The Floating City

by Jesiah Is A Pony

Chapter 2

Sunset was willing to believe the things that the pony before him was telling him—whether it was out of the hope that his father wasn’t as evil as he had thought or simply out of the honesty springing from the Pegasus’s voice. But all of the subtle and passive hints at Jesiah being an immortal finally came to a final blast of words.

“I’m the Immortal Pegasus!” he had said to Sunset.

The pounding of his heart slowed almost immediately and he gave a flat expression.

“You had me until then.”

“What? I thought the dramatic build-up was a good touch to the whole thing.” Jesiah acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary. His eyes widened, finally realizing his mistake. “Oh! Your father must not have told you much about me then…”

“He never talked about his work.”

“Surely he said things about…”

“Never. Not even to our mother.”

The two stallions stared at each other in light of the fire that managed to stretch around the archway leading from one room to the next.

“Oh, well…I’m Jesiah. You sure the name doesn’t ring a bell?”

Sunset nodded reassuringly, but it only caused the opposite effect on the red Pegasus.

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember the only pony in existence that only has one name. Seriously, I’ve never heard of anypony only having one name. Is it like Jesiah Red or Jesiah the Derp?”

Jesiah rolled his eyes. “I picked that name because I liked it. Well, that and I wanted to leave behind my last one for something a bit more…hmm…what’s the word? Casual? Less-foreboding? Maybe it was because I didn’t want to sound like a daemon for evil anymore. But enough about me! Let us sleep for the night and I’ll speak to you tomorrow evening.”

“Why not morning?”

“Because you have a job.”

Sunset nodded and headed for the door. Once outside, his ears perked up and he whispered, “I never told him I had a job.” Sunset turned but the door had been shut without a sound.

The gray Pegasus rolled his eyes and headed for his half of the house. There wasn’t a chance he was going to listen to that crazy pony anymore. Immortality? Really? What did he think Sunset was? A fool? No pony but Celestia is immortal, and even she is aging, no matter how slowly.

Sunset entered the warming embrace of his own home and trotted to his own room. The room was square but fairly decent sized. The walls were an ocean blue that he now wanted to repaint so that it wouldn’t feel like Jesiah was looking at him at all times. In one corner was a soft looking bed made of cloud, a skill that Sunset had learned from his brother Powder in an indirect way. Powder had been having one of his moments of insanity, much like their mother’s, and Sunset made the softest bed imaginable to soothe the Pegasus. It worked like a charm and Sunset had been using ever since.

The special aspect of the fluffy, curly-puffed cloud bed that allows struck Sunset as odd is that it never shifted form unless made to do so by physical means; it never deflated, it never released its rain, and it never dissipated into the atmosphere. It was the perfect teddy bear too.

In another corner there was a dresser with all of Sunset’s clothing. Granted, he typically didn’t wear clothes, as was customary of Equestria, but still had some just for formal occasions. Continuing in the clockwise manner, there was a cabinet. It had been locked and only Sunset knew where the key was.

Sunset went to his bed cloud and reached inside, feeling around the liquid-like insides. He found his mark and withdrew his hoof with a shiny, metallic item. A key. The Pegasus carried it over to the small cabinet sitting upon the tiny stand.

Inside, there was an urn containing the ashes of Sunset’s father.

The Pegasus sighed and shook his head. “Just another one of your tricks, huh, old man? An immortal? Really?”

Sunset’s mind looked for the most absurd, yet novel-worthy, bedtime story his father had told to Sunset and Powder the nights before he would leave again. There was one about a king having been sent away from his kingdom with his family. There was an attempt on his family’s life during their escape, but a Pegasus saved them. There was a name for that Pegasus, but Sunset had forgotten it.

But how could he have forgotten it? It was a name unlike any other and it was simple too. He came with a title as well; something mysterious. What was it? All Sunset could manage to extract from his diluted memory was that the title had started with an “H”.

Sunset looked at the urn containing the last physical remnants of his father, but there was a draft in the room that gave the Pegasus a sense that he wasn’t completely alone. Yet it was cold and distasteful to his senses, a polar opposite to the ironic feeling of warmth he’d feel when near his father.

“I can’t wait to hear what you’ve come up with this time.”

+++

Sunset looked all around him but saw nothing but colorful grass that swayed in the direction of Sunset’s movement; they gleamed through the blurry air. He wasn’t breathing; it was as though breathing would kill him. He kicked an thrashed through the torrent, barely holding onto the life in him.

His lungs hurt, but pain meant that he was still alive. His head breached the layer of water, allowing for one small breath for him to extend his fate for mere moments.

There was a roar of anguish and horror.

“Powder! I’m coming!” the voice screeched through the air and water that rippled above the drowning pony. The light of the sun was gone now but something was still showing its silhouette through the water.

It was massive and distant. It was composed of many bright lights that flickered on and off randomly, scaling its tall spires that were as tall as mountains yet slim as…buildings. They were buildings and the long lines extending in all directions out of the floating, dark object were tracks for trains. It was a city.

But the black city began to melt into a gray, green eyed Pegasus that reached down and yanked Sunset out of the water. He gasped and gagged on air and water that mixed terrifyingly in his throat and lungs. He looked into the sky and saw nothing but the bright sun that had mysteriously disappeared.

“It’s okay, Powder,” Sunset heard behind him as he coughed and choked. His wings were lazily dangling behind him. He felt somepony folding his wings gently back to his sides and place their muzzle over his shoulder lovingly and protectively.

“Is Daddy home yet?” Sunset heard himself say with a voice that wasn’t his. He spoke delusionally and confused, scared and worried. He must have choked on too much water. Sunset knew his father was never there.

Yet those words seemed so familiar. That voice too. It was burrowing in the back of Sunset’s mind.

“Yeah, Powder. Dad’s home. Dad’s home.”

It was a lie and Sunset knew it. He knew it was all a lie because he had been the one to say it. Sunset wasn’t dreaming his memory.
It was his brother’s.

+++

Sunset’s eyes opened slowly. He could feel his wings cramping under his weight. The bed felt hard and rugged, rough and wooden. Sunset looked around himself and realized he had fallen out of bed and was now sweating profusely with labored breathing.

His back hurt, along with his wings, and as he tried to stand, Sunset felt soreness in his ribs. He put a hoof to it gently and rubbed. He looked out the nearby window and saw that the sun was barely rising.

Sunset groaned impatiently. He did not want to go back to sleep nor did he want to sit around for hours until the bakery opened at ten o’clock.

Crunch! Crunch crunch crunch.

Sunset’s eyes widened. It was coming from his living room. Who could possibly be inside? He had locked all the doors; he was sure of it. Maybe it was an actual burglar this time and not a red fellow that looked half-insane.

Crunch! Crunch crunch crunch.

Were they…eating? It sounded like they were eating stale oats or crackers. Either way, the intruder was in his home eating extremely loudly. Sunset crept out of his bedroom, quietly enough to wake even a termite from the deathly silent night that was interrupted by the sounds of munching. He even made sure to make sure the “clop” sounds of his hoofs were quiet.

Sunset peered curiously around the archway to his living room and saw a somber, hunched form eating from a bag of oats and crackers, stuffing their maw with the oats and crackers and water to drown it all down. The form was small, fragile, and easily breakable as they ate ferociously. They acted as though they hadn’t eaten in years…and looked like it too.

“What are you doing in my house?” Sunset growled at the intruder. The stranger looked up, showing their wide, bulbous eyes as well as the anxiety and fear carried in them. The form fell back a bit and shuffled over to a nearby corner.

“Please! Just don’t hurt me! I’m sorry!” The voice was coarse and pained. They sounded like their throat was shutting from swelling and their vocal cords had been shrunk. But Sunset recognized the voice, the half-crazed, half-sane voice of family.
Sunset looked at his brother, filled with a variety of emotions including hate, anger, callousness, as well as—and most noticeably—caring.

“Powder!” he snapped, voice cracking with his confusing mix of emotions. “I would never hurt you!”