//------------------------------//
// Chapter 31 
// Story: Ghost Lights 
// by Winston 
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Ghost Lights

Chapter 31










The flight back inland was much easier than the one out to the islets. For this part of the trip, instead of staying low near the water, I led Azure upward into the sky until we were over the cloudcover. The air was a little thinner up there, but as compensation it was safer to have the clouds as a safety net, and we were able to take periodic breaks by walking on them for a few minutes when we needed to catch our breath, which was much more pleasant than having to fly continuously all the way back.

Aside from being easier, it also made our progress faster. Flying in the opposite direction from which we came, the sea breeze that had been a constant headwind turned to a tailwind that helped speed us along, and when we rested on the clouds, it kept pushing them, and by extension us, toward the shore. It was also nice that we were able to enjoy the bright sun and clear blue sky overhead, and not constantly watch the water below that had seemed before almost like it was waiting for us to fall in. It took a lot of the pressure off and, I think, helped us both relax.

Even so, I was careful to keep in mind that there were still some things to be concerned about. Since our time was limited by the factor of how long Azure had before her spell expired, I pushed us onward continually and tried to minimize any delays. We made it back to shore in about three and a half hours, all told, which I thought was fairly impressive.

When we descended at last from those clouds to land on the beach, there was a comforting sense of returning home after a hard day of work, which is what that flight had certainly been. I pulled my flight goggles off and breathed a sigh of relief. Azure looked at me in a funny way for a second, then giggled.

I glanced over at her. "What?" I asked.

"You have goggle hair," Azure laughed, pointing at my mane.

I smirked back. "And you think you don't?" Indeed, there was a funny looking line of flattened mane in a ring around her head, just like I'm sure there was around mine.

After that, both of us were glad to head north along the beach to the small waterfall, where we drank until we were rehydrated, then took turns showering. After a thorough washing and giving them some time to dry, our manes were as fixed as they were going to get out here. I'm not sure that in a grand scheme of things it really helped all that much one way or another, though. After the months we'd been out here, our hair was pretty badly torn up with split ends and the only fix for that ragged appearance was going to be a manecut and a deep conditioning at the hooves of a very skilled professional.

After we were done bathing, we stood on the beach in the late day performing the last part of our maintenance, preening. It wasn't as much of an issue for Azure, with her wings not being permanent, but nonetheless she worked at them until time ran out on her spell and they vanished. I, of course, take my preening very seriously, and I kept going until my wings were pristine. It was a relaxing and satisfying way to bring the day's ordeal to a final close, smoothing out and undoing the ruffling it had wrought on my feathers.

After Azure's spell wore off and she had reverted into a unicorn again, she took off her pair of goggles. "Thanks for letting me borrow these," she said, offering them back to me.

I looked at them for a few seconds, considering something. I didn't particularly need them, and what were they to me, really? Just my spares, nothing more. I'd probably never touch them again in the time we were out here, and when we went back, I could always get another pair when I needed to. These had a more important purpose and a greater meaning if they were with somepony else with whom they'd made a special journey.

"Nah, you keep 'em." I shook my head. "I've got enough pairs. Maybe you'll need to use 'em again someday."

"You mean it?" Azure asked. She sounded surprised. "These don't look cheap..."

"They're not, but don't worry about that," I said. "You earned them. That wasn't an easy flight, and it wasn't an easy thing to do to bet your life on your own two wings like that. If you can do it, you're as much a pegasus as anypony I've known, so... you know what? I'm glad to give you these goggles as a graduation present, because you wore them on the flight that proved you don't need to be my student anymore. You're ready to fly on your own."

Azure gave me a grateful smile, then pulled the goggles back down around her neck and wore them proudly. I hardly ever saw her take them off in the rest of time we had left at the wall.









For the next few days, everything seemed quiet while we gave ourselves some time to relax after our big flight. It felt like the most important milestone we would come to in our time out here had been passed with great success, and that gave me a sense of accomplishment. As the saying goes, however, nopony can have their cake and eat it too, and as such there was sort of a downside to no longer having that anticipation inside our minds to provide a driving force.

Azure, particularly, seemed to drift uncertainly in the aftermath.

"Do you ever get that feeling... like you've reached a certain point where everything's just kind of downhill from here?" she asked me one morning, after she wandered back inside from eating breakfast. "I mean, that flight was the big thing we worked on for last couple months, and now it's done and over with. That was all I focused on. Feels like there's not much left to do, is there?"

"No, I guess not," I agreed. "About three more weeks and we go home. Just gotta wait for our reliefs to show up."

"Yeah. Not long now," Azure said softly. "I never thought about what comes next, though. Not after that flight, or..."

"I guess that's up to you," I said. "What do you want to come next?"

"I wish I knew." Azure shrugged. "I suppose that for now, I'd better get back into practice with my magic again. I've been slacking on that with all the flying and working out. Princess Twilight will probably be kind of annoyed if I come back all rusty at spellcasting."

That was true, magic was a big concern of Azure's, and because of that, it also increasingly became one of mine. There was a certain question that had come to me in the last week before our flight, and it had had only grown more insistent when we were at the towers. I found that it was still running through my head. Going to those old buildings had impressed deeply in me that the world they represented, the world of unicorns, was one that I didn't understand. Although I had flown to them before in the past years of my previous tours, I hadn't come away thinking of them in that way. They had been merely ruins then, just broken relics of a past that wasn't mine and that I didn't feel connected to.

Maybe it had a lot to do with the unicorns I was out here with in previous times. They hadn't been my sisters. I'd remained distant from my companions before, but it was different now that it was Azure Sky. A desire to understand replaced my detachment. I found it soaking into the setting, this ancient wall that unicorns had built. I wanted to know what it was like to be them because I wanted to truly see through the eyes of my friend and understand what certain things had been like for her.

Watching Azure work on her magic constantly to get back into practice after having lost so much time to physical training for flight only emphasized that rift between us. It brought into focus for me the reality that I couldn't imagine what it must be like to cast spells, however hard I tried. There's the book learning part, of course, abstract intellectual knowledge that magic is capable of certain things by using it in certain ways. That's easy, but it's nothing more than words on paper in the end. It means nothing. The real truth of it, the experience... it was unknowable to those not initiated, like trying to imagine a color I'd never seen or trying to know how it felt to flex a muscle I didn't have in my body.

It was useless to just speculate. I knew there was only one way to really understand. That question I had burning in my mind... that was what could tell me, if anything ever would. It pressed me, leaving me feeling the growing sense that it was something I needed to do. At the same time, though, I was conflicted and had misgivings about what I felt the urge to ask, so I gave it a few days to see if it was merely a momentary curiosity that would pass.

It didn't. It only got stronger until I knew this wasn't going away without addressing it somehow.

After dinner on day one hundred and sixty three was when I was sure enough about this to finally give in to it. We were both back inside and resting at the end of the day, with the sun about to set. Neither of us was doing anything in particular, so it seemed like an opportune moment and I decided I would just dive in. I supposed I might as well get it over with if it had to happen.

It was abrupt, and I felt awkward for not really knowing how else to approach more naturally and smoothly, but there was no helping that so I just did it anyway. "I have to talk to you about something, if that's alright," I told Azure. "Maybe it's just dumb, but I guess it's something I have to know."

She looked up at me with curiosity. "What is it?" she asked.

"Well, I have a question," I said. "It's about magic."

"Magic, huh?" Azure smiled, seeming a little pleased that we were unexpectedly venturing into her field for once. "Yeah, I might know a little bit about that. Whatever your question is, I'm pretty sure I can find some sort of answer... for all the good it'll do somepony without a horn, anyway."

"You might be surprised," I mumbled.

"Oh?" Azure looked interested by that. "I might? Well, challenge accepted. What's on your mind?"

"It's about that transformation spell you use to change the type of pony you are," I said. "I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I can't stop wondering... does it also work the other way around? Can you turn a pegasus into a unicorn?"

She looked at me a little strangely while the smile slowly faded from her face. "Oh... wow... uh, okay, you win. I'm surprised." Her muzzle scrunched in thought for a moment. "Hmmm... Interesting. Turn a pegasus into a unicorn...?" She looked around and rolled her eyes ponderingly. "In theory, yes, I'm sure the spell can do it... As far as actually doing it in the real world, though, I'm not sure if I could right now. There'd be some things to check on and test out. It would take some work. A few days, maybe. All the hard problems are already solved, of course, it's mostly just a matter of making adjustments and substitutions..."

She studied the floor for a long, quiet moment, looking like very complicated wheels were already spinning in her head.

"But, then again..." She looked up at me, inquisitively. "I haven't really investigated anything like that yet because there isn't much of a reason to spend time on it if it's just academic and won't ever actually get used. When you're asking about this, do you really mean to say that it might actually happen? That there's a... particular pegasus... who might have a reason for wanting to be turned into a unicorn?"

I thought about it. Was that really what I was asking? Well... that was the obvious implication. If it wasn't, then why would I have said anything at all?

"Yeah." I nodded. "Yeah, there just might be."

"Alright." Azure looked at me with an expressionless face and nodded slowly. She looked intrigued but a little distant, already lost in thought. "Then I guess that's my next project to work on."