"Wow, Star, you actually made friends with that weirdo?" Bright asked as he jauntily paraded around me as I cradled a large atlas.
Since everything in my new life here at Nightmare's emporium for tyranny and existential dread, I'd thought I might as well plot for the future. A feeling Solemn seemed to share. In almost twenty minutes, the older stallion hadn't looked up from his own tome.
Yesterday with Blueblood had been insightful if a tad awkward. I chewed on a lip as I turned the page I'd spent the last few minutes pretending I really understood. I hadn't been completely lying when I'd told Nightmare and Blueblood, for that matter, that I could read the stars. I don't know if it was the cutie mark or something from my past, but the twinkling lights above seemed obvious. It was like following the dots on a map or the currents of a river. It all had meaning if one sought it.
However, this insight did not mean I was nearly precise enough to compete with Blueblood's experience. I shook my head as I thought back to the faux-noble. I hoped that one thing had struck me, though, something Sabre saw too.
"Hey, Sabre?"
The guard looked up from the book he'd chosen to skim as he sat against the door closest to the study door. He was starting to lighten up a little. How embarrassing. I suppose it was only natural, the degradation of skill with disuse, the shame.
"Yes, sir?"
"Blueblood, you saw it yesterday, right?" I asked.
"Oh, saw what, something scandalous? Hold on, I'll take notes. I need some new material for my books. A wayward noble, lost and alone, what has become of him? Oh, the horror."
Bright scooped up a scrap parchment and leveled a smile that he swept between Sabre and me. I sighed and shrugged. Sabre chose to focus on his book. To meet that stupidly cheery face was an easy way to letting Bright have his way.
"Which part, sir?" Sabre asked.
I chuckled to myself. What, does Sabre take me for a fool? I really shouldn't answer that. We both knew exactly what I meant. Bright might want notes, but it all boiled down to a single question. Yesterday had been a start, but to what end seemed undefined.
"Forlorn as Blueblood is, That look in his eye never left. Even after we started working with him. You saw it, right?"
Sabre looked up from his book and adjusted his helm. "Fear, sir."
Sabre shook his head. Blueblood had let us in, had let us be, but those eyes. He'd been left to rot long enough to forget how to look any other way. It was unsettling. My skin itched from just recalling it. I don't even think he knew he did it.
"How long has he been down there?" I asked.
I doubted asking the stallion in question would get me anywhere. It was a slow and steady game here. I had time, and so did he. I looked back down at the atlas page I'd stopped on. The fabled ruins of Canterlot. The atlas didn't have any further description of the locale as is. Got to administer the truth somehow. It'd be nearly impossible to erase all completely. Even if they brought the city down and the mountain, it'd never be completely forgotten. I mean, it might be in centuries, but in the immediate, it would take more effort than I believe Nightmare would both expending as of now.
"Not long after Nightmare rose, sir. So, a few years at this point. One moment atop the mountain, now dwelling even beneath the dregs."
Sabre made to grip the noble in hoof a little tighter. His jawline set as the memories of wherever and whatever he'd been doing when things fell set an accord on his mind. I chewed at my bottom lip as I studied the single afar image of Canterlot's ruins. The ruins where not once have I heard directly report on the supposed rebels that dwelled within.
"He is currently locked away," I said with a dismissive wave.
"No, he's not."
I looked up to Bright, tapping a pencil on the table. He seemed all too pleased that'd he gotten a response. I cocked a brow.
"Explain."
"Young Bright is quite right. The exiled noble is more than able to leave his abode. Nightmare does not see him as a threat and thus cares little for anything that is not his maps. He has chosen to stay tucked away in his little workshop. A pity as that is."
Solemn had finally risen from the book he'd eagerly stuck his nose in. Bright nodded along, and I was left all the more puzzled. If solemn was right, I would bet on his honesty. Then Blueblood seemed all the more confusing.
"That aside, how goes your browsing, Stargazer?" Solemn asked.
"Solemn, what is our end game?" I asked. I closed the atlas and peered over the table at my senior. To which he squirmed, eyes glancing back down at his own reading.
"To save Equestria. To bring back the day, allow all ponies a sense of peace." Solemn said. The old bat offered a smile that never reached his eyes.
"A canned answer, I'm sure, but I meant our immediate goal. What is the end game for all of us, for those here and now?"
I leaned over the table and scowled at Solemn, who, in return, buried his face back in his book. I reached down, pulled the book from his hooves, and growled.
That earned a laugh from Bright, but that wasn't what mattered. Solemn tried and failed to retreat as I crawled atop the table altogether and flared my wings.
Why was it so hard to get any straight answers in this damned palace? Why was everyone so obsessed with keeping me blind? Why was I always in the dark?
"Gazer!" Sabre had taken up my rear and seemed none too happy himself.
"What?"
"Calm down, sir." Sabre laid a hoof on the table, tilting it slightly towards himself.
I groaned and closed my wings. "I'm leaving."
Sabre made to follow.
"No, I want some air and alone time."
So I was off, down the hall round the bend and towards the first available gate out to the broader castle grounds. The stars spun and glittered. Even as I fell on my back ad stared up at their endless dance. I'd made it far enough in that I could find a tree to lounge underneath and not be stared at by the gatekeepers.
It was too much, ever since I woke up. It was one mess after another. No one made sense. Nothing felt accomplished. I was pulled about like a puppet. That was all so much, but the worst part was that I didn't even know which direction I wanted to go.
"What are you doing?"
I slowly sat up and found myself staring up at one of Nightmare's soldiers. Cyan coat, lack of leather or fangs, oddly bright rainbow mane for such a terse scowl. The mare watched me like you might an ant. I found it hard to continuously meet her gaze like I was a child being scolded by a parent.
"I'm sorry?" I wasn't sure what I did, but the less I was hassled, the better.
"Why are you hiding in the court, sir."
The sir sounded a lot more like you worthless piece of crap, but what did I know.
"Stargazing?" I pointed up above us.
"Name!"
I shrugged at the mare. "Stargazer, and you are?"
The mare stepped forward and leveled a glare that could melt ice. "Lefttenant of Her Royal Highness' elite guard. Rainbow Dash."
The name fit, and the title seemed impressive, but for the life of me, I'd left any interest back in the study. This mare had picked a fight with a wall, and to that matter, why had she even approached me at all? On second thought, did it even matter?"
"You're the new noble, the one found in the Everfree, correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Rarity was right."
I cocked a brow. The plot thickens. "Oh, how so?"
"You're nothing like the other nobles, nothing like the nobles before them either. But, it's your look. It's wrong."
I was officially lost. I cocked my head and blinked back at Leftenant Rainbow Dash. My look, what the heck. "Rarity said what about me?" I asked.
"You're sure you're not a changeling?" Rainbow asked.
"I don't even know what that is, outside of what Queen Nightmare told me at that first supper. I apologize, but I honestly don't understand. My look, ma'am?"
Rainbow tsked and turned about to leave. This mare didn't seem like the talkative type as is. That suited me just fine. I flopped back and landed once more on my back.
"Light."
I barely caught the word as Rainbow took to wing. Her final phrase was the only thing she left behind. It was all too much. I shut my eyes and drifted into a fitness slumber.
A spark in the wind, an unfortunate little thing. It knew nothing, sought nothing. It simply was. I followed as through the dark it fluttered by. I felt my heart flutter with each twist, every breeze, and through the cold.
I blinked. Had it been cold before, the spark didn't seem to mind. Then the ground crunched under my hooves. I shivered in the snow? Had the been snow before? The spark fluttered on, and I was behind it. In the cold and snow, it was then that the spark settled atop a crystal. A luminescent pink crystal amongst the snow and ice. The spark dared move no further. So there I remained.
The crystal's light grew brighter, and the spark along with it. Now, I could see in the dark for the first time in this new light. For the first time that I could recall, I wasn't in the dark. As suddenly as the light began, as the snow drifted to the ground, the crystals shone, first the pink then another not too far away, a brilliant orange than a blue not far from the last. Colors poured into the dark, the dark churned, it writhed, and then screamed.
I woke with a start. The sound of something heavy falling beside me. I turned to find Bright on his back. I licked my dry lips and stood. I didn't even want to know.
"Oh good, you were really going stir crazy."
Bright rolled back to his hooves and mimed the enormity of my supposed tossing and turning. Which was all the more since I couldn't remember what I'd dreamed. All that remained was a spark. I scrunched my brow as I tried to relive what my mind had conjured up. After a moment, I had little choice but to concede that the demons in my head were only fought and lost in my subconscious. A pity, really.
"So, you feeling any better?" Bright asked. He stood a tad too close and stared at me with intense focus. "You kind of lost it back in the study.
"How long was I gone?" I asked.
Bright shrugged. "Like an hour."
I sighed. "Yeah, I think I just needed a break. I ran into a crazy mare before I fell asleep. It certainly didn't help."
That was when I realized to whom I was speaking. I could feel the tree trunk at my back even as I backpedaled with all my might. My legs kicked up dirt as Bright realized what I'd said. I was doomed.
"A mare, you say, do tell Star."
He closed in for the kill. Once simple earnest contentment, his smile now a mad Cheshire grin that reached cheek to cheek.
"No, bad Bright Pitch. I did not mean like that, you twisted fiend."
Now, I was talking like one of his characters. Was this some dark magic? Had I been none too aware that even reality bent to the pin of this mad purveyor of literary might? It was impossible, had I been cast into the depths of Tartarus to be a slave to this, a friend turned deathcaller. What a twist.
"Was she cute?" Bright asked.
"No, not really, more like super intense."
I'd stopped kicking up a mess. The groundskeepers would be none too pleased.
"Oh, whatcha mean?" Bright asked, pulling back and falling to his haunches and watching me expectantly. One fluffy ear pointed up in enraptured intent.
"She was on Nightmare's elite or whatever. Rainbow something?"
Bright's jaw dropped. It was my turn to stare in surprise.
"You met the Rainboom, the fastest flyer in the Everfree?"
I could feel my forehead ache as I tried not to recoil at Bright's sudden volume. He was grinning, eyes sparkling in wonder. Writing a whole sonnet on his intrigue, if I had to guess.
"I mean, yes? I'm not sure what any of that meant, but I met the mare, yes." She said something about Rarity and thought I had weird eyes.
A light bulb lit up in my head as something strange tickled the back of my mind. "Wait, she was a pegasus. Doesn't that make her like second-best by default?"
Bright shook his head so hard it left me dizzy. "Of course not. Rainbow Dash is a legend around here. She managed to impress the queen so much that she jumped right to the top of the pecking order. In like, ten seconds flat."
"Oh, well, not sure I get that, but okay," I said and stretched. I took a second look to the heavens and then chinned back towards the gates. "We should probably get back."
Bright nodded and trotted away, not a care in the world. I owed Solemn an apology, if nothing else. I really needed to find a better outlet for all this pent-up frustration. Maybe something with crystals? I stopped mid-step and let that thought sit wide for examination. Why in the world did the word sit so heavy in my head. I was losing it, completely and utterly driven mad. I only stalled for a moment more before returning to my walk. The thought of crystals still harmonizes with the deepest depths of my mind.
"Come on, star, hurry up," Bright called from the gateway. The guards gave him serious side-eye as we waved me over.
"Yeah yeah, I'm coming." The question was, where was I going.