Starting Your Quest

by ArDee

3 // Heart to Heart

It had been about a week since Sunny and Izzy's excursion to Bridlewood, and the two of them had taken an...extended vacation away from their other friends. It had offered them plenty of time to indulge in the multitude of ideas that Izzy's book had provided to them...

Sunny had experienced more in the past week than most ponies did in months or even years, and it had made her closer to Izzy than ever before. The two of them were utterly inseparable, and they expressed this fact shamelessly, hanging off of each other like lovestruck fillies wherever they walked around Bridlewood. For the sake of the younger unicorns, they'd had to keep things reasonable in public, which made them all the more eager to get right back to it each night together in Izzy's home. If those walls could talk...

As days passed, though...her friends had, rather understandably, started to wonder what'd happened to them.

As the two of them trotted through the doorway to Alpha's tea room and took adjacent seats at the bar, the immense grey unicorn slipped a letter in front of the two of them as his two armadillo assistants served them their favorite morning teas. "Morning, Sunny. Izzy. Got a couple of letters for you two." He indicated the two letters, depositing the letter with a sheriff's badge emblem on it in front of Sunny, and the letter with the royal seal of Zephyr Heights on it in front of Izzy. After he did so, he started talking to another customer seated at the bar to give the two of them some privacy.

Sharing a meaningful glance with each other, the two mares hastily broke the seals on their respective letters and started to read them.

"Sunny, where the hay are you? The repairs on the lighthouse have been complete for almost a week now, and I haven't seen you in over two weeks besides that! What is going on? Ohh, boy. Hitch is mad." Sunny said, cocking her head worriedly as a thoughtful frown graced her muzzle. "I guess I should've let him know where I was going...oh stars, he doesn't even know the two of us are together yet, and that happened weeks ago! Some friend I am..." She realized, her ears flopping down in shame.

"Yeah...Pipp and Zipp's letter is pretty much the same. And you deeefinitely should've told him what was going on, yeah." Izzy noted, squinting as she read the bottom of the letter.

“Real supportive, Izz…” Sunny groaned, thumping her forehead on the bar as Izzy continued to read, blissfully unaware.

The unicorn’s eyes brightened happily as she read the postscript scribbled on the end of the letter. "Ooh, they say their schedule’s finally free enough to visit the lighthouse today to see how the reconstruction turned out! Sounds it'd be a good time to head back to Maretime Bay and meet up with all three of them!" She offered, smiling as bright as the midday sun at the thought of seeing her pegasus friends again.

Sunny lifted her head up from the bar, doing her best to brush off her moment of self-loathing as she nodded affirmatively. "Yup, sounds like a plan. It'd also be nice to get back home...not that your place isn't lovely in its own way, Izz, but it's just not quite the same as my lighthouse."

"No worries, Sunny-bun. I understand."

---

As the pair of them emerged from the tree line outside Maretime Bay, they were greeted by the blinding radiance of Sunny’s home—standing tall and proud, in all of its fully-reconstructed glory.

The red-and-white stripes that adorned the spire seemed to glow in the afternoon sky from how fresh and shiny the paint was, which nicely complemented the polished and sparkling silver metal that supported the observation dome at its peak. Her home now looked better than it ever had, even before it’d been damaged—she supposed she had her newfound status as “savior of Equestria” to thank for such a swift and well-done job by the construction team.

“Woooah…it’s beautiful!” Izzy exclaimed breathlessly, eyes and smile wide in equal measure as she watched her marefriend tremble next to her.

The very next moment, Sunny was off like a bottle rocket. “H-hey! Wait for me!” Izzy hollered, panting with exertion as she struggled to catch up to her friend’s sudden gallop. She was an artist, for ponies’ sake, not a sprinter!

Charging through her front door in the excitement of seeing her restored home, Sunny gasped in awe as her gaze pivoted to take in the changes. Though much of it remained faithful to how it had looked previously, which she certainly appreciated, her attention quickly focused on a new addition to the ground floor.

The elevator that ascended to the second floor and spire section now looked completely different, and far more elaborate. Gone were the flimsy ropes that had failed under the stress of the spire’s prior destruction and nearly injured Pipp; they had been replaced by a sturdy pair of rack-and-pinion gears on either side, with a pair of control buttons built into the elevator’s surface. Its fit-and-finish clearly marked it as a contribution from Canterlogic’s engineering department, which she’d have to thank Phyllis for later. Mending fences with the influential old mare was already showing its benefits.

As Sunny nodded to herself in approval of the sleek installation, her front door swung open behind her as Izzy finally caught up, panting heavily. “C’mon, you know I’m not as athletic as you, bun…” The unicorn wheezed, allowing herself a moment to recover while she looked around at the restored interior. As her eyes settled on the shiny new elevator, she whistled sharply. “Whoa. Talk about an upgrade!”

“I know, right? It seems like Canterlogic really outdid themselves on this restoration,” Sunny agreed.

A series of knocks on Sunny’s front door cut off any reply that Izzy might’ve been about to give. “Looks like we got back just in time. That must be Zipp and Pipp already!” Sunny said eagerly, bounding over to the door and pulling it open.

Sure enough, the pegasus sisters’ friendly faces greeted them, their expressions brightening in recognition as Pipp eagerly wrapped Sunny up in a tight hug. “Sunny! It’s so good to see you again. It feels like it’s been ages! Things have been going well with Izzy, I hope?”

Thoughts of all that she’d done with (and to) her unicorn paramour during their stay in Bridlewood flashed in her mind, her face heating up as she tried to keep her cool. The knowing wink that Pipp shot Izzy’s way certainly didn’t help her efforts, to the point where she felt like she might just die of embarrassment! “Y-you could, umm, you could say that, yeah…” Sunny stuttered.

“I bet~! Don’t worry, Sunny, your secret’s probably safe with me.” Pipp teased, breaking away from the conversation as she took wing and enthusiastically fluttered around the interior of the lighthouse, taking in every new detail that she could. “Absolutely wonderful! I really have to hoof it to those construction ponies, they’ve done exceptionally well.”

As Zipp walked over to the contraption and eyed it up and down, she nodded approvingly once she noticed its precise engineering. “Impressive. All those old pegasus stereotypes about earth ponies were way off—they’d have you believe that earth ponies spent their time banging rocks together and growing crops, not building stuff like this…” She said, rapping her hoof against the elevator’s metal supports for emphasis. Chuckling to herself, she added, “Earth ponies were probably making pegasi engineers feel insecure. Heh!”

While Zipp continued to wax poetic about Sunny’s shiny new elevator, Izzy continued to wander around Sunny’s home. She hadn’t had much time—any time, really—to check things out the last time she’d been here, what with them having to run out of town to avoid getting caught by Canterlogic’s latest ‘civil defense’ products, so she appreciated the opportunity.

When her gaze came to rest on the small table by the elevator, however, her feelings of wonder chilled into stunned shock.

A photo of Argyle stood upright on the little table, capturing him in the midst of crafting a figurine of Twilight Sparkle. Next to the portrait rested a stack of books about ancient pony history, a clamshell glasses case, and an old wooden pendant with a blue neckband—the same one that Argyle was wearing in the photo. The meaning behind the juxtaposition was clear.

“S-Sunny…?” Izzy whimpered, shaking where she stood.

Hearing her marefriend’s plaintive, vulnerable whimper cut through the conversation she’d been having with Zipp like a shock to the system—and one look at the end table told Sunny all she needed to know. Her hoof darted up to her mouth as the stark realization hit her. She’d wanted to give Izzy a closer look at the pictures she had of Argyle on her own terms, but she’d forgotten about the memorial she kept on the table.

“Is that…” Pipp started to ask, then hesitated, unsure how to phrase it.

“My dad?” Sunny sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Argyle Starshine…the reason we’re all standing here in this room together.”

“Argyle. Daddy…I…I never…” Izzy whimpered breathlessly, flopping onto her rear as her eyes pored over every detail in the photo. He seemed so close, so real, that it was easy for her to forget that she was separated from the Argyle in the photo by at least two decades.

Sunny quickly came to Izzy’s side, offering her a shoulder to lean on. It was somewhat awkward with Izzy being a good bit taller, but they managed. Zipp and Pipp took the gesture it at its face value of Izzy empathizing with Sunny’s plight, but if only they knew the real reason she was so distraught…

Looking over at the two pegasi as they, too, sat down in front of the photo, Sunny offered, “Do…do you want to know what kept me going for so many years? Even when everypony around me treated me like I was insane? When I’d say “good morning” to a pony and all they’d give me in return was a funny look?” She gestured sharply to the photo, tears beginning to well in her eyes. “My dad. The pony who gave so much of himself that he set off for parts unknown one day, on a quest to fix Equestria, and never came back. And Maretime Bay never did a damn thing to try and save him.” Sunny was unable to hold back the bitter edge in her voice as she spoke, a worrying tonal shift that gave Pipp cause to intervene before things got out of hoof.

“Hey,” Pipp softly interjected, resting one of her downy wings across Sunny’s back in a comforting gesture as one of her hooves wiped at a tear that Sunny hadn’t even felt running down her cheek. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I may not have lived your life, but…I get it.” She offered, giving her a weak, forced smile.

Looking into Pipp’s emerald eyes, Sunny was started by the unabashed pain and loss she saw within them. At that moment, she no longer saw “Pipp the media icon” or “Pipp the princess”—only “Pipp, the pony whose father was just as absent as hers.” Pieces clicked into place in her head, more clues as to why Pipp was so reliant on social media—the public affirmation served as a replacement, albeit a paltry one, for the adoration and praise of a father who could never know the beautiful and kind pony his daughter had become. If Sunny were more creative, it’d be tragic enough to write a theater production about.

At least, she assumed it was tragic. That simple statement—“I get it”—was loaded with so much sadness that there was no way it couldn’t be, really. Especially not with the way Zipp’s body language tightened up, leaving the proud pegasus trembling in her periphery—but Sunny didn’t have the heart to open up scarred emotional wounds just to sate her own curiosity.

She felt Izzy wrap her hooves around her barrel from the other side, the unicorn burying her face in Sunny’s long, unrestrained purple mane as she tightly embraced her marefriend for support—although that wasn’t the only reason, considering the telltale shudders she felt from the unicorn against her.

Seeing Argyle’s portrait, as plain and unadorned as it might’ve been, had thrown Izzy for a loop. Even though she never knew what he’d been like, she had gleaned quite a bit from how much her marefriend still sang his praises (figuratively and literally) and told stories about him to this day. On top of that, the very sight of him had triggered some sort of instinct within her, a twinge of recognition for the stallion who’d sired her—an all-encompassing ache that tore at her heart.

Despite her usual cheerful demeanor, there were times when things became too much to bear, even for her. The true scale of what she had lost—of what she had never really had to begin with—had never really registered with her until this moment, and the profound sorrow of that revelation broke her composure. Her strength of character, that indomitable mask of cheerful humor, trembled for a moment—then shattered.

For the first time in many years, Izzy Moonbow became lost in catharsis, the weight of her sorrows streaming down her cheeks. Bereft with memories of their own parents, Sunny and Pipp swiftly joined her.

---

Loss.

It was a funny thing. Not in the humorous sense, of course—merely that it was terribly and curiously difficult to pin down the true nature of the emotion unless it was being felt in the moment.

Evasive, mysterious, disheartening…many adjectives could be used to describe that terrible four-letter word. Much like Zipp’s investigations and research into why the pegasi had lost the power of flight.

Her wings shuffled uncomfortably at her sides as she loitered outside of the lighthouse, doing everything in her power to maintain her composure as her three friends inside recovered from their sudden bout of crippling, communal sorrow.

She wouldn’t cave to emotion like them…she couldn’t. She’d long since overcome the loss of her father—or at least, she thought she had. With her mother’s repeated insistence to “move on,” it was tough to say where her mother’s thoughts on the matter ended and hers began. She’d become queen of the pegasi before she knew it, and then…

And then…what? Become just as much of an aimless figurehead as her mother? Smiling and waving at other ponies day in and day out, faking her laughter, sleeping with her freakin’ crown on?

Would she end up getting branded as a “phony pony full of baloney” the moment she went out of line, just like her mom had been? A glorified scapegoat for everypony to pin their worldly troubles on the moment things went south? A pony who can do few rights and many wrongs?

Ugh.

The more she thought about her royal fate, the more she despised every facet of it. Her calling was research for pony’s sake, not politics! Why couldn’t Pipp have been the one born 5 minutes earlier?!

Zipp shook her head, banishing those thoughts. She’d already traveled the path of resentment and it hadn’t ended well. They had enough of their own problems to deal with, let alone each other’s.

“Hey Zipp, it’s been a while. You good? What brings you out to Maretime Bay?” Hitch suddenly said from beside her, startling her out of her thoughts as her wings flared wide at her sides. When had he even gotten there?!

“Stars, Hitch, don’t sneak up on me like that!” Zipp grumbled, trying to fold her unruly wings back up. “I’m just fine, Sheriff, at least until you came along and spooked me out of my feathers. Hmph.” she added, huffing as she attempted to regain her composure.

Unfortunately for her, Hitch noticed. “Nice attempt at deflecting, but I didn’t become a sheriff by being easy to fool. It’s not my place to pry, but…you seemed like you were pretty frustrated about something when I arrived. Keeping things bottled up for too long doesn’t end well,” At Zipp’s noncommittal shrug, he rolled his eyes and continued, “Not trying to boss you around like your mom, Princess. Just…don’t let things get out of hoof, alright?”

A thin smile spread across Zipp’s countenance, and she nodded, if only faintly. “Sure thing, Hitch. Thanks. It’s just, me and Pipp noticed the photo of Sunny’s dad on her table, and Sunny got to talking, and well…”

“Oh, she’s back, is she? Could’ve at least told me. I swear she gets blinders on whenever she sets her mind to something." Hitch grumbled to himself, shaking his head with a sigh, "The photo, huh? I knew this day would come, once Sunny made friends with you three…” he added, muttering to himself as he gathered his thoughts.

“I took it almost as hard as Sunny did. When he…when Argyle never came back, I mean. I love my dad, I really do, but Argyle was…different. There was just...something special about him, I never could put my hoof on it. He had an eye for truth and justice like nopony else I knew…it’s just a shame that his idea of “truth and justice” was a whole lot different than everypony else’s. His search for the truth made him a hero to a few—just me and Sunny, really—and a pariah to the rest. There was a time I’d’ve been angry about that, but…” Glancing first at the threads of magic still swirling in the sky above, and then to the gorgeous prismatic wings folded on Zipp’s back, he chuckled.

“It’s safe to say a whole lot of things have changed since then. His whole philosophy of “truth and justice” was why I trained for law enforcement, actually. Figured I could try and make a difference from the inside, or something. And maybe I got it into my head as a colt that a filly might like a guy in uniform…” Trailing off, Hitch rubbed the back of his neck and glanced back to the house as a faint blush colored his cheeks.

Zipp’s rapidly raising eyebrow chronicled her reaction as she realized what he was getting at. “You…and Sunny? B-but—!”

“—Yeah, yeah, I know, alright? I know she’s not…into stallions. Things were different back then, or maybe they just felt different for me. Call it coltish optimism, I guess. With how close we grew up together, and with how much I looked up to her firebrand attitude when I was a colt, can you blame me?”

“Izzy's a lucky mare,” Zipp said, nodding to herself, "She's got a good heart and a heap of optimistic idealism, just like Sunny. I can see why those two go along so well.”

“…Umm. Y-yeah. Right,” Hitch said quietly, eye twitching. “Twist the thorn in my hoof a little deeper, huh?” he grumbled to himself, scuffing his hoof against the ground.

Zipp’s expression softened as she locked eyes with Hitch, forcing her way through the awkwardness that had surged to the forefront. “Listen, Hitch…if you need somepony to talk to, I’m here for you. Remember that. Whether it’s about something small that’s troubling you, about the past, or about Sunny…I’ve got you.”

“Thanks, Zipp. That means a lot to me.” Glancing back to the entryway, he stiffened his shoulders in a heroic stance. “We’d better go in there and calm those three down. C’mon.”

“Trust me, live with Pipp long enough, and you get used to this kinda thing. Seems like every other day she’s upset about something new…” With a chuckle and a shake of her head, Zipp left it at that as the two of them entered Sunny’s home.

Author's Note:

Bit of a delay on getting this out, but I've got a justification (or maybe it's more like an excuse):
I moved to a new PC (a server-based beast!) and the Scrivener project file I was using for this must've saved its most recent version to a different location or something since I lost several hundred words and a lot of time was spent trying to recover them, to no avail.

It's not quite back to where it was before, so I'm not quite happy with it, but I've got to move on or it'll never get released...I've been sitting on this mostly completed for a few months now as it is. It's a shame because I remember handling the emotional aspects of this discovery a lot better in the old version, but that same spark just hasn't come to me again.

Hope you enjoyed it regardless! I promise I'll stop trying to make the main cast into a pity circlejerk and actually get onto more adventure-y stuff with meaningful plot advancements in the next chapter.

Comments

[LordFlareon]

Normally I'm not a fan of stories involving incest. But with the way you've handled this one so far, I feel like I can overlook that detail. I'm quite enjoying this and look forward to what else you come up with

Oh yeah, and Izzyscout for the win!