Under a Grey Sky

by Achaian

Chapter Four: First Frost

Chapter Four

First Frost

Ditzy kept tight against her daughter, the armor that protected her from the world, the shield that could not shake the thoughts of her own vulnerability. She knew the sun would rise soon; out of the dark a lone bird or two whistled as the first hints of light broke the great emptiness. Lost in a veil of her own thoughts, Ditzy ripped herself away from her daughter, knowing that as great as her responsibility might be to her she could not think through certain problems with her close by.

Ditzy ascended to the top of the nearest hill and stared at the horizon. Mountains to her left, the camp lay undisturbed to her right as she gave a half-hearted ruffle of wings. She may have clung close to sleep and comfort, but Ditzy’s mind was sharp, clear, and worried. Hardly aware of the world around her, Ditzy’s gaze followed the sun as it hinted its might and finally rose, a raw display of burning elegance even before it was halfway risen.

“How in the bloody name of Tartarus can you stare at the sun like that?”

Quirk stood off to her right, far from awake yet still managing to sound incredulous. He did not look like he had weathered the night well; Ditzy could attribute it to his fading wounds or other oddities, but she instead turned her glance to him, blinking a few times as she realized just how bright the sun was.

Having no explanation, Ditzy gave a small shrug. Quirk walked away muttering and shaking his head his breath a waft of vapor, his eyes the barest squint against the morning rays.

Halfway curious, Ditzy turned her attention back to the dawning panorama. She found no problem with looking at the sun, although there was some irritation. So I can look at the sun better than others? It’s something, I guess; I haven’t heard that before. Or noticed it, really. But it’s something…

And something, she knew, would be a welcome distraction.

Quirk had grown more conversational over the last few days. As the boredom of long hours travelling through empty fields had set in, Ditzy had become more and more irritated at the thought that Luna could have just teleported them up towards the Crystal Empire and saved them the hassle of chasing Tick. Or so she assumed. She didn’t know that, not as a fact, and she unhappily supposed that if it was possible that Luna would have done it already to intercept Tick.

Quirk wandered off towards the ashes of their small congregation, deconstructing his tent. He kept from his tired muttering, his eyes sharper than usual, but Ditzy noticed none of it. I’m sure talking to Quirk would be better than ignoring them all. As much as I love Dinky, we’ve been in close proximity for a while now and I could use some adult conversation. I’m not fond of Quirk, but he’s not stupid and he more than knows that.

Ditzy sat up and stretched on the hilltop, the last of any weariness leaving her. The sun seemed to grant her fortitude, warm rays awakening an urge to move. Maybe it’s all the exercise.

Noticing Quirk packing, Ditzy held her position. Soon enough she would have to do that herself after awakening her child, and then off. Down through the rolling hills and into the taiga. Through that maze of dark wood and ice to a mountain town Eris had mentioned, then across those mountains themselves into whatever lay beyond.

Through that path Ditzy’s thoughts crept as Quirk finished his packing.

It was an explosion of all the thought Ditzy had ever entertained about him in a few moments. The feeling flashed through her from head to hoof to wingtip and back again, a mixture of ferocious anger, continued curiosity, deep suspicion, and lingering—vanishing—warmth. Sustained by the cold wind that overpowered the morning rays, Ditzy’s shudder ended in the pit of her stomach. Frigid feelings refused to melt, and even as the temperature dipped Ditzy knew it would only get colder.

Much colder.

Ditzy stared into the mountains ahead; gold eyes focused and frosted over.

You have a lot to answer for.

The wind accelerated, its low howl provoking a shiver that was not entirely free of emotion as Ditzy tore her gaze away from the mountain, closed her eyes, and forced herself to bury that feeling. It wasn’t that Tick was going to have to answer to Luna, to his brother, to whatever mad sense had exhorted him to cut and run.

You will answer to me for everything you’re putting us through.

Ditzy glided back to the camp.

~~~~~~~~

At least I don’t have to carry my tent.

Quirk hadn’t failed to notice how the ground under him had crunched under his steps, nor how the few errant snowflakes he spotted had originated from a great drift of clouds buffeting off the mountains ahead. There won’t be that much snow on this side. Hopefully. I think Tick called it the “rain shadow effect.” The prevailing wind is from the north, which is all I care to know, but he always wanted to know the official name…

Eris had dropped out of her crown of leaves with the sunrise and shown no hints of any sore muscles or tiredness that had afflicted the other members of the expedition. She had taken it on herself to carry most of the gear, and neither Ditzy nor Quirk had voiced any displeasure about that. They hadn’t voiced much of anything to Eris, and she hadn’t done much talking of her own. Except for the oddity of last night, which Quirk remembered with sleepy apprehension. Later, when I’m awake. I need to.

In the short time they had waited before they had set out, Ditzy had mentioned a few of the details about how they had gone looking for him. It was a short conversation, and Ditzy had been distressed and smoldering (no doubt not only because of who she was talking to at the time), but Quirk had noted details that worried him. Details of the very martial way Eris had decided to hunt him, the fact that the word “hunt” had been used, and the zest that they both had displayed in carrying it out. Obviously, Ditzy’s anger runs deeper and at more things. I hate the timing that my idiot brother chose to run off.

The hypocrisy of him thinking that wasn’t lost on Quirk. Every painfully mending inch of his body made sure of that.

I can’t exactly abandon him.

No, I can’t.

That didn’t stop me from leaving her without a word.

Quirk simmered for a moment, pissy. You had to be so damn nice and leave me feeling like even more of an asshole than I am. If you hadn’t been so damn nice, though, it would have killed me. I would have killed me, to be correct.

With a low sigh of deep, bitter exasperation, Quirk left his spot by the ruins of the fire and ambled over to the tree. Ditzy had collapsed her tent, her daughter was objecting to being woken up so early, and Eris was leaning against the tree, watching nothing in particular. Appearing to watch nothing in particular. That look, if I have read any, is deceiving.

“It’s time to move,” Eris announced as soon as Ditzy slid the last tent-pole into her bag, and they were off.

~~~~~~~

Ditzy and Eris led the troupe. What was stranger to Quirk was that they were having a conversation.

Odd as it is, I might as well get in the stream while it’s running. Providing that stream doesn’t run into rapids and end up throwing them off a waterfall. I was sure Ditzy hated her, or at least disliked her, although she’s not unreserved. What made Eris ready to talk so soon? Enough of these damn questions, anyways, let’s get some answers for once.

Quirk sped up. The assortment of pains that crisscrossed his body had readily faded over the last few days, or at a minimum he had become more resilient to them. Either way, he was less displeased about that fact than usual.

Happiness was a luxury.

Plodding his semi-stiff legs along, daring to stretch out his wings tentatively, Quirk caught up to the two. Or three, more correctly. Dinky had seized the opportunity for a free ride on her mother’s back, and perhaps it was a fortunate thing: Ditzy was keenly aware of the daughter on her back, and she no doubt inadvertently moderated the whole conversation. Quirk noted the hesitant way Ditzy looked at Eris when she spoke, and as he closed to a few feet he almost felt satisfied at his educated guess.

Almost pleasure.

It was better than self-loathing.

Ditzy nodded at something Eris was saying, and Quirk caught the last bit: “…not supposed to be any more than six inches on this side of the mountains. We shouldn’t have problems on this side with this few clouds. The other side will be a problem.”

“Avian operators all have the same basic training, including weather patterns, and I agree. It takes about ten inches of rain to produce an inch of snow, and there’s not enough cloud cover for that.”

Ditzy shrouded her caution as neutrality, but Eris’s utter casual confidence blew past that. “This is how it is,” Eris would remark casually, as if oblivious to Ditzy’s attempts to sound her out.

Basic training…

“It’ll change fast.” Eris let out a quick silent yawn, elongated canines flashing and vanishing. “But not faster than we’ll get over.”

That would be a good place to start.

Quirk came abreast of them at the natural end of the conversation, and soon Eris flapped ahead to get a better view of the nearing forest. Ditzy slowed, weighed down by her daughter and straining her brain to answer some convoluted question her daughter had asked. Quirk sped up to catch Eris, testing his wings cautiously and finding them able to move at will, if not painlessly.

“I’ve been wondering,” Quirk asked, announcing his presence as he closed the gap. “How does one go about joining the guard?”

Eris gave him a lazy half-glance as he approached, care lost to the constant wind.

“Sign up.”

Quirk bit off an acidic reply, hoping Eris’s laconic responses would lengthen once she realized Quirk was trying to start a real conversation.

Fine. You want direct, you get direct.

“How’d you get to be a guard?”

Eris was silent for a minute, then answered.

~~~~~~~

What’s the harm in giving him a little background?

Unwarranted exasperation and grumbling never passed her lips (when she didn’t want it to), but there was plenty of it trying to countermand Eris’s more reasonable thoughts. Eris shoved that aside with a minimum of discomfort, then set about composing a statement that would both satisfy her desire to keep to herself and Quirk’s query.

It wouldn’t be wise to cozy up to your prey after you’d caught it only to have it slip loose.

He needs something to chew on. Unfortunately for me.

“About seven or eight years ago Perilune—that mare we followed around in the barracks—hit me over the head, knocked me out. When I got out of the cell she put me in I applied for the guard.”

Eris didn’t look at Quirk as she talked, yet her focus was not on the story she told.

Quirk, however, had been keeping his eyes on her—respectfully, he knew better than to roam at the moment—and showed no lack of interest nor hesitation. His eyebrows raised for a moment, and revealed the barest hint of annoyance when Eris’s mouth remained sealed.

Looking ahead as she was, Eris didn’t catch it.

“Oh, come on,” Quirk prodded. “I told you quite a lot more than I needed to about Tick and me when you asked. Given the nature of our long and inevitably boring travel, you could at least throw an inch or two of dirt in the gaping holes in your story."

Eris replied tersely. “It was an interrogation. I don’t owe you anything, and not everything makes a good story.”

“You know, if you dropped the formality for a while you could have some fun.”

Eris halted over the span of a few seconds. She let that sink in, and then met Quirk’s eyes. Just stared.

Quirk met the blank stare for a few moments, then shifted as his features openly reassessed the wisdom of his statement. She held that stare, knowing that eventually he would sweat, eventually he would feel the pressure because he knew that Eris could be a danger to him, and she knew that he knew. It was easy to see the growing uncertainty on his face as his composure showed its broken edges, unpleasant memories brought back to bear the last time he’d pushed her. Although some parties would entertain the notion that he had deserved it.

Oh, really? So easy? Scared of me?

Eris hid the grin, but let a bit of it out anyways. For all Quirk knew, it was vampiric.

Quirk ran.

Quirk had bolted in spirit if not in form, an abrupt movement that retained some measure of dignity, which with a reasonable stretch could be construed as him launching off the top of the hill and gliding away.

For those less enamored with concessions, he fled like a spooked cat.

Eris let out a scratchy, sudden laugh and brought up a hoof to her wide smile, hoping he hadn’t heard as she watched his barely disguised retreat.

You don’t even know what fun is!

But Quirk’s ears pricked when he heard a distant laugh swiftly confined to snickering as his tactical readjustment landed him a ways away. Turning around to face his competitor with equal parts exasperation, admiration, and contemplation, Quirk watched as she resumed her endless march toward the mountains.

That, now that changes everything.

~~~~~~~

Ditzy observed Quirk’s sudden departure from the top of the next hill with curiosity.

Do I really want to know?

“Mom, why do the different cloud shapes make different weather?”

“Um…”

Gah. I used to know this.

“Dinky, you’re going to have to get off my back. I can’t carry you all the way.”

You’re too everloving heavy for me to carry you around much at all anymore. Especially when I’ve been walking for ages; we couldn’t fly if we wanted to with Quirk and Dinky.

“I don’t remember, love,” Ditzy admitted. “It’s been a while since I read about that sort of thing. Maybe you—”

Ditzy caught the words in her open mouth. Do I really want to tell her to ask them? Is my trust in them that weak?

Dinky cocked her head at her mother who had rolled her head around to pop her neck, using it as an excuse for another moment to think.

“You could go talk to Quirk or Eris about it,” Ditzy finished neutrally. The first true profusion of trees approached lay beyond the next hill, and at the top of that gently rolling crest Eris informed them that they would be stopping early that day.

~~~~~~~

Ditzy had sat down abruptly after they had stopped, moving a strand of her mane out of her face, thinking hard on something and looking in no mood to be social. Quirk, desiring to grab a bit of thinking space, cautiously exercised some of his newly regained wingpower and patiently ascended to a thick branch halfway up the tree made more convenient an observation post by the undulating terrain. They were truly hefty trees; most of them as thick as he was long and of a similar proportion to his age.

Staring beyond the mountains, Quirk drifted. Yet even as his normal eyes went about ceasing their work of paying attention to the world around him, the plain sight of the world in front of Quirk tore him back.

Framed in his memory like the edge of jagged glass, the mountain peaks leaped out at him.

Here!? It can’t be—but the mountains, it has to be so close to this spot—

Stumbling, Quirk knew he was about to fall. The understanding of that moment was second to the building eruption, the cacophony about to arise, but he managed to twist into a raw, sharp dive that rippled through his recovering muscles in painful bursts. The ground met Quirk too quick for his liking, and despite the fading wrench he managed to shake it off without a growl escaping his clenched teeth.

“Hi!”

Quirk turned to see Dinky, who was entirely too bubbly at that moment for him to ever tolerate. Just leave… go back to your mother…

She did not, however, and paused no longer, instead deciding to satisfy her inquisitiveness. “Why do you have a scar?”

Quirk ran a hoof over his recent wound as his mind jumped around a thousand times and places; a mixture of the calamitous recent past and the distant harrowing one confused him. Overloaded into stillness, there was little to say—to Dinky, at least—and the impulse to leave her hanging was strong as the dense oaks around.

No, no, I need to stay, should I go there, what do I do first? Do I even have time, could I go without being noticed, how would I explain my absence or why…

Quirk glanced back down when he remembered he was not alone, and he saw that Dinky had cocked her head, plainly expecting an answer.

“Ah…” Quirk muttered, still dazed. What do I tell her to satisfy her? How could I even begin to explain that to a child? “I got into an accident and somepony very nice helped me out of it.”

It’s to the west, judging from the mountains. If I can slip away for an hour, I can get there.

Unnoticed as far as he could tell, Quirk slipped away.

He flew at a low, slow pace, desperately wanting to move with great speed but experienced enough to not injure himself further. The rush of memory pushed him along now; he had been going for perhaps fifteen minutes and his anticipation surged as the eerie familiarity of the landscape increased. His slow search was soon rewarded: he happened upon the stream that led into the lake, that fateful location where so much of him had been decided.

Pausing, hovering by the stream, Quirk’s eyes narrowed as he oriented himself.

“Hey! Where are we going?”

Quirk spun around in the air to face the young voice, and his feelings sank to see Dinky.

“You followed me,” Quirk asked as much as stated, bland irritation coating his voice. Dinky nodded as she looked up at him, unperturbed.

“Your mother is going to kill me,” Quirk grumbled, loudly enough for Dinky to hear. Kill? No, too gentle… perhaps murder me in cold blood.

“Mom wouldn’t do that!” Dinky responded, eyes wide in vociferous objection, and Quirk settled down to the ground, running a hoof over his face.

I won’t stop here. I might never have this chance again and I’m not going to let them squander it.

“You really should get back to the camp.”

“Um…” Dinky looked left, right, spun around once, and looked back at Quirk with a face ruddy with embarrassment.

“You don’t know how to get back, do you?”

“No,” Dinky admitted quietly, looking down.

Why is there always something to screw my plans up? I shouldn’t make it any worse than I have too.

“You can come along with me, just make sure you stay close. And make sure your mother knows that I didn’t tell you to come along.” Quirk drew up his resolve, let out a silent exhalation, and the two continued walking through the forest’s columns of trees.

It was a slow walk, but his heart thudded; there was a light breeze that approached frigidity; the sun stabbed at Quirk like a desperate assassin through the leaves and it was all he could do to remind himself that he could be calm, that there was nothing to get worked up over. But it was nothing that had cursed him. Inevitably Quirk saw the break in the trees and sped up, beyond all thought and reason, driven by inexorable weight and feeling toward that moment, a moment of breaking. Quirk broke through the trees—

The lake was dark, solid, still.

Quirk’s breath caught in his throat, his mind in thought, his feeling in memory.

But there was nothing to feel.

Quirk almost stumbled to the ground, panting at the sprint and the mind racing, trying to find something in a vessel that was empty, seizing at phantoms that wisped like smoke.

What… why is there nothing?

Dinky scrambled to catch up, more or less aware of Quirk’s changed state, but for once too reserved to question it. Quirk had sat without noticing, and she timidly approached him.

“Quirk,” a child’s voice asked carefully behind him, “why are we here?”

This is where my parents left me and my brother

This is where I tried to kill myself at twelve

This is where hating myself became a habit

This is—

“I guess,” Quirk said quietly with decorum horribly out of place for his situation, “I just wanted to see it again.”

~~~~~~~~

Dinky was looking up at Quirk in his silence, fidgeting.

I don’t know what I think anymore. Why did I go here at all?

The question of so few words tumbled down an endless staircase, cracking a thousand times until the echo subsided to nothing. Quirk no longer understood even his own questions. He felt nothing: not the hopeless apathy of depression, not a cynical nihilism. There was no fear, anger, wonder, or pain.

Did I have a reason to go here? Is there not some feeling I was looking for? But there was nothing for him to feel here. It was that overwhelming, simple realization that had assaulted him with a battering rush and left him senseless, flooded around him, whispered and died out to leave him without illumination as ever.

Maybe this is a reminder of how stupid I am to think that I knew how I work or to know myself at all. By own talent maligned, then left behind; then I had the good sense to spiral off and let the wind blow me anywhere it wanted. Always the temporary pleasures, always the vivid vitriol of escape’s irony. I never had any roots, I never wanted them. And he kept me from the worst of it when it was plainly obvious. And she brought me out when I went alone into the depths of my own abyss. What have I been doing my whole life that I end up like this?

It was like trying to measure the world with a yardstick. Quirk sat down sometime in the endless tiring breadth of his own thoughts.

I don’t know what I think anymore.

“How much longer are we going to be here?” Dinky asked. Tinged with discomfort and a sense that not everything was fine and dandy, she had wandered around a few dozen yards with the tendency to glance back at the worryingly silent Quirk.
Quirk met her eyes, then swept his across the landscape as if seeing it for the first time, as if reading it for the last time.

“Not any longer.”

~~~~~~~

There was a face in the mirror that Tick didn’t recognize.

What is this?

The light-grey apparition conjured in the mirror before him blinked with his thought, his attention. The eyes ticked in perfect rhythm with the originals. Like the gaze of an alien Tick stared at the image which he could not quite believe was a reflection of his own self. The details of the face were trivial and upsetting. The details of his face revealed the difference between knowledge and arrogance. Eyes once blind looked away from the symptom of his malady.

I suppose it’s inevitable, but I don’t recognize myself. I have to figure out how to approach Silver Skies—sooner rather than later given the brief nature of this place—and I have to learn about where I’m going and get an idea of what to do.

The words were painful as the rest of his thoughts were. Tick looked away into nothing, working his jaw lightly with a tepid reluctance. The sparse, rickety room he occupied had not changed; it was getting later in the night and he would have to act now or tomorrow. So often he had bartered away his time on elusive solutions, yet Tick’s aversion of persistent company translated easily into reluctance.

And the golden shadow hung behind that veil as readily as it had ever.

A burst of tired determination would carry Tick out of his room to face the immediate challenge and chance that Silver Skies offered, but it was not that time yet.

~~~~~~~~

It is a shame to think that you have not acted, a travesty to think that you ignore it, a danger that you dismiss it. You know what was lost, what we must find! Have you lived so long with the fact of our schism that you consider our reunification to be the crown and end to all the problems it created? The seals are cut open; the Empire uncovered; the battle has not even begun and you pretend that those forces do not exist.

Luna seethed with tempting impatience, wrapped in the moody battlegear of old cataclysms. Her guard would have immediately picked up on her feelings, although she would have treated them with much the same respectful distance as all others. Her feelings, for the most part, were here own. We are not so sure that you are attuned to them!

The calmer sister walked abreast of Luna, eyes bright and darting to any guard or counsellor they passed, giving a small nod of acknowledgement to each (which seemed ridiculous compared to some of the more obsequious reactions). Yet they vanished into the menagerie of halls afterwards, for it was clear that only half of the entourage was ready to dispense pleasant nothings.

It was much whispered that Luna was only moody around Celestia, or, as the quieter of them postulated, that Luna only allowed herself to act in that manner towards Celestia. And even then it was rare: Luna’s insistent grip on the decorum of old, especially how she composed herself, had shifted with a glacier’s dull pace. In her better moods it melted more readily, but amusement was a concealed thing among their busy years. Her “official” humorous conduct, for the infrequent appropriate moment, was… strange.

None who spotted her at that moment would have thought of laughing.

Minutes later, Celestia abruptly veered into a small and disused room, absent of windows and any feature that could have brought interest. Luna thought of inquiring as to the change of plan, but Celestia’s eyes had blinked once and in the span of a second assumed a more serious demeanor. Knowing the look for what it was, Luna entered without word or noise and quietly shut the door behind her.

After all, it would be unseemly to give the unseen eyes and ears following them more direction.

“I will speak plainly and quickly. I know that you think ill of my lack of action for that particular problem. However, I think that you have it under control, no matter how much it seems to be out of control. Giving it more attention would inevitably draw others’ eyes. I have been at work on another project, turning a specific detriment into an asset.”

Celestia’s voice lacked the commanding echo of a throne’s guidance, replaced by the swift directness of a master at work. Luna nodded her on grudgingly, knowing when to leave the battleax mounted for later and curious enough to hear what scheme she had wrought. That dual curiosity and suspicion deepened with Celestia’s vague choice of words.

“I expect many to disapprove of this decision, not least those who I will entrust with carrying it out. This idea has hidden in the back of my mind for over a year, and Luna, I trust and hope you will receive this with an open mind…”

Because everypony involved will need it, Celestia added only to herself, another sighing problem in a mind that held the earth and sun in its grasp.

~~~~~~~~

Eris watched her without watching her.

Evidently nearing exhaustion, Ditzy had collapsed as soon as the party had ceased their endless march. Brought low by nag, wondering, or the enervating drain of the trip, Ditzy had taken little action besides lying on her back spread-eagled to watch the obscured heavens pass by. The trees about them were not yet colossal, but they would near ever-more gigantic heights and spread as they neared the north.

Eris watched Ditzy without watching her, a habit born of old days and hardly warranting whatever small threat Ditzy could have offered. Yet Eris knew despite her swagger that relying too much on her own gauge of threats could be fatal. The sly-eyed batguard had her limits, after all. And it would be pretty stupid of me to forget that. Better to look stupid because of caution than be stupid. Not that Eris had any worries about that. With those ominous and calm thoughts straying through her quiet mind, Eris approached the flattened mare without a sound.

“I need to talk to you about Tick.”

Absent from Eris’s voice was her usual laconic superiority, instead replaced by a sincere-sounding wave of emotion, an anchor in her voice that dragged it low, let her reach deep into emotion once callously lacking. The new depth was an invitation for solidarity. The new depth was a dangerous avenue. Ditzy started and sat up quickly, blinking, cautious, and uncertain. Her eyes were prisms of gold set in a statue shocked in tumult.

Ditzy appreciates sincerity. She will respect passion. She will honor honesty.

“I know that you have mixed feelings about Tick. There are things about that we have to discuss.”

~~~~~~~~

I’m a lucky bastard not to have died yet. But at this point I’m fairly confident that will change when I get back to Ditzy. At least I won’t be able to run far before she catches and dismembers me like one of those ancient dramas Tick reads. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll end up as one of the idiots in those plays if they get around to telling Tick of my demise. Assuming whatever they have in store for Tick doesn’t include a lack of survival or permanent incarceration. He had better be damn enjoying whatever he’s doing!

The anger faded quickly. The reasons for it would not. And Tick is a long way away. Relatively.

Quirk passed the last barrier of tree-trunks into the camp with Dinky close behind, readying himself for a barrage, but none came. No great utterances but the quick realization and relief that Ditzy had forgotten about her daughter for some short time. There was a jolt in Ditzy’s eyes, but it was already ongoing. It was no small wonder for Quirk, whose suspicions grew deeper as old responsibilities made way for the new.

While Ditzy brought her daughter into her tent as the sun collapsed beyond the sky, Quirk made his way to his. Eris must have set it up, he thought in the last quiet of his night. His mind was still shattered, obliterated, filled with the vast soundless indignity of how he had carried himself through life. Quirk did not listen to the wind. Sleep came for him to shape his mind for the morrow, a thousand subtle alterations made to break chains long woven.

The wind carried whispers of the moment. The cold carried the turn of the season.