• Published 13th May 2014
  • 683 Views, 14 Comments

Aurora Song - MasterZadok



The Elements of Harmony have been returned to the tree from whence they came, but in their absence, what is left to stand between Ponyville and the heartless crew of pegasi airship pirates? Intent of stealing and destroying, the pirates close in.

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Chapter 9

“…

…”

The air was warm and smelled like pine. The only sound was the whispering of a tame fire in its little brick house. The soft orange glow it cast bathed the room in golden light, revealing a vaulted ceiling with polished wooden floors and ornate bookshelves.

He had been here before.

He sat in the arms of a large padded chair, looking out upon his library. Tiny scraps of metal and miniature toys cluttered the top of a nearby table. Outside the tall windows, the dark night was flecked with tiny snowflakes, each one a tiny star. The sound of little hooves tapped along the smooth floor.

He turned to see a small pegasus filly.

Her coat was white with a hint of blue in her mane and her bright purple eyes glimmered in the firelight. On her back, peeking through her tiny nightgown, was a pair of small wings too tiny for a pegasus of her age.

He had seen her before.

“Good morning, Porcelain. What are you doing up?” He asked in a whisper.

“I couldn’t sleep…” The little foal yawned.

“Come here.” He extended his warm wing and covered the little pegasus in a gentle hug.

“Did you stay up all night, daddy?” Porcelain looked up into his tired eyes.

“I had to…” He let a smile break across his face. “I had to finish your birthday present before you woke up.

“Ah?” The little pegasus gasped and her tiny mouth opened in as big of a smile as she could make.

“See?” He lifted Porcelain up and showed her the work bench.

There, glistening in the firelight, was a pair of metal wings.

“Oh…” The filly gasped. “They’re gorgeous!... For me?”

“Yes, my little doll. I made them for you…” A burning, even warmer than the flame in the fireplace, filled his chest as he saw the smiling face of his daughter. She looked up at him and he felt as if his heart would burst.

“I love them!” She whispered. The firelight darkened and the room began to be consumed by the night sky. Porcelain hugged her father and buried her little muzzle in his neck. “I think Scootaloo loved them, too.” The room had become very cold and now it was completely black.

Drossel Meyer woke with a start. He was laying on his back on a soft bed with smooth blankets pulled over him. But he still felt cold.

“And I love you, too, my little doll.” He whispered his final line. The memory was complete.

The room he found himself in was silent and bare, save for his bed and a nearby window. There were bags of water nearby and a chain binding his foreleg to a handle beside the bed. The window showed a tiny patch of radiant blue sky with the sun shining in it.

Where was he?

How long had he been asleep?

If he could stay in the realm of dreams, holding his little filly, he would have stayed asleep forever. Come to think of it, how many years had it been since he had created that memory? It felt like decades since he had looked upon his memories of Porcelain as anything other than a nightmare. But now, she seemed happy. He could still see her radiant eyes.

Drossel Meyer tried to move his foreleg to rub his eyes, but his entire body erupted in protest. His prosthetic foreleg was missing, and his other foreleg was chained down. His prosthetic wing was also missing and his good wing was bound in wads of gauze. His skin hurt like a crusty sunburn. Meyer decided not to try and move again. He closed his eye to sooth his throbbing headache. He didn’t know if a minute or an hour had passed when a nearby sound soon forced them open again.

“Ow!”

“Don’t move!”

“Shh! Guys, they’ll hear us!” Whispers came from under the small window. After a few moments of hushed conversation and the sound of a few bumps, a tiny orange face appeared at the window.

“Scootaloo?” Drossel Meyer tried to sit up again.

“Shh!” The filly held a hoof to her lips as she eased the window open. As silently as she could, the tiny pegasus let herself down onto the floor and walked over to Meyer’s bedside. She winced at the sight of the half-pegasus laying on the bed.

“I’m afraid I don’t look quite as dashing as before.” Drossel Meyer tried to smile.

“The doctors say that you’ll be ok as long as you don’t get sick from all your sores.” Scootaloo tried not to stare at Meyer’s stumpy wing and leg.

“So I’m in a hospital…”

“In Ponyville.” Scootaloo nodded. “It’s still here, thanks to you.”

Drossel Meyer’s last memories flashed through his mind. The screaming as his ship wedged itself in the river gorge, the sound of broken glass as the water pounded the bridge. A dull singing as an intense wave of heat washed over him.

“How am I still alive?” He asked himself as well as Scootaloo. “I was under the ship….”

“That’s where Rainbow Dash and Spitfire said they found you.” The orange filly looked up. “You were unconscious, down the hallway from the bridge.”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“She told us the whole story. Many times. Though it seems to get longer each time…”

“And the aurora core?”

“Burnt the ship to scrap metal. Though the rooms furthest from the core were almost untouched. Like the crew quarters.”

“I see…” Drossel Meyer looked up at the green ceiling. “And Spitfire… The captain of the Wonderbolts? Then I suppose Canterlot has been made aware of the situation?” He tugged ruefully at the chain attached to his leg. There were probably a couple of Celestia’s guards just outside the door. Thus, Scootaloo’s unorthodox entrance. “I imagine there are a lot of people who want to ask me questions.” He sighed helplessly. Scootaloo shifted on her hooves.

“Including me.” She whispered. “Mister Meyer, why did you give me those wings?” There was a long moment of silence. “You could have just walked away on that day when we first met. Why did you become my friend?”

“Maybe… Because I wanted to fix something that I knew could never be repaired.” Drossel Meyer turned to face his little friend. “Perhaps I was looking for redemption. Do you really want to know why I did what I did? Why I’m a pirate? Why I scorned your friends and attacked your town? Could you possibly let a wretch like me live after hearing all my sins?”

“Live? Mister Meyer, you saved the town! You almost died to save us. You deserve everypony’s and anypony's forgiveness.”

Drossel Meyer sighed. It may have been better for everypony if he had died in that crash.

“Far up north, on a continent beyond the north pole, is where I come from. There, the unicorns and earth ponies and pegasi have been fighting for centuries. Some historians recount the unrest all the way back to King Sombra, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that there wasn’t a single night when the glow of war couldn’t be seen on the horizon.

And I had a daughter.

A daughter much like you, with minor phocomelia. She was so innocent, so beautiful… But we had to live on the ground because of her. I was a representative of the pegasi, called by the honorific, "Her" Drossel Meyer, but even I wasn’t safe from the waves of violence that rippled across our land.

I… Made those metal wings for her…”

Scootaloo lowered her head.

“On her birthday, my manor was attacked by a militia of unicorns… They wanted to make a political statement and… they burned my house to the ground.” Drossel Meyer’s words caught in his throat. “They set off a bomb. I lost my wing, in the heat of that fire and my foreleg had to be amputated… The last thing I saw before losing my left eye was the sight of my daughter crying for me to help her.”

A tear trickled across the pegasus stallion’s cheek.

“That image was burned into my left eye no matter where I looked. She was always with me.

It was then that I made myself believe that the only way to earn peace was to end the war. And the only way to end it was to eliminate the opposition. I joined the pegasi air force, where I quickly became an officer despite my limitations. I was seen as a steely commander who wouldn’t hesitate to end a battle before it even began.

But I could never hurt civilians.

I thought I was protecting people, chasing away their fears before they even became a threat.” Drossel Meyer clenched his teeth and grimaced. “There’s no telling how many foals are without a father because of me! I never even thought of their pain. Only my own.”

Scootaloo put a reassuring hoof on Drossel Meyer’s shoulder.

“And you got a ship?”

“The pegasus’s last attempt to end the war. The three aurora-class airships. They worked well. Too well. The war ended within the year. Officially. But that didn’t mean that small militias of pegasi and earth ponies wouldn’t continue hate us. Without anything to loose, our foes became desperate and more dangerous. They destroyed the two other aurora ships and assassinated the heads of the pegasi government. I was suddenly a captain without orders. The world fell into chaos and the smoke of our land reached up to heaven. There was no law, only a motley crew preying on the weak so that we could fill our mouths with food.

And that’s where my story ends, as a pirate, seeking to burn a helpless town called Ponyville for a bite of bread!”

“But you didn’t!” Scootaloo insisted. “You stopped the attack! You saved us all! You’re not a bad guy, you’ve proven it!”

“My dear, your innocence is charming.” Drossel Meyer forced a dry laugh. “So charming… When I met you, I was instantly reminded of a time before I died inside. You touched something within me I thought I had lost forever. Peace.”

“I’m sure if you tell Celestia your story, she won’t put you in prison. She’ll see that… that you were mistaken, but you’re sorry.”

“I’d like to hear that.” Meyer chuckled. “Sorry for attacking your peaceful village. I won’t do it again.”

“You could write a letter, telling her that you don’t have to fight like you’re in a war anymore. That you want a real peace, now.” The little filly looked anxiously at her friend. “I believe you know that now.”

“Hmm… What have I learned over the past couple days?…” Drossel Meyer thought for a moment. He smiled weakly at the ceiling and began,

“Dear Princess Celestia,

I do not deserve your forgiveness, nor would it be proper to ask for it. Only know that I am sorry. I’m sorry because I was wrong. And I’ve hurt so many ponies because of it.

Today I learned that I was fighting for the wrong reasons. That the peace I was fighting for was the false peace all along. I fought as hard as I could, believing that superior firepower would bring peace to my home, believing that if I were powerful enough, that any opponent would never be brave or foolish enough to fight me and thus we would find peace.

But it’s a lie. That kind of peace is built on fear; the fear of mutually assured destruction. And fear is what tore my world apart in the first place. All the species were so afraid of the others that they invented more and more powerful weapons. In the end, we burned our kingdoms to ash.

The true peace is what was here in Ponyville all along. Forgiveness, loyalty, generosity, simple acts of kindness and little ideals like honesty and laughter. All to forge something as pure and simple as “friendship”.

I have tainted this land with the ash off my coat and there is nothing I can do to erase my mistakes. I can only hope that your peace will bleed into broken lands like my home, instead of our poison clouding yours instead.

-Your broken servant,

(Her) Drossel Meyer”

As the letter ended, Scootaloo continued to look up at her friend.

“I… Don’t know if it means anything… but I believe you. And I forgive you.”

“That actually means a lot to me right now… Thank you.” Drossel Meyer smiled at the little filly. Scootaloo glanced back down at the floor.

“You could stay in Ponyville, you know.” She whispered, “You can help us rebuild and keep us safe from any other pirates. You could even work in the clock tower! We need a new one!”

“My dear… I don’t think I’ll ever be useful again. The aurora core, my ship, my tools, my wings. They’re all gone. I’ll never be able to fly again, never be able to rebuild your wings. Even assuming Celestia doesn’t do what she has every right to and throw me into a dungeon until I rot… there’s no place for me here… There’s no room in Ponyville for a scarred old nag like me.”

Scootaloo finally flashed a smile.

“That’s just it, Mister Meyer! That’s what makes Ponyville special!” She gestured toward the window where Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were just peaking over the window sill. “There’s a place for everyone in Ponyville!”

***

Twilight Sparkle cautiously walked through the scorched and damp halls of the Aurora Song. Her eyes were filled with wonder that pegasi had been able to construct this monstrosity without any magic, but also pain that so much history had been lost when the aurora core had exploded. Her horn lit up the darkness as other ponies tentatively explored the sunken ship for any other crewmembers.

Up ahead, her path was blocked with water as the nose of the airship sloped down into the river. She was about to turn back when something caught her eye. A doorway stood open to her left, hanging limply on its hinges. Just inside the dark room, glowing in the purple light of her horn,

was a little blue scooter.

Author's Note:

I've really enjoyed this experience. Thank you, everyone, who followed me while writing this story. I hope it stayed true to the spirit of MLP (albeit a little more mature) and I hope many readers will enjoy it while we wait for season 5. XD

Thank you for reading!
-MasterZadok

Comments ( 7 )

It's been one week. (and no, I'm not talking about the song by the Barenaked Ladies)
One week and 26k words. Thank you to everyone who followed and faved! This has really shown me just what i'm capable of.

i can't wait to start more stories!

I..I..love ur story

Why is this so perfect!!

Dude, I love your work! It's so alive. You describe small detail really well, which is something that about 10% of the fanfics I read these days can actually do. Sure, a lot of people think that details get in the way of talking, but hey, I personally think a story should be more than a detailed script :P Let's just say that I got right into reading Aurora, no problems at all! I'm not done yet, but I'm thinking that finishing it will be just as rewarding.

If critique is what you're after, then there are a few things I could mention! Firstly, I always thought that you spelled pony types with capital letters (Pegasus, not pegasus). Not sure why I do, but hey, just mentioning! Second thing, a lot of your characters sound similar when they talk; maybe you could try working different speech patterns in, or maybe an Austrian or Russian accent or something just to spice it up a bit. Working a personality into a character's voice can be hard, but, if you got that down you'd be a lot closer to being perfect as far as I'm concerned! And the last thing is that I noticed a couple of minor things, spacing and quotation marks, which I think some kind of editor or proofreader could help you with. Let me know if you need one and you're having trouble finding one, I'd love to help someone who can write a story this well :twilightsmile:

Anyway, good luck with your next project, mate! I for one hope you've got more coming c:

4579785 Well, thank you for the compliments! Honestly, I just want to tell a story that people can enjoy and it means worlds to me whenever someone actually takes the time to say something. Thanks!
Definitely, I'm always looking for critiques and you bring some real sense of detail to the table!
I've been writing as a (serious) hobby, meaning that I want to be a writer some day, but that means understanding my strengths and weaknesses. I know that too much writing detail was my vice in the past and I know that I've tried going bare-minimum also (with limited results). That's to say that I'm trying to find a balance and some people have said that my writing reads like how a comic book looks. (fine by me... :twilightsmile:)
I think I noticed Microsoft Word trying to tell me that "pegasus" should be "Pegasus", but I think that's because "Pegasus" was the Greek myth's name and not necessarily it's species. So, like "human" I just went with lower-case. It's probably just preference at this point.
Thanks, also, for pointing out character's speech patterns.-
'Oi could prob'ly type loik this 'an git the roit talk'in sound, but moi collage prof. said 'oi should keep 'way 'o that, 'cause it gits 'ard to unnerstand an' reed..-
Instead, he said that I should try to rely on vernacular alone to give a character their voice. It's a weak point for me, though, because they all have the same vocabulary as me, the writer. :twilightsheepish:
Despite by best efforts, I couldn't catch an editor, so that's why the punctuation errors.

But, as for the story,
"Share and enjoy!" -A silly slogan of a fictional company in a ridiculous English comedic book series.

Thank you again! :twilightsmile:

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