It feels fitting that I’m finally wandering so close to the academy I fantasized about so much in my childhood. I imagine many unicorn foals do—admission to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns got you a prestigious education in an affluent city from the best minds in Equestria. Having a diploma from the School virtually guaranteed you a lucrative career in magic research or industry, possibly rubbing fetlocks with the princesses themselves. And that’s not even mentioning all of history’s legends who had found their beginnings there. Any pony across Equestria could aspire to it, from pampered noble children to forgotten ragamuffins. Tuition and living expenses were completely subsidized, see: Celestia wanted to cultivate the minds of all the brightest ponies across Equestria, not just those who had the means to pay.
That’s the narrative Celestia would like you to believe, anyway. Nopony mentions that the reason the School’s employment statistics are so good is because its graduation rate is so bad. If sixty percent of your students don’t make it past the second year, then sure, the ponies who remain are probably good employment material. For every graduate the School makes, it’s made three depressed dropouts with shattered self-esteem and poor career prospects—who wanted to hire a dropout, anyway? And of course, the School is still rooted in racism. The magic of every pony race deserves to be researched and edified, but in Equestria, only unicorn magic gets this treatment. The School accepts ponies from all races and is trying to rebrand itself to The Magic School, but those are more publicity stunts to appease the loudest protesters than actual attempts at inclusivity.
The School paints a nice image for itself from the outside, with the resplendent architecture and manicured botanical gardens you can see from here. It’s the only view most ponies will ever get, and it’s the only view that needs to be cultivated to look so holy. I scoff silently and spit a spark of magic in the School’s general direction. It crackles chaotically and disperses amid the magical eddies, leaving the air smelling slightly scorched.
Of course, if the Crown had offered me a contract at the School, I’d probably still have taken it—I have a debt to society to repay, however I do it. I wouldn’t have liked it, though. It’s painfully clear that whatever work is available at the School is nothing I’d be good at—as would most of the work available in Equestria, frankly. I’m really quite certain I don’t fit in Equestria . . . but obviously, Princess Twilight thinks it differently.
She’s been so incredibly helpful and generous to me since the war ended that it’s nearly nauseating. It’s the nature of a war’s victors to write their own future and dictate that of the losers. It’s not to let them go free and lend them your home when you didn’t have a life to return to. She went so very easy on me, letting me keep my title, my only real punishment for my actions to apologize to those whom I’ve wronged and to learn about friendship. It’s like she trusts me not to relapse more than I do myself. I don't understand it.
Her friends, too—I would have destroyed them all without a thought once upon a time, but they all still accepted me into their circle of friends so quickly, dare I say gullibly. I asked her why—I asked them all.
”I think everypony deserves a little kindness, don’t you?”
“Well, I simply couldn’t stand by and let something as delightfully bold as your armor go unaugmented, now could I?”
“Not sure, to be honest. But you’re takin’ responsibility for your past, and you’re genuine about it, even if it ain’t nice at all. That’s at least deserving of a second chance.”
“Fizzle. Pop. Berry. Twist! How could I not be friends with Fizzlepop Berrytwist?!”
“You sacrificed yourself to save us! If that’s not worthy of my friendship, I don’t know what is.”
“Equestria needs more friends, whoever they are and whatever they’ve done. It’s what makes ponykind strong. Trust me, I’d know! And I know you’ll be a great friend.”
Some of them were more helpful than others.
I glance at my saddlebags, my own cutie mark emblazoned on the side and Rarity’s signature embroidered on the pocket that holds the various good-luck charms gifted to me by my new . . . friends. I sigh. Silly and gullible they may be, it's thanks to them that I have another chance at life.
I am eminently aware of how many ponies would call me ungrateful for leaving Ponyville, for “looking a gift horse in the mouth,” as it were. But it is very difficult to explain to any Equestrian that being surrounded by that much optimism only makes it more likely I’ll get angry or frustrated. I know myself well enough: I tend not to do constructive things when angry. Of course, no place in Equestria is safe from Equestrian optimism, but a bigger city like Canterlot doesn’t have me feeling like I’m drowning in it.
And, if it should ever happen again that I can’t trust myself to keep others safe, they’ll be out of danger.
But even now, dozens of leagues away, the Princess can’t help but . . . help. Maybe I would have decided on Hollow Shades or Manehattan, but she was pretty insistent that I take an excursion to Canterlot before I explored anywhere else. I suppose I have her to thank for the contracting job I found with the Royal Guard here.
I don’t have her to thank for having me report to her brother, though. I’ve had enough dealings with Princess Twilight to smell princessly friendship meddling from miles away, and this job reeks. Tartarus, he’s an honorary Captain of the Royal Guard at this point—why would I be reporting to him? I suppose she would be the pony to provide gifts complete with fine print. Still, if there’s some friendship lesson Twilight or Armor wants to teach me while I’m here, I haven’t figured out what it is yet. I only talked to him once, and he was blessedly professional: the only thing he did was brief on the details of my contract. Benign enough: review the border security training protocol in the Royal Guard training program, and advise a better one.
Heh. Given how easy Equestria was for me to invade the first time, they need my expertise.
I head back to the place I’m staying, saddlebags full of boring documentation for me to review before I can get to the interesting stuff. My flat’s a simple place in one of the seedier parts of Canterlot. I’m not averse to dangerous places or belligerent ponies, and the hardest Equestria ever seems to get is turgid bubble wrap. The contract gives me a flat allowance for living expenses, so I just skimped on housing and bagged the rest. And if anypony did decide I was a nice target . . . well, I could use the distraction.
The path back does go through the rich part of the city, though. The School, Canterlot’s Botanical Gardens, Friendship Square, the Royal Airship Docks . . . Canterlot has plenty of docks, most in the more industrial areas—the reason this one is here is because it ports the most important foreign civilian and military airships, generally those given clearance by the Crown itself for diplomatic envoys and treaty negotiation. (Ask me how I know that.) It’s nearly always empty given its specific clientele, which makes it especially interesting that there happens to be a ship in the mooring now.
I step onto the docks, curious. The deck is made of varnished teak polished so fastidiously I can see my reflection in the wood. Encircling the deck are a multitude of flag posts proudly displaying the flags of the nations allied with Equestria, Equestria’s own flag on the highest post in the center. Opposite the mooring stands the first thing any diplomat would see upon arriving in Equestria: a large marble statue depicting all four Princesses, polished to the same finish as the deck. Princess Twilight looks far more regal on the statue than I’ve ever seen her walking about Ponyville—she always made it a point to drop her royal pretenses among friends.
I turn my attention to the ship in the mooring. It’s a white and gold affair with rainbow-colored sails. It’s not flying a flag, but I’d bet by its colors that it’s an Equestrian ship—which makes it doubly strange that it’s ported in the dock reserved for foreigners. There’s a fair number of cannons and armaments aboard, probably enough to rival the Storm King’s usual birds—when they still existed, at least. Military, then—a captured ship, perhaps?
I hear a feminine voice call out from her decks. “We’ve dropped anchor!” it says. “Lix, drop the portside ladder. Boyle, have you finished inventory on our haul?” She mumbles something to a figure I can’t identify, heavyset like a minotaur. “Alright, finish up then. Nice work, crew. We have a few days here before we set sail again, so feel free to take in the sights. The time is yours. The post office is a block away if you have letters waiting for you. Squabble, buddy up with Boyle if you’re heading off the ship. I don’t want you to get lost again. Dropping!”
A ladder drops onto the decks of the dock, and a moment later, a figure comes sliding down the ropes, not bothering with the rungs. I hear a thump as it lands on the wooden deck.
She’s a parrot, tall and pale, wearing a metal breastplate and what looks like a war skirt of waxed canvas, neither of which would repel more than a spitball. On her hip is a sword and scabbard. One of her legs has been replaced by a wooden pegleg, polished to nearly as high a finish as the deck. Her presentation suggests “parade uniform” more than anything functional. So . . . what I have is a parrot in parade uniform on a domestic ship in a foreign port. Who in Tartarus is—
We lock eyes. Parrots were rare enough as is in my travels, and I definitely know this one . . .
”I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t tell me where they are, your ship is going down.” I was already all but certain the ship had the pony princess, but surrender tended to be less messy than conquest, and this parrot didn’t seem the obstinate type. But when I saw her lowering her head and gripping her sword as I made good on the countdown, I changed my mind. If she was going to be so foolish as to challenge me, I’d just have to show her that loyal Storm King subjects didn’t make empty threats.
That’s when I heard screams from under the main deck. Pony screams.
I narrowed my eyes and frowned. I sent my lackeys to check the cargo hold while I continued to observe the parrot on deck in case she did anything unwise. She was the crew’s leader, certainly, but not a very self-assured or honest one if facial expressions were anything to go by: I could tell she was relieved the ponies escaped. And that she feared what I might do when I found out. I hid a smirk. At least she got that part right.
I looked at the crudely-drawn map Grubber found and presented to me. “Looks like they’re heading to Mount Aris,” I mused. Not that I believed they were headed for Black Skull Island in the first place, but a paper trail was always nice to cover my rump in case the Storm King asked about the amount of blood I left behind. Then again, he never did. As far as he was concerned, broken hulls and burned feathers were expected collateral damage.
“Now, about your betrayal. . .”
I charged my horn with magic, letting it spark and sputter threateningly as it always did. I had very little control of my magic once it reached my horn since I lacked a tip to direct it. It would only concentrate at one of the many jagged ends of my horn, escape as a lance of formless energy, and explode whatever it touched. I could barely lift a piece of parchment without incinerating it, so nebulous was my control. Any bitterness and anger I felt only made the problem worse. My magic was useless at everything, save destruction.
I reared up and launched my magic at the cargo on the main deck. I didn’t suppress my anger when casting this “spell”—I let it redden my mind. Anger at the ponies, the parrot, the cat, myself—it all fed into my magic. The lightning jumped hungrily to the ship’s figurehead, then the mizzenmast, leaving char and splinters in its wake. My magic when released was a beast that answered only to itself—all I could do was feed it. It grew ever more eager as I did, encircling the ship with skeins of lightning, licking its envelope.
This was what my magic had become. I couldn’t write with my horn. I couldn’t lift a stupid playground ball without it bursting into flame. I couldn’t even really call myself a unicorn anymore.
If destruction was the only thing I was any good at, then I would be the best.
To be honest, I didn’t think I would see her—or any of them—again. The parrot seems to recognize me at the same time I her.
“Tempest,” she growls, so softly I can barely hear it. She puts a claw on the pommel of her sword.
I respond by lowering my head and charging my horn just enough to make it glow with energy but not so much that it escapes. I see her grip her sword more tightly in response. The rest of the world fades away as I study my adversary, alert to anything that would betray her next move. My armor is strong enough to repel any strike to the torso, so if she would strike, she’d have to aim for the head to truly threaten me. Her sword is not drawn, so her fastest strike would be crosswise at the neck or a draw cut upwards through—
“Something the matter?”
I flinch, my ear twitching and my eyes flicking to identify the voice. The parrot doesn’t.
In that moment, we both relax. She releases her grip on her sword and returns an easier posture, and I let the energy in my horn dissipate. I curse inwardly—had the fight begun, I would have started off with the disadvantage, and we both knew it. Split-seconds matter in duels with deadly weapons. I might have been able to dodge the first strike, but she would have the tempo until I got enough breathing room to strike back. I can’t remember the last time I’ve lapsed like that.
I turn to the voice. Captain Shining Armor, looking at me unimpressed. Nice—I’ve already broken my promise and given ponies reason to fear me again. I also did it to a foreign dignitary in front of my superior.
“I trust you don’t have an argument with Captain Celaeno. It’s all water under the bridge—we are friends now, right?”
. . . And now I’ll be lucky if I get away with only a dismissal. I look back at the parrot—Captain Celaeno. She looks back at me as before, her eyes inscrutable. Whatever the case, I know I can’t win this one. “Yeah,” I murmur, averting my eyes.*
“Captain, your leave?” Shining Armor says.
The silence stretches on uncomfortably.
“Do you . . . want to get a coffee or something?”
I look up at Captain Celaeno, not quite believing what she just said. She’s drumming her talons against her scabbard, otherwise looking indifferent. We just nearly tried to kill each other, and now she’s offering me coffee? A million semi-graceful excuses come to mind: “I’ve a train to catch,” “I have paperwork to study,” “That building is on fire and I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” things like that.
Captain Shining Armor nudges me in a way too practiced to be anything but rehearsed. Get to know her a little.
Oh, you little—Princess Twilight Sparkle, I will exact my revenge upon you one day.
Once again, the ponies of Equestria surprise me with how simultaneously forgiving and naïve they are. Apparently, Captain Shining Armor (and Princess Twilight, by extension) is not only letting me keep my job, but he trusts me enough to leave me alone with Captain Celaeno at a café with other civilians.
The café is typical Canterlot fare—offering plenty of outdoor seating (which we’re partaking in) and selling overpriced beverages and pastries. We drew eyes the moment we entered, she the only parrot, me the only. . . pony who tried to subjugate the nation not long ago. The staff was a bit better, behaving professionally for the most part, only shooting me fearful or suspicious glances when they thought I wasn’t looking.
We sit across from each other, a single estate coffee in front of her, and a black tea in front of me. Neither of us has touched our mugs, and aside from a few terse words to our barista, neither of us has breached conversation. If that’s what we’re supposed to be doing now.
The void between us is filled only by the sounds of the café patrons blissfully ignorant of the war games being played under their muzzles.
I look at the Captain across from me. I can only read her as being a touch nervous, and I have to quell my instinct to call it a weakness—now is not the time or place to be having those thoughts. Her sword and sheath are leaning against the chair she’s sitting on, no longer united with her body. It’s a sign of respect to not have weapons ready when among civilians, but the truce is precarious. Her sword is still within reach, and I know as well as she does how quickly one can draw a sword even when not worn.
“So . . . what are you doing in Canterlot, Tempest?” Captain Celaeno says, making the first move.
I consider what kind of answer I need to give her until I remember that, remarkably, I have nothing to hide. There’s no point in conjuring a façade if there’s nothing for me to gain by it. It makes no difference anymore what my not-enemy does or doesn’t know. With a mental shrug, I say, “Consulting. The Royal Guard wants a more comprehensive training program and a stronger border security component. Princess Twilight thought I had some expertise in this field, so she asked me to go to Canterlot and recommended this job for me.”
The Captain nods, saying nothing.
. . .
Riveting conversation. The branches of the maple overlooking our table creak in boredom.
She picks up her coffee in a talon and sips at it. I mirror her, reaching out with both hooves to cradle my mug between my soles and breast and carefully bring it to my muzzle, just managing not to bobble it. My eyes glance over the cup to meet the Captain’s. I catch her eyes on me for a moment before she looks away.
Now I regret ordering anything at all. Even she can pick up on the abnormality. It’s not like unicorns were built to handle things with their hooves—they have a horn for a reason. Earth ponies don’t have prehensile appendages like pegasi, but they do have skeins of magic that run through their hooves and grant them a whole host of benefits, the least of which the ability to manipulate things with their hooves more easily. A unicorn wouldn’t have those skeins any more than an earth pony had a horn, and it’s not like severing my horn made me an earth pony. When it comes to even basic everyday interactions, like picking up a stupid cup, I have nothing to work with.
I put the cup down carefully, rolling my hooves inwards so my walls are touching it. Hoof walls are less grippy than the soles, so I pinch the mug tighter to avoid it slipping. It’s only like this that I can return the cup to the table without dropping it the final distance. I watch her still as she pretends not to notice, my temper smoldering silently behind my eyes. This bird doesn’t know what it feels like to need put effort into every little motion you make.
I can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking, but it can’t be anything I want to talk about. Time to change the subject. “And what brings you here?” I ask, keeping my temper away from my voice and probing for a way to get the spotlight off me.
She takes the bait. She rubs the back of her neck and toys with one of her crest feathers. “Same as you, in a way. I was hired by Princess Celestia to curb the counterfeit goods trade. What better way to combat pirates than with pirates, right? We board their ships, take the goods, and return them to Canterlot for cataloguing and destruction. Apparently, Equestria doesn’t do prisons, so we let the pirates go.” She makes a face, and I nearly scowl at the audacity. “Of course, the boarding is more difficult given Equestrian airships don’t traditionally have grappling guns. Our old Rainfire did—she had everything.”
I don’t have long to wonder what she’s referring to. She puts her claw back on the table and stares at me through narrowed eyes. “Of course, you’d know what happened to her.”
There it is. I knew our chat would lead to a reckoning—and Captain Celaeno wasted no time in bringing it up. Two naval officers formerly on opposing sides meet each other for coffee: it sounds like a misguided joke, and almost every punchline ends with only one of them leaving. I glance at her sword again.
You’re not here to start quarrels, I remind myself. Everypony can be made a friend if you approach them with an open mind and speak from the heart. Those words aren’t mine. But I also know that I owe my life, quite literally, to the one who spoke them to me.
The real world isn’t so pure that it’s made of dreams and love and friendship—it only pretends that it is to little foals who haven’t seen beyond the gilded gates. I was rudely thrown to the other side years ago. Princess Twilight is overly optimistic and terribly trusting, but I know she’s no foal. She’s seen the darkness—she saw mine. And she pulled me out of it with the same foolish dreams and love and friendship I forsook a long time ago.
My hoof had no grip. It never did. I knew I was lost the moment I was thrown over the railing and had only a barren hoof to arrest me, one I felt slipping at every instant it could find. Time slowed as my life flashed before my eyes, showing me everything I’d ever done, the bad and the worse. Over a decade of my life spent trying to fix the damage caused by a single moment—my hopes destroyed again by another. My eyes were fixed so firmly forward I didn’t stop to think whether the carrot was real or not. Now the world was ending by my hoof and I was powerless to stop it.
I’m not so blind that I don’t know how many enemies I’ve made with my actions. I’m not so naïve as to believe I’m only a victim of circumstance. But I wouldn’t have chosen this if there was an easier way to get my life back. The Storm King convinced me there wasn’t. Whether or not he was true, I knew I wouldn’t have a chance to learn from my mistake. As I felt my hoof slip for the last time, I clenched my eyes shut, silently praying to the gods above that they saw something redeemable in my soul.
“Hold on!” a voice cries.
I expected to feel my body dashed against the ground and eviscerated by debris. I didn’t expect my hoof caught by two others, holding me fast against the tempest that licked at my feet. I opened my eyes and sawher, the pony who had caused me so much grief. I wanted to hate her for blinding herself to bitter reality and for impeding my mission. I tried to hate her.
I couldn’t muster the will for it—my hate stemmed from the fact my life’s path destined her to be in my way. But what is it now with the Storm King destroying any hope I wanted to find at the end of the road? She was blocking a path I never needed to walk. Hate is a comfort, hate is familiar, and I wanted to hate her so much.
“Why are you saving me?” I asked, lost. She was my enemy, and I was hers. My enemy had me at her mercy, my life in her hooves, eyes locked on me . . . and there wasn’t a trace of anger in them. Then she spoke.
Once upon a time, a pony lost everything and spent the rest of her life breeding herself for war to try to get her life back. Then she lost the only thing that gave her a direction or semblance of scruple. When you can look that pony in the eye and change their mind with nothing more than companionable words and a helping hoof . . . that is true power. I’d be a fool not to respect it.
I take a deep breath and let it out, trying to cool my ire and ignore the part of my mind that would lash out at disrespect. The Captain has every reason to hate me for destroying her ship. I don’t have a reason to perpetuate that hate. I no longer have an argument with her. The war is over, and I lost.
“I’m . . . sorry,” I say, managing not to trip on the word. Commander Tempest Shadow doesn’t apologize, but I’m not really her anymore, am I? She died when the Storm King betrayed her. She died when she was swept away in his hurricane. I look at the Captain, unflinching. “You don’t have to believe me, but I truly am. I know I’ve caused a lot of pain to many when I was serving the Storm King, and much of that pain can’t be erased. All I can do is apologize for it and help rebuild.”
The Captain’s eyes widen, apparently not expecting an apology from me. I continue. “I don’t know if you would care to know, and I don’t know if it helps, but I didn’t destroy your ship because I wanted to take over the world. That wasn’t my ambition, and it never was. I was the Storm King’s servant, and I carried out his will. I . . .” I light my horn and direct a tendril of magic at my cup of tea, not entirely sure if I actually wanted the tea. It’s enveloped in ethereal sparks and vibrates in response but doesn’t lift off the table. I feel like it will crack if I put any more energy into the spell, so I stop trying. I’m too defeated to feel embarrassed. “I had my reasons.”
I pick up the cup and wet my throat the manual way. “It’s not an excuse for what I did. But it’s why.”
It is why. It was always why.
After a few moments to collect herself, the Captain rubbed the back of her neck and clucked her beak a few times. “I’m actually not so much upset about the ship—well, I am, a bit—more that it was over a bowshot above ground, with all my crew and several guests onboard, and you still chose to sink it.” She stops and looks at me sidelong, expression only slightly softer than it was before. “If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s the well-being of my crew. If you had caused a single casualty that day, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
I can’t say I wasn’t expecting to be grilled like this, but my pride didn’t appreciate it either way. I’ve spent too long being a top-rank commanding officer who took no horsefeathers from anypony, save the Storm King. I calm myself—again. “Again, I’m sorry. I did it for myself; I wouldn’t have caused such violence if there was an easier way. It’s only in hindsight that I can say that the means don’t justify the end.” If there was ever any end to begin with. “I’m glad that none of your crew were hurt from my actions.”
Feeling slightly nauseous at the unfamiliar words I’m spouting, I again recall how the Princess advised me when confronted with my own experiences. Don’t stay stuck in the past, she said, and don’t dwell too much in the present. Look to the future so we can build a brighter one for everypony. There’s some part of me that’s unimpressed with how maxim-like the Princess tried to make her advice—she always made it a point to be informal, so why was her advice so affected?
“Is there anything I can do to help? Anything your—ahem—current ship has need of? I don’t have magic—nothing that would be useful—but I have a fair hoof in construction.” Particularly in war armaments, but I choose not to mention that part.
Captain Celaeno thinks for a moment. “Probably not. The ship’s on loan from Equestria’s Royal Fleet until we can have another one built, and there’s only so much I can do right now with a ship I don’t own. I met some Manehattan shipwrights willing to take a blueprint for me.” She smiled wryly. “They’re eager to get an ‘in’ by completing a royal commission. Princess Twilight’s funding the construction as a gesture of goodwill.” She pauses. “But . . . thanks for offering,” she says suspiciously, as if preparing for the other horseshoe to drop.
“I’ll be in Canterlot for at least the next few months, so the offer still stands.” I guess I’m also adopting the Princess Twilight Technique of countering challenge by flooding it with positivity.
The Captain continues to eye me, trying to read something in my expression or body language. I just summon my hooves and take another debasing sip of tea, holding her eyes the entire time and resisting the urge to groan. “I’m not blind, Captain. I know you’re waiting for me to slip, but I have nothing to let slip, whether you believe it or not. Princess Twilight herself spent a good few months rehabilitating me after the war, and you know how . . .” I spin my hoof, trying to find the right word to describe her and finding only one. “. . . friendly she is. I only barely survived.”
The Captain cracks a smile at that and lets out a chuckle. “That she is. There’s only one crew of ponies I know that could upend a ship’s bearing with a song about, eh, ‘awesomeness.’” The mirth fades, and she’s silent again for a time, studying me only a bit less intensely. Finally, she relents and sighs. “Alright. If there’s one pony who can work miracles, it’s her, and I can tell you’re at least . . . evolved from the pony who endangered my crew. I still can’t forgive what you did to them, but . . . I understand.”
I take another sip of tea to hide my sneer. I want to let it go, I really do. This was as close as I was going to get to an accepted apology. I should just shake hooves and leave on semi-amiable terms. Report to Captain Armor that we worked things out. But the part of my mind that hates disrespect, it particularly despises vain attempts at empathy. If it were the Princess who slighted me, I’d soften my words or swallow them completely to preserve our friendship. Maybe bring it up during our evening confessionals. But Captain Celaeno is not a friend.
I shift and narrow my eyes. “No, I don’t think you do.”
Captain Celaeno only raises a brow, prompting me to continue.
I snort derisively. I don’t think you realize that you’re no longer in control of this conversation. I consider giving her the abridged story, the one I can say in a few sentences to get someone to shut up. But she asked for it—and it’ll drive home the point. “Hmph. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Twelve years ago. It was just an innocuous playground game. I went into an Ursa Major’s cave chasing a bouncing ball, and I came out without a horn. I’m sure you’ve heard the story..” I spark my stump for emphasis. “Equestria’s press wanted a story behind its most recent, well, reformation. But there's a lot more they never print.
“It . . . hurt, I suppose. I think I fainted as soon as I ran far enough away and the adrenaline stopped. I woke up in Canterlot General Hospital in a lot of pain. Still in a haze, I asked the nurses what happened; they told me I had been out for two days. They patched up my face pretty quickly, and they saved my eye . . . to their credit.” I can’t help but let a bit of acid through on saying that. “Then I asked about my horn, of course. I had hoped I might have surgical reconstruction or reattachment, and everything would be back to normal. But the nurses didn’t answer and just called my doctors in. What they said was that the horn was an anatomy too complicated for them to modify—no horn repair procedure had ever been successful. There was nothing they could do except observe me while I . . . recovered from my involuntary amputation. And then—” I narrow my eyes, and Captain Celaeno shrinks back and raises a claw as if in defense “—then they gave me the broken piece of my horn in a bottle like some cheap souvenir,” I say, words dripping in vitriol.
I can tell the Captain wants to say something, but she thinks better of it and shuts up. I sigh—or hiss—and regather myself to continue the narrative.
“It didn’t feel like I was recovering. I had these splitting headaches, light sensitivity, debilitating nausea . . . The doctors, the nurses, they all said it was part of the recovery process. Traumatic head injury and thauma interruption caused all sorts of problems, they said. I just had to ride it out until my body got used to the injury and found a new normal. They could only help with pain but couldn’t speed my recovery.
“Day two, electric pain shooting through my legs. Day three, my mane began shedding. Day four, I lost feeling on the left side of my face. Day five . . . I can’t even remember all the things that happened, and I don’t think you’d care to listen. I just know I made it up to eleven when, for the first time, I woke up not afraid of what would happen to me next. Maybe I was defeated at that point, maybe the pain medication was finally doing in my mind. I just didn’t care anymore. But that was also the day a new doctor came into my room. Dr. Feels, he called himself, a geneticist at Canterlot General. He said he needed to monitor my heart to make sure that it was recovering from the accident.
“I might have smelled something; of all the things happening to me, nothing was happening to my heart: not racing, not fluttering. But I figured the doctor knew best—maybe he knew something I didn’t. And I wasn’t invested enough to protest. He shaved a few patches of fur, attached leads to my exposed skin, rolled in a big machine, and he just recorded things for a few hours. Didn’t say a word except to remind me to stay still—poorest bedside manner I’d seen in any doctor. I already didn’t like him.
“The next day, he came in again. This time he wanted to assess ‘neuromuscular reflex ataxia,’” I say while air-quoting. “It’s nonsense, but I didn’t know that back then. He attached some new leads to the same places, and he gave me electric shocks. Not hard, but certainly hard enough to hurt a filly. I complained, I cried, I wanted it to stop. But he still said it was ‘to properly monitor my recovery.’ He didn’t stop.
“Every day, he or one of his colleagues came in to run some other battery of tests, quoting some medical jargon I didn’t understand and an opaque explanation for how it had to do with my recovery. I still don’t know half of what they did. But they were doing all these things to a filly, and even back then, I didn’t have a lot of patience, especially when Dr. Feels wouldn’t give me the answers I wanted. ‘What’s wrong with me, why does it hurt here, can you stop doing that, can I go home, can I go home.’ Ironic name, isn’t it?”
I let out a half-growl-half-sigh. “But he was wearing a lab coat. Always trust the pony in the lab coat. I could strangle him with it . . .”
I reel myself in before my mind reasons exactly how I would choke him. “I lost count of the days, but the records tell me it was twenty-five. Most of the nasty stuff was over by then—my mane was starting to grow back, I just managed to keep down food, the headaches were a little more bearable. I felt like I was recovering. Then I made the mistake of . . . telling Dr. Feels how I felt.” My words drip with sarcasm. “That made him interested.
“He rolled in the heart machine again. He rolled in that stupid electric shock machine again. He repeated all his tests again. ‘Your recovery is coming along nicely,’ he said. ‘Let me just make sure you’ll all set and ready to go.’ Still so gullible, I actually believed that he was preparing me for discharge. Any idiot could tell you it doesn’t take eight days to prepare any patient for discharge. It almost certainly would have been longer than that had I not caught onto his ruse.
“Eventually, finally, I acted, seven and a half days too late. Dr. Feels was sticking things into my ears, checking my balance or somesuch. He made me dizzy several times with his ‘testing,’ and after the fourth time, I had had enough. I don’t remember everything that happened. I just shouted for him to stop and felt a red-hot lance of anger come out my horn. I wasn’t trying to do anything, but when I opened my eyes, the machine was on the other side of the room, smoking. Needless to say, he hastened my discharge after that.”
How the times have changed. The red-hot of anger I felt that day soon became a smoldering ember, one I’ve kept alive ever since. A misplaced word, a modicum of disrespect, an enemy I thought long gone, all easily enough to relight the ember into an inferno. Princess Twilight tried to coach me to use less chaotic forms of magic. It didn’t work.
I take a sip of tea again, simmering. “And again, I thought I’d finally be happy when I got out of that accursed place. The moment I tried to step out of the ward, I discovered how difficult everything in Canterlot was without magic. You probably noticed all the ‘pull’ doors around with no knob?” Captain Celaeno nods, scowling. “It’s a unicorn thing. Why bother with physical mechanisms when unicorns never touch doors, anyway? Better to just leave the door simple and use magic signature detection if the door needs to be locked. I’ve only ever seen accessibility taken seriously at the visitors’ center. I might have spent ten minutes just trying to open the stupid door. And nopony ever stepped forward to even lend a horn—a functional horn.”
My mind turns to all the others, every other pony who through action or inaction forsook that filly. “And then there were my friends—former friends. The ones with me before I ran into the cave. We all once wanted to attend the School for Gifted Unicorns—it’s how we first bonded.” I trace my hoof against the lines of the table. “They never visited me in hospital. Thirty-two days of solitude and they never thought to stop by for five minutes. They didn’t know how I had got on until I ran into them again.
“I thought . . . I thought I could forgive them. Naively, I thought if I just pretended nothing had changed, I could put everything behind me.” I silently study the knots and spirals. “The last time I ever made that mistake. They treated me like a monster as soon as I tried to fit in, tried to play the same game again. They screamed. They ran.†
“Things—lots of things—might have been very different if they had reconciled with me or I with them. The innocence of youth only means you don’t grasp the full consequence of betrayal until you mature into its aftermath. As it was, it was possibly the lowest moment of my life. I had just emerged from endless isolation at the hooves of a doctor who barely cared about me, only to find the world I was in had moved on without me. I was on my own, again.
The ember of anger in my heart roars to life, and it begs to kill, to destroy. My magic sputters spontaneously, refusing to silence itself. I pick up a napkin in my magic, watching the rampant energy of my aura lick the paper and start scorching the corners. The itch dies down, but only a little. “Then the paper was published,” I say, and the napkin suddenly vanishes in a pool of liquid fire. When my magic is sated enough to stop pouring out of my horn, there’s nothing left except a tiny pile of embers starting to blacken the wood of the table.
“Paper?” Captain Celaeno asks.
“Effects of Catastrophic Fulminant Athaumaticism in a Unicorn Adolescent: A Case Study.” I recite perfunctorily, bitterly. “About an ‘anonymous’ twelve-year-old patient. Written by one Genome J. Feels.‡ It’s a shame he never told me about it.
“The paper was quite . . . informative. I don’t know how much you know about pony biology, but the magic in us is a substance critical as blood. It protects against degeneration; it moves energy around the body; we can’t survive without it. A unicorn’s horn is not just the conduit, but the source of their magic—destroy the horn, and you destroy the source. I was actually the first surviving case the doctors had seen of that happening, hence why I was a case study. Most die immediately or the next day when their magic reserves run dry. The doctors found it remarkable I made it to day three. That’s why they tested me to no end: they wanted data for their paper. And that’s why they gave me ice cream—they didn’t expect I’d be around long enough for that to matter.” My eyes flash, and even the pile of ashes on the table starts to burn again. It’s only because I chose something as small as a napkin to that it’s the only thing burning.
Captain Celaeno shuffles about uncomfortably. I continue.
“It turns out that what was left of my horn was actually still making some form of magic, but it was so chaotic it more resembled the unconstrained magics of nature than anything equine. That magic was enough for my body to adapt to and accept to some degree, but ponies aren’t built to accept wild magic long-term. Those who spend their whole lives in the wilderness away from others tend to have rather short ones, succumbing to degenerative disorders. It happens almost every time. The doctors didn’t know when I would deteriorate specifically, only that it was inevitable that I would. And they were examining my organs for signs of it.” I scoff. “Of course, none of them ever told me any of this at the time—I was too young to know, apparently. They published the paper when I was ‘lost to follow-up.’
“I snuck into Canterlot’s Royal Library and stole the journal this was published in—my first real crime against Equestria. The ponies who wrote the paper are retired now—most of them got off with a broken muzzle, though the PI ended up in hospital with burns all along his body.” I allow myself a dark snicker. “No idea how that happened.” It probably wasn’t in my best interest to admit to doing these things, but writing ‘petty theft’ and ‘assault’ on my criminal record wouldn’t be worth the space it took away from the ‘high treason’ charges already on it.
“That’s when I left Equestria. It’s only on losing my horn that I discovered how much it enabled. It gets you friends; it defines your identity; it lets you do things. No longer being a pony of any race means no longer having an identity, as far as Equestria was concerned. There was nothing left for me there except a dream long dead, friends who didn’t give a whit about who I had become, and ponies who thought my only remaining purpose in life was to be a science experiment. If I had any hope of living a normal life—if I wanted to be a pony again—I needed my horn back. And if Equestria told me there was no solution, I’d find it myself. They were wrong when they said I wouldn’t make it past day three—they would be wrong again.
“So I wandered. I searched for leads. Being the first to survive a condition means needing to theorize your own cure. There’s no information about it—the Royal Library is supposed to be Equestria’s center of knowledge, and my own damn paper is the bleeding edge of this field. So all I thought was that if a unicorn losing their horn and surviving was so rare, it would take an item of commensurate power to restore it. A hunch at best—but I did notice that my magic, wild as it was, behaved differently when close to magical artifacts. It was the only lead I had.
“There were a couple promising hits. I thought the Alicorn Amulet might have helped, until I discovered it stolen before I had the chance to steal it myself. The Stream of Silence sounded interesting owing to its fantastic descriptions in stories, but—‘found in the land of chimeric kirin in a misty mountain pass’—almost certainly just a legend. Then I came across the Staff of Sacanas and what it would take to activate it. And . . .”
Invasion. Pursuit. Betrayal. What kind of pony does it take to have the stomach for those things? A pony who isn’t Equestrian, despite what the Princess will say. Fizzlepop Berrytwist was one, a fresh-eyed filly who still believed the goodness of the world would keep her safe. She died when Equestria said she wouldn’t help one of her own. She became a conqueror of nations and a slayer of monarchs instead, one not just tired of being wronged but eager to use the power she found herself to make it right.
And there she goes . . . I was born Fizzlepop but chose to forsake that name when I found it too innocent for the world I found myself in. I became Tempest Shadow but forsook it again when I was shown every atrocity I’d ever done and realized I would have nothing to show for it.
So who am I?
I lose my desire to continue the story. The smoldering napkin on the table extinguishes itself completely.§
“. . . you know the rest,” I mumble.
We sit in silence for a time as Celaeno digests the story and I stare at my tea, pretending to still be interested in it. I blame her for where this conversation went. I never planned on revealing so much about myself, and I certainly didn’t plan on this leading to reconsidering my identity.
“Wow.”
I grunt. “Is that all you have to say?”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once. Your story is definitely a lot more complicated than I read it for at first, and I’m sorry about that. If you don’t mind me asking, are you actually . . .” She gestures vaguely at my horn.
“Terminal? Yeah,” I murmur, guessing at the question. “Could be tomorrow, could be in ten years. I’ve made it this long, but that says nothing about how much longer I have. The doctors didn’t know, so how should I?”
“Did you talk to the Princess at all while you were with her? Surely, in all this time, someone has come up with something.”
“Of course I have. She’s still investigating.” Those are the words Princess Twilight said to me, but I’m suspicious she may already know the answer. She has the most powerful connections in Equestria, not to mention being exceptionally bright herself; if anypony in the nation knew how to restore my horn, she would already know.
My stomach drops, and I feel myself swallow bile. For as much as I’ve changed since my formative and not-so-formative years—I have a job and friends now—the cause of every pain I’ve ever had still sits proud on my head, and it reminds me of the futility of everything I’ve ever done or will do. The Princess must know too, and it’s probably why she hasn’t given me a straight answer yet. She’s afraid of what I’ll do when I know. In a way, so am I.
I had always known the power of friendship to be silly—there’s no ability or influence one gained from putting blind trust in another or having a circle of “friends” who pooled their naïveté for no purpose but to not benefit oneself. And yet I had witnessed said circle exhibit such implicit teamwork and trust that they prevailed against an unrepentant traitor who wielded the most powerful weapon I’d ever known.
I didn’t understand it; I didn’t think I’d ever understand where friendship’s power came from. I could only respect that it did far more than I could, and I know when I am defeated. So I turned to walk away.
The next seconds happened quickly and slowly. I saw that cursed Storm King emerge, unbeknownst to everyone except me. I saw him throw the petrifying projectile, the same one I wielded exactly because the curse it contained was so black even an alicorn could not repel it. And I saw myself jump, shout, and nullify the curse in the only way I knew possible—by having it find a target.
The cold crawled horribly. It was not the cold of winter; this cold crawled along the body, numbing everything it passed and finding more to infect until there was nothing left. It would find my mind soon, I knew. It was only in the precious seconds of catharsis I had that I thought about why I did it.
I wanted a world where my horn was restored and my body whole, but it was a façade painted by the idiot in front of me. Princess Twilight had her way and restored her world, a better one, but one I could never be a part of. I knew what it meant to be irredeemable. Even if I wasn’t, this world wouldn’t have what I needed.
I was well familiar with working against the clock, for expediting invasions and wasting none of the time I didn’t have. The Storm King liked how I never stood idle. Now all I had was the clock; I was back at square one with nothing but many years of wasted time. What was the point if that was all I had?
At least this way, my life would have some meaning. The cold finally closed on me, and it came with contentment. My eyes locked eternally on my traitor, and as they glass over as well, I knew I’d taken my revenge.
My horn is the one thing that ties Fizzlepop and Tempest together. For whatever I wanted my life to be, I wouldn’t have the chance to figure it out if I didn’t have a life.
“I’m . . . sorry,” Captain Celaeno says, her voice not just lacking the edge it had before, but softer than I’d yet heard it. “For your friends. Career. Everything you’ve had to go through.” Her claw is sitting halfway across the table. I can’t tell whether she’s offering it to me.
Whatever the case, I don’t take it. Shaking myself out of my weakness and returning the easy steel to my expression, I return to the point at hoof. “I don’t delude myself into thinking I wasn’t a villain or didn’t do terrible things. But I had my reasons.” Then a touch of acerbity returns, too. “Do you see now, Celaeno? Do you understand?”
She takes back her claw and looks down at her coffee. She idly stirs it with a talon. “I think I do. More than you know,” she says quietly.
Were it not for the conversation we’d just had, I might have lashed out at her then and there. Those are fighting words, but the Captain is clearly not in a fighting mood. If she noticed my rise, she didn’t show it. Her eyes are downcast, almost melancholy. “Yes?” I say, more aggressively than I intended.
She doesn’t respond and instead fiddles with something under the table. A hint of something long and potentially threatening catches my eye as she brings it up, and I light my horn instinctively in defense. She holds up a wooden rod. I would interpret it as a weapon if I knew wooden clubs intended for combat were never polished like this.
“You don’t think I decided to cut off my own leg one morning to fulfill the pirate shtick, do you?” She smiles ruefully. The stick clatters on the table. “I don’t believe in destiny like most of you ponies seem to, and I definitely didn’t go out of my way to make this image because I believed it was my calling. I was probably your age now when it happened.”
Villains, current and former, have the ability to sense when a monologue is coming. Or maybe it’s just me and my impatience. I shift in my chair, trying to find a more comfortable spot. “I’m listening.”
“Well . . .” Captain Celaeno runs a talon up and down the leg, as if inspecting it for imperfections. “You know where Ornithia is?”
I nod. “South, beyond Klugetown and the Endless Forests. I’ve never been.” I know because the Storm King wanted me to investigate it, of course. It was because the intervening forests were so dense and the magnitude of reward unknown that we decided on other targets.
“It’s where I come from. Haven’t been back since I left.” Her eyes go unfocused for a moment as she stares past me before she begins her story. “Alright.
“I was born to military—my mother was a lieutenant in Ornithia’s airship fleet. I believe my father was an officer too, but I don’t know much about him; he either died in a mission or washed his claws of parenthood. They did manage to have a small clutch of two before they parted: just myself and my brother.”
She clucks her beak. “Ponies are always aghast when I tell them I never knew my father—it’s taboo, far as I’m aware.”
I nod. “Equestrians have a very strong sense of family and community. I believe there are laws against voluntary single parenthood.”
“Mm. That’s a very pony word you just said: ‘family.’ Birds don’t use that word: just ‘nest’ or ‘brood’ or ‘clutch,’ and nothing that implies everything that I think ‘family’ does. It’s not really a bird concept. My mother brought us food, taught us to forage, and taught us to fly. That’s it. Once she taught us how to survive, her job was done. It was our job to fend for ourselves and figure out the rest of our lives. She had her own life to get back to, after all. Some birds don’t even remember their children once they leave the nest.
“But my brother and I, we were a ‘family,’ much as we didn’t know the word for it. Kookaburra was his name.” The corners of Captain Celaeno’s beak twist into a frown. “I was pretty sickly while in the nest. So sick that mother thought I was a lost cause, and she started feeding Kooky at my expense. You’re surprised about that too, aren’t you? It’s not practical to put so many resources into the young you know are not strong enough to contribute to society—it’s what birds are supposed to do. Were it not for the fact he shared his food with me, I would have died before my life began.”
I don’t mention that I don’t necessarily agree with her rhetorical question. Equestrians might be surprised, but I’ve seen more than enough of what ponies can do to their fellow kin.
Captain Celaeno continues. “We were born at roughly the same time, but I’ve always seen him as the older one. Both of us got thrown into adulthood once our mother stopped bringing us food, but Kooky gave me a childhood. He was as ready as any other bird when mother left, but I wasn’t even close. We carved out a roost together in the forest, far away from other birds. One of the trees was shaped oddly, with dense leaves and branches hiding a depression in the trunk where lightning had struck previously. It made for a well-protected shelter—we called it our hometree.‖
“We played together, pranked each other, normal adolescent things. We played ‘tag’ a lot—the forest has always been a great place for those kinds of games. I was never the best flyer, but then again, mother never paid much mind to me or cared whether I could or couldn’t. Even though Kooky shared his food, I was always two or three wingbeats behind. I don’t know if he was aware of what he was doing at the time, but he was tutoring me to be a better flyer as we chased each other through the canopy.” She sighs. “He never admitted to mentoring me, and I never meant to ask him whether he was. I was afraid to ask—by helping me, he was impeding himself, exchanging his excellence for shared mediocrity. Maybe he could have become a leader if he had taken everything mother had to give. Maybe my asking would remind him of that . . .” She shakes her head. “That’s Ornithia’s philosophy, anyway. He probably didn’t believe it, and I certainly didn’t, but he had everything to gain by following it.”
It comes to me that I would have done exactly that. I did become that leader by taking every advantage I could get. Yet here we are.
“We didn’t hunt together, at least, not for a while. Kooky convinced me to stay in the treeline close to home and forage what I could. There wasn’t much there to find, but I could always hide in hometree if I felt tired or afraid. Kooky would explore farther away to find the food that was actually tasty. I didn’t want to take “his” food, but he didn’t really leave me a choice. He’d always bring too much food back for himself, and rotted fruit is wasted effort.
“He taught me a lot of things. Not by teaching me the way mother did—should have.” Her crest feathers raise for just a moment. “He taught by example. He did the things I should have learned months ago and let me watch. Every time, I’d apologize for slowing him down. He didn’t say anything—he’d just wait for me to catch up.” She smiles. “He gave me the opportunity to catch up.
“He learned a song, too. He learned it a couple weeks after we left the nest, and he sang it all the time, every time he returned to hometree. I didn’t know why at the time, but I liked it. Not so much the notes, but what it meant. It meant he was nearby and that I was safe. It meant he could fly farther away without waiting on every other branch—as long as he sang, I could find him. Until . . .”
Captain Celaeno’s smile vanishes. Her left eye twitches and she moves a claw half a hoof, as if to rub at something, before bringing it back and pretending she did nothing. I recognize the gesture—I’ve done it myself many times. I feel the urge reach up to the base of my horn even now, but I stop myself. Phantom pain, if I had to guess: it’s not there, but it still pretends to hurt. Now I think I know why Celaeno is telling me this . . .
“In hindsight, that was not the brightest decision. Predators are very good at sniffing out the feeble of the flock, those who are likely to provide a decent meal and not put up a fight while doing it. But I was young and naïve, and I was eager to find my own updrafts instead of gliding in Kooky’s wake. The wilds hadn’t dared touch us.”
Yet. My mind recalls the memories: the cave was just another place to play with my friends, until it wasn’t.
Celaeno’s voice is quieter. “It felt like I was only away from him for a second. A recently felled tree scattered a lot of fruit on the ground, so that’s where I was. I heard a rustling in the bushes, but rustling happens all the time in the forest. The only thing that whispered that something might be wrong was what sounded like the rumble of thunder in the middle of the day.” She shudders. “I didn’t know mountain lions could sound that . . . horrifying so close. I don’t want to know again. It rumbled, and it felt like the earth was shaking. I never saw it. But I heard a frantic screech from my brother high above, communicating alarm and nothing else. I took flight as fast as I could, then I heard a howl behind me, and a crunch, and—” She falls silent and looks away from me. She shivers.
I murmur quietly, “It doesn’t actually hurt that much, but you know it should. It’s actually more shocking than anything else. Something very wrong has happened, and the second afterwards feels like an hour. There are a thousand and one thoughts in that moment: ‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ ‘who can possibly fix this,’ ‘what am I unable to do now?’ But forefront in your mind is that the danger hasn’t passed, and that you will die if—”
“—if you don’t get out, get out, get out.” Celaeno finishes my sentence. She’s looking back to me, her beak slightly ajar in not-quite surprise.
I nod, no longer quite sitting at the café. “It was like I had went blind. Unicorns have a magical sense that keeps them aware of the spells and magic currents flowing around them. I used to know what that felt like, but I lost that sense the moment it happened, along with what felt like everything else. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel or sense anything. It was pitch black when I stumbled away. It was only when I slammed into something and stopped that I knew I had to change direction—I didn’t even have the pain anymore to tell me that.”
“It happened so quickly. There was still a blueberry skin in my beak as I fled. I didn’t want to look back—I already knew what happened. I just knew that I was still weak at flying, and now I was losing blood too. I had maybe ten seconds to get away before I lost too much and fell out of the sky. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed faster than I did then. The sky isn’t safe, but it’s safe from grounded predators. I whipped my leg behind me, hoping the blood might blind my chaser and give me a little more time.”
“When the bear roared, I could see and hear again. I saw the rocks and the ruts, and I saw the cave entrance. I didn’t want to see the bear. I was faster and more agile than it was; those were the only advantages I had.”
“Mountain lions can climb trees, too. I had to get above the canopy, to the highest branches that can’t support much weight if I wanted to be truly safe. Every branch seemed to glow against the sky as I weaved through the tree line. If I hit a single one, the game was over.”
“Every other thought I had went away. I only had one, the most important one. I had to—”
I had to at least pretend to be strong. If I was strong, I might be able to—”
“—live,” we say. We’re looking at each others’ eyes, long dormant fear finding commiserated fear and scarred-over wounds in the other. My hoof is on her claw. It’s cold and carving jagged lines into the wood of the table. We look and pull away from each other at the same time. I try to reassert my easy visage of disinterest, but my mind is too awhirl to make a good attempt at it. We refuse to look at each other, but I swear I saw a hint of indignant blush showing itself on the pale feathers of Celaeno’s face.
The silence asserts itself, but it feels different somehow. It’s not begging for someone to break it.
I rarely share that particular part of my story. Pity is a worthless emotion, and in describing my story in all its sordid detail, ponies can do nothing but pity. Even the Princess does, helpful as she tries to be. I wasn’t planning on telling it today—but I knew from the way Celaeno was telling her story that she was also telling mine. It takes an amputee not to pity, but to listen. It takes an amputee to understand.
Talking about it doesn’t make it hurt any less, the phantom pain or its aftermath. Celaeno will never know the injustice of being a unicorn on paper only, or the pain of a failed spell, or the anger that stems from endless failure. But, for the first time, I’m not that angry about it. She knows the pain of loss. And knowing that she knows is . . . comforting, if nothing else.
“I did make it to safety,” Celaeno continues, no longer looking at me or any direction in particular. She’s quiet again. “There were some vines nearby I used to tie a tourniquet around my—what was left of my leg. Then I hid. It was a miracle that I didn’t pass out. When the moment’s adrenaline wore off and my leg started throbbing horribly, I returned to hometree. Kooky . . . wasn’t there.
“I must have lost him in the scuffle. The last thing I remember was that I was flying away from the ground, and he was flying towards it.” Her words grow so quiet I have to read them on her lips. “I don’t know what he was thinking, flying straight at a mountain lion. I wish I had had the chance to ask him, stop him. But he was always stronger than me. I wouldn’t have been able to if I tried.
“I waited for him. I waited for days for my brother to come back home. He never did. When hunger finally forced me to leave hometree, I first went back to where it all happened—carefully—to see if . . . if he was just biding his time there, or he was hurt and unable to return. I found feathers and signs of a fight, but no Kooky. I tried to use what scouting knowledge I learned from him to find him. Maybe he was dragged off. Maybe he flew away and crashed somewhere leagues away. I spent weeks looking for him, returning to that place more times than I can recall.
“I sang his song. I sang his song so many times, hoping he’d respond, hoping he was behind some tree in the distance I didn’t yet search. Even now, I sing it now and again in the evenings—it’s a ritual, I guess. It doesn’t amount to anything, not anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve ever used that phrase in this context. But I can’t think of anything else to say now. I can’t think of anything else to say to make you feel better.
She shakes her head, and her expression hardens just a little. “I’d like to think he’s still alive; I never did find a body. When he . . . left, I felt so very lonely, not a little angry, but at least a little stronger than I was before. He’d taught me enough to at least survive in the forest. I remembered how he foraged and hunted, and I took my strength from him to look after myself. It’s not an easy way to live, but I never felt like I wanted to return to Ornithia and make my life there, either. My mother didn’t do anything wrong, but she certainly didn’t do enough. Kooky might still be around if she did.” Seething bitterness is evident in her voice, and it colors her words darkly. The feeling of unrequited revenge; I know it well.
“Were you at least able to go back and get your comeuppance against her?” I asked. “She cost you your brother. She cost you your leg.”
“What? No, of course not,” she says, surprised, the darkness in her voice gone. “I don’t like her, but that’s no reason to hurt her. I . . .” She trails off, lingering on my horn and staying silent for an uncomfortably long time. “I honestly didn’t pay her much mind once she left the nest. It does me no good now to wish her ill except make me miserable. I’d still be smaller than the other birds, I’d still not have my leg, and Kooky would still be gone, whatever happened to her.”
I can’t remember the last time I let someone slight me and get away unrevenged. . . no, that’s not true. I can remember letting it happen exactly once: a couple minutes ago at this very table. Yet I can’t imagine I’d be in a better position than I’m in now if I didn’t . .
“I didn’t know what to make of myself once I was alone. I just survived, living until the next day. Kind of like you.” She looks up to me. She smiles, but there’s no happiness behind it. “I carved a leg from a branch of hometree so I could walk again—I’d gotten good enough at escaping predators by then that I felt somewhat comfortable wandering the forest floor. The first day I did, I found a blue smudge in the knot of a fallen trunk. He was another bird, fluttering but not flying. When he heard me, he raised his mouth towards me and whined when I approached, begging for food.” She taps the table with her claw again, looking down at it. “Wouldn’t be the first time a parent abandoned their chick in the forest because they believed they were a lost cause. I was that chick. But Kookaburra saved me from that—this—fate.
A talon snaps back, and it slices a razor-thin shred of wood from the table. Celaeno is gone, and the Captain is back. “If there was one way I wanted to honor Kooky’s memory—if I wanted to make any good on the things that happened to me—I wanted to give those runts a life, a second chance. I didn’t want them exterminated by the indifference of Ornithian society. I wanted to give them a family, in every sense of the word. I wanted to show them the same love Kooky showed me. I wanted to make him proud of the sister he’d taught. So I took him under my wing. His name—” the Captain snatches her leg off the table in one smooth motion “—is Boyle.
“He’s part of my crew now, and he’s not the last bird who joined us like this. It’s . . . honestly depressing how many chicks we found in the forest, on the mountains, abandoned in nests, their parents nowhere to be found. It’s the bird thing to do, after all.” Suddenly, she slams the leg on the table. “Bird my cloaca. ‘You don’t have your parents anymore? Well then, you’re with me.’”.” She spins the leg in her hand. “So, by that definition, I guess we’re not really birds, and we’re certainly not Ornithians. We found their own way in life, even if society disagrees with how we live, with an aching to see more of the world nearly deprived from us. Pirates, in other words. But we’re a family first.”
She turns the leg point it at me. “That’s why you don’t get to get to endanger my crew without answering to me. My whole crew is a band of cripples, misfits, and imbeciles—and I love every one of them.” She swings the club in front of me, and I struggle not to flinch. The weapon passes about two hooves from my head before I hear a click, and the weapon is a leg again.
If Captain Celaeno meant to intimidate me, she did. There’s empathy that comes with surviving near-death and having the scars to prove it, but there’s respect when you grow past those scars and become something better because of it. I glance up at my horn, observing its jagged ends—the scar that never healed.
My horn is the reason why; it was always why. I based my life on how to take revenge on those who wronged me; then I spent it figuring out how to get my horn back. And when I saw hope, I did whatever it took—whatever it took—to see it through. It’s no wonder the Storm King liked me—I’d never betray him as long as he did it first.
I do not forgive, and I never forget; that is no vice. And yet I have to wonder whether the world would have wound up at peace if Celaeno was the same way. Her loss is a footnote in her story—mine is the front page. She turned her life into a sanctuary for those maligned like she was. My life is the product of when grief over loss comes before morality or measured thought. That is no virtue.
She’s just a silly parrot—but she did what I couldn’t.
Don’t stay stuck in the past, and don’t dwell too much on the present. Look to the future so we can build a brighter one for everypony. Would the Princess have said that if she didn’t think I needed to hear it?
I am no longer the pony who would take down nations and destroy hundreds in search of power. I’ve lived that path, and I don’t like where it ends. Being “at all costs” is not determination; it’s gullibility. I’ve been misled one too many times to consider blinding myself like that again.
Neither am I the pony unfamiliar with the true evils of the world and too weak to do anything about them. I have power, of one sort or another. I have already changed the world with that power, and perhaps those who have wielded it before me can show me how to use it better.
So who am I?
I am not Fizzlepop Berrytwist, and I am not Tempest Shadow. I don’t know who I am anymore—but I have the power to find out.
Celaeno is looking at me curiously again. I know I’m smiling wryly. Losing isn’t actually all that bad. I straighten up and thrust my chest out. “It’s as you say, Captain. I have wronged you and your crew. Do what you will with me.”
“Ha.” There’s a tiny smile on her face, much like my own. “At ease, Commander.” When I relax, she continues. “I’m not really a Captain. Equestria gave me the rank for distinguished service in the Storm King’s War. I’ve only ever commanded a fleet of one.”
“I’m not a Commander, either. I was called a Commander by the Storm King, and he wasn’t exactly . . . well-informed on what that meant. Princesses Celestia and Twilight just let me keep the equivalent Equestrian rank.”
She nods, still smiling. I was expecting a bit more protest at that. It’s the first time we’ve actually acknowledged each other’s “ranks.”
“Well . . . as a Captain of an Equestrian ship—apparently—I am responsible for its integrity and the nature of armaments on deck,” Celaeno says, her expression stern again. “And I am aware of a serious deficiency in grappling guns. Furthermore, considering my future ship will be constructed by Equestrians, I doubt that one will have any, either. Inability to board hostile craft jeopardizes the success of our mission. I am also aware of a fellow officer who has experience in construction and war and may be able to fabricate such a weapon?” The severity of Celaeno’s disposition is undermined by the wink and sidelong smile she gives me.
Oh, so that’s the game we’re playing? I snap to attention and provide a brisk salute. “It will be done, Captain,” I declare, adopting the brook-no-argument voice I used to command my own troops. It startles a few of the remaining patrons in the café.
She salutes in return. We hold the position for a few seconds before relaxing, both of us laughing as the true civilians we are. It’s been a very long time since I’ve ever done that, and I have to admit that it feels nice.
Celaeno says in a more conversational tone, “In all seriousness, I’d really appreciate your help with this. I hope it doesn’t impede your existing job. We can stay at port for as long as you need—it’s not like Celestia gave me a quota for how many goods to bring in every week.”
I wave my hoof. “I could use the distraction. Gives me an opportunity to get my hooves on something familiar instead of all this paperwork.” I steal a glare at my saddlebags.
She smiles again. “I’ll invoice the crown.”
It’s nightfall by the time I make it back to my residential district. I’m one of only a few out on the streets at this hour. Again, I’m not particularly worried.
We talked into the evening. I’m convinced we left after the café was supposed to close, but nopony came to let us know. Too intimidated by the sword and scars and . . . me, I gather. We both left a generous tip in back-hoofed compensation.
Tomorrow was supposed to be a boring day of reviewing whatever Equestria’s border control training policy was. Instead, I have a date with Celaeno’s crew aboard her ship. I have no illusions about what she meant when she invited me: she wants me to apologize to her crew as I did with her. I actually don’t feel that nervous about it.
Celaeno turned out to be quite the pleasant company. Not nearly as nauseating as Princess Twilight’s own friends, and not quite so intimidating as the Princess herself. I might consider taking her up on her sparring offer to see which one of us could kill the other in hand-to-hoof combat. Without actually killing each other, of course.
When I arrive at my apartment, I reach my hoof out to pull open the door only to remember—too late—that this was one of those intransigent unicorn-only doors. I stifle a curse, and spark of errant energy escapes my horn.
I’ve long conceded the fact I’ll need to pay for a new door when I leave Canterlot, and I've long considered that continuing to try to use magic to open the door just means I might have to pay for a new building, too. So I unsheathe the hoof-strap dagger I hide under the pauldron of my armor and jab it into the door, using the blade to pull the door open.
The door closes behind me, and I drop my saddlebags to the floor, grumbling. I’m about to head to the washroom to freshen up when I see something glimmering in the dark. My saddlebag’s “friends” pocket jostled itself open, and peeking from the top is a gem-studded bookmark, scintillating in the moonlight filtering in through the windows.
I give the bags a gentle kick, and a journal comes sliding out. The bookmark is on the first page—I haven’t yet written anything in it. It was Princess Twilight’s going-away gift to me. She has her own paired copy in Ponyville, and anything either of us writes in our journal will appear in the other’s. I never felt the need to write to the Princess for advice, and I never desired to just pen her a letter as a friend. Every letter should have a prescribed purpose, so why would I waste time writing to the Princess just for fun?
The real question is: why do I feel like penning such a letter right now?
It’s what friends do, she said. If you won’t be in Ponyville, I’d appreciate a letter every now and then about how you’re doing and the new friends you’ve made.
The sneaky Princess. She’s right again.
Sighing to myself, I send a spark of energy to the lantern on the writing desk.. I bring the journal over and open it to the first page, observing the subtle glow around the words I write.
Dear Princess Twilight . . .
*There’s an interesting unspoken power dynamic going on here. In traditional US uniformed service parlance, Shining Armor’s position would be best equivocated to an (honorary) Army Captain (O-3), whereas Tempest would be a Navy Commander (O-5), technically a superior rank (hence why Tempest has misgivings reporting to him). Yet Shining very deliberately addresses Celaeno as a Navy Captain (O-6), who outranks them both.
†This narrative sort of contradicts IDW Friendship is Magic #67–8, but consider that these stories are told from different points of view. Spring Rain and Glitter Drops’ (Tempest’s main friends) canon excuse for why they isolated themselves from Tempest was that they were struggling in the School’s classes and became part of the sixty percent, so to speak.
‡Genome J. Feels is a geneticist whose first job was overseeing the health of prisoners of war. In his free time, he likes to nag a ram.
§This is my interpretation of an apparent contradiction between the comics canon and the movie. One of the movie’s ending lines is “Actually, that’s not my real name,” which is pretty explicit. But “My name is Tempest Shadow” is said in the comics after the movie, and this is pretty explicit too. My Tempest therefore doesn’t know what her name is; first-person past/present allows me to avoid naming her. I meta-refer to her as Tempest because that’s the name the fandom has more-or-less settled on.
‖Captain Celaeno’s voice actor is Zoe Saldana, whose first claim to fame was as Neytiri the Na’vi in Avatar.