The Statue Garden

by JunebugTheBug

Prince of Stars

Star Chart first met his mother when he first became aware of the warm embrace that took care of him.

Later, he would learn she simply took him in as an infant, but from his first moment, he knew she was his mother. As radiant and warm and pure as her station, he knew he was hers.

Much of his early youth from then was spent with her. Learning, playing, or simply following her around the halls of Canterlot Castle, he spent it all focused on her.

She was fascinating to him. She was Princess Celestia, Princess of the sun! Not to mention the sun itself, which he had been told off numerous times for trying to stare at it in spite of the pain and the lingering spot in his vision.

Star Chart was Sarosian, she’d told him. A subspecies of pony, nocturnal in nature, and the reason why his eyes were strange, and his wings were leathery, and did not bear the feathers that hers did. And why his eyes hurt for so long after staring at the sun.

One night, Star Chart followed his mother into the Royal Gardens, and there she pointed his attention upwards.

The stars had always drawn some measure of his attention, sure; but that night, in the open field of the Gardens, under the light of the Mare in the Moon, he could see everything. It was like the universe opened up above him.

It was beautiful. Terrifying. Wonderful.

And while Celestia was trying to tell him something about the moon, Star Chart sat himself in the dirt, grabbed a stick, and drew everything he saw.

After a minute, his mother took notice, and was surprised. Every minute detail of his drawing was exact, a perfect recreation of every star and stripe and band of color he could see, stenciled out in the dirt.

And when she looked to the heavens herself, she admitted to him, “I do not see everything that you see.”

It was that night that Star Chart earned his Mark. A constellation set on the purple-blue cloud of a nebula, restrained by the white outline of parchment—a sheer inversion of details from his drawing in the dirt.

While he would have adored settling in and watching the stars forever, his mother had other ideas. Come morning, he was to spend time with other foals his age; find community in his peers.

Thus did the other shoe of his birth drop.

While he met a few who would come to enjoy his drawings, and those who he'd leave his paper behind to play with, one critical issue came to light.

Where the others were winded, Star Chart was tired. Where they were tired, he was exhausted to the point of almost passing out.

Or, to the point of actually passing out, if waking up to his mother’s worried face was any indication.

A visit to several doctors confirmed his mother's fears; his body was weak. His heart and his lungs more so than anything else, inadequate for his body now, and inadequate for the future.

Even as a young foal, Star Chart knew he didn't have as long as anyone else.

If he was honest, and he was, he didn't care.

He knew what he had; his mother, his new friends, and the rest of his life to study the stars.

Thus did he set out to do exactly that. Every night, Star Chart kept his gaze on the stars, and produced a new map of whatever section stole his attention.

His mother and his friends—Cloud Racer, Clear Sight, and Luminosity; one pegasus, two unicorns—they helped in their own ways. Parchment, quills, ink, paints; everything he needed to do his work.

Though he knew he didn't always show it well, he cherished every moment his work was intruded upon, and quietly wished none of them would ever leave.

All the beauty and knowledge in the sky meant next to nothing if he had no-one to share it with.

But, as the years wore on, and he grew weaker, they, too, had their work to do. And then they presented it to him.

Cloud Racer cleared the skies around his room in the castle, keeping the sky clear for him to work every night.

Clear Sight developed her own method of glassmaking, magnifying Star Chart's sight of the heavens beyond what he already managed

Luminosity applied his enchantments to Clear Sight's glass, and his own gifts, making sure that even the darkest shadows would never intrude on Star Chart's work.

Year after year, Star Chart improved his diagrams, his maps of the heavens. Year after year, he added new stars to old maps, new maps to old sections, and touched up the old works that were still correct.

And then, at the age of fifteen, when he knew the end was coming, he declared his work finished.

Star Chart would work no more, and he would not suffer the slow, agonizing end that fate had dealt him.

When his mother came to check on him the day after he was done, all he said was, “Will you gather my friends? And, will you help me? For the first time, I want to go flying tonight.”

Celestia agreed at once.

On a clear, crisp night, Cloud Racer formed a pocket of vapor into a place for herself, Clear Sight, and Luminosity. From the first day, they were together, and they were together to the last.

Celestia gently carried her son into the sky, and together they gazed up at the cosmos.

With the wind in his mane and his wings outstretched, Star Chart wept and laughed in pure, unbridled joy; quiet in his weary state.

And then he leaned close to his mother and said, “Let me go.”

At first, Celestia refused; she couldn't do that to him.

But Star Chart threatened to push off of her, to force himself down.

And so, Celestia reluctantly agreed.

She gave him one final brush of his mane, one last nuzzle, one last hug, squeezed with warmth.

And she let him go.

Star Chart plummeted, in spite of his outstretched wings.

He plummeted, and he laughed.

Where once he could barely be heard by his friends, now it was downright uproarious, echoing off the side of the mountain.

Celestia and his friends could only watch as he fell, and loosed so much bottled up joy, they almost thought that he'd pull himself up.

And Star Chart simply laughed, and watched the heavens.

For the first time in his life, he could have sworn he saw the heavens lurch.

Lurch as a boy doomed by fate still stared daring into the universe with eyes full of hunger for knowledge and fangs bared at the stars to drink deep their secrets.