There were only a few more steps until Wish reached the top of the tower and the final destination of her father’s lab. Despite how much her heart was pounding, despite all the anticipation in her veins, she was shivering and shaking too. By the time she reached the last step and was standing right outside the door, her lip was quivering and a cold sweat had broken out over her entire body.
Why am I afraid? There’s nothing to worry about. Wish said to herself.
It was just her father in there after all. Her father who loved her and did everything he could to make her happy.
Her father who had the answers and reasons to everything going on in Hoofica.
Wish took her hoof and placed it on the door, ready to open it up and walk on in. She was sorry she had to leave Rainbow Dash behind, wherever the pegasus was now, but she couldn’t wait. Couldn’t lose this opportunity. In the end, she truly cared about her father more and the possibility of something bad happening to him by the end of the day because of what had happened in Hoofica… she couldn’t bear it. She needed to do this.
She needed his explanation so she could help him too.
She needed to know that everything had been for a good reason.
She needed to prove Rainbow Dash wrong.
A banging noise came from the stairs below and Wish flinched, but she was hardly about to go and investigate the source or whatever Vox was doing. Still, she found she couldn’t open the door just yet. Her heart was pounding too much and she felt the beginning signs of a headache. She wouldn’t be surprised if her nose started bleeding again—she just didn’t feel right. Waves of anxiety were creating a tumultuous storm inside her.
Wish closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself down. Nothing else going on right now mattered. It was fine. It was all fine.
She opened up the door and stepped inside to her father’s lab.
When Wish was six years old and living in Ashen Birch Thicket with just her father, she came home from school one day in a bad mood. The filly threw open the door and slammed it back shut, stomping with her book bag into the living room and tossing it on the floor before jumping onto the couch and frowning. She was alone in the room but not alone in the house.
“Wish? Is that you?” Her father’s voice came from his study.
The filly didn’t answer. She just grunted and furrowed her brow, staring down at the carpet.
In a second she heard the creaking sound of a chair being pushed out from under a desk and the familiar sound of her father walking down the small hallway to the living room. He appeared in the open entryway between the hall and the living room, quickly spotting her and raising an eyebrow.
“Did something happen at school?” He asked her.
Wish huffed and looked away.
An amused grin came to Dreamweaver’s face as he walked over and sat down on the couch with her. “Now there’s a look I’ve seen many times. What’s the matter? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything. Did you get in another fight?”
“No...” Wish muttered.
“Ah, a word. I’m making progress,” he chuckled.
“Hmpf...” Wish pouted.
“So what was it then? If not a fight I’m assuming some other sort of argument? You know I hate seeing you like this, Wish. Your smile and your happiness is the same as mine,” Dreamweaver said to her. “I know things have been tough the past year but I’m proud of how well you’ve done. Aside from a few of the fights.”
Wish’s angry frown morphed into a sad one. She bit her lip in shame and looked up at her father. “I’m sorry, dad.”
“You don’t need to apologize, my little darling. I just want you to tell me what’s wrong,” he patted her head.
Wish sighed and looked away—looking over at a small table that had a few family photos on it. “You know my classmate, Rock Buster?”
“I… believe so. Earth pony? Onyx mane and blue eyes?” Dreamweaver said.
“Yeah,” Wish nodded.
“What about him?” Dreamweaver asked.
“He has his Cutie Mark now. He came in to class this morning and showed it off to everypony. He’s the first one in the whole class to get his...” Wish sighed.
“I see… somewhat. My apologies, my darling, but why does this upset you so much?” He asked again.
“I don’t know!” Wish threw up her hooves and fell back against the couch cushions. “I don’t know why! I-It’s just… I got so mad when I saw it, and how he was so proud, and how proud he said his parents were. It was like, like, he was making fun of me, or teasing me, even though I know he didn’t mean to. But I felt so bad that I didn’t have my Cutie Mark yet like he did...”
“Wish, you really don’t need to feel that way. It’s not like you’re last in your class to get your Mark. Most ponies your age don’t have their Cutie Mark yet,” Dreamweaver tried to comfort her. “Hmm, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this issue is a little more complicated.”
“Well it’s… it’s just...” Wish grimaced and started wringing her hooves together.
“It reminds you of your mother. I know, Wish,” her father reached over to pull her in close to him and hugged her. “I know how much you wanted to one day show your mother your Cutie Mark. To see the look on her face… and I know how badly you still want to get it, to make her proud. But you needn’t fret, it will come one day. No matter what happens your mother will be happy for you. She loved you and she wouldn’t want to see you like this over something so trivial. Everypony gets their Cutie Mark someday. Don’t worry about it so much.”
“But if more of my classmates keep getting theirs and I never do...”
Dreamweaver turned her head and smiled at her, lovingly looking into her eyes. “You will, Wish. And I’ll throw you the best party when that happens and make sure you’re the happiest pony in the world. Don’t forget it.”
“I still miss her...” Wish murmured after a moment.
“I know, Wish. So do I,” Dreamweaver sighed. “The honest truth is that we’re both going to be missing her for the rest of our lives. But time does make it easier, take it from an adult.”
“Thank you...” Wish hugged him back and rested her head against his chest.
“No problem, my darling.”
Wish murmured and looked up at him. “Were you busy when I came home?”
He chuckled. “You don’t need to worry about bothering me when you’re feeling upset. And no, I was just reading a new volume on pony psychology. Have to keep up with the latest treatments and studies after all.”
“Okay...” Wish sighed and closed her eyes. She was tired, tired after school and this conversation.
“Do you want to take a nap?” Dreamweaver asked.
Wish frowned. “I’m six, not four.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, forgive me.”
“… I think I’d like to take a nap.”
Dreamweaver chuckled some more. “I thought so. Let’s get you to bed then. When you wake up I’ll have dinner prepared.”
“Chocolate cake?” She looked up at him with hopeful eyes.
“Definitely not.”
“Hmpf...” Wish pouted.
“How about if you can promise to be well-behaved at school for another week I’ll get you a great big chocolate cake from the baker’s, hm?” Dreamweaver bartered.
“Okay!” Wish happily replied.
“That’s my girl,” he tussled her mane. “But first, you really need that nap.”
He stood up from the couch and levitated the tired filly onto his back. Wish snuggled up against him and he carried her to her room. They didn’t have a big house, and her room was comparatively small as well, but it was still her room. Drawings from school practically covered the walls, and her own little desk that sat under the room’s back window was messy with art supplies. By her bed there was a little nightstand with an alarm clock and an old portrait of her, her father, and her mother standing together. All smiling.
An entire year had gone by since that day Wish came home and…
Her father had been away for a week, visiting some former patients of his and checking up on them to see how they were doing after his therapy sessions had concluded. And one day when Wish came home from school she had found her mother lying in the kitchen. She couldn’t even count how many times she had cried herself to sleep since then. Apparently it was a sudden sickness according to her father when he came back.
But Wish still had the memories and nightmares of screaming alone in her home and shaking her mother, begging her to wake up…
Sometimes she had to place that photo face down, though not lately.
It was so tough. She felt so empty for a long time, even with her father around and even with all the support she got from the rest of the town and her classmates. It was like she was stuck in a fog and didn’t think she could ever be happy again. Eventually though, while she hadn’t stopped being sad, she did eventually get out of the pure state of depression and sloth she had been in. Slowly things became easier to handle, and with her father’s love she could return to smiling and being able to feel happiness again.
Nothing would keep her from missing her mother though.
As her father placed her on her bed he looked over at her bookshelf and hummed. “Hmm… how would you like a short story before your nap?”
“Can I?” Wish asked with excitement and a smile on her face.
“Of course, I think it will help you sleep better anyways,” he said and walked over to the shelf, perusing its contents. “Now which one of these should I read?” He was looking at her collection of old children’s stories, books that were classics throughout the entire kingdom. “Ah! Found the perfect one.” With his magic he pulled out one particular book and walked back over to Wish’s bedside. “The Traveling Mice Family. This is your favorite, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” She brightly nodded. It was a fun story of a family of mice building a raft out of household items and traveling downriver with it. Her favorite part was when a catfish almost capsized their raft and they had to escape it while it tried to eat them.
It was just a fun story, she liked the adventures like that. Partially because she had rarely ever traveled anywhere herself so she liked reading about big escapades and journeys. There were a lot of other stories she had read like that but The Traveling Mice Family was still her favorite. Both her father and mother had read it to her plenty of times before bed.
“Good, I’m glad I remembered,” Dreamweaver smiled and grabbed a seat to sit down on while he prepared to read the story to Wish. “I hope you at least don’t have the full thing memorized do you? Perhaps for your next birthday I can buy you some new books.”
Wish shook her head. “I’m fine, you don’t need to do anything like that.”
In truth, if her father was going to get her anything for her birthday she wanted it to be more art supplies.
“Alright then, I suppose I should start reading if I want you asleep with enough time to prepare dinner before you wake up,” he said and opened up the book to its first page. “And so—In a small cottage by the winding blue snake river, there lived a family of mice below the stairs...”
At some point she fell asleep during the story but she couldn’t remember exactly when. When she woke up, she found herself tucked into her bed with the pillow fluffed up behind her. A glance to her nightstand showed the framed photograph of a happy family and Wish smiled back at it. Cozy. Warm. Her room, her house, it was all full of love. Wish threw the covers off herself and jumped out of bed, trotting out of her room and going down the hall to the kitchen.
When she reached it, the first thing she noticed was a slice of chocolate cake sitting on the table…
The first thing she noticed when she stepped into her father’s lab inside the tallest tower of Hoofica Castle—the tower that ominously loomed over the rest of the capitol—was the light pouring in from the windows. From the window that overlooked the interior courtyard and from the one that looked south over the city, sunlight was coming in and filling up the entire room.
Wish reached a hoof up to her neck even though she couldn’t actually tell if the black band was gone too, but the fact there was light outside meant Rainbow Dash and the others had at least succeeded at one thing.
The second thing she noticed… was that the curtain at the back of the lab had been taken down. And for the very first time she was seeing what it hid.
A massive and strange contraption—mostly a huge glass sphere—that took up the back of the room. Wires and electrodes that were currently sparking and dancing with weak streams of electricity also crawled up around it, and there was some kind of pipe at the bottom protruding from it with a valve just about at head height for her. Wish had no idea what she was really looking at. Was this what her father had been working on? Is it what the point of this was?
She had to assume yes, because what she did know, what she did most definitely recognize about it, was the churning black ooze that filled up the sphere. The black liquid from her nightmares. The black liquid that she had seen Vox drain out of Rainbow Dash.
Despair.
It moved and writhed around inside the sphere as if it was alive and a strangely cold sensation wormed its way up through Wish’s entire body as she looked at it. A freezing cold that penetrated deep into her very soul. Wish fought back a shiver and her eyes finally dropped to the pony standing in front of the strange contraption. When she did, she didn’t feel so cold anymore.
Her father. Standing there with a loving smile on his face, he was so happy to see her.
It made Wish smile too.
“Wish,” Dreamweaver said, lifting up a hoof and holding it out for her. “My darling daughter, I’m glad you could make it here. Please, come, I have much to tell you. It’s finally time.”
“Yes, father,” Wish said and walked towards him, reaching out to take his hoof.