//------------------------------//
// Chapter 26 
// Story: Ghost Lights 
// by Winston 
//------------------------------//


Ghost Lights

Chapter 26










The next morning, I woke and exited the barracks to find that Azure had already been up and busy for some time. She was on the beach, working with some sticks that had been stuck vertically into the sand with their tops whittled to sharp points exactly at eye level. There was a long, perfectly straight line drawn into the sand extending for some distance down the beach parallel to the water line, and another parallel line just like it about twenty meters further back. Shorter lines, also perfectly straight, crossed the two long lines exactly perpendicularly at even intervals, and the points where lines intersected was where the sticks had been planted in the sand.

Azure was carefully walking down the further of the two long lines from the water with a length of string, going from one stick to another. She would sight down the sharp point on top of each one, lining up the string and telekinetically pulling it tight, then writing something down each time on a sheet of paper.

I had some idea of what it looked like she was doing. I wasn't entirely sure why, though.

"Good morning," I said while I landed next to her while she was taking a measurement. "So, uhh... what's up with all this?" I asked, waving a hoof at the setup on the beach.

"Parallax measurements," Azure said. "I'm trying to find the distance to those towers. See, if I measure the bases of the right triangles formed and the change in the lengths of the lines caused by the shift in the relative visual position of the towers by movement, then by using trigonometry I can find the total distance to them. Well, to an extent, anyway. There's a limitation to how accurately I can do this with just sticks and some string. But if I do it multiple times at different base lengths and average out the errors, I think I can be pretty confident that I'm close to the right answer, eventually," she rambled out an explanation of her process in egghead fashion.

"Of course you are." I shook my head and couldn't help but smile at her adorkableness. "I'm wondering more about why you're doing that, though."

"Just curious," Azure shrugged. "I mean, it'd be nice to know how far away something is before you try to fly to it."

"I think it's never really bothered me," I said. I considered it for a moment. I'd never really needed to know a number, I just needed to be able to eyeball it and estimate that it was a distance I could manage. Not every pony is like that, though. Facts and quantification are comforting to some, especially the scientifically inclined. "I guess I can understand it, though."

I smiled while I watched her keep working, measuring with her string from one stick to another. This was the side of Azure Sky that I remembered but wasn't seeing too much of these days, the one I knew from watching Princess Twilight's student grow up in the palace. I realized with some surprise how much I missed it. For as much as her soul came alive when she was flying, it was undeniable that she shined brightly at this, too, and that old familiar light of her intellectual brilliance was comforting to still see around.

"Well, let me know what you come up with," I said.

"So far it's looking like... somewhere in the middle or upper thirties of kilometers, maybe," Azure said, glancing at her sheet of paper. "Not quite a mare-athon's length, but getting close."

"Well, it's kind of a different thing, too," I said. "You run a mare-athon, but this is a flight. It's easier, generally speaking, but there's kind of its own set of challenges."

"I'm guessing the head-wind is going to be one of them," Azure said.

"Yep." I nodded. "That darn wind never stops blowing in off the ocean. We'll be fighting it the whole way out. That's the hardest part. If it wasn't for that, maybe we could take a break or just walk on the clouds. As it is, though, if we stop up there, we only lose more progress than it's worth because the wind pushes the cloudcover inland constantly and we'll get carried with it. It's one straight shot or nothing. So, on that note, don't forget that we need to start training when you're done here."

"Right." Azure nodded to me with determination in her eyes. "I'm close to as good as this is going to get anyway. Maybe we should just get started now."

I had to agree. As interesting as parallax measurements were, and as much as I liked this side of Azure Sky, that plan seemed more favorable for actually getting us there.









Despite having just talked about how there was a different set of challenges between a run and a flight, I decided that a couple hours of cross-country galloping would be our first workout.

"Why are we running if we're training for flying?" Azure predictably asked the obvious question.

"It's something my aunt taught me. Sort of a counterintuitive thing that most ponies don't realize about the Wonderbolts," I said while we galloped. "They do a lot of their cardio endurance training by hitting the track and running, not flying. A hard run can be more intense and helps to build endurance faster than just flight training alone. We'll still be doing plenty of flying anyway, and if all else was equal I'd prefer to build up gradually with long-distance flights instead, but with the limited amount of time we have I think this'll help get us the edge we'll need more quickly."

"Oh." Azure seemed satisfied with that answer and kept going in silence from then on. We were both too too out of breath from the hard workout to want to talk much more anyway.

It was a lot more intense than anything we'd been doing lately. For good measure, I even made her do the second hour of the run on the sand of the beach, to provide more resistance. To ensure that I was being fair about it, I kept up with her the entire time. We were both sweaty and tired by the time I was ready to say we were done.

After a shower in the small waterfall, and some preening, we were on the way back to the barracks. We passed through the beach where the sticks and lines in the sand were still set up from Azure's previous work that morning. Looking at it while we walked, I admired the cleverness of it, figuring out how to measure the distance to something so far away using nothing more than a few simple things from the world around us. It wasn't hard to understand the general reason she'd been chosen as the student of a princess.

The more specific story, however... that was another matter. When I thought about it, it occurred to me that I still didn't actually know. All these years around her and somehow I'd never heard it. That might have seemed odd, but keeping to myself as I usually do, I guess it was as simple as I just hadn't asked. It must have been interesting, though. Was it something like this, a smart trick like these parallax measurements, that had first gotten her noticed? It suddenly sparked a deep curiosity in me. I decided that maybe I'd like to find out more about this pony I was coming to see ever more as my sister.

There was also still the matter of the fears she'd spoken of in our late-night talk on top of the wall not that long ago. I'd been left with a feeling that there was still more I didn't quite understand on that front. Maybe if I knew these things about her past, it could help me understand her present more closely. There was only one way to find out.

We reached the wall again before I was done sifting through all these thoughts. Azure teleported herself over while I flew across.

"If it's alright if I ask, how did you end up becoming Princess Twilight's student?" I inquired, as we headed into the stone barracks building.

Azure thought about her answer for a moment. "Hmm... I'd have to say... a combination of ability and convenience," she said once we were both inside. "My mom noticed me doing stuff with magic, took me to the princess for an aptitude test, and I guess I pretty much nailed it."

"That just sounds like ability to me. So what was the convenience part?" I asked.

"Well... my mom's this big fashion designer," Azure said. "She's sort of made a name for herself. Ever heard of Rarity?"

"Sorry, no." I shook my head. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know fashion if I was kidnapped and made over by fabulous ninjas."

"Well, if you do ever hear that name mentioned, that's my mom," Azure said. "She used to be a much smaller fashion designer when she worked out of Ponyville. It got her a start, but if you want to be big in fashion, you have to do shows and whatever in big places, not small towns, so she travels around a lot. It bounces her between cities like Canterlot, Manehatten, Fillydelphia... I remember taking those trips with her sometimes when I was a very young filly and she was trying to really take off."

"That sounds neat," I said.

"I don't know. I mostly remember not liking it much, actually. I was too young to really appreciate the places we went. All I knew was that it was a boring trainride there and back and an even more boring hotel room. Even when she got the big suites, there was nothing to do. Maybe that's why I got so good at magic so early. I had to invent games and things to keep me busy. A lot of them involved juggling lamps and whatever else I could find," Azure said. She paused. "Sometimes I even managed not to break them and run up a horrendous bill, too."

Suddenly her juggling act when Rainbow Dash had taken us to the bar made a whole lot more sense. I smiled when I envisioned her as a tiny filly in a fancy hotel room, with a look of grim determination on her face as she hovered a collection of lamps, vases, wine flutes, and whatever else at hoof could be used as an expensive and fragile toy. She must have been a hoof-full.

"Anyway, that kind of lifestyle was not easy for somepony trying haul along a young filly everywhere. It makes the logistics of everything harder, on top of... the... other drawbacks of the single mother thing," Azure said, "which was already not exactly ideal."

"Oh. Was that a big thing?" I asked. "Lots of mares are single mothers. It doesn't seem like it's usually an issue to most ponies."

"It's not, for most ponies. But the high fashion industry doesn't revolve around 'most ponies'. It's just... one of those unicorn things." Azure shook her head. "I guess there's some earth ponies and a scattering of pegasi in it too, these days, but it doesn't matter, really. The attitude in the top-tier fashion community is all absorbed from old unicorn. Mostly the upper class, the artistocracy mindset. See, it's appearance. It's respectability. Everything in life is supposed to be planned out. A mare is supposed to be dependable, screen her suitors, make them put a ring on it before they get the chance to knock her up. An unplanned foal outside of marriage costs major social points. If you let that happen, you'll always just be one of those commoners who didn't make responsible choices. You're sandbagged. You'll never really be accepted as part of the elite."

It made sense. I'd seen this stereotype of high society play out at times during my years in Canterlot. One flaw, one mistake, one rumor - too often that's all it would take to sink an up-and-coming pony. "Ah. I think I see the picture," I said. "Princess Twilight was looking for a student, and your mom... uh..." I trailed off, not knowing how to phrase the rest of that tactfully.

"Didn't need a foal she never planned on holding her down," Azure said for me.

"I wasn't really trying to go there," I said. "Sorry."

"I'm not offended. I mean, I know exactly what it was." Azure shrugged. "They realized that the arrangement was an acceptibly discrete way to help both of them. Rarity's career doesn't get dead-ended, and Twilight gets a student. I also get a teacher. Triple win. Best thing for everypony, right?"

Something in her words felt like she was stretching for them. I could hear it, somehow, maybe a subtle waver in her voice. I wasn't really sure, I could have just as easily been reading something in that wasn't truly there.

It bothered me, though, and it wouldn't go away.

"Was that... the best thing for everypony?" I asked hesitantly.

"Well, yes," Azure said. "Look at it from my mom's point of view. By the standards she's used to, she was trying her best to give me the greatest gift she could. She got me in as the student of a princess. Can't do better than that. It's a guarantee that I'll have an important career in magic. I'll never be without a job, I'll always have the prestige of being taught by a princess... I'm elite. I'm set for life. What unicorn wouldn't want that?"

I could hear a certain tension mounting in her voice as she spoke. Something in it was like a string pulled too tight, straining, a part threatening to crack.

There was a sudden dismay that came over me when I noticed it, a sinking feeling that I'd pushed too far. I asked about something I shouldn't have, prying into inmost personal business. What was I thinking? I silently kicked myself. I wasn't, actually, that was the problem.

Now that we were here, though, it was done. There was a conundrum about it. If there was some risk of hurting her, then I didn't want to do that, but I also didn't know how to back out elegantly. I had no idea what to say, no clue how to redirect a conversation like this. Silence, simply reverting to a default of not speaking anything more one way or another, was all I could manage. That was awkward in its own way, but what else was there that wasn't worse?

I felt lost in foreign territory. Minding my own business as I normally do, this was the kind of situation I never usually get myself into.

I looked around the room uncomfortably, haltingly, shying away from eye contact. Seconds drifted by slowly in a heavy quietness.

"Yeah, I guess... I guess so," I said, lamely, just trying to break apart the stiff silence.

The sound of my voice faded into the stone walls in an instant, gone like it was never there. More seconds crept by. I'll never understand how time is able to feel like it can slow down so much when it's supposed to be one of the great constants of the universe. I examined the almost imperceptibly tiny gap between two of the polished, rectangular cut flagstones that made up the floor.

Azure cleared her throat. I snapped my head back towards the noise, looking at her again. She was staring out a window nearby. Her right forehoof scraped back and forth a couple times on the hard stone floor, unconsciously, nervously. She raised it up a few inches and stomped down gently with a soft clop, a few times, fidgeting. Rapid blinks pushed away liquid in her watering eyes, then she sniffed heavily and cleared her throat again.

"But even knowing all that... sometimes... all I can think is, she always had a choice... and she wasn't there. She didn't want me."

Those quivering words were soft, spoken gently, but they cut like a sharp knife being drawn across the heart. I think I flinched slightly, although maybe I just imagined it. Maybe I was too scared to show any actual response.

Azure swallowed and tried to hold herself together, blinking down more tears. One of them broke loose and ran part of the way down her cheek before she lifted a hoof and wiped it away.

I couldn't watch this anymore. Slowly, tentatively, I walked to her with halting, uneven steps, half afraid to approach but more afraid not to. When I got close, I reached up and gently wrapped my forelegs around her in a hug. She leaned toward me and buried her face in my chest. She finally just fell apart and collapsed into a heap of sobbing unicorn that I really didn't know what to do with, other than just hold and try to comfort for however long she needed me to.