer for it?

The sob was swallowed down as she chased away the circling "what ifs" that would spiral out of control if she let them. There was no time for her to fall apart, not when she was on a schedule. Not when she had her roles to play before the eyes of an adoring nation.

She shook out the excess energy from each leg as she stood. She took a few deep, steadying breaths. And she turned, slipping back into her familiar role, returning to the world with a picture perfect, winning smile.