Mending Light

by Kiromancer

35 - Open Positions

A single drop of water emerged from the spigot. It seemed nervous, there was a big world out here for it to face, outside of the massive tank of water where it had been stored. At last, it released its stubborn grip and plummeted down into the unknown.

I caught the lone tear in a tiny dish just for this purpose. Then, I carefully lowered it down into a jet of cold air, and pressed my hoof down to, ever so gently, shift the water. With just a touch of magic, I felt the water's shape stretch out and solidify. I lifted my hoof and held up a single perfect snowflake.

"Haven't lost your touch, eh?" Blizzard Breeze stepped up besides me to admire my hoofwork.

With a grin, I delicately set the snowflake down in the queue. From there, it'd be sent along with any others made today, and eventually reach the careful eyes of the quality inspectors. "I wouldn't deserve my cutie mark if I couldn't make a snowflake."

Bree laughed. "If you say so. I know quite a few weather ponies who can buck clouds, but wouldn't know a dendrite from a plate snowflake, and probably don't care."

I stepped away from the water tank and adjusted my helmet. The Cloudsdale Weather Factory issued work coats, helmets, and protective eye-wear to any ponies before they were allowed to enter, though I admit I’d never seen a pony injured by an errant rain cloud. "Well, it's not that important to know, I just like snow."

"You have passion, Night." She put a hoof to my side and smiled. "Absolutely nothing wrong with that."

We continued our walk through the factory, staying out of the way of the workers as they hurried about. They were busy managing the clouds and directing water to regulate rain across Equestria. Others were mixing rainbows and creating snow to store for the winter, and just about anything else weather related.

I'd only been to the factory proper a few times before, mostly on personal tours. Any pony who'd grown up in Cloudsdale had been there at least once, usually on a field trip in school. A good portion of the city’s population worked for the factory in some regard. For me, today, the trip was work related as well.

"There's no real applicants for the night shift in Ponyville." She opened the door to one of the record halls. "Though, to be fair, you've not opened an actual position."

I dipped my ears as we walked into the long hall of filing cabinets. "Well, that's mostly my fault. Things got... busy."

"Well, it's fine. And I'm listening to your recommendation on this one, but if she doesn't seem to be up to the task, we'll have to search elsewhere." Bree's eyes traced across the cabinets until she located the right one, flying up to open the drawer.

"Yeah, no problem. I'm confident she can do the—" My jaw dropped as Bree lifted the file out. it was easily three times as thick as any other file, crammed full of papers.

Bree raised an eyebrow, giving me a sidelong glance as she lowered back down with the file. "You sure?"

I nodded. "Err... yeah. I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems."

Spring Showers. We flipped open the folder to find a mix of minor disciplinary notes and transfer requests. Position after position within the weather factory, she’d transferred from job to job at an alarming rate.

I checked the date on the most recent transfer. “Well, it seems she stopped jumping about just over a year ago. She must have found a position she liked.”

Bree frowned. “Or she gave up.” She lifted one of the pages, reading through it. “Pranks and general horseplay. Nopony ever got hurt, her supervisors weren't even angry, just asking her to focus on her work a bit more.”

“Well, that certainly sounds like Spring. Except the giving up part.” I sighed. “Though, Mint did say she’d been in a rut.”

“Maybe this assignment will do her good. If she’s willing to take it.”

I hoped she would. Both because it’d give me somepony I could trust as an employee, as well as, just maybe, bringing my sister and I closer together. “I don’t know. I don’t want her to take the job because she feels like she owes me. Spring’s work with clouds is as good as mine with snow.”

“Makes ya wonder why she stopped here.” Bree gave me a strange look. “Maybe underestimating yourself runs in the family.”

“Well… maybe.” No more of that, though. If I was able to get to a point in my life where I could see myself as more, maybe I could help Spring do that too.

---

Good to her word, Merri insisted on buying a round for the table when we next met at the Lusty Seapony. Whiskey, cider, Mahogany's buzzards, she even took care of getting tea for me. There was something comforting in just everypony being back together. There was something else comforting too.

Dusky sat close beside me, sipping at her cider. She'd been released from the clinic with a clean bill of health and no more traces of Ghost Petal.

Across the table was Terrabona, grinning like a madmare. "So, you two are just, a thing now, out in the open, eh?"

Dusky giggled. "I think you already know the answer to that, don't you?"

"Well, I just wanted to say it's about time!" Terra raised her glass, thrusting it into the air before she leaned it back to drink.

"Yeah, but it was funnier when Flurry was all embarrassed and Dusky didn't know he existed," Mahogany spoke into his buzzard glass. "You ask me, it's a step backwards, comedy-wise."

Terra snorted. "Bah, you're thinking about it all wrong, Mahogany! There are fresh new ways to embarrass Flurry now! Like kissing! How much have they kissed? And for how long?"

Laughing loudly, Merri leaned in and grinned. "At least once we've seen. Really long one too~."

I felt my face blush, but didn't care. After what we'd been through, that wasn't going to stop me anymore. I leaned towards Dusky and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Well, um... there's one more."

Dusky responded with a giggle and my smile grew. She leaned against me.

Mahogany rolled his eyes. "They're so pwecious! So cyoot! So... saccharine. Bleh."

Terra prodded at Mahogany. "Well, I'm happy for you two at least. Another Terrabona success story."

"Alright, Terra. Thank you for all your hard work." Dusky stuck her tongue out.

"Damn right." She turned her gaze from us towards Mahogany, Merri, and Starshadow. "Two down. Three to go."

Starshadow glanced up from her book. "I will pass, thank you."

"Awww, come on! I bet I can hook you up with so—"

"Mahogany Forest!" A great shout cut through the bar. A pegasus stormed towards our table.

He was solidly built. His coat was dark brown, and a gray mustache sat over his lip, impeccably trimmed in a fashion to match his straight-groomed mane. His face was stuck somewhere between rage and disgust as he slammed his hoof on the table. "Celestia's Hell, Mahogany, I was afraid I'd find you in some rundown slum and I can see I was right."

Mahogany, meanwhile, had shrank down in his seat, ears folding back.

"Hey, now. No need to shout." Terra turned to shoot the stallion a glare. "We were trying to have a pleasant conversation before you interrupted."

He stared back. "Ma'am, I am this colt's father. I can interrupt any time I choose."

Dusky straightened in her seat. "Well, perhaps it would be best to move into the back room to—"

He cut her off. "He's my Son, and I'll speak to him where I damn well want to."

I glanced over at Mahogany, who sat quietly, face down at the table. His voice was surprisingly low. "Guys... don't."

"Right. At least the colt still has some sense. I'm here for a simple conversation with my son. It's my privilege as his father."

Mahogany sighed. "What do you want, Dad?"

"Hmph. Some respect first. And an apology, for wasting years of your life out here, when you should have been back home, helping your family."

"Dad, I don't want anything to do with the company."

"Well, you've had your chance. It's been four, almost five years? You've moped around in this backwater wasting your time in this bar with these little friends, but now it's time to admit your mistakes and come home."

Mahogany's mouth moved, but he just nodded.

"You've wasted all your time on that terrible job, but at least your boss had the sense to call me when you failed to show up for a whole month, and again when you failed to show up last week."

Dusky leaned forward to catch his eye. "Sir, in case you haven’t noticed, Mahogany is a full-grown stallion—one capable of making his own choices."

"He's a child. He could barely make it through school, and when I offered him real responsibility, he ran. He's been running ever since. Usually into a bottle. And I'm done tolerating his crap. It's time to go home."

"H-home?" Mahogany rocked in his seat.

"Home. Time to leave your filthy little apartment, and your pointless job and gray nothing life with these so-called friends behind." His father straightened slightly, raising his head. "You've got a position to fill, and a purpose greater than the pathetic little box on your flank. Now come on. Your little vacation is over."

Mahogany looked awful, the color drained from his face. He slumped down lower, but on the table, his hooves were shaking.

Terra stood up, pointing a hoof at the stallion. "It's not a vacation! It's his life! Do you have any idea what he's been through?"

"Do you have any idea what he's put me through?" He snorted and stepped over to Mahogany, then grabbed his mane by the teeth, pulling him from his seat. "I've got train tickets for the eight-thirty train home. Come on, Mahogany."

Dusky tensed besides me, and I prepared to follow her lead.

"No." Mahogany barely croaked out the word as he pulled himself from the floor.

Birch looked over at his son with a look of fury I could never imagine on my own dad's face. "I'm sorry, did you just tell me no?"

Mahogany's voice cracked, but there was confidence creeping in now. "I did, yeah. I'm not going to come back with you."

"You're not serious." He looked at each of us, pointing a hoof across the bar. "You're throwing away your only chance for what? For this? For these so-called friends? You're in a gutter, Mahogany, and they're just draggi—"

"Shut up!" Mahogany spun, his hoof flailed at his father, and it struck hard with a crack against his father's jaw. He stopped inches from his father, face to face with him as he shouted. "You've ruined every good thing in my life. All you ever cared about was the company, the company, the company! You've never cared about anything I wanted, or that I could be!"

His father was enraged, spitting out a thin line of blood. "I am your father! You can't treat me like that! I'm not afraid to teach you a harsher lesson, if you refuse to listen."

"Better ponies than you have taken shots, Birch." Mahogany took another step forward, standing his ground. "You're a monster, and you're no father of mine. You, sir, are no White Riot."

The insult meant far more to Mahogany than it did to his father, who just snorted in disdain. In the corner of my eye, I saw Dusky’s frown deepen, that name surely invoked bad memories. I stretched a wing out, gently brushing against her in as comforting a motion as I could manage.

The two stared at one another, on the brink of violence, and nopony seemed able to make a move.

At last, Birch Forest stepped back, sneering. "You think this is over? You think you've won? Fine, let me give you what you've always wanted." He stepped towards the exit. "As is my right as patriarch of the Forest family, I cast you out! As of today, you forfeit your shares of the company, your inheritance, and your family name! Choke on your miserable little life."

He turned and shoved his way out the door, the whole bar staring after him.

Mahogany deflated as noise slowly came back into the bar. "Never wanted to be one of you anyways."

Our group stared in silence as the bar returned to its normal level of noise. Terra spoke first. "Whoa... damn, Mahogany..."

He moved back to his seat and unceremoniously flopped down. "That was the hardest thing I've ever done."

I had always known Mahogany had issues with his family, we'd talked about it before, but perhaps I'd let my own family experiences cloud just how different we were. "He's wrong, Mahogany..."

He let out a grim laugh. "He's wrong about a lot of things, but so am I, usually."

I nodded. "Well, sometimes. But you're not worthless... and we are your friends. We'll support you."

Dusky moved closer to Mahogany and gave him a light hug. "Just like you've supported us."

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

Family connections pulling from all sides.

Always good to see a control freak get told that enough is enough.

[Dracmatais]

I just don't even know where to begin with this and it's companion fic. First off, the early parts were fairly awkward but the writing has smoothed out and matured over time. Second, this is probably the most grown up story I've read in a long long time. Sure, there are darker and edgier stories out there. Stories of moral ambiguity abound as well. What makes this story so grown up as compared to other's that might seem at first blush a better fit for that position is it's mature take on both what it means to be a hero and a good person and it's slow building up of the romantic aspect.

For the romance part, at first the love Night has for Dusky is a shallow self serving thing that exists as a pretext for doing something ultimately stupid, self defeating, and pointless. A kind of suicide that Night manages to delude himself into thinking is somehow noble. Slowly, over time as Night matures as a person and gets to know Dusky better we see his awakening to the reality that his earlier feelings were kind of hollow and empty of meaning. Despite this those feelings served as an excellent catalyst for his change into a more mature adult over time. That gradual building of genuine affection and emotion has been handled excellently here.

The way this story treats the subject of being a hero is a rare treat in my opinion. Heroes of all stripes and kind abound in stories and their deeds and sacrifices are overly romanticized. Rarely does a story touch on just how little is changed for the better when the hero has to die to achieve their goal. Dusky is quite right to condemn so called heroes for taking the easy way out and dying instead of living and facing the consequences of their ideologies. I love how Dusky slowly transforms Night's opinion on just what it means to be a hero. I love even more how Night manages to be the hero he wanted to be by simply being there for the people he cares for and not letting his own doubts about his capabilities stop him from trying. Even better is the realistic struggle as both Dusky and Night lean on each other through both the ups and downs of their evolving relationship.

[Kiromancer]

7197163
Thank you for the comment! I'm glad to hear your feelings on the writing, this is my first attempt at doing a published work, and I've been working hard to improve since I started. Your take on the themes is dead on, and I'm glad that those elements are all coming through. If you have any other thoughts on the story, positive or negative, please feel free to let me know.

7191452
Yes, Birch has been a bit of a looming presence for Mahogany. Mahogany has only just realized that with everything he's been through, he can actually stand up to him.