//------------------------------// // Chapter 35 // Story: Ghost Lights // by Winston //------------------------------// Ghost Lights Chapter 35 "Was it just me, or was Thunderbolt really cute?" Azure asked. We were about two hours' walk south-east of the Seawall, starting on the long hike home to Equestria and picking through scrubby patches of thorny plants at the moment. Neither of us had spoken in a long time and in the mostly silent wilderness her voice was sudden and almost startling. "You haven't seen a stallion in six months," I reminded her. "He could have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down and you'd still probably think he's the hottest thing there is right now." Azure glanced at me sideways. "...So you don't think so?" "I don't know, honestly," I said. "I've never been much of a pony to judge these things." "Oh, c'mon, everypony likes something," Azure insisted. "So what fluffs your feathers?" That question made me uncomfortable because in thinking about it, I had to confront the realization that I didn't know how to answer her. I ended up just walking along quietly, saying nothing. "Okay, how about just the most basic thing?" Azure asked instead. "Mares, stallions, or both?" "Well, I just don't see myself having a future tied to somepony else, at this point," I said. I concentrated on the feel of the stony ground underneath my hooves, careful not to lose traction and slip on some rocks were passing over. "So, I guess, is 'neither' an option? I mean, I'm not actually looking." "Oh, I see." Azure nodded. "Okay, suppose it's like you were just window shopping even though you weren't gonna buy anything. What would get your attention?" "I don't really know," I admitted. "Other than I would just know it when I saw her... or him... whatever." "Alright." Azure didn't say anything more and for a while we walked in silence, concentrating on navigating through a thick patch of problematic brush. I concentrated on it, focusing on taking one step at a time through the tangles of thorny stems and finding the spots where I could move without sticking myself. "So it could be a her, right?" Azure finally asked after a few minutes. "I wouldn't rule out a pony I liked based on whether they were a mare or a stallion," I said. "Although... it's sort of weird to think about either way..." "Why's that?" "Eh, nothing." I shook my head and glanced over at Azure. "It's just, I don't really act like either one, do I?" "Like what? Like a mare or a stallion?" Azure asked. "I don't know. I never thought about it. I guess you just act like you, if that makes sense. I've never seen you wear makeup or a dress or be... you know, ladylike... but in Princess Twilight's palace I only ever really knew you as a guard, so I kind of never expected to see anything like that anyway." "Well, I never do outside of work, either," I said. "And that's kind of a thing that... I don't know. I think other ponies looking for their special somepony want it to either be a stallion or a mare, depending on what they're attracted to. I don't think I fit in very well to that kind of expectation." "What, you mean fitting in to being a mare"? Azure asked. "Are you saying you feel more like you'd rather be a stallion? Like, transgender? Wrong body?" "No, not like that," I said. "I'm fine with my body. It's social conventions, I guess. I think I'm indifferent. I don't care about being one or the other. They both feel... foreign. It's hard to explain. I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who's like this. It's not something I've ever heard about. Or maybe I just spend too much time alone. If I knew more ponies I might understand it better, but I don't." "Well, so what if you're not a stereotype?" Azure shrugged. "Like I said, you're just you. That's not a bad thing. Beats having to try to be somepony else." We kept walking for a while. The ground here was still sandy with loose soil, and the mountains of the coast loomed high in the west. In an eerie way it was like they were watching us from behind, staring at our tails with inscrutable stone-faced expressions while we hiked away back to where we came from six months ago. "Pegasi don't care, do they?" Azure asked. "About who you like, and who you are?" "There's a lot of pegasi," I said. "They're not all the same. Some do and some don't." "What was it usually like when you lived in Cloudsdale, though?" Azure asked. "Is it different when two mares or two stallions are together than it is when a mare and a stallion are? Do they get looked at differently? Do ponies talk about it in different ways?" "I think more than anything else it's mostly expected that you pick one partner and stick with them," I said. "I don't think it matters if it's same-sex or not as long as you find stability. It's an old military culture thing. There's a saying that a pony with a reason waiting for them always comes home again." "Huh." Azure finally ran out of questions at that point and we kept making our way south-east without much more conversation until the day ended. On our first night out on the hike we camped under the shelter of a stand of trees. Overhead, the sky was still thick with the clouds created by ocean evaporation, but fortunately they held onto their water and it didn't rain. The night was also fairly warm. It was comfortable enough, but I still kept turning uneasily. Something was missing. I sort of expected this, but there wasn't anything I could do about it other than just try to get as much rest as I could. After a while I finally managed to stay asleep. The next morning, Azure was up first. I woke to find her looking dark-eyed and frazzled, already pacing tiredly in the new light of a rising sun. "Everything alright?" I asked. "Couldn't sleep," she mumbled. "I had trouble, too," I said. I propped myself up on my forelegs and twisted slowly, stretching out my back. It was a little stiff from laying on the hard ground, and cracked a few times in quick succession while I stretched. That felt good. "It's too quiet, isn't it? Can't hear the waves from the ocean anymore. That always gets to me." "Yeah." Azure nodded. "I guess that's also part of it." "What's the other part?" "Just that I was laying there awake and I couldn't stop thinking about things," Azure said. "Mostly about a unicorn I used to know." "Who?" "Her name was Moonstone," she said. "Princess Twilight used to arrange for me to go to a magic school outside the palace with other students two days a week so that I would be around other ponies and not, in her words, 'end up being a shut-in bookworm' like she used to be. Moonstone was one of ponies I was in class together with." Azure paced a little bit more. I got up on my hooves, then leaned down on my forelegs until my chest was almost touching the ground and arched my back, continuing to stretch out. "I really liked her," Azure said softly, almost too quiet to hear. She stared down at the ground. "I mean, a lot." "Did something happen?" I asked, guessing that this wouldn't be coming up otherwise. "What happened is that I thought she liked me, too." Azure stared away at nothing in particular. "We used to hang out together and started getting pretty close. Things sort of... took off at some point. We made out a few times and I guess we didn't really act like it was any kind of big deal, but being with her made me feel really good, you know? It was pretty awesome for a while." "How long was 'a while'?" I asked. This came as a bit of a surprise to me. I'd known that Azure had gone to classes in another school, but never suspected she'd had a marefriend there. "Until we reached the end of our senior year," Azure said. "I didn't know exactly what would happen then in terms of still being able to see each other, but things seemed like they were really good so I just assumed she wanted to stay together and and we'd figure it out together when it came up." Azure kept pacing, pawing intermittently at the stony ground. "Apparently I misread what our situation was, though, because one day not long after the class graduated she told me she'd been accepted to a really good magical college and she was leaving in a week or so." Azure paused for a moment and cleared her throat. "So I asked her, well, what about us and what are we going to do, and she just kind of waved all of it off and said, 'I was having fun and you're really great, but we kinda knew this wasn't going to be permanent, didn't we? I mean, you have to stay here to study with the Princess and I have to go to college, right?' I didn't really know what else to say, because you can't make somepony stay if they don't want to, so... I told her I understood, and that was that. That was almost three and a half years ago. I haven't seen her since." "That... umm... wow. Sorry," I said. "Looking back at it, I shouldn't have let myself be so surprised because a lot of unicorns have a certain attitude about this kind of thing," Azure said. "They say that when you're young and just fooling around, other mares are fun, but when it's time to settle down for good, you start looking for a stallion. I'm sure she probably has a coltfriend at college now." "Yeah, I guess I can see how that could keep you up," I said. "Well, it wasn't really just about her, either. That's only one little piece out of the story of my whole life." Azure kicked away a small rock. It went clattering off into the brush. "It was because I realize it's all like that. All these ways unicorns are supposed to act, and all these things they expect from me and assume I'm okay with, and I always just go along with it and let it happen. And it was different out here, for the first time, but now I'm about to walk right back into it." She stopped pacing and stared at me with pleading eyes. "What am I supposed to do now?" "That's..." I tried to think, I tried to come up with something to day. There was nothing. It was painfully obvious that this was not an easy-answer situation. "... I don't know. I really don't." "I don't either. I tasted a new world out here, one that's just like that day we first flew up above the clouds," Azure said. Her shoulders slumped tiredly. "The world down there below just keeps turning more and more gray. With these wings, though, I can reach up to a place with sunlight and a blue sky again. The world up here has color, Sunburst. I can't... I can't live without that. Not anymore. I just can't keep going down there like it's alright, like I don't mind it. I do. I hate it. I hate it so much." Azure looked up and stared away into the distance. "I'm not going back," she said. Her voice was quiet but resolute. I didn't really like the sound in that statement. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "You said it yesterday. A pony with a reason comes home again, but what reason do I really have to go home to?" Azure asked, turning to look at me again. "I don't want to pretend to be somepony I'm not anymore, and that's the only thing waiting for me." "Okay, yeah, but... it's not like you can stay out here forever," I pointed out. "Oh, no, I'll go back to Equestria," Azure said, "just not to Canterlot or any other old unicorn city or to being Princess Twilight's student. I'm done with that whole... thing. I can't deal with that any more." "No no no, you can't do it like this," I said. "You can't just run away." Azure just stared at me unresponsively. "Why not?" she asked after a few seconds. "I'm an adult and Equestria doesn't have slavery. Twilight doesn't have any legal custody over me to keep me there in her palace. Nopony does. Nothing can stop me from leaving when I want. You won't get in trouble for not bringing me back with you, if that's what you're worried about. I'll give you a letter to Twilight explaining why I'm gone. You're my friend. I wouldn't leave you hanging." "No, that's not... I mean, you could do that, yeah, nopony can stop you," I said. "But you shouldn't. Please. Trust me, I... it's something I know a little bit about, right?" "I guess so," Azure said. "But what do you want me to do instead?" "Understand, I'm not saying if you should leave or not one way or another," I told her. "I know better than anypony that you've certainly earned the right to make that decision on your own. I'm saying that if you do, you shouldn't do it like this by just not coming home and suddenly cutting Princess Twilight out of your life unexpectedly. You know that's going to really hurt both of you... don't you?" "Yeah." Azure sat down on the ground and sighed tiredly. "Probably will." Her voice was weak and her eyes were starting to look glazed. I walked to Azure and sat down next to her, then wrapped my wing around her and pulled her in close to me. She leaned on my side. I think, at that moment, she just wanted to be comforted and offered some sort of hope. "Twilight really loves you," I said. "Rainbow Dash too. You're like the foal they never had. You know that, right?" "I know." Azure nodded. "And you love them, too, don't you?" Azure closed her eyes, trying to hide that they were filling with tears. "Yes." "Then that's worth trying to keep, isn't it?" I asked. "Don't just throw that away and run off blind. You need to talk to them about these things and try to work it out. Just tell them everything." "I'm scared," she said. "I feel like nopony even really knows who I am." "Telling me wasn't so bad, was it?" I asked. "No, but talking to you was never going to be the painful part." Azure shook her head. "What if she's mad at me? What if I disappoint her?" "Look, there's certain things that aren't easy for me to talk to my mom about, either," I said. "But the one thing I know is that even though we didn't see eye to eye a lot of times because of the ways that we're different ponies, my mother would never stop loving me. The princess is the same way. I can see it in her." "You think so?" Azure asked in an uncertain, wavering voice. "You know so just as well as I do," I said. "She's not like that. She's not going to hate you for being honest about yourself, and even if you do decide to leave her palace, you can still have a good relationship with her and not just cut her out and disappear. I promise, it'll be alright. We'll figure out how to deal with it together. I'll be there to help you with this if you need it, because I love you too." Azure collapsed into the embrace of my forelegs and I held her for a while as she cried silently, face pressed against my chest and eyes running with tears but holding her sobs inside.