Chapter 18: Feathers
There was a time in my life where Father wasn’t struggling for pay, when we managed to live comfortably in our neighborhood. When friends were made simply by asking if they wanted to be my friend, and crying was a perfectly normal reaction to a scraped knee. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I would often look back on those days and remember when everything was simpler.
One of my fondest memories of that time is when my Father and I went to the lake as it thawed in spring. That was where he taught me how to skip stones. The first few plops and pelunks were particularly resonant, but not nearly as much as the first thwip of a stone being skipped on the water. My cheers, as well as Father’s warm smile as he ruffled the top of my head, are quite vivid in my mind’s eye. And they drew a sharp contrast to the sounds that I was getting from throwing stones when I was older.
“OW! Ffffffffuck!” Val’s exclamations drew me out of my reverie. “Why do you have to throw them so hard?” She nursed her shoulder, which was likely already forming a bruise. “Do I have to be wearing this stupid cloak while we practice?”
I dropped the stone I was preparing to throw at her and fell back on all fours. We had finished our jog, and Val’s help had been instrumental in the creation of the lead-lined hut where I dumped all the radioactive materials. I didn’t know if the lead armor I commissioned kept me safe, but I didn’t feel nauseous nor was I losing hair, so I supposed I was safe. Having had breakfast, I decided to train Val in the noble art of dodging.
So I basically threw rocks while yelling “Dodge better!” every now and then.
“Yes, you have to be wearing the cloak,” I answered. “You’re not going to be dodging in the nude. And for your information, I’ve been pulling my punches. The opponents you may face will not.”
“Pulling your punches?” Val sat down in a huff. “Why is it that everything here is so strong?”
Steel Fang’s ears perked up, and he stopped gnawing the bone he’d found on our jog to stare at Val. She stared at him back. Steel went back to his bone.
“While magic does give everything a leg up on you, you are more capable of surviving devastating injuries and even walking with such injuries.”
“Huh?” Val cocked her head.
“It takes more force to break a pony’s ribs than it does a human’s, but a human would be able to walk with broken ribs, albeit painfully, and recover from them more successfully.” I sighed. “So yes, it’d be easier to injure you, but harder to keep you down. I can only imagine how devastating it would be if you interrupted a creature’s magic after you break one of their bones, considering humans have remarkable shock resistance. Hell, if you break a pony’s limb and negate their magic, they may just go into shock and die. Nevertheless, you have no magic, so unless you want to be walking around with broken ribs from a crazed minotaur, you’ll learn how to dodge.”
I threw another rock, which she easily dodged.
“See? You’re already getting better.”
Val rolled her eyes and began walking towards me.
“Can’t we take a break? I haven’t washed since…wow, since I was in New York.”
“You certainly smell a bit…ripe,” I replied with a sniff. “Which would explain why Steel Fang had been avoiding you.”
We both turned to look at the direwolf, who was indeed keeping his distance from Val, a wary look in his ice-blue eyes. He picked up his bone and paced about at the edge of the woods, as if he was debating whether to run or to attack.
“He’s usually at ease with me.” I turned around to head towards the river. “I’ll comfort him later. For now, we need to get you clean. I suspect the only reason I haven’t been KO’d yet is because I’ve worked with sewage before. Come on, now.”
Val was stunned for a moment before she shook her head and followed me, not noticing the blue towel I grabbed and carried under my wing.
“Ass,” she muttered.
Ignoring her comment, I trotted onwards, stretching my wings all the while. My wings are practically healed. I gave an experimental flap and found myself in the air. I should be able to fly within three days. Then I can finally start doing all of the tasks Zecora wants me to do. Hell, I could probably get Val to help me. I idly scratched my foreleg to the best of my abilities. Good thing I’m going to get washed; I’m feeling really itchy. Finally, we arrived at the river.
“Val, I’m going to wash first, then I’ll turn around so you can get undressed and clean yourself properly.”
“Fine,” she grunted. “Just hurry up. I don’t want to be compared to sewage again.”
I threw the towel onto a branch, dived into the cold water and began scrubbing myself vigorously. I broke the surface and dunked my head in the water a few times to wash out my mane. I noticed a bunch of white stuff floating on the water around me. Down? Oh, damn it. I’m molting. No wonder I was so itchy.
“Are those…feathers?” I heard Val ask from the riverbank.
“Yup,” I said. “Apparently I’ve got a layer of down underneath my fur. I guess that cotton insulation for my hut was just a huge waste of money.” I grimaced. “And a potential fire hazard.” I dunked myself underwater once more to remove more of those pesky feathers. After a good ten minutes of scrubbing, I was satisfied. I got out of the water and shook myself dry.
“Really?” Val said.
“You would not believe how much practice it took me to do that properly.” Val just sighed and motioned me to turn around. I obliged and sat on my rump, facing Steel Fang. I took the opportunity to preen my wings as she undressed.
“How the hell do you even know how to take care of your wings?”
“Studied avian biology before I came here. I also helped preen young shy albatrosses as part of the program.” There was a pause as Val rinsed herself. Steel Fang came by my side and lay down.
“That’s pretty gnarly…Can you tell me about it?”
“Well…” I took a deep breath and a guitar began to strum from somewhere.
“In the forests of the Northwest,
Fly many types of fauna!
From the loon in the bird’s nest,
To the frigatebird flying to nirvana!”
I sat up and began flapping my wings as Val no doubt looked around in befuddlement and Steel just bobbed his head to the music.
“Oh, you can trust this one’s words;
All life is great, from oceans to skies,
But those that reign are the birds!
If you disagree you must revise!
After all ̶ ”
THUNK!
I fell back down to the ground, nursing my jaw. A solid hoof to the face to keep myself from singing seemed to be the only option at the time, and proved to be quite effective.
“Sorry about that,” I said, clearing my throat. “Apparently that happens a lot here. Funnily enough, I couldn’t carry a note to save my life before, but it just seems to come to me naturally now.”
The muffled snorting from behind me and the odd hacking noise Steel was making told me that both Val and Steel were trying very hard not to laugh out loud. Suffice to say, they weren’t succeeding.
“Maybe if humanity would burst into song now and then, we wouldn’t suck so much.”
“I’m sorry, what?” My ears swiveled backwards to hear her better. Neat. Sort of disturbing, but neat.
“I said humanity’s fucked. Screwed. Nothing more than a big pile of sin and failure.” There was a splash, as if Val wanted to accentuate her point. “We’ve thrived on war and violence, destroying anything that gets in the way of progress,” Val spat. “Even members of our own species, young or old, innocent or not. Humanity was God’s biggest mistake. We are flawed.”
“I thought I heard wrong, but there is indeed shit coming out of the wrong hole. First off, you know very little of history if all you think about are the darker things in human history. Yes, there were crusades, awful wars, and millions of victims of war, disease, and famine. But like it or not, there has been a steady decline in violence throughout the course of history. Hell, the middle ages weren’t as fraught with war as people seem to believe. We’ve had the Renaissance, we’ve performed medical miracles, people have given all they could to charities, we’ve landed people on the moon, and we’ve made endless information and communication a tap away. And despite what the media would have you believe, we are currently in the most peaceful age of human history. And it is our flaws that make us so mighty. We always strive to be better, like a tower that’s always leaning to one side, yet is constantly being built, fixed, and grown. It’s only when we look down that we spot that we’ve surpassed the heavens.”
“Bullshit,” Val shot back. “New York is a damn cesspool for crime, the government is spying on the average citizen’s every move, and the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are in the middle of a nuclear Mexican standoff. We’re a hair away from a fiery holocaust.”
“If you had read on the Patriot act when it was introduced during the Bush administration instead of being ̶ Wait. The U.S.S.R.? What are you going on about?”
“I’m talking about the end of humanity as we know it, dumbass! The end of the worst goddamn species to ever be born on earth!”
“…Come on, Steel, let’s go.” Steel picked himself up and followed me as I walked back into the forest.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Val called.
“Anywhere but here!” I yelled back. “If I wanted misanthropy, I would’ve gone on the Internet!”
“The fuck’s an internet!?” I heard her ask in the distance.
I shook my head and walked on. Steel Fang padded besides me, looking at me inquisitively. I refused to speak for a few moments, hoping that the crunching of leaves underhoof and the chirping of birds would drown out the silence. But Steel knew me better than that. Despite my stoic expression, he continued staring at me and even nudging me to talk.
“Alright, alright.” I said. “I’ll talk. It’s just…” I sighed. “I can’t stand people like her. The misanthropes, the whiners, the idiots who just throw their arms in the air and say: ‘Fuck it! We’re screwed anyways, so why bother doing anything!’ They just lay on their backs and accept the failures of ‘those that preceded us’. No fights, no effort, and they go on thinking they couldn’t have done anything.” I kicked a stone, watching it sail off into the distance.
“Cowards,” I spat, “the lot of them. I, or my previous incarnation, I dunno, had a crappy life. False friends, delusion, death. But instead of laying down and letting myself get trampled by these problems, I rose up, dusted myself off, and kept going. I know there are bad people. I’ve met some of the most disgusting people ever to grace the earth. But I’ve also met people who, despite everything, managed to bring light to the darkest places. Charles Acevedo, the man who spent his days trudging through sewers humming a tune and talking about how happy he was to make his city a cleaner place. Lucy Collins, a nurse who tried to protect her patients from her peers, and ended up testifying against them. Even Graham White, a lawyer who took time out of his busy schedule to comfort a grieving son. I’ve seen acts of foul hatred and disgust, but I remember many kind deeds from complete strangers. The world is a good place, and people shouldn’t be lying down and complaining how bad it is. They should be sitting up and trying to make it even better.”
I took a deep breath and winded down. Steel licked my face.
“Thank you, Steel. You have no idea how much I needed to let off some steam.” I flapped my wings experimentally. “Want to go for a jog? Don’t worry, I prefer to keep low to the ground.”
Steel yipped and took off. I followed, flapping my wings sporadically. I may be scared shitless of open spaces, but I’ll be damned if I don’t use every advantage I have. A smile grew on my face as I began bounding over and around Steel Fang as we ran through the woods.
<><><>
Val sighed as she washed the rest of her hair. Well, wash the best she could without soap and conditioner. She shouldn’t have gotten angry at him. While she may have lost her home, her family, and her friends, she had no reason to lash out at the ma ̶ guy who had lost all that and his body and his trust in himself. She paused. While she had told him about her home and her family, he had chosen to listen rather than talk about his.
“What is up with that guy?” she muttered to herself. “Forget how creepy his eyes are. Just the lack of emotion is like looking at a brick wall.” Val got out of the water, only to remember she hadn’t brought a towel. It was then that she noticed a blue towel hanging amidst the branches of a tree.
“The jerk really does care.” Val gave a wry smile.
After drying off and getting dressed, mumbling curses about cloaks all the while, she began walking back towards the cabin. As much as the forest reminded her of Alabama, she still preferred the hustle of New York during the day. It was strange that it was harder for her to sleep at night without police sirens, but she supposed it was a matter of habit.
“I don’t know if I should feel safer or in more danger with a giant wolf and a mentally unstable guy living nearby.” Val squinted. “And just saying that out loud makes me sound crazy.”
Val sighed and shook her head, nearly running into a tree.
“Oh, sorry, sir. Crap…” Val looked around to make sure nobody saw her mistake. “Damn, I really am a city gal. “
She was about to walk off when she noticed the notches on the tree. She crouched down and trailed her fingers across the bark of the tree. Walking around to count the notches, her eyes caught sight of a small pile of bones, the charred remains of a fireplace, and something Val recognized from the walks along the seedier parts of New York. Dried vomit. She picked up the tiny skull and held it close to her eyes.
“A rodent. A squirrel maybe?” Val whispered to herself. She looked back over the remains of the fire, recognizing the shape and style. “Windell? Why? He’s a plant-eater now; the vomit proves it.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “But he doesn’t want to be. So what does that make the notches? The amount of things he’s tried to eat?”
Val approached the tree once more, noticing some of the notches were healing whereas others were a faded green.
“Ten notches?”
Val looked over to the nearby trees, seeing that the closer ones had similar notches, some dark and healed, some lighter and healing and a few green and fresh. Val walked to the tree with the greenest scratches, counting only six notches before ending on the freshest cut.
“He’s counting the days…” Val breathed.
She followed the trees back to the oldest tree, coincidentally the one closest to the cabin. The first three cuts seemed to have aged the same, so he had only started counting shortly after he had arrived. On the next tree, a scratch had a perpendicular line going through it. Curious, Val followed the trees until she arrived to the most recently ‘completed’ tree. There, on the tenth notch, was another line.
“Seven days. What happened seven days ago? We spent four days building that hut and training, one for me to get used to things, another just for general questions…He found me seven days ago.” She turned back to the tree with the first cross. “Is that when he found Steel?”
Val shook her head and headed back towards the camp. “It isn’t any of my business. Unless…” She stopped. “He’s counting how long his ‘delusion’ lasts.” Val threw her arms up in the air in exasperation. “I’ve got to convince him that this isn’t a delusion. I owe him at least that.”
Val nearly walked back into the clearing when she heard voices, prompting her to quickly jump back into the underbrush. She recognized three of the ponies Windell had warned her about. The rainbow-haired pegasus, the fancy white unicorn, and the purple unicorn, all of whom were talking as they entered Windell’s clearing.
“Holy shit…I thought I was being polite by not mentioning how unnaturally large his eyes are…but Jesus Christ, theirs are even larger,” Val whispered.
Instantly, the ponies stopped talking, and their ears swiveled towards her.
“Did you two hear anything?” the pegasus asked in a scratchy voice.
“I thought I did, dear. But it may be nothing more than a small creature,” the white one said as the purple one’s horn glowed.
“I just did a magical scan, and other than a magic vacuum in that direction-” she pointed directly towards Val, who tensed, “-nothing other than your usual small creatures.”
“A magic vacuum?” The pegasus flew closer to the purple one. “Should we check it out, Twilight?”
Twilight, the purple one, shook her head.
“If we went chasing every magic vacuum, Rainbow, we’d be running in circles around the Everfree.”
Rainbow nodded and turned back to the white unicorn.
“Anyway Rares, you should have seen the size of the wolf! Taller than Big Mac, maybe even bigger than Celestia! Of course I knocked it back…”
“I sincerely doubt that, Rainbow,” Rares the unicorn said dismissively.
“She’s not exaggerating, Rarity. It was a direwolf, which was why Rainbow and I insisted on escorting you here. Windell may not have it completely tamed.”
“And she wasn’t exaggerating at all?”
“Okay,” Rainbow conceded, “maybe the wolf was injured before I got to it. But it was still pretty big.”
“But wasn’t Windell a bit upset about that?” Twilight asked.
“’A bit’ is putting it mildly.” Rainbow smiled sheepishly.
Rarity levitated a pile of clothes out of her saddlebags and deposited them daintily on the top step of the cabin.
“There we go. And it was unnecessary of you two to follow me, because the ‘direwolf’ was not even here. Now, shall we be off? I must prepare for my stay at Canterlot.” The three began walking away.
“Hey Rarity, aren’t you going to make him pay for it?” Rainbow asked.
“For such an interesting project? Perish the thought! I would have liked to meet the minotaur the outfit was for, though.”
“Maybe it’s out fishing with Windell and his wolf. Ooh, Rarity, I’ve got to tell you the way he fishes. It’s a riot!”
Once the three ponies were out of earshot, Val approached the bundle of clothes. Atop the pile was a note obviously meant for Windell, written in flowery cursive. Val looked through the clothes and found everything seemed to be her size. She hoped Rarity knew what she was doing. As she looked over the gauntlets, an idea was born.
“I’m not sure if this will work…but I’ve got a needle and some thread, as well as a few spare strips of titanium from the ‘Diamond Dogs’.” She opened the door and walked inside. “ I could make this work.”
Windell came back a few hours later, carrying a basket of fish with a tired direwolf at his tail. He found Val in the cloak she had altered so it clung to her form such that it did not get in the way when she moved. The extra material had apparently been used to make sleeves, which connected to four-fingered gauntlets layered with titanium strips along the top of the forearm. The cloak billowed out at the legs, to allow for ease of movement, and despite it trailing along the ground, Windell and Val had discovered that it had also been enchanted to not trip the wearer. And just as before, her shining golden eyes looked out from the darkness of her cowl.
“I sincerely doubt Rarity would do all of that, so am I correct to assume that you’ve received the clothes, and you’ve altered them somewhat?”
Val felt uneasy looking at his expressionless eyes, but nodded nonetheless.
“Listen,” she started, “I just wanted to apologize for acting the way I did, and ̶ ”
“Apologies are unnecessary. You were under duress, and you just got caught up in the moment. You were merely speaking your opinion. It may be grossly wrong from my point of view, but I’m sure you have experienced enough to come to that biased conclusion on your own.”
Val shifted uneasily.
“Anyways, Rarity left you a letter.”
His eyes widened slightly before reverting back to their unreadable state. He took the letter in hoof and sat down in the pile of Bui-Bui leaves reserved for Steel Fang. Opening it with a wing, he read over the parchment with an annoyed grunt.
“What’s up?”
“She wants to give it to us for free.”
“What?” Val blinked and cocked her head to the side. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“I don’t like being indebted to people. Did Rarity see you?”
“Well, no, I listened in from the bushes. Apparently, they can’t detect me magically.”
“That’s good. I’m still peeved at Rarity for giving it to us ‘pro bono’. I’ll have to find a way to pay her back, whether she likes it or not.”
“…Well, at least there’s a bright side!” Val smiled fiendishly from the shadows of her hood. “I get to finally scratch you behind the ears without knocking you out!”
Windell raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move. Val took it as an invitation to scratch him behind the ears. After a few seconds his ears twitched. Then his tail flicked about and one of his back leg developed a little tic. But just as suddenly as it began, he shot up, wings flared. He landed on his back, eyes wide, ears splayed back. He scrambled to his hooves and his eyes flew from side to side, looking for an escape as his wings flapped sporadically.
“No!” He shook his head wildly. “Veroni ̶ I mean, Val. Don’t. Don’t do that.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Val rose her arms tranquilly. “I’m sorry…just, deep breaths, okay?”
Windell took a few breaths before returning to his stoic expression. And yet, Val could see a hint of that fear in his eyes.
“I’ll, I’ll just prepare dinner now. Please don’t do that again.” Val swore she heard him continue talking under his breath. “I’m in control. I have control over myself. I’m better than this.”
Val leaned back against a supporting pillar.
“What the hell happened to you, Windell? And who’s Veronica?”
<><><>
Traveler flows across Manehatten’s Central Park, idly observing a bird on a branch. The bird takes flight and the being encases it within an invisible sphere of its essence.
“Oh, little birdie. Do you know how interesting you are?”
A tendril follows the path the bird thinks it takes as it flies, as the spherical essence simulates what the bird would be feeling as it takes the path, from its sight, to the sound, and even the individual gusts of wind Traveler feels across its being. From the outside the bird has disappeared from view. For the bird, it is nothing more than an ordinary flight.
“It may be true that an onlooker would appreciate what you contribute to the scenery as a whole…but I am of the few that sees the portrait of reality as it really is. Art made of art. Beauty of beauty.”
The invisible tendril flows between branches, seeing, feeling, and hearing for the bird.
“Each cell is a brushstroke of a portrait, forming a whole, a piece of art in itself. But the organism is but a miniscule part of the ecosystem. Of a masterpiece. And an even smaller part of the biome itself. Life…one would think that a being such as I would hate you, be jealous of what you feel, or look down upon you for what you cannot do. Ridiculous. I cannot hate you any more than I can hate a blooming flower.”
The tendril stops by a series of flowers before dancing around them.
“That is life, after all. You germinate, you grow, you bloom, you reproduce, and you…wither away.”
The sliver of Traveler’s essence continues onwards, leaving a direct line back towards the center of its being, back towards the bird.
“All according to your programming. It seems like I am the only one that remembers those that have gone. Even those that I’ve…clipped.”
The tendril falters from a gust of wind, mimicking the bird.
“Of course, it would be more accurate to say I’ve burned down the entire forest and salted the earth. Sad…Horrifying…Devastating. But necessary. I may have risen above my own programming, but I choose to still hold on to some parts. Regret, love, fear, some humor. Hatred, despite my best efforts.”
The forefront of the tendril solidifies and becomes visible to the naked eye, taking the shape of a blue jay, mimicking it aesthetically down to the feather.
“But the hatred is reserved for things that are not nearly as physical as you, or even as physical as I. Concepts, ideas, dreams, emotions. How I loathe some ideas! How I despise those that end things without reason! How I hate hatred! Myself…But when I come upon beings that make those concepts a reality. Those that spew vitriol, they that plan pain and suffering not for the gain of the whole, but for themselves?”
The thing that looks like a blue jay swoops about, enjoying the feeling in its feathers, happy to be alive. An imitation of one that believes to be in its place.
“A small part of me is horrified as I watch on, enamored by their own individual beauty, their flaws and their perfections, hoping that some hero will step in and do what is right. I am satisfied to see that, the majority of the time, what is good and right prevails. But a majority is not all, nor is it much larger than the times I have seen travesty done. The horrors I have witnessed. The carnage, the torture, the death! How I wanted to swoop in and save the day! But there is a balance in every world. I’d be a fool to disturb it. I do not care whether I am loved or hated. I have risen above that programming a long time ago. All I have left to guide me is duty.”
The imposter disintegrates, and the illusion falls apart within the real bird’s bubble. Instantly, it begins panicking, flying about in the darkness, seeking a way out.
“A pity that it is so much easier for me to destroy than to create. Life is so…fragile. Fulfilling, yet delicate. Existence is tedious. But what you have, my little feathered friend, is precious.”
Two orbs glow in the darkness, filling the bird with foreign memories until it loses consciousness. Traveler cradles it in its tendrils and deposits it gently on the branch it first flew off of.
“I really do hate destroying works of art for the benefit of the world. But it is only logical that a masterpiece missing a few pixels is better than no masterpiece at all.”
The bird wakes up, but Traveler does not stay to see if it takes the same path. It prefers not to know. Instead, it flows back into Manehatten.
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So Val is from somewhere between the Late Fifties to Early Seventies.
Neat.
...
I probably got those wrong, but I'm an Australian, so I know very little about the Cold War period for America, beyond the Moon Landing and the fact that both Russia and America actually tested brain-washing as a war-tactic.
6244049 My first thought was that Val was from a different timeline, but it does sound more like just in the past when I think about it. It seems like they are at or near the Cuban Missile Crisis.
6244438 Again, I'm Australian, so I don't know when that was.
6244458
Cuban Missile Crisis was early 60s
I have to agree with the MC in this chapter. I can't stand stories where the human seems to hate his/her own species, or people in real life who think the same.
It's like these people believe that just because we're not all saints that the entire race should never have existed. Right before they go buy a bunch of stuff at Walmart where many of the goods were made from child/near-slave labor.
WHAAAAAAT?
A post-edit author's comment?
Yes, friends, that is true. Unfortunately, recent events have made writing at the usual pace very difficult. Nevertheless, I managed to spit this one out, and I even kept it to as few perspective swaps as I could. There was originally supposed to be a Luna perspective as well a few more shifts to Windell, but what she went through could be very easily described in a later Barcrawl chapter (2-3 chapters from now), or more in depth in an extra. The other perspective shifts will make up the next chapter. FYI, one reason this chapter took so long was because of my attempt at the extra titled 'Tron's Legacy'. Anyways, the main thing about this chapter is more insight into Windell as a character.
DISCLAIMER!
I cannot stress this enough. The beliefs of my characters are not my own. Not even Windell's. There are some things I agree with, to make a stance more believable for each character, as to make suitable friction between some characters, but each of my characters have their own individual opinions. And if you pay close attention, or stick around long enough, you'll realize that Windell is a massive hypocrite. His claim to fame for helping humanity is basically 'not reproducing' so his faulty genes don't spread. Everything else he does is just the behavior of a reclusive bibliophile. This will actually an important developing aspect.
6244049
6244438
You guys are getting close! I've debated putting in one more hint about Val's origins, but I thought it'd be too obvious. I'm just surprised nobody caught the first hint.
6258985 Like I told the other guy, I'm Australian, so the hint would've flown past me regardless.
So is the reason val disrupts magic and instills a need to kill in Wendill because unlike him she was not supposed to be in equestria.