Always Already

by Problemsin

Demersal

Clear Firmament galloped through the woods. She knew it was dangerous to run in the dark, but there was no time to waste. Tonight's festival was about to begin, and she wanted the best spots to watch the sky. Her brother was less enthusiastic, but nevertheless he galloped alongside her.

This winter solstice celebration was to be greater than ever before, and Clear knew of no place better to celebrate than in the valley. Traditionally the night ended with a scheduled snowfall, and this year it was decided to have everypony go outside of town for festivities and then return home to a winter wonder land.

Haze Kicker was an ash colored pegasus colt with a black mane. He stood at the same height as his sister and used to push his mane upwards. Clear Firmament's mane looked like a cloud and her fur like white rain. With her doing the talking, the pair found themselves in all kinds of trouble. She wore a small brown satchel at had a jacket with a small pouch for her flashlight that allowed her to easily grab with her wings.

Their town was built on the last flat land before the mountains, so it was surrounded by foothills, and hiding in one of those hills was the best place see the light show. Everypony knew that the festival light ruined the view. The pair galloped through the hills, brush, and briar until they both nearly tripped over some tree roots.

"There's the top!“ said Clear.

"Can we stop here?“ said Haze. Clear agreed. If she timed her brother's tiring correctly, then the light show should start soon. Truth be told, she was tired too, but she wasn't going to accept any crammed grassy knoll to gaze from. Her hooves sunk into the layer of dead leaves, and the grasses that were still alive made her now wet fetlocks itch. Clear decided to push herself just a bit more in search of something better.

Clouds covered the night sky, letting little light through. Beyond the thicket she heard a skylark, which was unusual for winter. Clear pushed past the branches and bushes and found a glade in between some evergreens. They don't lose their leaves in winter, so the ground was covered in soft moss. The skylark was still there, singing a song.

Clear felt a tap on her rump. She jumped turned, shining her flashlights in her attackers face.
"Gah, Clear please its just me." Haze said as he waved his hooves in front of him. He took a minute to arrive, owing to his avoiding of the branches, and Clear didn't see him because he didn't bring a coat because it was 'not that cold'. Or a flashlight('You already have one'). He deserved what he got. Clear turned her flashlight off then looked back and pointed at the skylark.

"A bird?" Haze quietly asked. "In these parts?"

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Clear said. She watched the bird continue to hop around. After it was done, it flew away. Clear tried to track it, but lost sight of it quickly once went into the sky.

Drones peppered the sky. The clouds disappeared and in their place were thin rows and columns that together made up a black square. Clear expected weather drones later, but something about these drones was different. Were they flying lower than normal?

Clear Firmament squinted. They appeared to still be setting up, but no way was that going to take much longer. So she turned off her flashlights and sat. Clear looked to her brother and motioned him to sit on the moss as well.

She said "According to legend, pegasi used to control the weather.“

Haze Kicker raised an eyebrow. Then he said "Wish I could do that right about now.“

"You said you didn't need a coat.“ Clear quipped. She looked back at the sky "They say pegasi lived in the clouds where they made the weather. In one swift kick, they tore storms asunder.“

"Cool, but why did you bring this up?“

"The theme this year is supposed to be history.“

"That's not history.“

"Well I read it in a history book.“

"Those are the same fairy tales we all hear growing up. Besides, the theme only affects what merchandise is sold, and I don't see any vendors out here. "

Haze shivered. Clear wrapped her wing around him. Both ponies watched the sky. Usually pegasi kids grew out of fantasies of flight, but wings were for more than warming daft brothers. Clear never stopped dreaming. She suspected Haze felt the same.

"No really, why did you bring this up?" he said.

"The skylark got me thinking. When it wanted to, it just took off into the sky. Why can't we do that? Before you say anything, I know the official story." Clear started mimicking a school teacher. "The magic just went away. Every child was born with a little less than their parents until it was all gone."

She saw Haze smile. "And yes, I know that there are a ton of competing theories as to why, and no, I don't buy any of them. So you don't have to humor me, I know I bother you with this stuff."

"What about everyone else? What powers did they have?“

Clear was relieved. But disappointed at the same time since she could only answer with a shrug.

"Wonder what we did to lose it all. Our ancestors didn't fly or cast spells, what did they think happened?“

She shrugged again "The magic just went away. Every child was born with a little less than their parents until it was all gone.“

The night sky lit up. White lines making a cube that shone high above the valley. There was silence, and then the whirling of propellers could be heard like a thousand chirping birds. The cube deformed into a swirl of white light and then reformed into a pyramid. It dazzled with all the colors of the rainbow before collapsing. In its place, more shapes, each of which rotating and moving through the sky. The lights disappeared and a second later reappeared. The words "Welcome to the Canterlot Winter Solstice Festival“ shone in the sky.

Then it went dark and silent.

Clear Firmament and Haze Kicker were watching the sky with glee. They continued to watch, and just a bit more. This break was just a bit too long, but maybe that's required of advanced drone movement.

A crack sounded nearby. Clear's head shot towards it and Haze jumped. They were silent for a second, then looked at each other. No thunderstorms were scheduled, and there was no flash, so Clear was bewildered as to how a lightening bolt could strike so close.

More crashes. Clear dove to the ground and covered her ears, but it was no use. The sounds rang through her body and penetrated deep into her head. It was a pain that she had never felt before, and images of bones tearing like paper flashed in her mind. She wouldn't open her eyes, but she swore the earth cracked underneath her and would swallow her any second.

The shockwave made her clench her jaws before she even realized the sound was there. Then there was pain. Her face was going to burst, no, her entire body was. Throughout her body, everything hurt. Every nerve had ignited, every vein had burst, and every organ was squashed. Then her organs were squashed even more. The shockwaves squashed and compressed them until surely they were all distorted and disjointed.

Escape was not possible. Screams and shouts broke through the cacophony in her ears and the vibrations in her vocal cords. But the terror did not end. Until, after much too long, it did. Clear kept covering her ears. She couldn't sense the outside world, and so her mind was running through every manner of bad scenarios. Could she still hear? How badly were her organs damaged? What about eyesight? Internal bleeding? Was Haze alive?

She kept thinking until her senses returned. There was the sound of flowing blood and a beating heart, thankfully. Then she realized her body was cold and her fur wet and weighed down. Quickly, she removed a hoof from her ear and felt her side for wounds. Nothing, so she had to open her eyes to see that it was only mud.

She looked around her forest clearing. There were still evergreens around her and no monster was hiding in the dark. The earth was untouched, and the stars still shone. Relief washed over her and in an instant she was recovering. No catastrophe had occurred, she just panic. Then Clear saw Haze, and seeing him in terror made her panic again.

He was repeating to himself reassurances of being alright, loud enough to be heard through his hooves. The filly went over to her brother, who saw her and thus lowered his hooves.

“It's okay Clear, we're fine.”

She hugged him.

“Everything's alright, you hear?” Haze said again.

Clear furiously nodded. “Yeah, are you alright?” she said as she looked for injuries.

Cold wind washed over them. A crunchy leaf hit Haze Kicker's face, snapping him back to reality. He slowed his breathing, then shivered and looked to his sister.

“What was that?” he said with a shaky voice.

“Nothing, it's gone now.” she said.

“You think, you think somepony was shooting at us? Or a truck crashed? A couple of trucks could have crashed.” Clear saw a tear running down his face. She wrapped her wing around him and held him close. For a second, the world was still.

Another gust of wind, this one carrying the smell of food. The festival! Some hot food would be great, even if there were other ponies to deal with. But Clear looked out and saw only darkness. Originally, she ran to this hill to get away from the lights, but to see nothing was distressing. The darkness had encircled them. There was no way out and no tether to pony life. The two kids were islands in the murky darkness, and this thought weighed heavy on Clear.

Exposed. Unprotected and alone. Haze was with her, but she had to shield her brother from the alien and uncaring world. No, it was still the same world, but it no longer catered to them. This world did not care about ponies or the light they need, and nopony realized that until they were at its mercy.

Clear was about to cry. This was too much. What was out there in the dark? Please, not right now. She was too young. She had Haze with her. Please, the festival was just there. They won't have to move very far, but they will still have to move. There was no avoiding the inevitable. Clear Firmament and Haze Kicker had to push through the darkness.

She pointed in the direction of where the festival once was, and Haze looked. After a second, they looked each other in the eyes and were in agreement.

The pair ran down the hill and through the woods guided by the all to short range of her flashlight. It wasn't long before they stopped running. The air smelt like iron, or maybe an asphalt road. No longer moving on instinct, they looked at their surroundings. It was hard to see, but alien shapes hid just beyond her view. Her mind always played tricks on her, but this felt different, and so she stopped.

“Something's off.” Haze said.

“Whatever happened, I think it happened here.”

“Want to find a different way?”

“Lets get this over with instead.” Now was not the time to be weak. Clear took a step forward, and regretted it. She felt a jab of pain and jerked backwards. Now was also the time to be cautious.

Haze darted forward and looked with Clear at her right forehoof. She only had a prick, but I came from a metal shard.

“Clean, no rust, you should be fine. ”

Clear furled her eyebrows and scrunched her face. Considering everything that could go wrong, getting sick was the least of her concerns. Worst case scenario she would still have months to live, which was a pretty good deal right now.

She poked around where she stepped on shard and began looking. Haze cocked his head.

“The ground is distorted. It looks different.” Clear said.

“I can barely see you, how can you tell it's different.”

“I'm telling you, something is off. Feel the ground around you, something is off.”

Haze Kicker copied his sister. Now content, Clear continued her investigation. The fresh soil smelled of pine cones, compost, and motor oil. The smell exuded from deep incisions in the ground which led deeper into the forest. She gulped, but then straightened her posture and delved into the forest. The deeper she went, the more pieces of metal she encountered. Then she saw a tree that had lost half its branches. Beyond the tree were frightening shapes that looked back at the filly. She always saw such shapes in the dark could tell herself that they were just bushes and trees. Not this time.

She lowered his head, then approached. There was a spark, and it illuminated metal. Her heart rate rose, and her mind blanked, but it soon became obvious what she was looking at.

Clear fixed her posture and stepped onto the wreckage. It collapsed, causing her to jolt back. She then turned her head and looked around at the other crash sites. It was almost pitch black, so it was a meaningless gesture. But the filly could still infer from the shapes and angles at the edge of her vision that the forest was now a machine graveyard. Ideas about what might have caused this ran through her mind. Did all of them malfunction? Was there an engineering error? Did somepony do this on purpose? Was there an alien hiding behind the wreckage, about to abduct her? Did it already abduct Haze?

She was about to call out to him, but just a second before she did so, Clear heard him approaching from behind the wreckage. So instead she started walking around it and over to him.

“Hello? Is somepony else there?” said a mare's voice from behind the wreckage. Clear's heart skipped a beat. The voice came from a thicket that was just in front of her. But nothing was there. No, there was somepony else, and she was right in front of Clear.

“I am a part of the festival medical staff. Are you hurt? I just had my colleague take a collapsed colt to the emergency room, was he with you?”

She was talking about Haze. She had to be. Clear wanted to bolt towards the mare, but she held back. Instead, Clear straightened her body and took much more cautious steps.

Only a few scattered rays of moonlight reached the forest floor, but it was enough that Clear could make out the shape of a bulky pony once she knew what to look for. The pony watched for a second, than stepped forward, revealing that she was actually a cloaked mare. She had been inspecting a knot of wires and roots in a path carved by the wrecked machine, just as Clear had been doing. Clear was not sure how long the mare had been there, but she just mentioned a collapsed colt. The mare did not at all look worried.

"You saw a collapsed colt? What color was his fur?” Clear said.

“It was quite dark.” This was bad. It had to be Haze.

“What happened to him?“

"He had a head injury. Do you have any injuries? What is your relationship with him?“

The cloaked mare was lying. She had to be. There was no way that Haze would do anything reckless without Clear by his side. Why would this mare lie to her, and with something like this? Did she do something to Haze? What if he really was injured?

The mare was looking right at her. She approached Clear, and came very close before she sat down and began examining for problems. The mare then looked her in the face and asked various questions. Can you see? Are your ears ringing? Where were you hurt?

Clear looked down at her hoof. She had not mentioned being hurt. Now the mare's attention was on the pricked hoof. After a moment, Clear showed it to the medical mare and said “I stepped on some metal. Only a few minutes ago. It doesn't hurt.”

The cloaked mare grabbed the hoof and came closer. She looked at the hoof for a second than began looking at the rest of Clear's body. Clear could now see the mare's face. She was a unicorn. Her horn had been hidden underneath the hood. Her horn was covered by an emitter, presumably the magnetic kind that most medical staff have.

"You are a unicorn." Clear said.

The medical mare paused for a second, then smiled. "What kind of pony are you?" she said.

That question wasn't important, but Clear told her that she was a pegasus.

The mare spoke.“The laceration isn't deep, but it is dirty. Your fur is absolutely covered in mud. A more thorough checkup is needed. What color is your fur?"

That question wasn't important either. The medical mare must have been reading Clear's mind, because she quickly mentioned that it was relevant for determining what she was looking at in this limited light environment

"My fur is white with light blue tint."

The mare's face then became increasingly concerned. "I can take you back to our medical tent and have some antibiotics administered."

None of this mattered. Clear needed to know if Haze was alright. “Where did you take the colt you mentioned?” she said.

Then she immediately wanted to cringe. That was far too accusatory. The mare was just trying to help. But there was no time to waste, Haze might be hurt. But, apologies to the medical mare, this was taking too long, and all this help was wasted on Clear.

“To an emergency medical tent by the festival. I can take you there.”

Clear took a deep breath. "That would be great."

The medical mare smiled and shook her head in agreement, then returned to a flat expression she had when examining Clear. She said to Clear to take the lead what once was a dense thicket. Happy to finally get moving, Clear did so. She was so eager to go back, that she overtook the medical mare and stopped hearing her steps. So Clear was going to turn around and wait, but when she did so she saw the mare standing still. Her horn gave off a faint blue glow.

The mare didn't understand. Clear really needed to get back to safety. So she drew a breath, started tapping her hoof, and looked around. Anything to hint that she was impatient, so she waved around her flashlight
to get the mare's attention. There was something big and metal by the mare's side. It was there one second, then it was gone.

The metal moved faster than Clear could react, but it had definitely hit her. She shrieked and fell into a pile of dead leaves as the metal smashed into the flashlight and grazed her hips.

The medical mare trotted forward. Her eyes were wide open but then she scowled. There was the sound of branches breaking and leaves crunching. Clear's leg was hurting. Really badly, almost unbearably so. She clenched her jaw and looked at her leg. It was covered in mud, but there was a spot that was darker than the rest, and it hurt. Was it the size of an apple? Was that ochre mud, or something else... the medical mare was there, maybe she could help.

That mare attacked Clear, but that was impossible, she couldn't have. There was no way the medical pony attacked her. It can't be, not her. Please, not now. The mare was coming closer to inspect for damage, right? That mare was angry. The pain actually hurt. Clear lowered herself and held her leg. She could deal with the mare in a second, right now her leg was torturing her. Could she walk, or were her bones broken?

The mare was above Clear, hovering a staff that was aimed at her legs. Clear tried crawling away from the mare, but she wasn't sure where to go. She was transfixed on the staff, as if she would be able to get away from it in time. It might as well have been a formality for the mare in front of her, like Clear was signaling to her that she won, the show is over, great performance by the way but really, this show is over, please let it end, its hard to keep an eye on you through tears, especially in a dark forest.

“What was Lightening Oak thinking? He really sent me to take care of a bunch of kids, didn't he? I was all cautious for nothing.”

The mare sounded angry, but there was a hint of gloating in her voice. Clear looked back and saw her the emotion in her enemy's face lit by the increasingly bright blue horn. It was contempt, only contempt. The feeling was mutual. This mare had taken Haze, and for that she must pay. The best way to start would be to wipe that stupid contempt off of her face. Her glowing annoyingly bright. It must have been blinding to the mare, who was looking down at a touchpad.

"Can you hear me now Star Gazer? The targets are a white pegasus filly and a black pegasus colt, not black and white siblings. Did you get that? Just come over to me, I am downhill from the wreckage."

Clear twisted her body, then whipped back to drive as much power into a face kick as she could muster. Then there was a muffled thump and the rustling of leaves. She landed a direct hit on the smug mare's face, probably knocking her out cold.

Clear shambled upwards. Her legs were shaking and more than once wouldn't support her weight. The back leg still hurt, not that it was important. The pain was nothing compared to that of losing Haze. At least that's what Clear thought, she still winced putting any weight on it and she stood still with three hooves on the ground.