Swysti Laef (Turning Page)
Stygian disappeared after the night at the library. He left Sunburst with the departing promise he would compose and mail him the continuation of his story.
Sunburst's following days of administrative work were not enough to quiet his mind. In the interim, it was easy to believe Stygian would never contact him again. Sunburst prodded him to reveal too much. That was grounds enough for Stygian to abandon this project. The punishing idea was a constant refrain, throbbing through Sunburst’s head like a migraine.
After a mere two days, Sunburst received a parcel. Inside were ten pages of manuscript and a letter.
Sollastbreken,
Bidde thita vysi wordi ama thouth lefan ponisi wysan raeten thar. Skrippen ight eptur kwen wier haefta eptur metha.
Thouth rijan,
Stygian
(Sunburst,
Please translate these words as you believe ponies would wish to read them. Write to me when we should next meet.
Your friend,
Stygian)
Sunburst’s relieved sigh nearly blew the manuscript clean off his desk.
—
Anvilhorn parented no differently than he smithed. A hammer always in hoof, all things appeared to him as a bent sheet of metal to be straightened.
Around the age of five, he first took me into his workshop. “Look here,” he said, showing me the unfinished blade of a sword yet to be set upon its pommel. “What is wrong with it?”
I, of course, did not know. This was a new world to me. Many of Anvilhorn’s lessons were demonstrative, but expectant. I often wondered, did other colts spring into the world with an innate knowledge of smithing, or combat, or any of the other skills my father thought imperative of me to possess? If so, why were those inborn secrets absent in me?
“This blade has a fatal flaw,” Anvilhorn told me. His voice was like a forging clang. “It was not heated to its correct temperature and now the metal is brittle.”
Bringing his hammer high, he struck downward, severing the sword in half like a beheading executioner. “Imagine striking your opponent with this faulty blade. Should they be wearing armor, it would have cracked in two instantly. Your death soon to follow.”
My father chose an ironic metaphor that day. Indeed, the metal wasn’t heated sufficiently and would not bend to the hammer that beat it. If he wished to inculcate a lesson about weakness, I took away a different message: steady warmth was required for something beautiful to be made.
“I’m having some difficulty with this passage.”
Stygian lay beside Sunburst on the plush office rug, pages spread before them like a corona. Gnawing his lip, Stygian levitated the concerning stack of pages Sunburst’s way.
Sunburst reviewed them, then lifted an eyebrow in Stygian’s direction. “The part about your father?”
“You’ve written it as though his lesson to me that day was not valuable.” Stygian tucked his forelegs beneath his barrel, concealed under his burlap cloak.
“Well…” Sunburst pressed his glasses up. “I know a few things about ancient smithing practices. That part about warming the metal is a true fact, and I thought it made for an interesting counter-metaphor!”
“Why would one be needed?” Stygian’s nose pointed toward the floor. “His example was clear. And true. Weakness is death.”
Sunburst set down the pages. “I'm sorry if I'm presumptuous in saying this, but I know how this story ends. And it isn’t in death. It's hopeful and uplifting, and I felt some early foreshadowing would give the reader an idea of where it's headed.”
“Where is it headed?” Stygian echoed. His head turned to Sunburst, ears tipped backward. They appeared large on his angular skull, like a stag.
“You tell me.” Sunburst stroked his beard. “Me and My Shadow ended with you being saved. Maybe this version can go past that.”
Stygian never gave a clear answer for how he envisioned the conclusion.
—
Sunburst was used to immediate answers. The scholarly texts he devoured rarely forestalled any significant information. This was not the case with the pages of manuscript Stygian continued to send him.
Patience may not have been Sunburst’s particular virtue. But he had a good cause for getting to know it better.
The process continued at a steady course across the span of a month. After classes let out at the School of Friendship, Sunburst sat down to translate. In the days that followed, Stygian sent more pages, and by the weekend they met at his office to discuss the prose.
Throughout this time, neither brought up the night in the library or the framed scroll fragment hovering above in perpetuity.
Sunburst's ire for Anvilhorn grew each time he wrote his name. He never knew he could feel such present hatred for a pony who was dust in the ground.
I spent several years of my colthood assisting Anvilhorn in his smithy. My grandfather had been an izernkrafter, and his father before him. Anvilhorn brought his trade to the village he intended to build a family in. He never expected the loss that would follow.
“My wife is gone and the world appears blighted. You owe a debt for the life you stole from her,” he told me. “You will learn to wield the hammer but I will teach you fortitude.”
I did not learn to wield the hammer. Neither my young magic or tiny forelegs ever successfully lifted it. For each time I failed, Anvilhorn sent me to collect a switch from the kindling. If I cried, I was to hold a live coal between the tender soles of my hooves until it extinguished.
A tremulous blue aura enveloped the page. “The descriptions here are accurate,” Stygian’s voice murmured from behind it.
“Well, that’s good. But, I’m sorry they are,” Sunburst said. He found himself apologizing often, always uttered after another disclosure of Anvilhorn’s corporal punishments.
“We could leave it out.” The page lowered from Stygian's face, revealing his somber gaze. “All that has to do with my father. It wasn't included in my previous book.”
Sunburst shook his head. “I’m not saying sorry because I didn’t want to know these things, or that I believe they should be redacted. I’m saying it because… because somepony ought to.”
Stygian smiled, yet his brow creased in consternation. “Just like Star Swirl. It seems only in this age can ponies bear to apologize to me.” He blinked. “That was bitter of me. I'm sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, yourself! Especially for being angry. In your circumstances, anypony would have the right to be.”
Stygian tilted his head, expression softening. “Your understanding is truly boundless. But my anger unnerves me. It nearly destroyed me, and the ponies I care about. Feeling it has never felt safe.”
“Well, you’ve been angry in front of me, and here I am, perfectly un-destroyed!” Sunburst declared. He was rewarded with a soft chuckle from Stygian.
On impulse, Sunburst asked, “How are your hooves?”
Stygian raised a puzzled brow. “My hooves?”
“After what I translated from that last passage, I meant to ask you about it.” Sunburst pressed his glasses up, seeing him clearly. “You know, the coals.”
“Oh.” From his prone position on the floor, Stygian lifted a foreleg and massaged his pastern. There was a visible patch absent of hairs below his fetlock. “The soreness comes and goes. I’ve suffered many injuries throughout my life. These are but a distant memory.”
“You did a lot of traveling across Equestria, though. On hoof. I can’t imagine that was easy.”
A slow smile came to Stygian’s face, offset by the deep gray under his eyes. “No, not always.”
They cycled through many conversations like this. A pained remark from Stygian. A gentle response from Sunburst. Gradually, Stygian’s ears were tended to with messages of compassion, never again to be clouted by unforgiving, punitive demands.
And on one occasion, following this tender labor, Stygian sighed with tremendous relief, and said, “You’re a good listener, Sunburst.”
This struck him. “I’m really not.”
Stygian’s bobbed mane tossed with a disbelieving chuckle. “You’re just being humble.”
Sunburst shook his head. “I’m distractible. And sometimes, inconsiderate. If you told that to any of my other friends, they would laugh and laugh.”
It was difficult to meet Stygian’s eyes when he admitted, “You’re just easy to listen to.”
—
After this initial month of work, Stygian's foalhood encompassed the first five chapters, terminating with the story of his cutie mark — and the unsuccessful resurrection of Bright Star. This was richer already than anything in Me and My Shadow.
“Your journeys with the Pillars must come next, right?” Sunburst asked as they prepared to depart for the night. He tapped the edges of the collected manuscript on his desk, sliding them into his saddlebag. “And, the moment you met Star Swirl?”
“That’s soon, yes,” Stygian sighed. He had little to pack up, save for a now empty bottle. Once filled with lemonade, they shared it throughout their revision process. Stygian prepared it to the exact sweetness Sunburst preferred. “But… something else comes just before that.”
Sunburst’s hoof hovered over the clasp of his saddlebag. “And that is?”
The ticking clock filled the room as it so often did when Stygian lapsed into silence. His eyes were trained on the wall behind Sunburst’s desk.
“I was to be wedded.”
The saddlebag thumped to the desk. “Oh. Stygian. I didn’t—”
“It never came to be.” Stygian’s hoof was raised. It dropped, rubbing up and down his foreleg. “You seem… unnerved by my potential marriage.”
“Oh, w–well,” Sunburst’s breath hitched, “it’s just due to my knowledge of the past. I know not every union then prioritized… love.”
Stygian’s chin bobbed in a slow nod. “More than any book today could tell. But — I felt it was relevant. In fact, it contributed to the start of my questing.”
His shoulders rose and fell beneath his cloak and he set down his belongings. Anticipating the forthcoming tale, Sunburst pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and his quill.
“When I was young, a filly in my village was my dearest friend. Swysti Laef — Turning Page. She was a bright scholar. Her mother was an apothecary and Turning was expected to learn the trade. She, of course, wanted to be a wizard, like her father, who traveled the land and was never at home. But… mares did not become expert spellcasters, then. Not without great struggle…”
Sunburst’s quill captured his words, matching the pace of his speech.
…I gave Turning the book I stole. She loved it. She was always trying to expand her collection, and kept them under her bed where her mother couldn’t find them. She was the first pony I told about what I attempted with Bright Star. I trusted her like no other.
Once, we were hiding under my blankets, laughing and reading together by the light of our horns. That’s when Anvilhorn returned from the smithy. I didn’t hear him coming until he had wrenched the cover from us, exposed like a deadly secret. I was chastised for bringing a filly into my room, unchaperoned. She was chastised for reading an arcana. Yet despite his initial ire, I knew how my father looked when he formed an idea that pleased him.
Turning’s mother was glad to know her daughter had been sneaking out of her home to be with a colt, rather than chasing after knowledge. How foolish she was. Anvilhorn offered her a marriage tithe and she accepted. I was to wed Turning. Both of us were sixteen, then.
The tip of the quill paused, seeping a steady bleed of ink where it should have dotted a punctuation. Sunburst exhaled a stiff breath and turned his ears toward Stygian’s continuing voice.
“Neither of us wanted this…”
“Did anypony ever know?” Sunburst interjected.
Stygian’s forelegs were quivering. “You can imagine the consequences, can’t you? If I were to have told my father I did not want to wed a mare, a mere coal between my hooves would have been a blessing.”
He volunteered no further elaboration, other than, “We were given no choice.”
...We went through the motions of our engagement. Until we wedded, Turning and I were forbidden to be alone in one another's company. Our nights of reading together were gone. When we were in the same room, she was too miserable to speak, her mother always watching over her shoulder as she cooked meals for me. Turning could shear a rock into a gem with her magic. And she was using it to turn a spoon in a pot.
I was to offer her a bridal gift, as was customary. I chose Bright Star’s shawl. If anypony was to own it, it should be her, not my father, not locked away cold in a chest until the end of his days. The shawl blended into her cream coat, too similar to her colors. I should have given her a book. I should have given her… freedom. So, that’s what I did.
Sunburst’s head rose. A canny glint was in Stygian’s eyes.
“I slipped a letter inside the shawl’s lining. That, I suppose, was the day I became a strategist.”
…Leaving our village was perilous. The land was rife with Windigos and dangerous creatures. A trio of sirens was encroaching on neighboring towns. But news had reached us on many occasions of a burgeoning hero — a great wizard, who fought for what was right. I believed if Turning and I found him, he would shelter us. We both had much to offer in the ways of our knowledge. Our lives would be ours to own.
Anvilhorn was enthused by my intention to set out in search of a legendary unicorn hero. He was tantalized by the renown it would afford our family. And on the night I packed to leave, he gave me the first and only gift he ever offered.
“It was the dagger you returned to me.”
Sunburst's immersion lifted. He paused, eyes adjusting as they rose from the paper to Stygian.
“I had wondered,” Sunburst murmured. Regaining energy, he babbled, “By which I mean, it possessed many hallmarks of your era! And given your attachment to it, and your father being a smith, I put the pieces together!”
Stygian smiled, though it was forced. “Your observations are as keen as ever.” His eyes turned upward. “When my father gave it to me, he said, ‘Take this blade and use it to kill a monster. Do not come home unless you do.’”
Sunburst copied his words, slow and orderly, but he didn't look away from Stygian.
Stygian's throat flexed with a stiff swallow. “To this day, I regret telling him my plan. I should have gathered everything I had and ran with Turning. But I was afraid. I was afraid, like a foal is afraid of phantoms, that he would follow me. And by telling him… I was given my one chance to see how his face looked when he was proud of me.”
Sunburst's quill stopped moving. “And what did he look like?”
Stygian's gaze was low. “Like he was looking at somepony else. A colt who was not me.”
The quill continued its rapid scratching, syncopated with Sunburst's breathing that had become loud in his ears.
...I know it was him who told Turning's mother my plan. It must have led her into suspicion. Because on the eve of my exodus from that little village, when I arrived at her home, Turning was gone.
Mere hours prior, a carriage arrived for her. Her mother sent for it. Turning was delivered to a school for fillies to be educated in the art of healing and etiquette and all the qualities becoming of a mare. I was told she would come home a proper bride by the time I returned from questing.
I should have chased wherever that carriage traveled. I should have broken into the school where she was held. I should have damned the risks. I should have, I should have, I should have…
Sunburst looked up. The rug was twisted beneath Stygian's hoof. His shoulders were a pair of sharp peaks above his hanging head.
“It’s easy to be a champion over monsters,” he said. “But against our neighbors, we rarely become heroes.”
Stygian didn't hear Sunburst's quill cease writing and slump to the desk. He didn't see Sunburst cross the floor to sweep him into a firm hug. When it happened, a faint cry of surprise left him, as though squeezed from his lungs by the white-socked hooves enclosed across his back.
“That's the hardest battle a pony can face,” Sunburst said, his chin on Stygian's shoulder. “But — it's won through living! Living and being — that's heroic enough.”
“I like to think she won.” Stygian's voice was faint, his muzzle pressed into Sunburst's neck. “I like to think her education didn’t change her. That her ambitious heart beat back against her tutors and she became a great wizard. Because — she was not so easily defeated. She was my friend and she couldn't be defeated!”
Stygian's body jerked rhythmically with the hitching of his breath. Without warning, his hooves thrust forward. Sunburst toppled backward as Stygian wrenched free of him.
“You shouldn't see me in this state!” he shouted. His eyes were wet and he threw a hoof across his face. “I didn't expect — I've told this story before, why is…” Stygian pulled his hoof free, staring at it in disbelief, his cheeks darkened by rolling tears. “I don't know what to do with all of this hurt.”
“You can cry!” Sunburst said. He crouched, meeting Stygian's eyes. “You just let yourself cry.”
So, Stygian cried. For what seemed like the first time in an era, he wept in the open presence of another. His sadness was made honest in accordance with that direct, accepting permission. Sunburst pulled him into another close embrace, steady as Stygian’s tears soddened the collar of his robe. Sunburst held onto his quivering back, running hot with exertion, until he stopped shaking.
Stygian was saying something, a phrase repeated, the words muffled where his wet snout pressed into Sunburst’s coat. But Sunburst caught it on the last iteration as Stygian collapsed wholly into him.
“I never imagined it would feel this good.”
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This is a very fun read so far, I very much like the exploration of Stygian past and how it explored. Looking forward to see the rest. Keep it up.
God damn that's a line.
dangit Sunburst why must your anxiety be so relatable
hehe i’d bet!
that is indeed an ironic metaphor, love it. also this biography style feels very modern!
ah, that would explain why it felt so modern! and oof, Stygian’s internalization here is too real
too relatable as to be painful almost
and oof, well-observed moment here
my heart
as awful as this is, there is the painful irony on top of it
getting a bad feeling from the fact that i had never heard of Turning Page before this…
this line will definitely come back later
i love this line
augh, my heart breaks for them both. i like to think this as well, but given how Stygian is phrasing it, he doesn’t think it’s very likely…
and given everything about his upbringing and how he has been describing it, i imagine this to be the very first time he has allowed himself to grieve over any of it, augh