It had been a few days since the attack on the crystal empire and all the crystal ponies were slowly recovering from whatever magic Sombra had put them under. Their form began slowly to regain color and movement as a few unicorns form Canterlot began slowly using powerful healing magic. Those that were released from the spell laboriously gathered to see their exhausted crystal princess, Candice. The pink alicorn rose her head and looked at her precious ponies with tired, yet determined, eyes. Once the ponies saw the look in their beloved princess’ eyes, a smile grew on their muzzles.
“My little ponies,” began the royal pink mare, “it is true that one of our worst fears has come to life, Sombra has freed himself.”
Chatter erupted through the crowd as they heard their princess’ words. The glow of fear began to ebb away at the essence of hope that they were looking for, until their queen smirked with a look of defiance and courage. The crystal ponies stilled their tongues and their hollow, weary eyes looked , once more, to their beautiful Crystal Princess.
“However, Sombra underestimated the power of friendship between my sisters and me.” rang her words with a hint of the noble voice behind them. “My beloved sister-princess, Luna, came to us in our hour of need and refused that tyrant to have the power he wanted.”
Cheers rose from the crowd as the night blue alicorn mare came beside Candice. The cheers were filled with enough hope that surrounding crystals began to give a faint glow. The princess of the night smiled on the crystal ponies, her eyes slightly scanning the faces of the ponies gathered around. Her eyes stopped slightly, however, when she spotted one particular pony, a pegasus away from the rest, still unconscious from the encounter with the fallen king.
Sharp cheers broke through the fog of unconsciousness that had laid itself on Kaleb Brown’s mind. His ego began to struggle out of the comatose state it realized it was in and began to focus on the cheering as his body began to slowly stir its unusually sore muscles. The sounds of the world began slowly getting clearer as his body worked out all the kinks and knots it had built up until he felt something on him twitch that felt alien to him. He concentrated further on the foreign appendage and, after a bit of work, was rewarded with a spasm.
“Art thou alright?” came an elegant voice.
Kaleb slowly opened his worn out eyes and saw a midnight blue equine head blur into focus. Seeing this, his eyes shot open and something flared out around his sides. This made the pony stifle a laugh yet her eyes also looked a bit worried. Kaleb, in a bit of a panic looked around his shoulder and saw tense tan wings.
“Wings?” he said under his breath.
Princess Luna looked at the odd behavior of the pegasus before her and her concern only grew from what it was previously. The sight of that pony in the room during the confrontation with the fallen king Sombra was out of place as well as the surge of magic that came at the end.
Perhaps that blast damaged our subject? Luna thought to herself, silently observing the distraught pony toss his glance from side to side. It is not often we generate this much panic, fear yes, but not panic.
The tan pegasus then quickly spun around looking at his body and only showing the princess his flank in his mentally disheveled state. Luna’s eyes grew wide and she didn’t know whether to laugh or ask a nurse to look as the poor pegasus. In the midst of thinking this the princesses eyes drifted to the tan pony’s flank and her mind snapped back into being serious when she saw his cutie mark, a broken crystal.
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell aghast causing a few of her guard ponies to pay attention to the pegasus. The guards surrounded him with brandished spears and hollow looks. Many of them didn’t trust this pegasus and they made no effort to hide it. Their wings and magic tightened the grips held on their weapons, just waiting for the stallion to do something.
That’s when the pegasus looked at all the guards, stiff with terror and eyes brimming with tears. When one guard saw that he noticed them he lowered the spear, pointing the tip at the frightened stallion, who lowered himself as close to the ground as he could go while he laid back his ears and covered his eyes with his forehooves. As Luna saw the scene that was unraveling before her, her heart began to brake. She knew the feeling of fear, of wanting to hide your very existence from the arduous gazes of your fellow ponies and wanting all that was happening to go away. Then anger shone in her icy blue gaze as the guard took a step towards the terror stricken pegasus.
“Stop!” she boomed in her royal Canterlot voice, causing the guard to almost drop his spear in shock. “We command thee to stand down, lest thou wishes to face our wrath!”
The unicorn guard dropped his spear and shot back to the others in a speed that nearly made his helmet fly off. His amber orange eyes snapped to the ground as the midnight blue alicorn slowly approached the terrified tan pegasus.
Kealeb shook with fear as his eyes clutched shut behind his new hooved forelegs. His mind felt as though his grasp on reality could shatter at any moment. He felt his new appendages, his wings, lay pressed to the ground and so stiff that pain shot through his shoulder blades. Just as he was about to try to pull them in, however, he heard hoofsteps coming closer to him which only made him tense up more. He felt feather after feather become disheveled and try to stand on their own as the fur on his neck pricked up for fear of what may happen.
That is when he felt a nuzzle on his muzzle, that was now matted from his tears. His breaths began to become deeper and more regular and slowly the tension in his muscles began to simply melt away. The chaotic state of his mind that was, only a moment ago, like a blaring siren, became a soft murmur as order began to seize his tired mind. It was as if the fear, the anxiety and the worry were all shed with each peaceful, kind nuzzle.
Kaleb removed his forehooves and began to slowly open his quizzical, timid brown eyes to the night blue alicorn before him, and her soothing, blue eyes. The soft features and caring aura that seemed to be with her made him aware she was a female, a mare. She carefully brought her head down to Kaleb’s once more and gently rubbed her cheek against his. Her fir was soft and warm. It was like someone was carefully and caringly rubbing a security blanket across his cheek. The mare then looked at him once more with those soft, beautiful, blue eyes as a soul calming smile laid upon her muzzle.
“Thou needs’t not fear us.” came the ponies cool, soothing voice, “We are only here to thank you.”
These last words were all that Kaleb could make out, before a smile made its way to his muzzle and he gladly let the land of dreams take his weary mind away. His weariness melted deep below his subconscious to make room for his more than welcomed rest. The surrounding noises of the world steadily grew smothered by the comforting embrace of sleep.
Luna looked at the tan pegasus that was now resting his weary body. She gave a gentle smile as his wings steadily folded themselves against his body that lazily rose and fell in the gentle throws of sleep. His lingering smile gave her soul a comfort that she only felt a few times before, which caused her eyes glow in a content afterglow of joy.
“Lulu!” rang a voice full of relief and joy.
Luna turned around and saw her older sister, Celestia, galloping a short distance towards her followed by her guards that looked exhausted in an almost comical way, gasping for air and their tongues lolling out of their muzzles, hooves lifting heavily close to the ground. When Celestia reached her beloved younger sister she threw her hooves around the midnight blue mare and cuddled her neck into the neck of the princess of the night who looked on in bewilderment.
“Sister?” piped up the blue alicorn “What brings thou to this head of the forest?”
“Neck of the woods” grumbled the sleeping tan pegasus with a smile as though he was trapped in a good memory.
Celestia chuckled a bit as she brought a hoof to her mouth to stifle herself. She looked to the slumbering stallion with soft eyes and a smile to mach.
“I take it this is the young pegasus that you mentioned?” the sun princess asked, her eyes scanning the stallion carefully and resting her eyes on the cutie mark on his flank.
“Yes, sister,” Luna began, seeing where her sister gazed. “it was once he showed up that our powers could stop Sombra. It was as though…”
The princess of the night looked down at the pegasus, her voice drifting off as she remembered the feeling of her magic growing more powerful.
“He was the Crystal Heart?” Celestia finished for her, her eyes fixated on the cutie mark.
Luna nodded and her eyes softened on the slumbering stallion. Celestia saw this and a silent smile of serenity drew itself across her face. Her eyes were softly looking at Luna with the love of a knowing older sister.
“We should talk about this more at the castle.” Celestia said softly to her sister. “I will arrange my guards to transport him there as well.”
That statement shot Luna’s eyes open and she glared at the guard from before who looked at the ground in shame.
“We would not recommend that sister.” She stated keeping her gaze on the guard pony.
Celestia looked at her sister in a curious and worried look. She then looked down at her hooves to see the spear that still laid there. Her eyes softened and her heart began to melt as she them noticed the tear-matted fur below the slumbering pegasus’ eyes. She then turned to her sister whose anger she could feel in her gaze and nuzzled her.
“Alright dear sister.” The white alicorn said with a heart-warming smile to reassure her beloved sister. “He shall ride with us then and I’ll hear about what happened.”
The eyes of the princess of the sun then turned to the guard pony with a gaze that could burn a hole through the center of Equis itself.
“As for you, Shining Blade, we will speak to you later. Until then, you are relieved of your duties.”
It was at least a few later hours before Kaleb opened his eyes and found himself in a clean, white room. It was about as big as his master bedroom at his house but had a whole different style. The white floor glowed in dull light of the moon that seemed as though it was peering into his room in particular. The tan pegasus began to move his body as he started to pull his mind from the bog of sleep and the land of dreams. He lazily rolled off the bed and flopped onto the floor, cursing to himself silently and grumbling as he looked at his hooves and equine looking legs covered in tan fur.
His mind began sobering up as he studied his hooves. He looked up to the beautiful white marble ceiling that laid above him and slowly walked himself through the events that happened in the recent times he’d been awake. His eyes gave a look of pain, and shame as he remembered the last time he was awake. His wings twitched and flared open before weakly folding back to his sides. A soft, hollow smile spread across his muzzle as he got up on all hooves.
“Wings…”he muttered to himself mockingly as he cantered to where the moonlight was coming from.
The light of the moon peered through the glass of double doors that led to a balcony under the canopy of stars overhead. He pushed the doors open with a weak push and laid on his back and gazed up at the ceiling of beautiful stars above him with longing eyes that slowly brimmed with tears.
“These stars are beautiful.” Kaleb’s voice cracked weakly as tears began to fall from their full pools in his lonely, brown eyes. “I wonder where Luna is, or Celes. I guess an even better thing to know would be where I am.”
Kaleb gave a sad laugh as the small rivers of his sadness ran down to the white stone balcony where he laid.
“It’s a shame Luna can’t see these stars. She’d love this night sky. Then again, if she were here she might be a bit weirded out at my whole, becoming a winged pony, thing or maybe she’d rather have a picnic or something under this sky.” Kaleb closed his eyes and his laughter turned slowly into a sorrow filled cry. “It’s getting close to school season, I wonder how Luna’s gonna be without our weekly ‘dinner date.’”
Kaleb’s cries of sorrow rang through the brisk air of the night as his mind reeled in the realization that he would never see his only friends, including the one woman that made in actually feel like he wasn’t transparent, forever. His broken heart made evident with each wail and sorrow filled moan that hit the air of the, usually calm, Equestria night sky as well as the ears of a midnight blue pegasus that looked down on the broken stallion with eyes of sorrow filled recognition and tears of her own true sadness that resonated with his.
The blue mare’s wings unfurled and silently swept her to the weeping stallion and she held him close as he shook through his sobs. Her wing covered him to warm his body and calm his broken heart, a feeling she knew all too well. Her head nestled beside his own, rubbing against his tear soiled fur. The stars watched over the two ponies as the moon radiated in a soft, comforting glow. The blue alicorn and the tan pegasus slowly wept until the glow of the moon and the twinkling stars carried them off to sleep under the soft, motherly gaze of a white alicon that gave a small smile as she took over the duties of the night for her beloved sister.