Mother and Father weep in court, and they don’t dare look at me. Their tears fall into the clouds that make up the Grand Hall, unnoticed by the other pegasi glaring at me from the stands. I think about their tears falling through the clouds, collecting what little moisture there is before dropping into the sea below, lost to the endlessness before evaporating into clouds once more.
I wish I could do that now. Evaporate. Slowly break myself into tiny bits of rising steam and feel my entire essence disperse into the atmosphere. But the guilt in my chest is too dense, holding me together. My hooves keep sinking into the thin floor as if the weight of my sin is pulling me under.
Great Nimbus stares at me from his chair, the most solid piece of furniture our tribe could manage to gather out of the remaining vapor. His wrinkled, sagging forehead sits like an anvil over his eyes, and I wonder if he can even see me. I hope he can’t.
“Filthy ground-trodder!” somepony yells from the crowd. I can’t be sure, but it sounds like the kelp-catcher’s daughter. Great Nimbus holds up his staff, strings of empty crab claws tinkling together like a wind chime. The room is silent. Not even a breeze dares interrupt him.
“Sky Feather,” he rasps. “I am disappointed, but I cannot say that I didn’t expect to see you like this.”
He speaks like a cold front, pushing all warmth from the building. Despite the blazing sun shining through the arching roof, my hooves chill with sweat. Baba barks out another sob, bowing as if his muzzle were made of steel, as if my shame had latched onto him, too.
“Is it true, Sky Feather?” he asks. The other pegasi leer at me as if they can see the shameful flecks of sand buried under my hooves.
I try to look brave, like I don’t regret my decisions, but my aching heart has sprung a leak, flooding my chest with grief until it reaches my lips, making them wobble and crack. “Yes,” I say.
Somepony spits from the stands—the ultimate sign of disrespect for a Namuzzlian. But such disrespect is worthy of the highest of taboos, which I have broken.
I let my hooves touch the earth below.
I have soiled myself, drifted astray from the pure winds that have carried my tribe across the desert oceans for centuries. We Namuzzlians are few, but we are proud to live and die in the stratosphere, for the earth beneath us is tainted with greed and fools and other impurities. Impurities that cannot be washed away once exposed to.
When the horse latitudes pushed our homes over the Plucked Isles, I grew restless with fantasies that had been whipped out of my head with a kelp lash when I was a foal. Curiosity and its unquenchable needs piloted me that night as I wheeled under the stars to find the smattering of land that resembled gull shit.
I still remember the way the sand felt under my hooves—rough and cool, nothing like the clouds I’d been raised on my whole life. The sensation was infectious. I raced up and down the beaches bucking wildly, kicking up great chunks of grains and dust. Only the kelp-fishers could dare to get that close to the surface.
It was then that the shadow of my home drifted across the moon, casting the shadow of realization on me that I fled, dipping my hooves in the brine to wash away the evidence of my debauchery.
I thought my actions would be lost to the sea, just like Mother and Father’s tears as they continue to fall through the floor.
Great Nimbus rises from his seat, opening his old, creaking wings that fall somewhere between divine and decrepit.
“The sentence is as it always has been for our kind. There is no longer a home for you to return to, Sky Feather. You have forfeited your right to food, shelter, and kindness among your people. May the winds guide you.”
Heads nod and muzzles murmur in agreement. Great Nimbus swipes his wing in front of him, and a piece of the floor blossoms open in front of me. Miles below, the ocean churns, hungry for me with its white-capped fangs.
I try to speak, to plead, to beg. My chest is hollow. I feel lighter than the air itself as I step forward, taking one last look at Mother and Father. They are gone now, hidden behind the other pegasi eager to watch a piece of tainted history be wiped clean. Taking a deep breath, I plunge into the open emptiness, snapping my wings out to sail into the barren sky.