Cyclosa

by NorrisThePony

The Scrapyard

i

I heard it before I saw it, cutting through the hissing steam and distant clattering of metal to reach my perked ears as I straightened a little to listen closer. It came as a low drone, a sound much less elegant than the snow white sails and razor sharp propellor blades I had seen before would have led me to believe. I allowed myself the luxury of listening ever so subtly as I feigned work, but really had diverted the more significant portion of my attention towards the low rumbling splitting through the clouds. The guards were lazing about that day, more focused on their cardgame then on making sure any of us were working. Nevertheless, we were all very aware from past incidents that there were no second chances or forgiveness for unproductive workers, and I was in no mood to walk home on broken limbs.

And so I exercised as much caution as possible every time I cast a quick glance in the direction of the airship which had begun to sink from beneath the sheet of muddy clouds into view.

In my peripheral I saw the airship’s red envelope grow in size and when I turned my head ever so slightly I was greeted to the magnificent sight of it sailing not ten feet away from the mountain of scrap and junk that I was standing upon. Its altitude decreased further and mooring lines were dropped as guards flung down their cards to divert their attention towards the airship.

Several more quick glances showed me that a few of the guards seemed to be speaking with the pilot of the airship, who I could not seem to see. The ship itself was a fairly decrepit deal, it’s envelope was patched haphazardly, and the gondola was put together out of various things that looked as though flight had not ever intended to be amongst their varying purposes. Despite it’s outwardly harshness the airship carried a certain charm to it that I had not seen before in the houses of my home city of Cyclosa, even though they carried the same patchwork design.

“Hey! White unicorn!” The words were spoken loudly, harshly, and distinctly in my direction. I felt my blood run cold and fear shoot down my spine as I turned my attention from the scrap I had been pretending to sort through to the source of the orders, one of the guards standing by the airship.

I stared dumbly for several seconds, before she once again spoke.

“Yeah, you! Purple mane! You’re new here, right?”

“A….as of last week, yes,” I said, trying my best to keep my adolescent voice from cracking under the pressure of my blooming dread and fear.

“Well get down here!” she barked. I instantly sprung to action, navigating my way down the mountain of scrap in the direction of the small clearing in the scrapyard where the ship had made its landing. I stood as tall as my still relatively short legs would allow and did not let my eyes meet either those of the guards or the airship pilot. As a result, even as I stood mere feet from him I had no clue what his appearance was, or if it was a stallion at all.

The guard was a familiar voice though, I had heard her shouting at other ponies in the scrapyard, but never at me until now. Only once on my second day did I see her actually carry out the harsh threats she had spat, and until the sun set and my day’s work was over I had to force myself to repress the urge to help the poor pony with his broken and deformed snout oozing blood.

Now, it was my turn to be in the limelight, and I was less than enthusiastic, but I dared not show it as I stood as straight as I could manage.

“Have you ever replaced an airship prop before, filly?”

“N...no…” I said meekly.

“What?!” her voice was like the crack of a whip, jolting me to my senses as if I had been struck by one. “You’re mumbling, pearly. Speak up!”

“No, I don’t know how to,” I began. I was inches away from telling her I had never been taught, before my mind caught up with me and I quickly disregarded the very notion.

“You worthless little rat,” she chided. “Alright. Well, go get a prop. Bring it down here. I guess we’ll do the work as usual.”

I quickly whipped around, and began scuttling across the wreckage in the direction of where we had left the airship propellers we had found amongst the discarded ships. I had quickly glimpsed the former one crooked and broken on the ship, and had been chanting my estimations of its dimensions in my mind knowing that I would likely be asked to find a matching one.

I quickly found one that seemed to match it in size and lifted the immensely heavy blade onto my back and started back towards the ship. When I returned, I found that the guards had gone and it was just the pilot leaning against his ship, tossing a wrench into the air idly in one hoof. I set down the prop and started to leave when his voice instantly stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Hey, thanks kid.”

To my surprise, the voice did not belong to that of a stallion at all. It was a mare, although her voice carried a distinct tomboyish tone to it. I turned around and saw that she had been wearing round, exaggerated goggles, which must have been why it hadn’t been more evident to me before. Whatever color her mane and coat was I had no idea, for it was almost completely covered in dirt and grime. Her mane was cut incredibly short, but her tail had a bit more length to it and despite the filth coating it was surprisingly well maintained.

“Y...you’re welcome.” I mumbled, my mind internally running rapidly in search of proper responses to these unfamiliar queries that wouldn’t get my teeth knocked out by one of the nearby guards.

“How old are you?” the pilot next asked me.

“Ah...I’m ten, ma’am.”

She wrinkled her nose a little in disgust at my response, but her next sentence quickly soothed my panicking thoughts.

“Only ten? Isn’t this work a little dangerous for somepony that young? Why the hell are you here?”

“Well…” I began nervously, but she continued for me anyways, as if she knew the fear I carried in responding.

“Family, right? Maybe a sibling? Cousin? Something like that?”

“Yeah. A sister.” With every moment I spent speaking with the type of airship pilot I had always admired in my fantasy daydreams, I felt in me something that in another age would be much more common, but in the land I lived in had all but died. Back then, the concept of hope was a little foreign to me.

“She’s five. And then there’s my parents, too," I swiftly elaborated.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Celestia.”

“Nice to meet you, Celestia,” she offered a hoof, which I hesitantly gazed at for several seconds before extending my own to shake it. Before I did, however, she pulled it back, grinned mischievously, and used it to instead motion at the hulking airship behind her. “Listen, kid. I’ve got a bit of advice for you, alright?”

She took a step towards me so that she was standing directly to my side, and with a hoof she motioned across the sprawling mountains of airship scrap. Next, she turned to look me in the eyes, somehow meeting them through the cracked and stained lenses of her goggles, and gave me a supportive smile.

“What you’re doing for your family is brave and heroic, Celestia, but don’t devote your life to this dump. You want a bit of freedom?” she gave the gondola of her airship a playful hit with a hoof. “Then hit the bird roads. Trust me, you don’t want to spend your life in a scrapyard.”

I nodded slowly; it seemed as though she was speaking from experience. Then again, it wasn’t entirely unlikely that she had in fact been doing exactly what I was at one point in her life. It wasn’t as though ponies were regularly taught the intricacies of dirigible flight and maintenance. Most couldn’t care less; airships transported food and water across the Grey Wastelands to the clustered settlements and any other knowledge about them was unnecessary.

Of course, as of a week prior, I was the exception; the pony who returned home with a little more knowledge and a little less blindness to the world outside of Cyclosa.

The airship pilot gave me one last grin, and then pointed with her wrench at the pile of scrap she had seen me descend from. I understood the gesture in a moment and scrambled up to resume sorting through the abandoned affairs of derelict ships.

However, the moment I had reached the top, I quickly and nervously started digging through the scrap in search of something very particular that I had found earlier in the week and hidden. It was a tattered piece of paper that had somehow survived whatever had taken the ship it was within down. I found it and hastily unfurled it, before running a hoof through my mane and bringing it to the paper.

Using the dirt my mane had gathered, I sketched a rough depiction of the airship which had landed, as my heart beat furiously in panicked fear. Quickly I crumbled the paper up and stuffed it into my long, purple mane, knowing that if the guards asked to search my coat pockets at the end of the day then I would be in very deep trouble.

Casually, I resumed my work, and did not cast so much as a glance at the airship for the remainder of my shift.

ii

In the dark of the smoggy night skies I walked alone to my home.

Imagine a sea of splintery plywood of mismatched colours, rising and falling with the somewhat ambiguous shapes of shanty houses for an immense distance. Imagine smoke billowing eternally, regardless of any fire or source of pollution, over the roofs of the shacks and into the air which at no point had any colour and was instead the same grey when the sun was out and the same starless black when it wasn’t. Imagine an endless sprawl of poverty and sorrow, visible clearly in every sad face and collapsing home on it’s five foot long streets.

Now, take whatever picture you may have in your head of this pathetic squabble of a city, and imagine it somehow worse in every measurable aspect. By doing so, I imagine you’d have some sort of idea what Cyclosa was like.

This was my home. It was the only place I had ever known and more than likely the only place I would ever see.

While I was walking home alone, I was hardly the only pony in the damp evening streets. The entire city was bustling with an incomprehensible number of ponies, so that navigating through them all was a damn near impossibility. As best as I could I ducked and crouched out of the way of ponies who seemed to be locked in vicarious celebration, although what of I had no clue. I thought I saw the burning of pony-like effigies, but who they were supposed to resemble I could not have known from the quick glimpses I had seen.

Eventually, an entire hour later than I had grown accustomed to, I arrived at my house, which was almost completely similar to the one next to mine except a little larger. In fact, I believe ours was one of the largest on the street; my mother had not one child but two, which was hardly orthodox in a world where food was scarce and sacred and more mouths to feed were never welcomed.

The house was dark and unlit when I arrived. The first room served as our kitchen, living area, and my mother and father’s sleeping area. It was completely empty, something I took a moment to realize in the dark. Blindly I stumbled in the direction of the only other room, where I could see a faint light emanating.

I pushed the tattered sheet separating the two rooms aside. The moment I did, I heard a quick squeak, followed by a rapid shuffling of blankets and blur of blue fur and darker blue mane and wings in the dark.

"Celly?" A high pitched voice called out in barely repressed terror.

“Hey, Luna,” I advanced further in the room. Luna instantly flung the blanket away and tackled me in a large embrace. We shared one of the two rooms in our home, our two mattresses surrounded by a cage of plywood and nails.

“What are you doing up?” I chided. “Where’s mom and dad?”

“They’re...celebrating something out there….” she shrugged. “I dunno what. I think I heard them say…”

Luna paused, as if weighing the repercussions of saying the next word. Indeed, it was one that carried a rather significant prejudice not only in Cyclosa but across the entire nation. Warily, she finally said it.

“...alicorn.”

I would have liked to say I shuddered in disgust, or perhaps muttered a bitter curse of frustration, but to say so would be a lie on my part. Instead, I felt nothing but a little familiarity and realization as I pieced together the celebrating cheers and the effigy burning and quickly put the two together.

“Yeah. They must have captured that last alicorn they thought was trying to attack the capitol.” I explained. Luna was still shaking a little in fear, so I pulled her into another hug and followed it up with a quick nuzzle.

“T...that’s good, right?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

For a long while we did nothing but lay alone and awake in the dark, listening to the explosions of fireworks and the cheering voices in the distance. Luna shirked at every blast, nuzzling me occasionally when she desired the comfort. Even then, she was evidently terrified and disturbed by the apparent celebration of what in later years we would later come to decide of as a blatant murder.

“Hey...I saw another one today, Luna…” I offered, suddenly remembering. I dug into my mane and withdrew the paper, passing it to Luna to open. Her eyes glowed a little in amazement when she began analyzing the crude lines I had drawn depicting the ship. While she still flinched with every noise from beyond our thin house walls, it seemed like her curiosity had since taken a hold of her emotions.

“And guess what?” I proceeded slowly. “I met her captain.”

“No way!” she gasped.

“Yes way!” I couldn’t seem to help it; as her grin intensified to a toothy smile mine did in delayed synchronization. “She was wearing the goggles and everything! Just like in your fairy tales!”

“What did she say to you?!”

“She asked my name. She thanked me for helping her fix her ship’s propellor. And…”

I paused, unsure whether or not it would be wise to tell Luna what else she had said.

Hope wasn’t extinct in Cyclosa, even if it’s outward hostility betrayed its existence. Even amongst the pain and heartbreak and loss and sadness, hope existed at least in the warm, innocent hearts of the fillies and colts still running and playing through the plywood jungle. When you’re young enough to not know any better, hope will always exist.

I quickly decided I wasn’t going to deny Luna anymore hope than what had already been forced away from her.

“...and she told me I should leave Cyclosa when I'm older.”

“You should!” Luna exclaimed, jumping up and down with excitement. “Celestia, you should! And you could take me with you! We could fight pirates and brave storms and meet Discord and—”

“Easy, Lulu,” I chuckled. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Please, Celly,” Luna’s smile had vanished, she was now looking at me with large, wide, and serious eyes. “ I’m not joking. Promise me we’ll leave Cyclosa someday.”

I sighed loudly. I could tell she was exhausted, and scared. I don’t exactly know what compelled me to say what I did, nor do I fully know whether or not I ever regretted the words I had spoken. Had I said them to simply get her to fall asleep, or at the time did I truly believe in the hope that had already begun to dwindle away in my aging heart?

“I promise, Luna. Someday, me and you are going to leave Cyclosa.”

I reached over and pointed at the crude picture of the airship grasped in Luna’s hoof.

“It’ll be an adventure.”

A smile again formed on her lips, and stayed there as her breathing grew in intensity as she fell asleep. I sat in silence, listening to her snoring; a stark contrast to the boisterous celebration outside.

I watched the only candle Luna had lit creep into nothingness over the course of the night, too lost in thought to notice the rapid passing of time. I wasn’t even thinking of anything in particular, simply staring blankly into the darkness. Occasionally I felt a sharp tinge of fear at what I had just told Luna, or a grim prediction of how life in the scrapyard may go terribly wrong the next day; perhaps they would find out I had stolen from them, or that I hadn’t known how to replace the airship rotor.

Eventually my mind wandered to the thought of the airship pilot, and what she had said to me.

“Why do I even care what you think I should do?” I spat to nopony in the darkness aloud.

Even over the many ensuing years of life I would live...over the decades and centuries and millenniums, my mind sometimes wanders to what she had said to me that day, when I wasn’t an alicorn or a princess or anything. When I was a tiny filly dwarfed by the cruel world around me, and the only pony I knew who was smaller was my own sister.

Most frequently, I wonder if she hadn’t said anything to me at all, if I would ever have left Cyclosa.

iii

Alicorn were dangerous.

The words were driven into me and my sister's heads long before either of us had even seen what an alicorn looked like. Alicorns are powerful. Alicorns are merciless. Alicorns are anarchists who only exist to disrupt the natural course of life that we had grown to love. They were a threat that was slowly (and thankfully!) being eradicated.

Centuries before Luna and I were born, the only surviving alicorns had since been driven into hiding, living in the mountains far north or keeping their wings and horns hidden or removed completely.

As I stated before, Luna and I lived in a city of plywood houses called Cyclosa. Luna, even at the age of twelve, hadn’t the faintest idea of how to apply the wings on her back for the purpose of flight, but I had been practicing magic in secret and was actually quite adept at using my horn. The two of us, pegasus and unicorn, lived peacefully, or, as peaceful as one can live in a world ruled by chaos and disharmony, for the first eighteen years of my life and the first twelve of Luna’s.

Cyclosa was a community almost stereotypically reflective of what life in what would eventually become Equestria was like. In those days, the land’s name was inspired largely by it’s draconequus leader, Lord Discord, a leader ponies today would be surprised to learn was as admired as he was feared. The nation of Erisia had been kept safe from every natural disaster and every attack any foreign nation planned, and even if those attacks had been called ‘liberations’ and ‘in the name of ponykind,’ we had all cheered whenever news of their defeat surfaced.

Quite simply put, ponies loved Discord. Not that they were ever given a choice.

I remember clearly the day that the last alicorn in Erisia was publicly executed by order of Lord Discord in front of a massive audience of jeering ponies screaming insults not at the murder they’d come to watch, but at the winged unicorn Erisia had been first forced and now taught to hate. Of course, I didn’t see the hanging itself, for there was at least three thousand miles dividing our home in Cyclosa and Erisia’s capital city of Stormsborough. But the news had spread like wildfire, and the distance didn’t seem to matter, for by day’s end every town, Cyclosa included, had exploded in celebration of the next age of peace that the death of the last alicorn had brought. If the celebrations I had seen when the alicorn had been captured when I was returning home from the scrapyard were impressive, then the ensuing ones would have to be classified as something else entirely.

The alicorn hadn’t even been given an age nor gender, looking back I suppose this was done intentionally in an attempt to remove every aspect of equinity and individuality that it had possessed. It didn’t have a family, a sister or brother or wife or husband, it didn’t have any love in it’s heart to allow for such things. According to Discord’s rule, it was simply a threat that was now no more.

Discord didn’t brainwash a single pony into believing this, it was simply common knowledge amongst every Erisian. Even Luna and I saw the news of the alicorn’s death as a good thing, even if we had tried our best to tune out the boisterous celebration that went on and on through the smoggy night. Fireworks and roaring bonfires were lit, as were effigies built in the shape of alicorns. Through the night ponies sang songs that they didn’t even seem to realize were propaganda for Discord’s hideous regime.

The next week, once all the celebration and joy had died away, the memory of the crime they had all endorsed had already begun to fade, and life in the filth that was Erisia continued on uninterrupted.

iv

Even after her twelfth birthday, eight years after I had first started work in the scrapyards, Luna didn’t attend any equivalent of school like most fillies and colts do today in a much tamer Equestria. In that time, such a system did exist, but she didn’t attend often, not out of refusal but mostly because she was needed at home. In retrospect, I am quite thankful for her heavy load of household chores, for they kept her isolated from the pro-Discord-propaganda she would’ve been fed otherwise.

I myself had continued working in the airship scrap yard, which even after eight years was really no more than a glorified dump of old dirigible envelopes, rusted propellers, and split masts with the sails no more than tattered rags. When I had started years ago, it had been exciting and intriguing, even if everyday I worked with a foreboding sense of terror in the back of my mind at all points in the day. In later days as I matured, I didn’t really see myself as much more than a slave working under the guise of free will. But I knew that the harder I worked and the more bits I brought in for my family, the more I would be ensuring my younger sister didn’t need to be placed in a dangerous position every day like I was.

Without school, Luna had relied on me to learn how to read, and I did so using charred, tattered fairy tale books that I am quite certain would have been burned had they been discovered. They were exciting tales of brave fillies and colts who left their homes to set out on incredible, adventure-rich journeys. It was these stories I recalled slightly guiltily as I watched the ponies descend from their airships, manes and coats stained with grease and grime, to barter for fuel or parts. The initial charm from that first pilot I had meant had proven to die away, although I didn’t ever speak to any of them ever again after that first week.

In my youth, before monotony and corruption had run it’s course, I suppose I looked to the airships with hope and longing. As I matured, the longing had remained, but the hope had been eradicated. By the age of eighteen, I saw my life working in the airship scrapyard as relatively complete. What else was there? I had enough food to survive, I had shelter by day’s end. I was even relatively respected by the Erisian Guards who oversaw work in the scrapyard, and had a reputation as a hard and determined worker.

To say life passed in a blur over those first eight years would be a lie. It was hard and long and sad. I quickly found that the only way to move on past life in such a cruel world was to stop caring about anypony other than a select few. I had no concept of friendship because no concept of friendship existed, instead I pushed myself through each day because I knew that at the end of it lay home and family, although more often than not they were fast asleep when I arrived home anyways. Regardless, I took comfort in their presence, and the knowledge that what I was going through was helping us survive.

I wasn’t a powerful alicorn princess in those days, nor was I a triumphant hero rising from the ashes of the decrepit world to liberate the oppressed and the practically enslaved ponies around me. I was a vulnerable young mare whose only concern was her younger sister and her own survival.

I didn’t know anypony in the scrapyard, although the guards seemed to know me. They spoke highly of me at times, although I had never heard them speak a compliment directly to me. Nevertheless, the derision and abuse they so enjoyed dispersing was never directed at me, and instead at the other workers they deemed lesser. It sickens me in retrospect, but I was thankful at the time.

“Celestia!” My name was screamed at me on one particularly uneventful day. I was in the process of trying to repair an airship engine I had found, but I looked down at the source: an Erisian Guard Captain who had recently replaced the mare who had scolded my ignorance at propellor repair years earlier.

I didn’t vocally respond; I had learned better than that, and instead stood up straight and met his eyes.

“Go the hell home,” he said sternly. “You’ve been here for fifteen hours.”

I blinked once in surprise, for it hadn’t seemed like nearly that long. Despite my bewilderment, there was no further theatrics, I simply nodded, dropped the wrench I had fashioned from scrap metal next to the engine, and scrambled down to the earth. I collected my coat from off the dirt, only slightly aware of a subtle pain in my sides as I did so.

“You worked hard today, Celestia,” the Guard said without so much as a grin, although his well meaning was clear. “You’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to get that motor running. I’ll even sneak a few extra bits into your pay if you do.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said stoically, fumbling with the collar of my jacket as I started walking in the direction of the slum district of Cyclosa. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would never get a chance to finish fixing that motor. In fact, I wouldn’t set hoof into the Cyclosa Scrapyard ever again after that night.

When I arrived home, my family had already eaten and had since gone off to sleep. There was a bit of rat meat left over and I devoured it within seconds of entering the house, before stealthily creeping across the main room and into my bed next to Luna. Licking my hooves clean of the greasy meat, I swiftly noticed how exhausted I truly was, and within moments of closing my eyes I had fallen into a deep sleep.

My slumber, however, did not last much longer than several hours before I was suddenly jolted awake.It wasn’t uncommon to be woken up in the middle of the night in the shanty town of Cyclosa. There was almost always a raid or a riot or some drunken stupor outside our door, but that night I had been awoken for quite a different reason.

My back was being assaulted with a terrifying barrage of pain. I woke up with a scream, one which I swiftly scolded myself for and suppressed. I was all too late, for Luna too had been jarred awake by my sudden shout.

"Celestia?" she mumbled, rolling over to look at me.

“Go back to sleep, Luna.” I said sternly through clenched teeth, cursing myself with a thousand insults running through my head.

“Celly,” she repeated. “Did you just...scream—”

“Luna, I’m fine. Go to sleep before you wake up mom and dad.”

With a protesting grumbled Luna turned to her side and closed her eyes again, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was, perhaps, a tad preemptive, for the moment I turned my gaze to the source of the pain on my back I felt as though I was going to be sick.

A revolting stubble of bone tissue was protruding from both sides of my back from two patches of red, swelling, circular abrasions in my fur. It was as if two extra appendages were trying to force themselves from my body.

While I had been more than willing to keep Luna asleep not several seconds ago, she was the first pony I proceeded to shake to get her attention. She hadn’t enough time to fall asleep and she instead rolled over with a protesting grumble.

“Luna, don’t freak out…” I began. “...but...something is happening to me.”

Her irritated gaze turned from my face to my sides, and then shifted from a sleepy, half-closed lull to a wide and frantic look of terror.

“Don’t freak out!” I repeated when I thought she was going to scream. Fortunately, she didn’t, although the sound of her breathing increased rapidly and she gripped her blanket tightly in between her hooves.

“Is that bone?” she whispered. “What happened to you, Celly? Did you hurt yourself?”

“No! It wasn’t there when I fell asleep, I swear!” I hissed as harshly as I could afford while still keeping my voice low.

“You’ve gotta show mom!” Luna said. She cautiously reached a hoof out to touch the bone but I slapped it away and nodded. I was hesitant, but ultimately if this were some sort of infection then it wouldn’t help to keep it hidden instead of properly treating it. I worked with scrap metal, not medicine, and hadn’t the faintest clue how to deal with injury and disease.

The reactions of my mother and father when Luna and I both crept out and awoke them were less than enthusiastic. She was irritated at first, but it did not take long for her irritation to turn to complete hysteria when the lights had been lit and Luna and I had hurriedly explained ourselves.

“Merciful Discord,” my mother shrieked loudly as she paced back and forth in the tiny space of the living area. “What is happening to her?!”

“These look like…” my father began in reply, and promptly shut his mouth before the words could escape his mouth and fall on Luna and my ears. Nevertheless, I caught the word he mouthed to my mother quite clearly.

“Wings.”

I was growing wings.

I was a unicorn, and I was growing wings.

I pretended to be oblivious, for the rest of the night and through the rest of the week, even as they continued growing in size and length, even when feathers started appearing on my blankets through the night. I never once returned to the scrapyard, somewhat thankful that I had subconsciously chosen to lie to the guards about what district in Cyclosa I lived in. When I had been a filly, the lie I had told then had felt like the bravest thing I had ever done, and yet I had no clue why I even said it. Even so, they would begin searching before long with terrible punishment in mind even if I would not have been found out as an alicorn. It was a mere matter of weeks before they began scouring Cyclosa for me and I would have to face judgement for the wings which had sprouted on my back with no consent nor explanation.

I did not dare leave the house, not that me and Luna commonly did venture into the dangerous streets anyways. I could have worn a cloak or jacket to conceal the wings, but the remotest incident would be all it would take, and they would be revealed for all of Cyclosa to see.

Even my parents looked upon me with a certain degree of fear, although they did their best to conceal it. They had been the ones who had been in the streets celebrating the capture of the last alicorn when I had returned home from the scrapyard eight years ago, and now they were the parents of the very freak they had yelled scorn at in the form of flaming effigies.

Alicorns were dangerous. Alicorns were merciless. Alicorns were a threat that needed to be eradicated.

And they had been. There were no alicorns left, and if there were then they would be killed on sight without a second thought. For my parents, I had gone from a child to an enemy of Erisia literally overnight.

Was the decision they made justified? Was it to protect themselves and my sister? Perhaps. Did I understand why they had made it? Indeed, I certainly did.

Have I ever forgiven them, even as I sip my tea in Canterlot in the peaceful land Luna and I have built, one thousand, seven hundred and twenty seven years later? I like to believe so, although whether or not I am lying to myself I have no idea.

My father had done most of the talking, while my mother simply stared sorrowfully ahead at nothing in particular.

“I’m so, so sorry Celestia,” he had said, over and over, casting terrified glances at my now fully formed wings and out the boarded up windows. My wings had been growing for a little shy of six months by then, and relative to my adolescent size they were as large as they were going to get. “This is not a decision either of us have ever been prepared to have to make.”

“Where’s Luna?” I said, ignoring their eyesight and staring with my back turned into the cup of oil-like liquid in a cracked jar that I was sipping from, holding it with my wing out of pure, bitter spite.

“We...we gave her a few bits to buy something from the—”

“Does she know?”

“About what you are?”

“About everything. About why when she gets home she’ll be short a sister and left with no one who cares about her enough to think about what is best for their own children.”

“No, sweetie, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t have to find out why you need to go."

"I don't even know!" I returned. "I swear, I don't! I'll chop them off myself, for goodness sake!"

"That won't work," My father said somberly. "Discord probably already knows. And there will always be a trace that they were there."

Finally, my mother had spoken up, but her voice wasn’t enough to make me turn around and give them the respect of meeting their gaze. “It’s for her that we’re doing this, Celestia. It’s only a matter of time before they conduct a house inspection and find...you.”

“She’ll ask,” I snapped. “What the hell are you going to say? She isn’t stupid, mother.”

“Celestia,” My father said, his gaze falling just in time for me to finally turn and see it. "You need to go."

He was right, of course. They both were, and it didn't matter how much I knew it.

"No," I said, my voice an icy calm. "Don't you dare act like you were ever in control of me. And don't ever go thinking I'm leaving because you made me. You were never important enough to warrant that."

Those were the last words I ever spoke to my parents. Today as I look back with a more mature perspective, I greatly regret my outburst and my refusal to express a proper farewell to some of the last ponies I would meet in Erisia who expressed even a little sympathy towards me. I know now that what they did, they did without choice, but then I knew only anger and humiliation as I was exiled from all I had ever known.

If I could turn back time, and reach back into the vast expanse of so many forgotten days to my ignorant youth, I would not hesitate to relive that day, and change the way I had acted. While I may not have fully forgiven them for way did to me that day, I would still desire nothing but to say my farewells. But time is cruel, and the regret I carry from how I acted then is but a grain of sand in an ocean of things I could've done differently. Instead of delivering the parting speech I repeated so frequently in my mind years later, I furiously whipped around and perched my saddlebag over my sides. I next grabbed a long cloak to conceal my newly formed wings, and disappeared into the smoky and dirty streets of Cyclosa.

v

“Luna!”

“T...Tia?! Where were you? I came home and mom and dad were crying and...”

“Shh! Keep your voice down! Listen, Luna, I need you to get your jacket on and follow me, alright? Don’t ask any questions, don’t make any noise, just follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Away. Away from Cyclosa.”

“What?! For how long?”

“Just grab your jacket, Luna.”

Comments

[The A I]

More please!

[kingsmen]

Quite good.

[Word Worthy]

In my peripheral I saw the airship’s red envelope grow in size and when I turned my head ever so slightly I was greeted to the magnificent sight of it sailing not ten feet away from the mountain of scrap and junk that I was standing upon. It’s altitude decreased further and mooring lines were dropped as guards flung down their cards to divert their attention towards the airship.

*its

Yay! Airships right away. Off to a good start. Will comment as I go along this chapter.

[Word Worthy]

To my surprise, the voice did not belong to that of a stallion at all. It was a mare, although her voice carried a distinct tomboyish tone to it. I turned around and saw that she had been wearing round, exaggerated goggles, which must have been why it hadn’t been more evident to me before. Whatever color her mane and coat was I had no idea, for it was almost completely covered in dirt and grime. Her mane was cut incredibly short, but her tail had a bit more length to it and despite the filth coating it was surprisingly well maintained.

Might I suggest:
*despite the coating of filth, it was surprisingly well maintained.*

Also eeeee Steampunksteampunksteampunk! I gotta get me some Victorian-style polarised goggles and wear them un-ironically one of these days.

[Word Worthy]

Celestia's sentiments in retrospect are ones I am sure lots of people can relate to, I could see that being part of the foundation that allowed her to become such a great leader.

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

First chapter in and I'm really liking the world building so far!