Sword and Song

by Sharaloth

Songbird: The Blue Feather

Songbird looked up at the hundreds of clouds in the sky, and knew she was in the right place. They spun in lazy circles around an undefined center, spread out in three dimensions only so much that they would pass within mere pony lengths of each other. The overall shape they made put her in mind of a disordered helix, twisting a spiral path through the western sky. Each cloud moved at its own pace, but they all shared a coordination that went beyond mere elegance. They moved separately, yet fit together, like dancers around a festival fire. She couldn't help but admire the beauty of it.

She stood under the western sky, deep in the Tempest's realm, and these clouds were the homes of pegasi. Each was a discrete thing unto itself: A house, a fortress against the elements. Most were no larger than their earthbound counterparts would be, kept contained and solid to make them easier to move.

Songbird stared at the pegasus village and remembered that once the winged ponies had built enormous cities that, while a marvel to behold, still mimicked their land-bound cousins in form. The pegasi of the West didn't do that. They built their own homes and refused to connect them together in streets or avenues. To do so was to be seen as tacitly forming an alliance with another pegasus. In this place that would only lead to conflict, hardship, violence, and the inevitable betrayal. Nopony in the west trusted anypony else to have access to their homes. It wasn't safe.

The village moved at the whims of the ones in it, flowing like a school of fish from place to place as the inhabitants sought food and water from the untilled lands below them. They couldn't be still. Couldn’t ever settle in one place. Their power was in flight, their homes in the sky. She understood that, if only a little. Her own home had wheels.

She stopped on the top of a small hill, barely brushed by the shadows of the outermost of those floating houses. She set down her bag and its attached bundles, making a show of slowly unwrapping each item and laying them out. She knew how skittish pegasi could get, and didn't want to scare away her potential customers. The instruments she took from the bag were simple and worn: A wide drum, its skin stretched tight over the wooden frame. A silver flute, tarnished in places, but otherwise well kept. A lute, missing a string but with a deep bowl that gave a good hollow sound as she laid it on the ground. Finally she pulled out the streamers. There were two dozen of them, each of a different color. She took them out and laid them on a linen sheet, careful to keep them clean and untangled. They were the centerpiece of her show.

She took a sip from her canteen and sat down, waiting to be acknowledged. It didn't take long for the first curious head to peek out of the clouds. Others joined it, and soon there were dozens of eyes on her. Once she was sure that there were enough of them watching she reached for her flute. It rose surrounded in the calm green glow of her magic, and taking a steady breath, she brought it to her lips.

The song she played began with a simple tune, one that she had learned from a friend who had long ago gone her own way. It was soft, but her magic gave it the strength to be heard, and the song floated past the noise of the world like the wind through tall grass, unopposed. It sank into the ears of the hidden listeners, whispering to them of calm days and warm sunrises, of gentle winds and lazy afternoons.

The song called to them like a siren: inexorable, unstoppable. So they came to her. A few at first, fluttering down from their cloud homes to circle cautiously about the hill she sat on. Then in greater numbers until the sky was full of color and motion as the pegasi descended. She picked up the pace of her music as they did. She'd caught their attention, now it was time to hook them.

Her music picked up speed. No longer a gentle breeze, it was now a full fledged wind, pushing and swirling and daring the world to try to slow it down. The flute provided a piping flow, and with a jangle the lute joined in, providing a hurried impetus to counterpoint the trilling of the flute. She was brewing a storm with music.

The pegasi began to land. Dropping down to the ground in front of her and jockeying for the best position to watch her from. They were more than curious now. They knew a show when they saw one, and good entertainment was a precious thing in the Fallen world. Soon the field in front of her was full of winged ponies, all staring at her with wide, enraptured eyes. Waiting for the best part.

With a boom the drum joined the flute and the lute, a thunderous beat to the tempest of sound. The instruments circled her, clutched in her magic and amplified to be heard clearly all the way to the houses above. She took a deep breath, pulling the flute from her lips and letting her magic provide the air for its piping. Then she threw her head back and lifted her voice to join the music. She sang in a wordless cry that evoked speed and power and joy. She sang the storm and showed them that she knew what it was to fly.

With a final crash of thunder her song ended, her instruments falling silent and her voice lifted in one final, triumphant note before fading away.

There was silence for a long moment, then a cacophony of stomps and whistles and cheers as the villagers showed their approval. She waited for it to die down before bowing to her audience. They quieted, intent on her as her magic began lifting the streamers into the air, setting them to flow around and behind her in whirling spirals of color.

"I am the Songbird," she said in a hushed voice that her magic carried to every listening ear. "I am the teller of tales and the keeper of secrets. I can spin a song from starlight, and pull a story from the wind. I have travelled the land from the forbidden snows of the north to the desert sands of the south. I have sung my songs in the City of Gardens and Cages, and played many a lonely night in the Heartland's halls. Now I brave the gales of the Tempest to bring my tales to you. Every story is a song, and every song is mine to sing. Listen."

The crowd was silent, watching her with intent and eager impatience. She had made her boast, now was the time to live up to it.

She began with a few notes from her lute, slow and simple at first but building in complexity and speed. She added a subtle drum beat as the tempo evened out, a bass framework to grow her harmony. The flute joined in, trilling the main melody of the song: a bright theme that swelled and danced in the air, accompanied by a flourish from the streamers that fluttered around her. She let the music die back a bit, and spoke the opening stanza of her song:

The streamers moved, arranging themselves into flowing shapes: five ponies. As she sang each verse she had the streamer-pony for that verse ‘walk’ in front of her, showing the audience a visceral image to go with the picture her song painted for them. At the chorus she brought all of her streamer-ponies to the fore, moving them in a spinning unison before dissolving them into a rainbow of spiralling silk. As the chorus ended she reformed them into their pony-shapes and began the dance anew.

With a final flourish she ended her song, letting the streamers fall into neat piles around her. There was silence from her audience. Ponies stared at her, processing what they had heard. It hadn’t been what they were expecting, not after her storm-like opening, but it touched them nonetheless. It was a song of hope, of triumph and of friendship. Not something these ponies were used to.

The first cheer went up as the crowd decided they liked what they’d seen, and a wave of stomps rumbled across the field. Songbird smiled and bowed, relieved and elated at the reception, but she kept her eyes on the sky. It was time.

"Come on," Songbird whispered as she took another bow to the cheering crowd. "Where are you?"

The first scream was barely audible over the sound of the crowd's adulation, but she heard it. Her muscles tensed and her horn lit with a subtle glow as her eyes searched for the source of the scream. She didn't have to look for long as the body of a pegasus mare tumbled out of the clouds.

Sweetie played her part, her eyes going wide and her hoof pointing at the falling pony. She let out a shout, calling for help. The audience was slow to react, some of them not realizing that it wasn't part of the show. Which was, ironically, exactly what she wanted them to think.

Enough did turn, however, and saw the falling pony. There was a moment of shock, then the falling pony was joined by others, dropping out of the clouds like stones. Dead weight. From there it only took a moment for all of them to come to the same conclusion: they were under attack.

Shouts of alarm and calls to arms went out, partially drowned out by the still-ongoing cheers. It was too late for them. Armored pegasi descended from the clouds, spears and hoofbows ready to deal death. Sweetie dove to the ground, gathering all her instruments to her and huddling into as small a shape as she could make. She wanted to hide her eyes from the carnage, but she couldn’t afford to block out the battlefield. Everything rode on her being aware of what was going on around her.

The attack was precise and brutal. Dozens of pegasi fell in the first pass of the flying warriors. Some managed to gather together and put up a defense, but it was too little and too late. They had been caught at the worst possible time for them, their enthusiasm for the performance blocking out any of the warning signs they would normally have been watching for. Ponies scattered to the winds, flying as fast as their wings could take them, abandoning their homes and their neighbours. The attackers didn’t pursue, turning all their attention on the ones who stood their ground to fight. Those battles did not last long

Songbird didn't move until the rout was over. When the last defenders broke and fled, the attackers only pursued them enough to ensure they wouldn't regroup and double back before leaving off the chase. Soon the armored pegasi circled the sky, the victors claiming the cloud village for their own.

Songbird unfolded from her huddled crouch, standing tall and taking stock of her things. Both she and her instruments were undamaged, but she was annoyed to see that several of her streamers had been trampled during the fighting. She rolled them up carefully, slipping them back into her bag. They might be salvageable and were damnably expensive to replace.

Just as she was tucking away the last streamer a trio of pegasi drifted down to her, hauling a small hot air balloon. She stood calmly and waited for them to address her. "The commander would like to see you," one of the warriors said, gesturing to the basket of the balloon. She didn’t argue, stepping into the balloon without hesitation.

They lifted off and dragged the balloon roughly up towards the village. She held on to the edge of the basket and tried not to look down as the ground fell away beneath her. She couldn’t stop the light-headed feeling that came from the thought of being so high up, but she did her best to ignore it. It was essential that she not show fear.

The warriors pulled the balloon to one of the larger cloud-homes, drifting near the top of the village. Pegasi were ransacking the other buildings, tossing personal effects to the winds and keeping anything they could use. Songbird watched with a melancholy detachment as dolls, clothes and family portraits fell like rain. Lives abandoned and ignored, left to wither on untrod ground. Appropriate, in its own way. She let herself compose a short requiem for this village, passing the time of her ascent. It was a song that would never be heard, but an unsung tribute was all the honor she could afford for the part she had played in the town’s demise.

As she pulled even with the roof of the cloud home she saw the commander of the invading force waiting for her. He was a tall, strong stallion, his dark armor unable to hide where his light gray coat was criss-crossed with bare patches and scars puckering his skin. Remnants of past battles and reminders of a history he would likely rather forget. His helmet covered his mane and hid most of his face from view, but his purple eyes watched her with almost burning intensity as the balloon was brought to rest gently before him.

“Commander,” she greeted him, ducking her head in as much a bow as the confines of the basket would allow her.

“Songbird,” he replied, not bothering to so much as nod in return. “You played your part excellently.”

“I’m glad it worked out for you,” she said, flashing a sweet smile that failed to move him even a twitch. She didn’t let up, beaming as brightly as she could. “I should really get moving before it gets dark, though. So, if you’ve got my payment?” She held out her hoof, still grinning.

He snorted, reaching into a pouch on his armor and drawing forth a long blue feather. He held it out to her and she took it in her magic, drawing it before her and examining it carefully. “It’s genuine,” he assured her.

“I know,” she chirped happily, but didn’t stop looking it over. “It’s so pretty!” That got a reaction. The warriors around her shivered, disgust clear in their faces. The commander’s eyes narrowed, anger in their purple depths. They all knew what she held, and they knew that she knew. She tensed her legs, her heart beating faster, but she was careful to let none of it show.

“You have what you came for,” the commander growled. “I hope it’s everything you wanted.”

She shrugged, slipping the feather into her bag. “I hope so too!” She tapped a forehoof in a steady rhythm, praying to long-vanished gods that she had gotten the movements of the clouds below her right.

“And so we’re done here,” the commander said. The ponies surrounding her drew their weapons immediately. She put on a show of being surprised, eyes wide and mouth agape. “What?” the commander sneered at her look. “You didn’t actually think I’d let you walk out of here did you? With that?”

“We had a deal!” Songbird cried, leaning towards the commander and rocking the basket dangerously.

“The deal is over!” the commander snapped. “All you wanted was the feather, now you have it. Now I’m free to take it back, along with everything else you own. And, if you’re exceptionally lucky, then I might decide not to throw you out of the clouds for the presumption of demanding that feather in the first place!”

Songbird’s expression of anger and surprise faded, turning instead to a resolute calm. “Sorry commander, can’t let you do that,” she said. Then her horn flared green and she sang a single, pure note. The sound exploded from her in a sphere of sharp force. The warriors surrounding her yelled in pain as their ears were assaulted, the magic shoving them back and knocking their weapons from their hooves. The commander reeled back, his helmet only making the force of the sound worse for him. Still, he was no stranger to pain, and with a roaring cry he drew his sword and slashed at her. She ducked in time to avoid the strike, but it cut through the ropes holding the basket to the balloon, and sent her falling through the cloud.

She didn’t have time to see more than a glimpse of the interior of the house as she plummeted through it and then she was in open air again. She didn’t scream, didn’t flail about uselessly, instead she pushed off from the basket and leapt towards one of the passing houses. The impact when she hit the cloud-home wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t as soft as she’d been expecting either. Her legs protested, but she grit her teeth and forced herself into motion.

“She’s cloudwalking!” a voice shouted. Other cries of surprise and shouts to attack went up, soon the entire attacking force would be after her. She ran, letting the springy surface of the cloud add a bouncing speed to her enchanted hooves. The house wasn’t a large one, however, and she came to its end within a few steps. Undeterred she took another leap, soaring out and down until she landed on a lower house that was passing just under the one she had left.

She didn’t stop there, reversing direction and running off the end of this roof to land on another one a level down. Pegasi were already beginning to attack, levelling hoobows at her and loosing deadly bolts. She juked and dodged, jumping from the roof again just as the quarrels cut holes in the thick cloud walls.

She tumbled through the air, reaching for another rooftop. She’d misjudged the speed at which this building was going, though, and so only landed with half her body on it, the edge catching her in the gut. She wheezed as her breath was forced out, then scrambled to keep a hold on the cloud as she began to slip off. She was just beginning to get somewhere when a pegasus warrior landed on the roof in front of her, his spear raised to jab into her. She let out a wheezing yelp and shoved herself away from the cloud.

She spun like a pinwheel through the air, looking desperately for another building to land on. She fought down panic as she realized her push had sent her out into the middle of the village, where there were no houses. She called on her magic, singing a high, piercing note and focusing the sound into a cone of force that blasted out from her mouth. The force of that cry threw her to the side, sending her into the side of one of the houses.

As solid to her as they were, the houses were still clouds. She crashed through the wall with a gentle ‘poof’ and bounced along the floor. Right into the legs of a warrior who was busy searching a dresser for useful loot. He looked down at her in surprise and she flashed him a grin, waving one hoof casually. He went for his weapon and she sang another piercing note at him, the force of it sending him staggering back and clutching at his ears. She rolled to her hooves and swiftly kicked him through the wall, leaping after him through the hole he had made.

She dropped onto another rooftop and continued her run. Spears and bolts chased her as the pegasi realized where she was. The motion of the houses helped her here, allowing her to move in odd directions and block line of sight. She kept ahead of her pursuers as she jumped from house to house, moving ever downward.

Eventually, however, she came to the end of her run. She dropped onto a rooftop and ran to the opposite edge, only to find that there were no other houses to jump to. She’d reached the lowest level of the village, and now only faced a long drop to the unyielding ground far below. She stopped, breathing heavily from her run, and turned to face the forces that pursued her. A few shot their hoofbows at her, but she sang a quick melody that solidified in the air before her, deflecting the shots. They stopped shooting at her after that, instead keeping their distance, wary of her glowing horn.

Finally, the commander landed in front of her, flanked by a pair of warriors who brandished wicked-looking spears and glared at her with hard eyes. The commander had removed his helmet, revealing a patchy dark-gray mane that failed to cover the burns that ran down the back of his neck. Blood was trickling from one of his ears, but the other twisted towards her as he shook his head in exasperation.

“Now, what did that accomplish?” he growled at her. “I was just going to rob you, you know.”

“And throw me off a cloud?” she asked, trying not to focus on the sweat trickling down her face. Her heart was pounding harder than ever, and it wasn’t from the exertion of running. Her eyes scanned the skies, frantically praying that enough time had passed.

“I was trying to scare you,” he replied. “Damn it, Sweetie Belle! You can’t be here! You can’t just come into the West and ask after things like that feather! You should stay in the Heartland, stay under the Sorceress’ protection.”

She snorted. “Some protection.”

“It’s better than being here,” he said, sweeping a wing towards the ransacked village to illustrate. “Especially for a unicorn.” He sighed, visibly forcing anger down. “You were stupid to come here, Songbird, and you were stupid to run. Now, give me the feather.”

“No.”

The anger was back instantly. “Then I will take it off your corpse! Soldiers! On my order break this cloud to mist.”

She felt it then, a shift in the wind. Twin surges of elation and dread flowed through her, strong enough to make her laugh out loud. The commander paused, staring at her in confusion. She tamped down on the laughter, managing to reduce it to a few giggles before replying to the unasked question in his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back to the edge of the cloud. “I knew this would happen.”

“And yet you went through with it anyway,” he said.

“Did you listen to my song?” she asked him, a nervous grin creeping onto her face.

“It wouldn’t be a very good distraction for me if I was the one distracted,” he replied.

“You should have listened, Rumble,” she said. His eyes widened, and reflected in them she saw a ring of colors expanding through the air behind her like an apocalyptic halo. “You know she doesn’t like it when we talk about who she used to be.” With those final words she stepped back and dropped off the cloud.

“Fly!” the commander roared, panic ripping through his voice. “Fly now! The Tempest!”

Songbird twisted in the air, looking towards the massive prismatic explosion that dominated the horizon. A brilliant streak of rainbow light was lancing from the center of that shockwave, travelling faster than sound, faster than any living thing in the world. There would be no escape.

The Tempest shot through the center of the pegasus village with enough force to shatter light. Songbird’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the burning colors that followed, rolling across the landscape and dragging the sky along with it. Pegasi were caught in midair, their attempt to scatter made moot by the all-encompassing nature of the Tempest’s power. The rainbow caught them, and dragged them along with it. Unstoppable.

She couldn’t help but admire the beauty of it. The glory of one of the rulers unleashed in anger on her subjects. Beautiful, but terrifying at the same time. Enough to freeze her heart in her chest at the thought of being caught herself by that impossible light.

She rolled away from it, focusing instead on the rapidly approaching ground and the shockwave that was going to hit her first. She opened her mouth and began to sing. It was a wordless song, but filled with the power of her magic. She wrapped the sound around her, compacting it into a solid barrier against the world. The shockwave hit the bubble of sound and added to its power. Sound compounding sound, all twisted to her will by the power of her spellsong magic.

She fell through the shockwave and to the torn, bloody ground. She hit with all the force of her fall, wrapped in the power of a sonic rainboom. Dirt flew in rippling spirals around her as her spell spent all the energy of the impact into the ground and away from her. She stopped singing and dropped the final few inches to the broken earth. Wind dragged at her mane, whipping it all about her face as a fierce storm was dragged overhead by the Tempest’s wake.

She didn’t wait around, running towards the hill where she had made her performance. She could hear screams in the distance, pegasi caught by the Tempest howling in fear and agony. She didn’t pay it any mind, forced herself to ignore the cries. She could do nothing for them. The only pony she could save was herself.

She grabbed her instruments from where they had been scattered by the shockwave, gratefully noting that they weren’t terribly damaged. She didn’t have time to place them properly, so she shoved them into her bag, hoping that she wouldn’t damage them further in her haste. She turned to go, but cast one final look back at what she had wrought.

The village was a whirlwind now, cloud homes torn apart and spinning in a darkening cloud of debris and violence. Lightning flashed through the vortex, and in its light she could see the forms of pegasus ponies caught in the storm. They couldn’t escape from winds that strong, left at the mercy of the one who controlled them. They would join the Tempest’s storm and maybe, if they were very good or exceptionally lucky, they could escape to pick up whatever pieces of their life would be left.

Songbird was just about to leave when she spotted a figure on the ground beneath the vortex. There, a pegasus mare stood firm against the intense winds. She glowed as if the sun lit her despite the dark clouds above her head. Her wings were stretched wide and her rainbow mane whipped about her like a banner of doom. A ruby lightning bolt shone at her throat, echoed in crimson glow of her eyes.

Those eyes turned in Songbird’s direction, and the unicorn was paralyzed with terror. “No,” she whispered, barely able to draw the breath for that. “Don’t see me. Don’t see me. Please don’t see me!” A moment later the Tempest took off into the sky, and Songbird was released from her fear. Her legs shook and she nearly collapsed as relief stole her strength. She took a first wobbling step, though, and found the next few came easier.

She was done here. It was time to go home.