“Nightshine, wait!” Jason called out. He pushed past Lily and hurried down the stairs as fast as he dared, worried that he would trip and fall down the rest of them if he tried to run. Nightshine’s hoofsteps grew softer and softer as she was able to run a lot faster. He heard Lily hurry after him, though the stairs were too narrow for her to push past him to take the lead. Worry grew within his heart as he yearned to quicken his pace. He didn’t know what Nightshine had heard nor did he know where she was going; the fact that she was running away from him made his worries double.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged back out into the hallway. His head whipped both ways, though the only pony he found was Abigale trotting up to them. Her eyes fell on them and their disheveled appearances before they went wide, already making assumptions about them.
“Um… You two weren’t doing what I think you were doing… were you?” Abigale asked Lily, looking at her with an uncomfortable look.
“No, I’m not that lucky.” Lily closed the door to Luna’s tower and locked it. “Abi, did you see Nightshine run past you?”
“The little filly that was with you two earlier? No, but I heard someone crying a few hallways back. Go three halls down and hang a left,” Abigale said.
“That’ll lead back to our rooms…” Lily muttered. “Thanks! Are those Luna’s treats that we talked about earlier?”
“You mean ‘the thing’?” Abigale asked. “You know it!” She opened a pink box to show a neat stack of cookies. “Just like you said, peanut butter cookies with a piece of chocolate in the middle! Don’t tell Luna but I’ve already eaten four,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Would you two like one?”
We don’t have time for this. Jason cleared his throat. “I don’t think we have the time. Maybe later?” he asked in a strained tone of voice. “Lily?” He nodded down the hallway that Abigale had just come from then started trotting away.
“Right!” Lily looked back at her friend. “Next time, I promise,” she said as she started running to catch up with Jason.
“You two need help?” Abigale called out after them.
“No thanks!” Lily said as she caught up to him. “So… you think she went back to her room?”
“I hope so. I don’t want her getting lost in the castle.”
“I’m sure she remembers the way back to our rooms.”
As they neared the bottom of the stairs that led back up to their rooms, he stopped Lily with an outstretched hoof. “Look…” He cleared his throat again. “If what this folder says is true, I think it would be best if I just went and talked to her first.”
Lily looked at him like he’d just said he had five heads. “But… I’m her mother. I think I should at least be there to–”
“I’m her dad. Listen, if–”
“Of what, a couple weeks?” she blurted out. Lily’s expression changed to horror the moment the words left her mouth.
Jason’s expression hardened. While Lily looked really apologetic, her words still stung. He wanted to put her in her place, but he couldn’t waste any more time arguing. He noticed that she was about to speak again. “I’ll be back soon, I promise,” he said as he looked away from her. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eyes.
“At the very least… could you tell her I’m sorry?” she cautiously asked as Jason trotted upstairs away from her.
He paused several steps up. “...Maybe. Look, I’ll talk things through with her, put her to bed, then come back down so we can figure this out. You’ll be able to talk to her soon, just not right now.”
It looked as if Lily was going to argue more, but she relented mere moments later. “That works,” she said.
Her words of malice followed him up the stairs as he climbed, echoing in his head. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he silently counted the doors that he passed in his head until he reached Nightshine’s door. He took a quick peek in his door just to make sure he was in the right spot, then stopped in front of his daughter’s door. “Hey sweetie, it’s me,” he said to the closed door. Silence met his ears as he waited for a response. “Can I come in?” he asked. When she didn’t respond, he opened the door and walked inside. Nightshine’s dress lay on the floor in a heap. The balcony door hit the outside wall every few seconds, buffeted by the wind.
Jason darted forward as fast as he could. “Nightshine?” He screeched to a halt on the balcony as he looked all over. “Nightshine!” he called out at the top of his lungs. He ran back into the room, then nearly knocked the bathroom door off its hinges as he barreled into the smaller room. Nightshine was nowhere to be found. He walked back out on the balcony and looked up. A low rumbling came from higher up. Little flashes of lightning illuminated the inside of a storm slowly but surely making its way towards them.
Jason’s eyes went wide as the storm’s wind teased his wings open just enough for them to snap open wide. His front hooves lifted off the balcony as another gust of wind tried to pull him over the railing, though he caught himself by wrapping his front legs around the iron railing just in time. As he stood there in shock, the fact that Nightshine didn’t know how to fly popped into his head. A feeling of horror filled him as he assumed the worst. He tightened his grip on the rail and looked down, though thankfully he saw no trace of his daughter. He looked back up at the storm in fear, its wind throwing his hair all over the place as he wondered if Nightshine suffered the same fate he almost did.
Five minutes earlier…
Nightshine slammed her bedroom door shut as hard as she could. “Ho-How could she?” she stammered out, her mind racing a million miles a minute. The beautiful, friendly pony that Daddy was dating was actually her birth mother. She couldn’t settle on how she felt about that. She felt angry at first, then a deep sadness, then a decade of pent-up rage pushed itself to the surface. Nightshine felt ashamed to have run away from them, but she was terrified of the question that stood on the tip of her tongue.
Why did Lily give her away like she was nothing more than trash all those years ago?
Her vision grew blurry as she struggled to breathe. All those years of suffering alone, unable to make or even keep friendships as each of her friends were adopted, never to return. All of the parents that had passed her up in favor of better ponies, all of it meaningless when she could have lived a much better life had Lily not gotten rid of her. While Lily had shown her much affection, she wondered if it was all just an act to make her forgive her for ruining her foalhood.
Even the sheer joy she felt from being adopted to Jason was overshadowed by Lily’s deceptions.
Knowing that Jason and Lily would be right behind her, she stopped as she pondered on her next course of action. Only then was she hit with another troubling realization. What if Daddy knew that Lily was my mother? Why was he talking about it with her in such a far away room? Why was he hiding from me?
She couldn’t trust anyone.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tore the dress from her back, flinging it to the ground. Nightshine whimpered as she looked at the dress that had once made her so happy. It represented so much more than a grand evening out, it meant the world and more. It pained her to throw it off her like it meant little to her, but it reminded her too much of Lily and her lies. She wondered if she could ever find it in herself to forgive her, but that was future Nightshine’s problem.
As a large, terrifying storm grew outside, Nightshine kicked the balcony door open, her chest heaving up and down with the monumental task before her. She couldn’t be scared, especially not in this moment. She was a thestral, a terror of the night. Even though she barely had any flying experience, she knew deep down that her instincts would take over once she was airborne. She just had to get away from them to think things through. She felt she was old enough to be on her own, after all.
Nightshine walked onto the balcony and placed her forelegs up on the railing. She spread her wings wide, feeling the wind from the storm tickle the sensitive underside of her wings. Right before she was about to jump into nothingness, she paused, feeling a bit of guilt surge within her. Daddy would be so worried… She took a step back from the edge, dashed inside the room, and scribbled a quick note.
See you back home.
I’m sorry.
-Nightshine
She folded it once then placed it on top of her dress. Nightshine set her eyes on Ponyville all the way off in the distance. Even though it was dark and sheets of rain covered the plains, growing ever closer, she figured that if Lily could fly through the rain, so could she. Spreading her wings wide, she leapt from the balcony and pointed her head towards Ponyville then angled the rest of her body towards home. A strong updraft threw her a couple hundred feet higher. She felt weightless for a brief moment before her wings caught the wind and her weight again.
As Nightshine neared the edge of the city, she looked down and gulped. The plains below were so far down below her that she started to have second thoughts. The moment she drifted over the edge of the city into open air sent a pang of terror into her heart, scaring her so deep that she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. She banked to the right to fly back to Canterlot, but dipped down so steep that she fell fast, far below the edge of the city. In desperation, she flapped as hard as she could to at least make it to the lowest level, though it was nothing against the mindless strength of the storm.
Heavy raindrops pelted her back and her wings, stinging with each hit. She couldn’t see farther than a few pony-lengths in front of her as the storm overcame her, making her strength feel as miniscule as a mouse against a giant. Feeling as guilty as sin, she braced herself for the long journey ahead and kept her wings spread wide, resigning herself to gliding wherever she might end up.
“Daddy, help!” she managed to squeak out, her voice devoid of all strength and resolve as the storm swallowed her whole.