After being up all night, Zipp Storm expected to be exhausted. Just a little tired would be acceptable. But she surprisingly felt energetic. That wasn’t exactly the feeling she expected to feel after studying from books for twelve hours.
She, personally, blamed Sunny. The earth pony turned alicorn was actually related to one of the greatest ponies in Equestrian history (even though hardly anypony remembered her anymore), and Zipp couldn’t help but feel jealous. So she was now scouring every book that she and her friends had collected on Ancient Equestria, searching for something - anything - that might give a clue as to her own mysterious heritage, because it simply disappeared from records after her grandmother’s mother, and there was always a possibility that she was at least related to somepony who knew the Guardians of Harmony, which must have been pretty much everypony. But hey, you never know. Perhaps her own ancestor had been close to Twilight Sparkle and her friends.
Okay, she didn’t really need to, but she was secretly kind of interested. Zipp had always been a fan of discovering how things worked, like how to get the same adrenaline rush she got flying without magic, or how her family had been faking flight.
Sighing and closing the book she was looking at, Zipp stood up and stretched her wings, the different colored feathers shimmering in the morning sunlight. She glanced down at the floor of the old airstation and gave a little start. The light streaming through the windows created reflections on the floor, as usual, and since Izzy had fixed the picture, you could now see all three pony crystals, and the ponies they represented. Zipp’s shadow was positioned underneath the pegasus crystal so that it looked like she was wearing the magical crystal like a crown.
Just like her mother had done.
Shaking off the odd feeling creeping down her back, Zipp stepped to one side to avoid the crystal’s reflection. She knew that, unless something changed, she was meant to be queen of Zephyr Heights, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Her mother and sister, and, more recently, her friends, kept telling her that she’d be great, she was a natural leader, she had everypony’s best interests at heart, etc., etc. And every time they said that, Zipp felt inclined to argue, even though she knew that they were right.
She just didn’t feel like a pegasus queen was right anymore. Ponykind was united once more; shouldn’t the land be reunited into one kingdom, instead of individual cities? And shouldn’t the ruler be somepony who represented all ponies, instead of just one?
That would mean the only potential candidate was Sunny, and while the mare was a great friend, Zipp wasn’t sure she would be the best ruler. Sure, she would be great at vanquishing evil, but she was such a big believer in friendship and all things good that Zipp didn’t think she could rule a kingdom in crisis - at least, not yet. Maybe one day.
“Why does it have to be me?” she grumbled to herself, gently kicking books off to one side as she spread her wings, lifting off. The abandoned station was plenty spacious enough for her to practice flying, even when she couldn’t really fly. Being down there gave her comfort, like some kind of magic was telling her that everything would be okay, like things used to be. Zipp dashed around the artifacts Sunny’s father had collected, all carefully lined up on the shelf, and veered back towards the window, the colorful light dancing across her pale white coat. She flew in a loop-de-loop, her eyes closed and a feeling of satisfaction spreading through her.
“Nice place,” said a voice, high pitched and a little scratchy around the edges. Zipp nearly fell out of the sky in surprise. She whirled around to see a mare standing in the middle of the station, her sky blue wings matching the rest of her coat and folded to her sides. Her mane was an array of rainbow colors, and her eyes were a deep rose color. She looked like the kind of pony who was a good flier liked to get into trouble or bend the rules a little bit. In other words, she looked exactly like Zipp’s type.
“I mean, this wasn’t here when I was, but Twilight clearly tried to make sure we were remembered,” she remarked, gesturing to a dusty poster depicting a group of pegasi, all dressed in the same blue uniform and flight goggles.
Zipp landed on the reflection of the pink star from the window and folded in her wings. “I’m sorry, but who are you?” It wouldn't be surprising if she didn’t recognize the mare; her sister was always the more social one of the two. But with her coloring, she would have stood out in a crowd, and Zipp was absolutely certain that she hadn’t seen her before literally anywhere.
And now she just appeared in one of the most hidden and unknown spots in the whole kingdom?
The mare rolled her eyes and stepped into the light of the window, and Zipp felt her heart stop for a brief moment. The pegasus looked like she had stepped out of a colored window herself. Everything about her was translucent and made of sparkles, from her rainbow-colored mane to her wings, which were just like Zipp’s, only all one color. That was a bit strange. Even Pipp’s wings, though they were fluffy and nothing like this mare’s, faded into a lighter color at the tips.
“My name’s Rainbow Dash,” the pegasus said, offering her hoof to Zipp. “What’s yours?”
Okay, that was definitely unusual. Every pegasus knew who the royal family was; they’d been a tad bit unpopular for the past couple of days. And everypony else knew who Zipp and her sister were; they’d helped bring back magic on more than one occasion.
So. Suspicious.
“Zipp Storm,” she said, warily taking Rainbow Dash’s hoof. It was surprisingly solid for being made of glitter. “Well, actually my mother would introduce me as ‘Princess Zephyerina, heir to the throne of Zephyr Heights’ and all that, but I don’t like to bother with titles.”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “You sound like Twilight when she first became a princess. Well, partially. Half way. The other half was all screaming because she couldn’t figure out how to fly and was always falling and crashing and screaming…” She rolled her eyes and grinned at the memory. “We got it sorted out eventually.”
Zipp laughed. This was a pony she would have liked to hang out with more often. “So, how did you get down here?” she asked, gesturing to the room around them. “I thought nopony knew about it besides my mom, sister, friends, a few of our guards, and our dog.” The mention of Cloudpuff brought up something else on her mind. “Actually, I haven’t seen him around here today… maybe he’s hanging out with Pipp.”
“Oo, what kind of dog is he?” Rainbow Dash asked. “My friend has a dog. I have a tortoise. He’s a real sweetheart. Much less whining than a dog.”
“I… think he’s a pomeranian,” Zipp conceded after thinking for a while. “A flying pomeranian.”
“He can fly?” For once, Rainbow Dash looked surprised at something she told her. “How? Magic? Helicopter blades? Tiny little flying machine strapped to his back?”
“With wings,” Zipp said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, enjoying the look of astonishment on the other mare’s face. “Duh.”
“Huh,” she muttered to herself.
“You never answered my question,” Zipp prompted. “How did you find out about this place? And how did you get down here?”
Rainbow Dash looked a bit confused. “Um, I just appeared here. I don’t really know where ‘here’ is, though.” She looked back at a few of the signs advertising different locations. “Where are Maretime Bay and Bridlewood?”
“You seriously don’t know?” Zipp asked, distracted by the mark on this pony’s flank. For one thing, it appeared to be on both sides, which was something she had never seen before. For another, the image was familiar: a red, yellow, and blue lighting bolt coming out of a cloud. Suddenly, it hit her.
“Oh my stars, you’re one of the Guardians of Harmony! My friend Sunny has little toys of all you guys!”
“Yup,” Rainbow Dash grinned. “We’re kind of a big deal. Like, we defeated so many bad guys that it would take, like, years to talk about them all. Though it was mostly because of me. I’m just awesome that way.” Her grin turned mischievous and a tad bit rash.
“Wow.” Zipp thought of all the things her family - she had done, and she felt more uncomfortable in the mare’s presence than exuberant. She didn’t even question how she was here now when she should very clearly not be. According to Sunny, the Guardians had all died years before. “It must be nice to do something that actually fixes problems instead of just making them worse.”
Rainbow Dash tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
Zipp sighed. She didn’t necessarily like to talk about this. “Magic disappeared a while back, and we couldn’t fly anymore,” she started. “My family - the royal family - used wires and good lighting to make it appear that we could still fly, while everypony else was grounded. They believed it for years until me and some of my friends accidentally revealed it at one of my sister’s performances - I mean, everything worked out fine in the end, since we got magic back, but I was forced to live a lie for my entire life, and my subjects bought it, and my family was perfectly fine with it. I decided that I didn’t care anymore,” she added bitterly.
“I wanted to find a way to really bring magic back, so I came down here once I discovered it and tested ways to fly without it. I snuck out all the time to get that same kind of feeling, and I only went along with the lie because I had to. Once I met Sunny and Izzy and heard of their quest to get magic back, I saw my chance to get away, so… I took it.”
Rainbow Dash was silent for a little while, thinking. Then she tilted her head towards the window. “Let’s go for a fly.”
She searched around the room for a little bit before finding a lever close to the window. Gritting her teeth, she pulled it, the whole thing squeaking violently, and the windowpane that held the earth pony crystal slowly slid away to open sky.
“Wow,” Zipp whispered. “How did you know about that?”
The pegasus grinned. “Twi told me about it. Now, come on.” She leaped into the air with all the grace and skill of somepony who had been doing this from birth. Zipp wasn’t so bad herself. The two pegasi spent a half hour trying to outperform the other in aerial acrobatics until Zipp, laughing so hard she could hardly keep herself in the air anymore, relented and let Rainbow Dash take the crown as better flier.
“Was it hard to leave your family behind?” Rainbow Dash asked once they both caught their breath.
Zipp shrugged. They passed through a cloudbank, and she shivered away the chills along her back. “Not really. I mean… they’d had it coming for a long time. In a way, I kind of wanted for the secret to get out, so that I wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. But…
“Not like that?”
She nodded. “Not like that. My mom got arrested, there was a warrant out for the arrest of me and my sister when we left, and any chance of returning after failure was pretty much thrown into the fire. Pipp was left hanging in the spotlight when me, Sunny, and Izzy were escaping…” Zipp trailed off, the memory not entirely pleasant.
“Why didn’t you help her?” Rainbow Dash pressed.
“I-I don’t know. I wanted to, but if we were going to bring back magic, we had to go… and why should I have cared? They made me lie to ponies who would one day be my subjects. They deserved it,” she said with finality, trying to convince herself as much as the pegasus beside her.
“Did they, though?”
Her quiet question made Zipp’s brain tumble into disarray. All her firm thoughts and confirmations suddenly crumbled under the pressure of her conscience. Her sister’s voice snapped in her head, You left me hanging there! In the spotlight!
Don’t you trust me at all? Zipp’s voice came, followed by Pipp’s: I don’t know. You are the one who just got Mom thrown in jail!
A quiet sob built up in her throat, and she quickly squashed it. “I guess not,” she said thickly when she could speak again. “I mean, they were just doing what they thought was best… Trying to find hope in a hopeless situation… I guess jail was a bit much. I shouldn’t have left Mom.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she turned away, wiping them from her eyes and hoping Rainbow Dash wouldn’t notice.
The other pegasus had stopped and turned to face the castle, and Zipp did, too. “Sometimes,” the rainbow maned pony said, “loyalty to a pony is more about you than it is about them. If you don’t trust anypony - don’t care for them so much that you’d do anything for them - you end up hurting yourself.” She turned to Zipp. “And everypony makes mistakes. You have to forgive them and give them the chance to try again.”
“I know,” Zipp whispered.
“They might not always make the best choices, but if they matter to you, then you have to either remain loyal to them, or lose them forever.” She sighed. “Believe me, it’s better to be loyal to your friends and lose something yourself than to be loyal to yourself and lose the ponies closest to you.”
“I think I understand,” Zipp said, studying the elevator as it rose up the mountainside. A pony was inside that looked like Hitch, while a white ball of fluff zoomed around inside. She didn’t have to see him to imagine the annoyed look on his face.
Rainbow Dash grinned. “See you around… Zipp.” She soared higher into the sky, performed a flip, passed through a cloud bank, and then… she was gone.
Zipp angled her wings to catch an air current heading towards the abandoned station, soaring through the open window and landing gently on the floor. She found the lever that Rainbow Dash had used and closed the windowpane again, wincing at the screeching of metal on metal. She made a mental note to ask Izzy to oil the joints in that later. The unicorn was always good for crafts.
“Zipp?” came a familiar voice, and a pegasus swept into the room via the vent entrance. Queen Haven spotted her daughter and flew over to her. “Oh, there you are, my darling, I was looking for you! I’ve got a meeting with Alphabittle and Phyllis Cloverleaf in a little bit, and I was wondering if you could find your sister for me? I haven’t seen her all day, so I’m a bit worried…” She trailed off as she spotted something in the corner of the room, peeking out from under a large sheet. Trotting over there, she pulled the sheet off to reveal a group of large fans, all facing upwards. “Zipp, what is this?” she asked slowly.
“Oh, um… that was my own little project. It’s powerful enough to lift a pony into the air, so I used it when… You know. We couldn’t fly. I just… really wanted to know what it would be like, to really fly, not be held up by some wires or something.” She stopped when she saw the hurt look on her mom’s face.
“Oh, Zipp, my darling,” she whispered. She came over to the princess and put her wing around her, pulling her into a hug. “I am so, so sorry,” Haven said, her quiet voice thick. Zipp looked over at her mother and was startled to see tears in her eyes and running down her cheeks. “I am so sorry I made you go along with all that. You were right, we should have been honest, but I didn’t listen, and it just ended up causing more trouble for you girls-” She broke off as Zipp leaned into her mother, something she never did.
“It’s okay, Mom,” she said. “It really is.”
Haven smiled and lay her head on top of Zipp’s. The two pegasi stared at the window for a while in comfortable silence.
“I love you, you know that, right?” Haven finally said, turning to look at her daughter, who smiled.
“I know. And I love you, too, Mom.”