Starstruck

by Vest

Chapter 12: Platinum Haze

Illustration by Arctic-Sekai.
Special pre-reader thanks to Dracon Pyrothayan

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Whispered cries with empty gaze,
Witnessed by starlight’s blaze.
Foalhoods lost in rapid phase,
By steps beyond the platinum haze.

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Chapter 12

Platinum Haze

Fates assist, and fates conspire.

Fates bring life to one’s desire.

Or so the rhyme kept playing in the Captain’s head.

It was all he could get.

Wait.

Fates can bring...one’s inner fire?

No, no, no.

A sudden rustling of hooves rushed past him, a white jacket nudging in a fast trot against his shoulder. Adjusting his clipboard, a doctor turned to motion some semblance of an apology to him, but whirled back into his step into a trot that faded into background. The lowering sun glazed over his eyes, making it impossible to focus proper on the world around him, yet the world had no reservations shaking him out of his own inner train of thought.

Fates assist, and fates conspire...

So I learned in...a rocky spire-

No! The story needed to open with a zinger. A real bombastic opus of lyrical wizardry. It needed to assure that his journey was one that embarked with twenty-eight lines of spectacular rhymes to really clench just how unbelievably grandiose his journey would begin.

And yet, only one line retained any hold.

The fates conspired.

The Captain could hardly let anything else intrude into his inner stream of consciousness. Curses to that cyan pegasus and his ridiculous rainbow clown mane. Curses up and down to him.

Sir, we have just received wonderful news from Captain Armor, sir!

Jetstream’s intruding words played over and over in his recent memory, their five-minute lifespan managing to set all urgencies alight. He didn’t know why Jetstream was so happy to deliver them to him.

She said ‘yes!’

So little time. He had so little time to accomplish the task the very stars, the very essence of fate had dumped upon him at the base of the collapsing tower. The saddlebag. The gauntlet. The succession of ponies striving to steal it from him. He hoped his plan would pull through, and the orange unicorn mare would pull through.

The orange unicorn mare. How just thinking of her made the back of his neck feel all prickly. She claimed to be somepony else. She insisted he was on a fool’s errand.

“She said nothing,” he groaned to himself while stepping out of the urgent care center. A nurse stopped mid-trot, leering a quizzical glance to him. Stormblade continued, addressing nopony in particular. “She still wants her stallion friend to take the fall for her and admit he’s the Bookmark.” The nurse made a fast dash through the hospital doors, weaving aside like she heard nothing. “Typical. Conspire with the stars, then think you can outwit even me.”

Perhaps fate itself was throwing a few jabs at him, rustling up his karma, for the sake of making way for something good.

Stormblade huffed, his head dipping as it immersed back into crafting the intricacies of his impending sojourn.

It didn’t matter now. Fate would certainly bring him to greatness.

“Fine. I’ll bite, Miss Bookmark.” He cracked a smile, angling his head to ensure his teeth shimmered in the low sunlight in a heroic gesture. “It’s obviously a trap, or a diversion, but while you rest comfortably here, you’ll come to find yourself unable to get up to help your little friend when he tells me the truth about you.” A tightly lined patrol of armored guardsponies rounded beside him, giving Stormblade an affirming nod. He waved a hoof forwards, motioning them into position. “I’ve made sure of that.”

If Jetstream was so elated as to break away from his own patrol to personally deliver the petty news of Shining Armor, he couldn’t imagine the parade he’d throw when telling Captain Armor of Luna saying yes to him.

Hmm.

Fate can make...life a mess.

But it’s all worth it when...she says yes.

When she cries yes.

When her kiss says-

“Hey Captain!”

“ACK!” The Captain leapt sideways, his balance skittering on the slick icy sidewalk.

“You, uhh, called for us here!” A quick succession of shuffling armor assembled at his forehooves.

The world pulled into focus. Finally. Took them long enough to show. “Affirmative, conscripts,” his voice cracked, attempting to punch through his quick hyperventilating. “Line...Line up!”

“You got it, bro.”

Bro.

“That’s Captain.”

“Ah-hyah, right sir, right!” The young stallion tucked his legs together, raising one to a quick salute that banged against his metal helm. “You got it bro, Captain! Heyah-hah!”

He could see why Captain Armor warned him of these three. They were the kinds of featherbrains that watched too many Schwarzenicker filmstrips.

“And, huh-huh,” piped up the shortest of the three. “I says’it sir be a true honor’s bein’ all in as your specials forces here!”

They weren’t a thing like the recruits Shining let through.

“We won’t let you down bro Captain, bro, you can count on us to always never let you down!”

They were perfect.

He crossed before them in slow, heavy strides. Stormblade’s hooves dug a deep trench in the snow outside Canterlot Urgent Care, pacing until he had secured the attention of the unsteady line of blank gazes. They fell into an eager, if ungainly semblance of a line, heads bent forward to better hear the illustrious officer’s words.

Stormblade cracked a hoof on the ground, commanding their immediate attention. “You have all been chosen to form a new organization within the Canterlot Guard!” the stallion paced in front of the assemblage of the greenest rookie guards. “I realize that you have only just finished your basic training...albeit, after your fifth or eighth swing at it.”

A shrill dragging of a helm slid across the Captain’s ears. One of the conscripts looked up to the sky, anxiously tracking a single snowflake dancing in the early evening breeze. The helm succumbed to gravity, clanging sharply on the cobblestone walkway.

Stormblade regained his voice, booming loudly in his best inspirational octave. “But that is precisely why you are fit for this task. You see, mares and gentlecolts, the fact of the matter is that Canterlot needs ponies like you who have not been infected by the kind of thinking that goes on at the higher levels of our guard.”

She said ‘yes!’

“Irrelevance!” An obsidian hoof cracked through the air. “We are in a time...of irrelevant time wasting! We should be tail deep in action!”

Stormblade paused for a moment, letting the implications and imaginations run rampant amongst the rookie guards.

“Yeah-hah! Action bro!” The short conscript flinched. “I mean, action bro...Captain!”

Rookies? Eh, cadets really.

“What Canterlot needs are guardsponies who are eyes and ears, focused on the task without being lost in the...glory-chasing that some other guards might engage in.” The black stallion bitterly stamped his hoof to send his medals jangling, a complete set save for the Alicorn Cross. “As Captain, I have chosen you because you lack that temptation, and I know I can trust you to report to me...and only me...what you see on your patrols.”

“But Captain,” a brown earth pony in armor three sizes too large piped up, “I thought we needed to report up our chain of command so w-”

“This!” Stormblade interrupted. “This is why you are better than just your run of the mill guardspony. You report directly to me, the Captain.” Brightening glances raised a devious smile on Stormblade’s face; they would happily be part of his story for merely the idea of acting in a special unit or group.

“Woah-hoah, yeah, totally awesome man, we’re like you’re right-hoof stallions, bro!”

He’d...rewrite them as perhaps a mysterious ninja force.

“H-hyuh, I mean, Captain, right-hoof bro stallions Captain!”

Who took a vow of silence.

At birth.

“Step forward.” He drew in a deep breath of wintry air and held it, feeling the chill permeate his body through his lungs before calling out again. “Step forward, all of you.”

Obedient in naivete, the guards stepped forward, eyes wide with pride and deep-seeded, earnest desire to actually do something. “Right on, Captain!”

“From this night onward, I dub you all...” Pause, for dramatic effect. “My Stormblades.” Stormblade stiffened and delivered a sharp, respectful salute.

The expressions faltered slightly. One small choking sound slipped from the far side of the line.

“Well? You’re supposed to salute back...” the Captain’s own salute wavered and his proud smile morphed into a scowl. “Is something funny, cadets? Speak up!”

The owner of the choke finally piped in. “We-well sir...I mean...it’s great we have a new assignment and all. It sounds important. But...”

“But what, recruit?”

“Do we really have to call ourselves that? That name is like...”

The short conscript interjected. “Outta’s a rejected Daring Does novel?”

“Yeah, like we’re a band that fights crime and solves mysteries in groovy rock montages?”

“And a dumb uniforms?”

Stormblade made a mental note to not send out the capes and specialty armor clasps just yet. “Enough!” Later. Maybe. “If you are finished making foals of yourselves, I have the first mission for my Blades.” Clearing his throat, the black stallion evened his voice. “We have in our custody one of Canterlot’s most dangerous criminals, one who we know is responsible for instigating last night’s attack and putting our Princess Luna back to her lunar banishment! And she refuses to even admit to her own name!”

That shut em up.

“But if we can’t squeeze a confession from her, I do remember her having an accomplice, one she keeps speaking of. It is a dark-furred unicorn, male, navy blue mane and tail. Cutie mark is something like a scroll with a quill. Glasses.”

The recruits’ eyes widened. The attack was common knowledge, the danger very real to them. Nothing in their very small training had prepared them for dealing with this kind of situation.

“I expect you only to look for him and when located, find me immediately. He is extremely dangerous, but also extremely valuable. I will need to personally deal with him if we are to get the upper hoof.”

Gone were the laughs and chortles already, each recruit swallowed hard, summoning up the courage that had brought them to Canterlot to stand with the Guard in the first place.

“I also have reason to believe he is in collusion with members of the Royal Guard. So this is why you must report to me, and me alone as soon as you see him. Do you understand?”

The three young stallions exchanged glances, then nodded to each other. “Aye aye, Cap’n!”

“Then-” Stormblade raised his hoof, his mouth motioning to speak but cutting itself short. His hoof sank dejectedly under its own limp weight.

Yep. They really just aye aye’d him.

“Stormblades...deploy!” His call ended with him smacking the obsidian hoof down into cobblestone, scattering the confused-but-determined rookie guardsponies in all directions to search. “Scour every street, every alley, every shop! Go!”

They were so caught in their scrambling exit that none spotted the navy blue tail slipping behind them into Canterlot Urgent Care.

* * * * *

The sheets.

He dodged and weaved between table, chair, and curtain around the shuffle of guards ponies. Seeing the Captain standing guard at the entrance made the necessity for stealth all the more reason to practice caution.

She was definitely here. No reason there wouldn’t be such clamor at Ponyville urgent care with active guardsmen of such high rank as him.

Yet deep in the quieter halls where denizens rested and recovered, the only ruffling object that snagged his eye was...

...The sheets.

Rounding the corner to enter into the bright fluorescent hospital room, he stepped back as a nurse impeded his path with a cart of her sheets resting atop. Blue. Disheveled. The telltale signs of dampness rimming the edge of the thin fabric.

A sporadic flurry of images caught up to him. He had to ensure Gina was okay, he had to at least start making the slightest effort to become the friend she deserved, the friend she expected him to be. She’d been left to fight everything alone all her life, to handle things in a solitary approach, but not this one, no. No.

The biting remnants of his words remained in his head. Saying nopony trusts her. Saying she was too caught up in old business, whatever she implied by such. He couldn’t leave it at that, not at all.

He took one last glance at the cart of blue sheets squeaking down Canterlot Urgent Care’s hall. The droplets of moisture, flickering pearlescent glitter, lapped along the sides in an uncanny way that caused the hall to fade into a twisting blur. He looked down to readjust his vision, shaking his head. He must have taken a harsh fall somewhere in the statue garden, his head still throbbed. Yeah, he must have been tired, must have been fatigued. Must be a bit of a concussion somewhere in there, because the more he tried to pull the repeating checker pattern of the hospital’s linoleum floor to cohesion, the more it seemed to recede into a gnarled wooden texture.

He felt like he was shut in a dark metal box again, confining and maddening.

He blinked hard, only a lone circle of approaching rainbow light filling the imagined gap of existence between his pupils and eyelid. Opening his eyes, the vivid memory of creaky wooden floorboards peered back up at him, the physical sights of the hospital fading away into a distant platinum haze.

Concussion. Check.

The clamor of Canterlot Urgent Care’s bustling confines fell away into a distant well, his eyes only able to keep intent focus on the blue wooden door leading into Gina’s room.

He slowly swiveled his head around the corner. Instead of the deep orange light of late afternoon, alien summer light trickled in through the thin drapes over the window. A line of books and toys snaked across the floorboards to a foal’s bed, and the charcoal stallion’s senses surrendered to his wavering memories at the sight before him.

- O - O - O -

The young charcoal colt hardly slept well, not when the night crept deep into the formless aether of early morning hours with incessant shouts and clatter downstairs. But the last night...the sheets were still disheveled and flopped haphazardly around him in the countless phases of him pulling them around his head, wrapping them before his young muzzle to suppress the high-pitched croaks of distress his body involuntarily shuddered forth...only to then push them away as visions of the happenings downstairs would instill the space between his eyes and his mind during the fluttering window of borderline sleep.

The sheets.

They were still heavy and weighted in the cold dampness along the edges. He swore, it was just sweat, it was just another warm summer night gracing upon the ranch home, there wasn’t even any sense of cooling breeze lapping through the endless expanse of tall grass outside. No, not tears. They couldn’t be tears. Nopony could cry that much. Nopony.

Or so the frail youth brought himself to believe as he rolled to face the window. A dry burning tugged at the base of his eyes, the gravity of another sleepless night driving his limbs to ache.

Finally.

Finally a silence permeated through the walls. Whatever fight was going on downstairs, the marathon session of heated words and vitriolic half-confessions driven lesser by actual truth than by ire and emotion, had once more come to a rest. Quickly, too. Quite suddenly, actually.

Too suddenly.

A hollow thud echoed from the distant corner of the house, the intensity of the quickly opening door reverberating the window in his room. The newborn silence flickered and phased before coming once again to rest, now draping a hefty blanket of discomfort over the young charcoal unicorn that couldn’t be shaken off. Something was amiss. Every instinct, every sense in the colt’s body tugged at him yet his tired hooves, sore neck, and reddened eyes pushed back.

Meeting halfway, he spun back to face the window. Just in time.

Far off in the horizon, just below the rising sun, he saw it. An arc of light rose gradually in the air, cascading wildly across the sky at a supersonic speed, expanding majestically in a piercing ring of rainbow hues that sliced eagerly through the sky. His eyes widened, watching as the atmospheric phenomenon raced towards him. Peeling himself from the sheets, he quickly sauntered to the window to see the multicolored taurus continue its rapid approach, each color cycling and churning with surging energy.

It was a feeling he’d never felt before, just the sight of the great rainbow ring was stirring up a miasma of sensations and mercurial thoughts in the young colt’s mind. His horn ebbed forth in unseen inspirations of great magics he knew he had but couldn’t deliver beyond his own threadbare hold his mental capacities could conjure. The bedroom faded, its pale blue walls and floor descending into an unregarded sect of irrelevance as the colt’s fascinations were held firmly by the supersonic overture of light now mysteriously cascading over the ranch home.

As the young charcoal unicorn’s mind somehow found itself mysteriously able to piece together the very essences of cryptic powers, spells and incantations he hadn’t even heard whispered within the lessons of Magic Kindergarten, his concentration suddenly peeled away, his face contorting as if watching the map guiding his entire life got torn in half in a lightning-quick rip.

For a fleeting second it all made sense.

It was always there.

It was always churning to get out.

The feeling had always lingered.

The window shook wildly before him, refracted pins of light danced wildly across the panes of glass, and before his synapses were knocked back into his brain from the rainbow explosion’s impending shockwave, the visions of magic and ritual coalesced into a single voice from...but not of...himself.

Wake up.

Kra-KWOOOOM!!!

- O - O - O -

Devon’s eyes flashed awake, his shoulders leading his backwards charge over scrambling back hooves as he twisted to a sideways flop on the checkered linoleum floor. He shook his head, the low-hanging light of the late afternoon sun pierced through a tree’s shadow outside a window. Groaning, Devon pulled himself up to his feet, shaking his head to cast aside the annoying flickering sunlight bombarding his tired face.

“You okay there sir?” A guardspony looked down at him, lifting his helm over his brow.

“Oh, me, heh yeah, I’m just, you know,” Devon stammered. Come on, pony, they don’t have any reason to doubt you, no reason to disbelieve you, you’re just...just... “I’m just, hyeh-heh, here for eh-heh...”

“Ey, boys, gather round here fellas.” The guard motioned to the others to approach. “Check this out, I knew this all along.”

Knew!? “You knew, I-I...heh!”

“Yeah!” The guard nudged another in the side of the armor. “Totally called it. Ever since that rockin’ showdown in the garden!”

Play dumb! “What’s...a garden?” Terrible effort!

“Naw, naw, it’s okay,” the guard hung his head low beside Devon’s resting a forehoof atop his shoulder. “Just easy, okay, real easy now,” looking over his shoulder, the guard twisted his head for the others to approach closely. “Guys, come in and tell me if this is the face we were told about...”

He gulped heavily, feeling every urge to stumble backwards. “What’s...what showdown?” No, stop with playing dumb, try another plan. “Oh, my face, it’s like...”

“Yeah,” chimed in a larger guard with a deep rumbling voice. “Just as you described. All’uh it.”

Oh sweet Celestia, now would be a good time for a pink dragon to spontaneously come crashing through the wall! Anytime now!

“I know that face.”

Because right this very instant there really was a pink dragon gliding in Canterlot’s vicinity that totally owed him quite a favor right now! Celestia? Dragon? Hello?

“Totally!” The guard hopped back with a laugh. “Look at us!” He headbutt the large guard excitedly. “You’re right, he totally is ‘fraid of us! All them ponies think we’re totally boss all up around here now after that tussle in the garden!”

Wuh-huh-wait, huh?

The low voice rumbled with deep laughs. “I see how you made his face all scrunchy up like that in your presence, classic you, man. Classic you!”

“I know, right, we’re like all heroes in this, and everypony’s gonna be cowerin’ away from us round here for certain!”

Ah.

Not an arrest.

Ego boosting.

Just back away.

“Hyeh!” the low voice throbbed the floor at Devon’s hooves. “Gettin’ to stand guard right here so everypony can check us out? I tells you all, Stormblade’s assignments just get easier and easier.”

Keep backing away.

“Wait!”

Wait.

The large guard suddenly grumbled, his eyelids fluttering with the skittering of neurons firing to life within his cranium. An idea was forming. A thought. A recollection. An order.

A face.

“Hold on, little fella.”

Thanks. Little fella. Be less unmistakable please? Devon’s throat seized within, jumping up his neck.

The large guarded rounded beside the others, dropping his flank in a meaty thud on the linoleum floor before him. “Riiight, I...I remember ya’s face.”

An uneasy pause crept between them. Tentatively, Devon tilted his head slowly, angling his eyes around to view the hospital hallway behind the burly deep-voiced guard. Still no pink dragon in sight.

Drat.

Last time he does a favor for anything with scales.

“Of course!” A heavy hoof hooked around Devon’s neck. “Bookmark!” Oh please be easy and only leave bruising with the hefty takedown coming his way. “You’re Sara Bookmark’s boy, with all those scarves!”

Please don’t-...

…Oh.

...Oh, in that case then, please don’t tell them about the-

“This poor kid here’s the one that gets a new scarf every other day from Sara!” On second thought, Devon figured he’d just stop thinking about bad things, as apparently he’d awoken some obscure superpower that makes all his embarrassing scenarios come to instant fruition. “Don’t even know what he does with all thems!”

“Of course, yes, you...” Devon tried to lower his head and unlatch from the heavy grip. “You’re that fellow, yes,” he exhaled deeply trying to tuck all that overt guilt safely away. “The one who...woo, right out with the...in front of the Archive every day, so good to see you I must now be-”

“Indeed, I say hello to y’all every’morn!”

“Well you don’t much, you just berate me and give me a tough-” Stop right there, kiddo. Devon thought twice about sassing back and saying he ridicules his attire. “Right, every morning indeed kind sir!” Let it go. Because he’s about to let Devon go as well.

“Anypony of Sara’s ilk, tell y’all right now, can be anypony of mine good favor!” Another clamor of armor and laughter rolled down the hallway, catching the wayward glances of many passing through. “Tell y’all about his mama, she the sweetest caringest most loving gal ever to her boy, hyah hah! She too good at it, even, poor thing in her threads just looks, shoot man, just no words can describe it!”

Devon sighed, figuring now the opportune time to make a silent departure.

“Man, and some mornin’s, just no colors can describe it either!”

As sobering as it was to see the guards unconcerned with his status as a pony of interest, he felt the reality before him far worse. It finally happened. His life was officially over.

Mom’s scarves were talk of legend.

Getting banished and thrown in a dungeon in the place he was banished to seemed far preferable now.

With grit teeth, Devon quietly ducked backwards, sauntering along the edge of the hallway. Seeing the concerned glances of nurses turning to him, lining up to check on the dark unicorn stumbling about in the hall, he nodded in a subtle gesture to excuse himself before making a quick and stealthy entrance to Gina’s room.

* * * * *

A heavy door swung clanged behind the fatigued unicorn, her purple mane waving in an exhale of forced air brushing up from behind her. She trudged heavily through the Canterlot archive’s front rotunda, slowly making her way back up the wide spiral stair ascending around the center. The few light fixtures still glowing in candlelight shimmered in the reflected edges of an armored guard standing in a relaxed lean against the banister.

“Miss Sparkle,” the guard stepped aside, letting her pass. “Are you sure you wish me to remain here, and not accompany you personally?”

“Oh,” Twilight quickly replied, shuffling her hooves backwards. “I, uh, thanks sir but...” She peered around him, scanning the opposite end of the rotunda. “Your eyes would, um, they would be more use being, heh, open.”

“Open?” The guard’s eyes tilted.

“Out here in the open!” Twilight chuckled, timidly taking a step back.

The guard clicked his forehooves together on the floor, standing upright. “I understand Miss Sparkle.” He quickly turned in place, exaggerating a looking motion into the empty Archive foyer. “I shall not disturb your studying methods in the least.”

Twilight began a brisk trot through the archive shelves, weaving and dodging into darker and mustier corners. She considered herself fortunate to have Canterlot’s elite extending such courtesy to her, though such would only be expected of them when conversing with Princess Celestia’s most studious student ever.

How fortunate. If they actually treated her like any other pony and escorted her this deep into the labyrinthian confines of warped bookshelves aligning the ancient structure’s lonely corners, Celestia wouldn’t even trust her with collecting newspapers for her pet phoenix’s cage.

But to her, it was worth the risk. She had no ideas just hours ago, she begged and pleaded for an answer, and when the universe throws a mysterious old weirdo claiming to have traveled from a thousand years ago, she was a bit more inclined to listen. Desperation. It makes ponies act strangely, but it makes them act regardless.

Rounding the last corner, a bitter wisp of cold air graced against her muzzle. Before a lone candle, an old yellow stallion labored intensively over a single parchment, his horn feverishly directing a quill across it in wild incantations.

“How goes it?” Twilight tentatively inquired, tapping Ghasen on the shoulder.

He grumbled in frustration, the quill coming to a sudden, shuddering halt.

“I see.” There was very little time for her to have even gotten a backstory on the old stallion, even less time to ask more questions. She knew little of where he came from, and could only deduce cursory details on him from the wild exclamations of the statue garden...

...Incident?

Seemed like such a trivial moniker, but accurate all the same. Incident. Nothing else seemed to fit, as no words could really describe the sudden existence of ancient ponies jetting out of the ground in a massive tower buried beneath the palace grounds.

No. Fester not on that. He was no adversary. The old weathered face? The gravel-strewn voice lurching through frustrated grumbles? That quizzical, tenuous glance Princess Celestia kept throwing his way before immediately cracking back into regal demeanor?

Oh, how she noticed that.

Much how she noticed other things...

“Sir?” Twilight tried again, knowing he had something to say, but just not enough irritation to coerce it out. “I know that look, like there’s a problem.”

...The weight of those exasperated grunts, and all it entails.

“There is.” He seethed. “That...boy, that little laddie who guided Luna through the lower sanctums?”

Twilight looked at him with confusion. She knew there was another pony who accompanied Luna through her foray to rebanishment, but the details floating about them were sketchy, wild and inconsistent. “He? A lad?” This was different. “A...colt?” Strange, all the reports she heard from the guard was that it was a unicorn mare the whole time.

“I have to believe it, I do, tough though it be.” Ghasen lifted the quill again, and leaning to the side, let the flickering candlelight wash over the paper. A rapid succession of symbols and numbers looked back at them. “I’ve been runnin’ numbers here and addin’ up, see.” A purple telekinetic grip lifted the paper, spreading it before Twilight.

“This...” The purple unicorn immediately recognized the timeline, a series of phrases and verses long chronicled over the millennium past. “These names, they’re...” Along the timeline, a sequence of initials transcended in a tight march down the family trees.

GB. AB. EB...

“Bookmarks. All of us.” Ghasen set the paper down, and stood up. “Starting with me, Celestia summoned a one thousand year long stop to the Bookmark’s power to the stars.”

“Well,” a sudden discomfort struck Twilight. Her neck itched with the very accusation that her own teacher brought such harsh discipline upon this old stallion’s entire bloodline. The feeling compounded with representing the Princess as her most prized student. Yes, Celestia did do those things. She never liked affirming the dirtier side of maintaining order in Equestria, especially in earlier years so long ago, but-

“Tis not a smidge personal,” Ghasen reassured her, seeing the sudden quivering of trouble in the unicorn’s eye. “We all done things we regret, but, for the greater good, yes?”

She still had a Princess to save. “Yes, exactly.” Twilight lifted her tone, easing the words around their seams. “So how’s progress, then?”

“And that, my gal,” Ghasen suddenly flung a hoof upwards, the quill shrieking through the air in a vertical slice of telekinesis. “That be a true thorn in m’flank!” He turned, the dangling quill above remained lodged firmly in the ceiling. “Aw, no, no! Tis not as straightforward as simply askin’ ‘em all polite like for our Luna back. There may be complications, y’see, as the stars ‘emselves not lend us one flick of an ear!”

Naturally. Another problem. Always another problem! Always just one more setback, one more...no no, hold it. Twilight assured herself with a heavy breath and extended forehoof out, let the stress go, let it slide, let the architect work. With a quick clench of her eyes, she regained her composure, and nodded for him to deliver the bad news.

“The spell Celestia cast upon the Bookmarks was a ward. An enchantment. And the ward was not created that night when Nightmare Moon was first banished.”

Twilight pinched her nose up. That didn’t make sense. “Well, she couldn’t have made it after the Nightmare Moon...” Incident? “...fiasco.”

“Aye, t’was made before all of it.” The yellow pony softened his eyes, dragging his hoof across the parchment with a gesture pointing well before the sketched timeline. “The ward was made many years before!”

“Why, though?” Twilight contemplated, wondering if Celestia had some reason to create such a thing in preparation. “Why was it even made?”

Ghasen nodded, vigorously tapping a forehoof against the table. “It was a part of my original terms of employment under the Royal Mason’s guild to have my magic bound to an external ward of power.” He flicked his hoof against his horn. “The ward was supposed to give me more magical strength to handle the heavy lifting and enchantment binding during the archive’s construction, so to speak.”

“Right,” Twilight affirmed. Looking up, she focused her magic on the quill embedded in the ceiling, trying to pull it out. “They made it so...” Twilight huffed, tugging harder on the embedded quill. By Starswirl’s shedding, did Ghasen really dig it in there it with his frustrated outburst. “...So you could have the magic you needed to construct the archive, extended only to the highest ranking of Canterlot’s masons. Given your importance to the project-”

“But it didn’t turn out to be an improvement of my magic.” His words fell beneath a gravel croak. “It was a safeguard.” Ghasen grinned sheepishly at Twilight.

The purple unicorn hesitated, again locked with a permeating waft of discomfort. If there was one thing she had difficulty grasping, it was picturing her own mentor, the widely beloved Princess Celestia, having a lack of trust in anypony.

Ghasen cleared his throat, lowering his head. “Because of the actions of myself and my family, Celestia had to banish her own sister to the moon.” Through narrow eyelids, he glanced to the purple unicorn. “Something she hoped to never...ever do again.”

“Which is why,” Twilight thought aloud, “she modified your ward of power, to take away your abilities to speak with the stars, and extended it to...”

Ghasen’s neck sunk, his body resting against the table. “Every. Single. One of us. Done yanked our power, cast ‘em to stone, and...” He coughed, breathing in through grit teeth. “Sorry,” he dragged a fetlock across his brows. “Sorry, it even happened to my brothers, my nieces, my nephew...”

Twilight slowly lowered her head, her eyes narrowing in contemplation. “Well, as you said...” She cleared her throat, trying to cut him off from this angle of diatribe. “It was in Celestia’s greatest interest of Equestria to-”

“Indeed, indeed!” Ghasen’s eyes lifted. He looked upwards, his face’s contours relaxing. “It all just be water ‘neath the bridge, esteemed student! But...” Ghasen nudged the paper back into the center of the desk. “But what’s important, see, Celestia didn’t cast a new ward,” Ghasen raised a hoof over his forehead, waving it in a forward motion. “She just used the one that was made when I was hired fifteen years prior.”

Suddenly, the timeline, the tree of initials, the numbers dotting the edges of the parchment...The math came together. Twilight quickly snagged the parchment from the desk, unfurling it. Her telekinetic grip around the embedded quill dissipated, dropping from the ceiling.

Ghasen lowered his head. “My girl, the magic to speak with the stars?”

The falling quill jabbed over the last set of initials on the timeline, a wild black splotch bleeding down to the margins in thick beads.

FB, EB, IB, SB...

“The ward ended before Princess Luna came back. The timing was off. It’s been loosed in the wild now for fifteen years.”

...DB.

* * * * *

"So...listen, I'm sorry that you-"

"-Got hurt?" Gina smiled, "Nyah, shucks Dev, it's not your fault."

“How bad’s the damage?”

“Just a crack. They’re sayin’ it’s nothing big, but Celestia does it sting!” Gina fixed him with a small pout as she pointed a hoof up at her forehead, her horn wrapped tenderly in a white bandage around the crack. “Rest up fer a few days and I’ll be right as rain.”

“I guess that’s pretty standard. Hey, given everything that’s happened, a few days in bed doesn’t sound half bad,” Devon remarked, part of him slightly envious of the orange unicorn. A full night’s sleep was both something he longed for, but knew he couldn’t afford. Devon didn’t linger on that thought, he was here for Gina, he had to hold up.

“Oh puh-leeze!” She reached over, fumbling with a cup of water on her bedstand. "Gyaagh, stupid little bridle-nickerin'-no-good-bracken!" The glass slipped from her hooves like a bar of soap. "Fyeep!"

"Oh!" A nest of dark gray telekinesis wrapped around the cup, slowing it before gently tapping the linoleum floor with a glassy ding. Devon, exhaled deep. "Phew!"

"Oh, you liar!" Gina chuckled. "You said your magic was-" The gray aura flickered, a shrill clattering rattled across the room, the rolling glass cup dragging a trail of water behind it. "-poo."

"At least it wasn't juice," Devon attempted. Her eyes still peered longingly at her water, noticing a chip climbed up the side like a crystal lightning bolt. "Or coffee." She remained fixated forward, her tongue trying to lap up the spilled liquid from several haunches away. "Or tea."

"Oh sweet Celestia!" She flopped back in her bed, nestling her head into a pillow with exasperated rolls, singing giddily. "Tea. Sounds. Amazing!"

"Yeah, but unfortunately you can't pick up th-" a smart pony in Devon's chest kinked his larynx like a garden hose, "-Hyrck!" But was unfortunately too late, as he found himself on the receiving end of the most agitated 'no kidding' look her face could muster.

"Hyurff!" A much-deserved slap of annoyed breath smacked Devon in the face. Gina slowly wrenched her head up. "I don't know how they do it," she raised her hooves before his eyes, waving them in complaint. "Look at these stupid things! Can't even eat without my stupid horn. No offense Dev’s, but I don’t even get how you made it.”

"But you've been here for two days," Devon started to fetch the glass. "How are you eating?"

"That yokel drawling nurse lady. Feeding. Watering." Gina strained her pupils up, glaring at the speckled ceiling. "By Starswirl's beard, I'm like a plant! I lose the one thing that ninety percent of the rest of the functioning world doesn’t even have, and..." A familiar maniacal laugh seeped through, "Hyee-hkk-ha, ha! I'm so stupidly worthless!"

"Eh, you'll get used to it,” Devon raised an encouraging hoof beside her shoulder. “Us unicorns always find-"

“-Hyugh!” Gina mashed the back of her head into the pillow, knocking his hoof aside. "She has to do every stupid thing for me!" With a silky floomf, her protesting legs kicked the snugly tucked bedsheets upward.

Devon lifted the glass in his teeth. "Oh'ff come aww-n, eff'rythin'?"

"Yes!" She nickered. "Everything!"

"Eff'ery-thin'!?"

"Every. Single. Thing."

"Even go to the...?" Devon stopped, narrowing a brow while glancing upward, feigning innocent contemplation. Gina immediately caught the implied question, and responded with an agitated whimper, spinning twice into her sheets like a chimicherrychanga. "Ew."

"I KNOW!" The sheets swelled in agreement as she curled up tightly beneath them. "Lose the horn, and bam, can't even...that for myself anymore!"

"Well, look, if you need me to help you-"

"NO!"

"-IN! OTHER. Ways..." Devon groaned, setting the glass back onto the table, "I'll be glad to."

She exhaled heavily, an irritated puff of breath struck the opposite wall. "Thank you, Dev's, but..." She looked down at her hooves again. "...Really I don't need your help." She yanked a pillow over her face, muffling her drawling words. "I just need to sleep," a stifled voice bled through the linens, "I'll be fine, thanks for coming."

"Well, if you need anything-"

"-D’ya think you can get that guard captain guy to stop staring at me? Otherwise, I think I’m good, I don’t need your help."

I don't need your help.

In Devon's mind, the hospital room quickly flickered away, melding into hazy pre-dawn twilight. Scattered memories of rampaging statues gleamed at the edges of his peripheral vision, a blurry visage of Gina fully enveloped in her magic flashed towards him with an extended hoof. It was a symphony of shouting and cries, clanging and chaos, and as the turmoil amplified to deafening volume...

“Just trust me okay?”

She asked him to. Nothing big.

"I trust you’re about to do something really brazen and excessive!"

Devon's mind recalled. Never. He couldn't trust her then, it was just the smart thing to do. The words echoed in his memory, each reverberating syllable bucking him with stinging guilt.

Devon shook his head, the hospital room settling comfortably back into view. Gina still lay curled up, useless, incapacitated in the bed, her gestural language clearly indicating she was done speaking with him for now. He turned towards the door, trotting briskly...

...Smiling.

As Gina attempted to submerge into another nap, the only thing she didn't need a nurse's help to do, she felt a nudge against her shoulder a few minutes later.

"Mrrrff-duh," she groaned, unwinding herself from her blanketed pastry. "Errrm-ff, no, no, I'm fine ma'am, you don't need to take me to the bathroo-" Devon blinked, "-NYAAAAGH!" With a flailing of hooves, she ensnared herself in her own bedsheets, flopping helplessly to the floor with a tail of linens arching in tow with her panicked leap backward.

"Just trust me okay."

"THIS BETTER BE IMPORTANT! OR ELSE I-wait, wuh?"

Devon tilted his head to the side, training an inquiring eye against her. "Just trust me." he repeated, shakily levitating a cup of tea in front of him. She could see every lapse of concentration cause the cup to wobble ever so slightly. Devon’s face contorted in a mask as he forced magic through a recalcitrant horn.

“Dev’s! I thought you couldn’t...”

“I can’t...erf...do it very well!” The very act of speaking and diverting attention to Gina made the teacup wobble and splatter a few droplets onto the floor. “Gyah...this is really hard. But I think I got it. Do you trust me?”

Gina strained her neck up, her nostrils dancing at the sweet aroma she yearned for, golden rays of heavenly sunlight flickered off the glinting surface of the teacup. She glanced tentatively at the cracked water glass on her bedside table. Wispy tongues of scalding hot vapors stretched with whirling pirouettes into the air before Devon.

"N-no..." Gina groused. “I trust you’re about to do something really brazen and-”

Oh, that smile of his.

“What did you just make me do?” Gina’s eyes widened, disbelief gripping around her larynx.

"It’s on your mind, too." He saw right through the niceness charade. She could smile and laugh about it as much as she wanted, the charcoal unicorn knew that she wasn’t fully over it. “So, you can understand why I-”

“Hush, sweetie,” the orange unicorn’s face lit up again, the eyes focused intently on the tea. So much for heartfelt apologies.

Nervously, Gina lifted her head to accept the lip of the teacup into her mouth. “You have the nurse called already?” she asked, swallowing and immediately wished she hadn’t. The aura around the teacup flickered, Devon’s concentration sputtering. “Woah, easy! Just...easy...” Gina moved quickly, wrapping her lips around the teacup and pushing her head forward to tilt the liquid into her mouth. Gina finished the tea quickly, wincing as it seared into her system. As soon as she finished, Devon let out a grunt and the empty teacup fell with a soft thud onto her bed.

“Phew...nice job, Dev’s,” Gina smiled. “Didn’t think ya had it in you. At least not without that gauntlet on your hoof.”

“Hey, I can do magic right once in awhile, that was about the best I’ve done in months, my Magic Kindergarten teacher would be so proud,” Devon tried to joke, but the exhaustion showed in his eyes. “I better get going, Gina. Take care of yourself and try not to drive the nurse’s too crazy.”

“No promises.”

“Naturally.”

“Hey.” She grinned as Devon turned out of the room. Devon paused, looking over his shoulder. “What about you? Are you alright?” she added with a direct look. “You look worse than I do, and I’m in the one in the bed with nurses tending to me.”

“Haven’t been able to sleep well,” Devon replied, rubbing his face with a hoof. “But don’t worry about me, I’m not the hurt one.” Even he wouldn’t buy the weak smile and facade of steadiness.

“Horseapples, Dev’s.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah. Very.” Gina adjusted her position on the bed, sitting up more fully and turning to face him as best he could. “Look Dev’s, ya couldn’t have known what was gonna happen. Don’t be going and blamin’ yerself.” Extending a foreleg, the orange mare delivered an affectionate jab into his shoulder. “Besides, I know ya, you’re just as stubborn as Ghasen. You’ll figure somethin’ out, no sweat.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” Devon murmured, lowering his head. “But I don’t even have a starting point. I was hoping you might know something from back then.” The charcoal unicorn ground a hoof across his face in a feeble effort to ward off the exhaustion. “All I can figure is that it is something to do with how she got banished in the first place.”

“Huh...” Gina pursed her lips and sifted through the shattered bits and pieces of her memory. “Well, I got a good look at that when it happened the first time, but,” she laughed. “I kinda got preoccupied by the whole statue thing pretty soon after. Best I can give ya is that the Elements of Harmony probably are gonna factor into it, Dev’s. Sorry.” Gina looked genuinely remorseful, especially when Devon let out a flabbergasted groan at the scant information.

“Yeah, I just need to walk up to the castle,” Devon murmured sarcastically, putting on a jokingly friendly tone. “Hello! I’m the pony who was responsible for putting Luna back on the moon, do you all mind if I borrow the Elements of Harmony for a hunch of mine? I totally promise it’ll be fine!” The sarcasm ended on a nickering bleat and Devon drooped his forehead to rest again. “Think they’d buy it?”

“Dev’s, I told ya, ya can’t get all beaten up over this,” the orange unicorn pressed her hoof into his shoulder, guiding his gaze up to meet his eyes. “Look, things are bad, but that’s exactly the time ya aren’t supposed to quit.”

Another nicker and his eyes fixed on the floor.

“C’mawn Dev’s, look at me,” Gina shook his shoulder to jar his head upward. “Look, let me tell ya somethin’.” Devon raised his head and stared blankly. “Let’s say ya do quit, what do ya do when we find out that there was a way to help Luna? What do ya tell her?”

“But Gina, we don’t even know if there is anot-”

“Don’t know for sure.”

“Well bu-”

“What are you gonna tell yerself when you let that chance go by?” Gina’s tone grew to a simmering heat. “You’re head over hooves for Luna, aren’t ya? Well, time to step up, Dev’s. If this is something more than a coltcrush, kinda yer job to prove it. Or ya can do what Ghasen did and just quit when it got too hard.”

Devon was completely silent, expression torn between breaking down, determination and complete surrender. All of them fought for dominance. He didn’t speak for nearly a minute before he stood up and turned for the door.

“If she’s worth it, Dev’s, you’re never gonna quit.”

“Yeah, you’re right...”

“Dev’s.” Gina’s words brought him up short of the hallway. “There’s nothin’ worse than giving up and finding out later you coulda won. Giving up when you still have a chance, tell you what...”

“Yeah?”

“That is brazen and excessive, m’dear.” She grit her teeth, a exhaled deeply. “K-nnskt...” She wrenched her brow down tight, a slight glow of magic permeating from her horn over a leaking stream of glistening energy. Devon reached out to her, waving his hoof, but halted when he felt the nestling of the blue hospital blanket wrapping over his shoulders. “It’s...cold...” Her face softened as she released the telekinesis, dropping her head against the pillow.

“Oh Gina, one more thing,” A deep snore responded back to him. Jeez, that was quick. He pulled the blanket snug over his neck, leaning his head in through the doorway. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

Hearing a rattle of armor rounding the corner, he ducked down low, pulling the blanket over his head. He pretended to shiver and grip it tightly, concealing his face, as three unusually young guards made a quick pace past him.

* * * * *

Ghasen stood up, his horn lighting up the narrow tendrils of warped shelves looping and weaving over his head. A succession of books aligned one after another, sliding back into the gnarled crevices.

“The problem...” the yellow unicorn explained to the purple mare adjusting the gas lamps to a dim on the opposite side of the aisle, “The problem is timing. Fifteen years is a long time, m’good lass. There is no accounting for what this DB might’ve done in that time.”

“Why is this so important anyway?” Twilight pursued, walking a tight circle to look over the elder unicorn’s shoulder. “This is to bring Princess Luna back, he doesn’t seem like he has anything to do with...”

“Quite mistaken, lass, he has everything to do with it. If all contracts are not balanced and harmonious, this spell will fail. I know I will not be a factor as he did me the service of destroying my past mistakes. But...” Ghasen trailed off in a small reverie of his opponent on the top of the tower. The inheritor of the power bore a symbol on his flank. “But all I can hope is that his past be satisfactory to the stars, otherwise nothin’ll work.”

Twilight turned to him, slowly walking to the next gas lamp to turn it off. “But he would’ve been so young back then, no way such an incredible skill like,” she rolled her head, gesturing to the ceiling, “star-talking would even be considered feasible for a colt his age.” She laughed, turning the gas dial down. “I mean, heh, it’s not like they’ll just, you know, even listen to a little colt innocently wishing upon a star, right?”

She turned, seeing Ghasen’s unshifting face. Not a single muscle carried a burden of life through those sunken brows.

The purple unicorn coughed. “Right?”

“In the grand ol’ perspective of things, gal,” he drooped, twisting a hooftip into the floorboard before him. “ A pony’s lifetime is a blink to ‘em, I doubt they know the difference between my ol’ pipes and a colt’s. To them we’re just all ageless faceless grains of impulsive matter skittering about like dust before a window.”

“Uplifting.”

“And you knows what happens, then, when one of ‘em grains, the one ordained to be lent an ear, can’t be trusted? When just another insignificant speck soon replaced by another in an irrelevant bout of time breaks a contract and fails to keep their word?”

Twilight extinguished the last of the gas lamps, a heavy veil of pale blue moonlight crept back into the unregarded archive’s corner. She turned, ready to bid a final adieu to the weathered stranger, but only saw an empty desk with a dimly flickering candle.

Where did he-?

“Break a contract.” A gravel hiss echoed from every aisle looming around her. “They stop listening.”

She tensed her shoulders, and slowly approached the desk. She readied herself for the brisk trot back to the Archive rotunda, leaving nothing but darkness far behind in her ascent back into the light. As she leaned over to blow out the candle, a new parchment stuck out to her, one with writing briskly written in heavy ink gobs from a stubbornly thrown quill.

Majestic light through the night's darkness strewn,
Restoreth freedom to souls on thine moon
Spirits astern of thine astral disguise
Giveth back to us thine imprisoned prize

Twilight tilted her face, jaws pressed in a subtle grimace. “Wow.” She tipped her shoulders back. “Catchy.”

She gripped the paper, and blew out the candle. A choking stillness draped over her in the silent darkness as she wound and dodged back into the warm glow of the Archive’s center. She looked back, wondering where the aged stallion had disappeared to. Twilight could swear that in the musty cushion of motionless air trapped in those twisting aisles, his last words reverberated in circles.

Break a contract. They stop listening.

* * * * *

Evening had long settled in by the time Devon stepped from the hospital and into the streets of Canterlot. Groups of ponies strolled happily through the late evening chill, busy with Hearth’s Warming preparations while others bustled around the growing decorations, delighted at passively drinking in the wave of colors and impending celebration. It all felt so distant to Devon; he could reach out and touch a jovial string of lights, he could hear the carols of fillies unwilling to wait for the official celebration to start singing. It was all so utterly real, and yet in his mind, it was an image played out like from the words of a book.

Among all the lights and dazzling tinsel, Devon’s attention only returned to one. Hanging high above Canterlot, well beyond the strings of decoration was a single light. Pale blue, the moon stared down at him.

Of all the colors...

A meandering whsiper hounded Devon the entire walk home.

Every color they could've picked...

Deceived into the wayward sanctuary of the silent back streets of Canterlot, he found that with the crowd of scurrying ponies jostling him back and forth behind him, their erratic babble disappearing into a muffled drumming of inaudible voices...a new member of unpleasant company made a resounding introduction.

Himself.

Just why did they make the moon such...such a distinct...

All over Canterlot, the citizens were buzzing about to pull together for the Hearth's Warming Gala. The tumultuous ensemble of shuffling wagons, rattling hoofsteps, music, chatter, bells and blaring horns and whistles would pursue through the narrow reverberating alleys. Like a city-sized brass instrument, Canterlot's winding concrete channels accented and amplified the song of bustling life, projecting and absorbing every loose decibel to every crack, crevice, alcove, and pebble within until it all melded into one note.

One single note. And tonight's flavor of song was in G minor pentatonic. Somber. Urgent. Alarmed.

Such a particularly depressing shade of...

Cutting through a plaza between two tall houses, Devon emerged back into the open. The night's commotion had nowhere to go; the soft blades of grass lining the cobblestone walkway absorbed the night's song in thousands of gently rocking green fibers beneath his feet. While passing across a fountain adorned by a stone statue of two cherub pegasi, bronzed wings outstretched in a wafting gesture of freedom, the moon peeked in between the gap of the homes, the twin silhouettes of the cherubs arcing adrift with a rolling sway outwards like a pair of black horns basked in the moon's...

...Pale cobalt glow.

"Princess..." Devon sighed. The cratered designs of the mare on the moon looked downward, scanning the whole surface of Equestria. With no pupil defining the face, it was impossible to know just where she was even glancing, but to Devon... "I, I don't know. I just...don't know what to do anymore." That featureless eye adorning the moon's surface followed him with the stabbing precision of fixated attention, a stare that pierced deeper than he could imagine.

Devon leaned against the plaza fountain, a sharp thread of steely night air wrapped around his ears, like the guilt-inducing whispers of his consciousness. Even in the dead cold of winter, the fountain flowed warmly, keeping a school of koi fish happy and comfortable year-round.

Pale cobalt.

Groaning through clenched teeth, Devon slid down against the tiled barrier against the fountain, exhaustion overwhelming him. The small diamond tiles glistened along the edges, their sides catching the slightest strands of the bright moonlight like a cascading regiment of cackling stars.

"Please..." Devon pleaded to the tiles swaying against the distorted smudges of oncoming tears in his peripheral vision. He blinked hard a few times, vainly attempting to ward off his sniffles. "Luna." He nestled his brow into his forehoof, wiping the edges of his eyes until the world convened back into focus. He sniffed in deep, inhaling bravely. "If...if you can hear me. Please." He looked up to the moon, honing on the non-existent iris gazing down upon him.

It's such a sad color.

"If you hear me, please give me a sign!"

The night fell away into a hushed tranquility, his eyes and ears suddenly aware to the sudden absence of any sound, rustle, disturbance, or subtle hint of air. The stillness was so enveloping and total that it took Devon half a minute to remember to start breathing again.

So sad.

Figures. Getting back up to his hooves, he rested a fetlock against the edge of the tiled fountain, glistening porcelain ridges danced in his eyes as he rested his chin down, looking dejectedly into the water. A dejected, rippling face met his gaze, as well as the curious glances of a few opalescent gold koi fish glancing inquisitively between a couple lily pads.

Why not. "Okay. Umm, m'lady, dearest Luna..." Devon cleared his throat sarcastically. "I you can hear me, then how 'bout you give me no sign whatsoever.” He sighed. “Give me no sign at al-GYAAGH!" Three koi fish leaped out of the water, chomping down viciously on his ear, nose and throat. "Aaagh, bad fish! Bad fish! Hyaaagh!" Tumbling backwards, flank under hooves, he spun and whirled onto the grass shrieking in terror, shaking the vicious koi off of him.

Hyeh...heh, heh, heh...

Wait.

Hrumph...heh...he-heh, haw haw!

Hold on, who...who is this?

So sad. So very, very sad.

The voice was suddenly too clear. It sounded exactly like him, had no volume but boomed deafeningly within his mind. Crystal clear.

"What are...?" Devon hesitantly inquired, slowly pulling one of the fish off his ear. He shook his head, flicking water droplets off his temple. “Who...”

Ah, so you can hear us. Finally. It’s been a long time.

Another tongue of chilling night air lapped against the back of Devon's neck, almost cooing to him with false pity and cynical nuances of feigned remorse. Like an old friend, the air gripped him with a wispy hoof around his shoulders, tugging him in closer. "Who are you?"

Isn't it obvious?

Carrying the wriggling koi in his mouth, Devon returned to the fountain. "Mrr-nope'ff, n-w-not reall-ry'ff." He dropped the large golden fish beast back in the water, and started tugging at the second koi monster still latched firmly onto his chin. "Probably...just...hrnngh, tired! And now...talking...hyarrff, to myself-seriously do these idiot fish things ever let go!? Hyaaangh!" With a bubbly pop, the koi released from Devon's chin.

Huh, thought it would be more apparent...

"Yeah, well," Devon murmured. With a deep low plunk, the second fish was released back into the fountain. "I'm kinda not in the mood for talking, and knowing my luck, I'd probably end up talking to myself anyway despite such."

Ah. You could say that's what you're doing.

"So I will."

But that's not the whole truth.

"Pooh."

Oh hush, it's actually a good thing! You see, you're not going crazy, not at all.

"Wonderful. Then what is it?" Devon snorted, looking down at the third koi still gnawing with pulsing gums against his neck. "Jeez, look at me, covered in angry fish, talking to myself with imaginary beings like Gina does when she said she was talking to the st-OH SWEET PRINCESS BUTTER CHURNING CELESTIA!"

Yep.

The hurried orchestra of Canterlot's streets was suddenly ruffled by an insubordinate sting of Princess butter churning Celestia echoing through the brass piping of the back alleys. The frantic wiggling around Devon's neck suddenly stopped. With a wet thump, the third koi dropped off, and skittered sideways across the cobblestone path to flee from the crazy-shouting lone stallion.

"So you. You...YOU!" He stammered, his head shaking and hooves scraping against the ground.

Us? What did we do? What are we guilty of?

"You did this to us! You did this to Luna!"

Oh please, Mister Bookmark. We didn't do anything.

There was a rattling of pebbles to Devon's right. Looking over, he saw the third koi fish flopping in panicked upward jolts, its head caught in a groove between two cobblestones. Sighing, Devon started approaching the fish empathetically, though his voice was anything but empathy. "You're the ones who imprisoned her! You put her back up there!"

We did nothing of the sort.

"Donkey scraps! I'm calling it!"

Mister Bookmark, you're usually not this brash. Have you forgotten so quickly what happens when you act rashly?

Nestling the koi in his forehoof, Devon lifted it to his shoulder, slinging it over his neck. "Then tell me, why are you-PBBRYACK!" There was another mighty chomp against his other ear. "Why....ughf...why are you choosing now to actually start talking to me?"

Why are you choosing now to start listening to us? It’s been a long time since we last spoke.

"I just never..." with a heavy, grumbling exhalation, Devon yanked the offending fish off his other ear. It immediately lunged to take a bite out of his hoof, but with a flailing of his legs, he caught the koi between the cheeks, clamping it firmly looking up to him. "I don't know why!" he bellowed into the fish's face, its gasping mouth stopped in mid-gasp in surprise.

The feeling is mutual.

"Touche."

Indeed.

"So you mind telling me how is all this...not your doing?" He slowly plodded on his hind legs back to the fountain, wrestling the aggressive golden beast between his hooves. "I'm all...hyergh, all ears."

She made a contract with us. We accepted. YOU came to US.

"But...nyeff!...why would you even-"

-Why would YOU? All we're guilty of...is doing what you told us to do!

"Over a thousand years ago!"

A thousand?

"Yes!" Reaching the edge of the fountain, Devon raised the fish up. The spiritual aura of the lunar glow wrapped around the fish's glistening scales, turning them into a silvery shine of moonlight. "Luna made that contract over one thou-"

Try fifteen years ago.

He nickered, rolling back away from the water. "Fifteen? But she was...Luna was still banished then!"

We're not talking about Luna. We’re talking about the morning you got back into the Bookmark family business. We’re talking about how one’s natural magic was lost to make room for another sort of magic that was awoken by seeing a sonic rainboom.

The golden fish shot a glance at Devon, straightening its body perfectly still, driving a fixed stare straight into his soul. "We're talking about you," the koi explained.

"GYFFFAARGH!!!" Devon bounced up into the air, and in two rapid motions, pulled the fish in tightly against his chest with elbows perpendicular to his body, then jettisoned it away with a violent shove. Trembling and quaking hooves failed to cradle his oncoming weight on the return trip, gravity prevailing magnanimously over him as he flopped into a ragged heap.

Hyegh...heh, heh heh...you said "give no sign whatsoever." How was that?

Scowling through flecks of dirt lining his outer gums, he narrowed his eyes against the streaks of moonlight gracing the tile edges. "I see where Gina got her sense of humor."

Now that we have your rapt attention.

“What do you want?” Devon groaned, trying out his legs in a failed attempt to pull himself up.

We’re here on business. You’ve seen enough to know what that means, we assume?

Swallowing a breath of night air, Devon spoke. “The Bookmarks...the old ones of a thousand years ago. They spoke with you, right?”

Some spoke. Some merely listened. It was only the last Bookmark changed that relationship and introduced contracts to it.

“Ghasen did his ‘business’ with you.” He hissed, the collected records and journals from the Archive flooding into his memory. While his kin were content to guide and read as fortune tellers and seers, Ghasen wanted more. He wanted to use the power that could not be understood, and fell on a tumbling slope. In his struggles to correct his first mistake of star contracts spiraling out of control until it ended with Luna’s enslavement.

Devon knew better than to get caught in the stars’ game.

“Forget it! I don’t want anything to do with you!” Devon shouted, defiance desperately clinging to his words.

This isn’t really a matter of your choice, Mister Bookmark.

“Like you expect me to do what you wan-”

-You WILL fulfill your obligations. Like it or not, your gift comes with duties. Responsibilities to abide by.

“I didn’t ask for any of this!” Kicking atop the rim of the fountain, the reflection of the two cherub pegasi statues rippled away, their reaching flight of freedom dissipating away into pulled and gnarled streaks of incongruent abstraction. “Do you think I wanted to get involved in your...whatever?!”

You don’t have a choice. It’s your obligation.

Devon bristled, his breath hefting his chest up and down as he struggled in vain to think of some kind of argument, some kind of way out. This voice in his head scolded him like he was a colt, sermonizing even as it lorded over what they had taken from him. And for that? To keep dancing at their whim?

“What’s stopping me from just walking away?”

You know exactly why. Don’t play coy.

That’s low. “Luna...”

There we go. We knew you were dense but we were worried we’d have to spell it out to you.

“Okay, fine.” The dark unicorn stepped back, turning a baleful gaze of contempt to the omniscient specks reigning above in the evening’s darkening twilight. “I’m listening. What do you want?” Devon groaned, distaste hanging in his mouth as he not only spoke to the voices in his head, but settled in to the negotiating table. “Just tell me. What do you want to get Luna back here?”

Luna is both within your grasp, yet impossibly out of reach for you. Her contract...

“But I destroyed all of the-”

Exactly.

“I...what?” Devon’s voice came in a deflating breath. This was not going well.

You destroyed all of the words of Ghasen, yes. However, you failed to understand its repercussions. It was her own contract with us that allowed us to bring her back last year. As the old story goes, on the longest day of the thousandth year...

“The stars would aid in her escape.”

You removed its influence.

“Right!” Devon retorted. “And because it is gone, Luna should be back!”

No. Her contract merely gave her an avenue to return. We were her conspirators in her escape, not her apotheosis.

All the charcoal unicorn could muster was a slightly agape jaw.

Celestia’s banishment? Should have been permanent. It was cast to expire when she could undo Luna’s transformation, not simply over time.

"But" Devon reasoned, "the book on the Elements of Harmony said that on the thousandth year, the stars would aid in her escape. Certainly, Celestia wouldn't have had it work like that, would she?"

Celestia never knew it was our intervention. Luna, or whatever being she had become by then, knew that if it came to her defeat, Celestia would choose banishment that would end at her whim. Luna has the foresight to prepare an escape. You, by contrast, have not the foresight to see beyond your own contractual obligations.

“My own what-KKKRAH!” Devon’s words were interrupted by the sudden unnatural lunge of a koi fish. Having fought them up to know, he managed to swing to the side so its jaws clamped down not on his face. “You’ve really got to start making se-rrf-ense,” the charcoal unicorn muttered as he tugged the fish from his flank.

A beam of moonlight reflected down onto the unicorn as he tossed the fish back into the pond, spotlighting where the koi clung.

See it now?

Devon’s mouth fell open.

On his cutie mark.

The rainboom causes a great release of magic in young unicorns. Some become uncontrollable outlets of magic. We certainly heard your’s.

“My...but I...” Devon stammered. His whole life, he had believed it to be his calling to literature, history and the written word. Given his career, he always felt it rung slightly hollow. But...

The delusions you ponies craft are a marvel. Ghasen believed that by adding more contracts, he could undo his past mistakes. You cling to flotsam to deny your reality.

His cutie mark was a contract. Signed.

“But I never! I couldn’t...I...”

But you did. You’ve been bound to a contract ever since you first reached out to us.

He caught himself immediately. A wisp of chuckles summoned to comfort the residing dread rising. He was starting to ramble incessantly just like Gina was. Impulsively, Devon rolled his head to the side, peering at the ground. Shimmering droplets of moisture reflected the moonlight off the thin trim of cobblestone, the blue light rippling and twisting as the unicorn’s center of balance relocated three haunches in front of him.

He skittered and hopped sideways, hoping whatever head injury befell him would rectify itself eventually. Coming to a rest, he raised a frustrated hoof to kick whatever stone lay before him. Looking up at him from the ground, one of the cobblestones shifted, and rippling in its place was a rag doll of a small pony.

The reverberating thud of a slamming door coursed through the old blue walls behind him...

- O - O - O -

The small charcoal unicorn shook himself off, the colt far too tired to even be awake after such a sleepless night. But his body still shivered from the excitement and joy of seeing the explosion of rainbows screeching over his own home, the solid ring of glimmering light still causing his mind to race erratically with sudden thoughts of what capabilities he always knew he had and would someday harness.

If he knew what they even were, first.

Yet the sky returned to its crystalline dominance, the warm vespers of the mid-morning summer air intruded into the room. A wash of tiredness retained its hold on the unicorn colt, and his itching eyes lead the choir in cooing him back to the comfort of the bed now that the shouting downstairs subsided.

In fact, it went quite quickly. And remained gone for quite a while.

All intuition would force fatigue to prevail in this circumstance. With so little sleep and so much now begging to be imagined and reimagined in his dreams with the very essence of the spectacular supersonic rainbow somehow culminating every synapse within his mind to finally orchestrate in perfect sync with one another, every braincell joyously vociferated in ecstasy at the opportunity to lie down and make this whole ‘magic business’ make sense finally.

He closed his eyes, and the rippling cascade of incarnating magic within him bustled through his vision. A thousand gleaming specks of magic peered happily down upon him, a thousand flickering messiahs of phenomenal intellect ready to guide and mentor his dreams. This was it.

Wake up.

This was that legendary awakening moment every unicorn goes through. The young colt heard stories of others just waking up with the ability, with the capability to wield magic, and now it was finally happening to him! Every fiber within was ready to assume this tremendous milestone!

And yet, one highly illogical, highly irritating shred of instinct just had to pull him back to the window. Just had to take that extra second to look in the distance. Just had to see that little flicker, that little dark silhouette, that stallion crest the hill and disappear beneath the horizon, disappearing through the platinum haze.

O - O - O - O - O

Shaking off the spit and errant flakes of the offending koi, he immediately knew that his mother would be waiting back at home, anticipating his arrival to show him off once again as her accessory to claim her spot in the circle of attention among her friends.

It was a task Devon lamented, but one he felt obliged by the cosmos to follow.

Obliged.

How, his whole adult life he always felt like he was that granted pony that was just granted to always be there when you need him, a beacon of sheer dependability that would be forever obliged to follow such a title. Despite all his doubts and his inner self demanding otherwise, he knew that no amount of fighting could curb the fates, as he was already destined by greater forces to lose whatever impending argument could stem from such a desire.

Here he was, probably a good hour before an argument he knew he was going to have, an argument to try and weasel out of accessory duty for his mother at the Hearth's Warming Gala, and he had already given up in advance. The weight of the looming discussion weighed heavily upon Devon’s shoulders, but a glimmering ray of warmth, hope, emanated across his cheeks as the lonely pale blue light of the moon reflected onto him from the wet tile fountain’s edges. Even with the pressing matters all around, the monumental revelations, none of it mattered as he felt his own decisions warping in his mind.

The two cherub pegasi figures atop the fountain cast specks of sharp illumination outward, like they were breaking free, flying away from the moon in the sky while leaving the cratered visage of the mirror behind in jovial disregard to the moon’s disposition.

Dropping the final diabolical koi back into the fountain, the statues rippled again in the water’s reflection against the pale blue moonlight...two dark figures, and a pale blue ranch house coalesced before Devon’s eyes.

We’re talking about you.

Mustn’t think about it. Must not think at all...Or so the run-on sentience within Devon’s mind decreed. An impulsive reflex shot out from his psyche, taking hold of his hoof to swing it against the suppressed memory attempting to take shape before him.

A deep laugh sauntered from above as the rippling image settled back to the familiar reflection of the moonlight and guilded cherub pegasi. Through the steadying stillness of the fountain’s surface, three pairs of opalescent gold eyes returned Devon’s gaze.

Some things...

He pulled away, turning on a hoof to resume the brisk trot home. Turning down a narrow corridor, the familiar flavors of multicolored ambience washed away the intruding pale blue moonlight, casting a warm haze that shrouded the empty plaza behind him. The usual noises of Canterlot’s urgent melody resumed their hurried chorus, the familiar buzz of the Hearth’s Warming celebrations making the motions to ascend to a booming opus that receded into a dull thumping white noise.

...Some things you just can’t suppress, Bookmark.

He needed solace, refuge from the accusatory and triumphant gloating. More than anything, he needed sleep, but now that his ears have tuned in, focused, and simply heard the chatter of the celestial weavers of fate hanging maniacally overhead, not even the clatter of Canterlot’s busiest street festivities could overcome...

We’ll be there.

...The very beings who have subliminally controlled him for a decade and a half.

When you fail her.

* * * * *

"Come aah-n, eey, come aahh-n!" The hollow shouting from downstairs reverberated through his bedroom door.

Devon sighed, a soft huff of dejected trepidation blocking out the muffled demands of his excited mother downstairs. How odd it felt, a mix of sustaining guilt and retracting confidence had been slowly consuming him through his veins for the last couple nights. Only a few short days ago, he sprinted away from the smoke-licked haze of the royal statue garden, while others completely uninvolved flung themselves haphazardly into the maws of peril, simply because their uniform inspired them to. From it, many were hurt, yet many came out heroes.

If there was any silver lining in all this, word spread quickly of a certain pegasus being awarded the Alicorn Cross, Celestia’s highest prestige. Not even to a Lieutenant or Commander, but just an ordinary guardspony taking charge where there was nopony present to give instruction.

But how odd, he couldn’t even retain a firm hoofhold on that bright spot. His own recollections of news and events over the last year recounted numerous instances of "the hero of the week." Those who stood bravely against a vicious hydra...already an old tabloid. Defeating a stubborn red dragon through diplomacy alone, even after disturbing him from a century's nap...so yesterday. Even those who outwitted a powerful smooth-talking demigod of chaos...only months later to be given a cold reception at a garden party with a dismissive condescending goading of "important ponies? These ruffians?" How heroes came and went, replacing one another for as long as the goldfish memory of Canterlot would allow.

And before the week’s triumphs could even sing its departing adieu, it burned out with the silently shunned cataclysm of the setting sun.

How he remembered it so, watching the orange globe in the sky casting alien shadows and ghostly rays of shimmering light across the clouds, a haunting feeling creeping over him, devouring his flesh one cell at a time in timid nibbling bites. For as the sun descended the western crest of Equestria that evening, he stood firmly in the middle of the palace courtyard, watching the heavens. He was surrounded by a strident flurry of ponies scrambling all directions around him, but as the tendrils of cold night air hunted and assassinated him with an icy wisp of poisonous breeze to strangle his breath, the cacophonous shambling world faded away. The world faded away into the surreal lavender dusk...and the mischievous glowing dots of delinquent astral spirits cut through the darkness, ever present in their detestable immortality as they were before. He stood before them...face to face...eye to eye...

...And from the sky, they stared back.

But he brought upon Canterlot triumph! He found them a hero! The gossip and headlines were quick to herald the great liberator of the statue garden, the one who fought and nearly perished to bring salvation and freedom to the disgraced sinners of long ago! As stories compounded upon eachother, the feats of the guard only grew more ornate and illustrious!

The fates realigned, the stars' pact was finally broken, so why...why did none of that even matter if the nefarious deities that conjured forth Luna's dark millennium still existed and lorded over all of space and time?

"Ey!" Another muffled shout from downstairs. "Devon, don'tcha knows you's gots'a get ready, honey?!"

They were free. But what is freedom if the very entities that first enslaved so many were still hovering above? Bearing witness? Watching? Conspiring?

What was it doing...to her? What was happening to Luna, newly trapped on the moon? How could it even be a triumph if the stars held onto their power as tight as ever? He was no hero. He was a pawn. As long as those twinkling cretins above still reigned on their astral pedestal, what's to stop them from reclaiming what was rightfully theirs without some ancient parchment declaring it so?

*Kri-SKLAM!*

"Yee!" Devon jumped from the window sill, tumbling onto the floor. He jolted his head upward to the door, and saw a purple silhouette standing against the hall's mango light. "Great griffon's goblet, mother! You scared the absolute-"

"-Horse apples!" she groaned. "You're not even dressed!" She turned on the gas lamp beside his bed, and started sifting through Devon's socks.

"But, I-"

"Don'tchu ‘But I’ ME, mister, we've gotsa lotta folk down'ins a Hearth's Warm'ers gala," Reaching deep into the closet, she pulled a pair of bright green boots with dusty bells hanging off the side. "Brff-shhidesh" Jingle-jingle, "Wrreff aww-readgy mrff-ed uh Hurffs Wrrmffernn..." She paused, "Ptyooo-uck!" and spit the boots into a jingling pile beside his red crochet sweater.

"Mom, I don't want-"

"Besides!" She said, starting her sentence over, "Were've aw-ready missed'ere th'Hearth's Warmin pageant, don'tcha know that there was done by six young n'sweet fillies yer' age, boy!? Tha's six missed opp'er'tun'erties fer' y'findin' yerself a good mare bear, y'hear!"

"Mom..."

"Ah'll day, I've'uh been planner'in tuh'night! When we get there, I tell's ya, th'whole brave Cant'uh'lot guard wouldn'ta be able'in hold off all'em fillies!"

"No, mom, I am not going to-"

"And I'll be so proud'a my boy, th'great hero'n Cant'er'lot, Miss Carruh'tops'll be all'up in'er dander with'uh jealousy-"

"-Mom! NO!" Devon yelled, cutting off the improbably glorious fantasy playing in her head.

"Ex-cuh-uuuuse, meh!?" With an arched brow, Devon's mother tilted her head away from him. "Now, you just'uh knock'it off righ'there yun'man!"

Devon stomped a hoof on the floor, a fluttering glare rippled in the window behind him. "No, I don't want to go to the Hearth's Warming anything right now! I just need some time to-what are you doing with my!?-"

With an unexpected lunge towards his bed, she grabbed a neatly stacked pile of books and threw them carelessly against the bookcase. "Time tuh' what!?" She exclaimed. "I've been bustin' rump all'in tuh'day, plannin' yer' big'oll' 'ere comes'uh m'boy, mistuh' unwed ‘n wonderful party fuh’ ya’, and ya’ don’t wants ta’ even go!?"

"Oh come on, when you word it like-"

"Word'it like'wuh!?" She snorted bitterly. "Th'honest t'goodness truths!?"

"Word it like...like..." Devon's mind flailed for the words, "Like it's my fault to just, oh I dunno, have some free time to myself for once!?" His memories flashed, a navy blue alicorn perched atop a dusty alcove in the forgotten recesses of the Archive, staring longingly out a single window overlooking the Canterlot skyline.

"Dun' be all int'uh yer'self, I give'ya all'uh the free time in'th' world!" Her horn lit up, and a fan of his novels spread like a stubby hand before him. "All'uh that time, wasted in'yer' books instead'uh makin' friends or bein'a norm'uhl soci'uhl pon'uh like'a rest'a us!"

With shut eyes, clenched jaws, and wavering disbelief at the unstoppable torrent of words stampeding forth from his larynx, Devon swat a foreleg forward, tossing the fan of guilt-usurping books backwards towards the window. "But I don't want to be like you!" The books collided against the glass, the thudding window rustling the hairs atop Devon's ears. "I don't want to be a thing like you!" Devon repeated, screaming the sentiment for only the second time in his life. "I don't want to be a...social pony like you! I want...I want..." Unable to conjure any more fight from his breaths, he kicked the corner of his bed. "Hrrngh!"

Another clatter of books and clothes toppling over accented the shrill screech of the bed scratching against the wooden floor, a sharp thump of boots falling off the edge with a piercing clanging of dusty bells summoned an impenetrable stillness to the room.

"Look't you." She scowled. "I swear, the way ya' disr'spect me so!" Devon turned to half-face her, his brow leveled flat. "After all I do for you!" Once again, the same tangent. "Af'tuh all I care fuh'ya!" Yadda, yadda, yadda. "I thought yuh'd grow up'n be diff'rent..." Wait, huh? "...From..."

Devon's eyes widened, gasping deeply through his nostrils. No, don't go there...

With a muffled thump, she planted her head against the door's frame, her silhouette casting a somber cyan shadow into the flowing mango light. "I though'dya wou'd b'diff'rent from..." She seethed, banged her head against the door frame again, and with a quick whirling jump she faced him with her collar sinking into her shoulders.

"Him!"

A searing brand of white-hot memory singed into Devon's eyes. "Mother!" He shook his head, the dizzying motion jostling the blue ranch home out of his vision. Stop talking, he thought. Leave me alone!

"That's so tot'lly him what'yer doin'!" Please, stop. "At leas' he had'uh decency t'uh findin' his'self a life!" Stop it! "Look't 'chu, all shuttered indoors," Please, "Can'tcha even bring one love home!"

"Why!?" A screeching gale of tempestuous vigor strained the walls of his lungs to their breaking point. "So you can make THEM RUN AWAY TOO!?!" Devon shouted with the intensity of a trebuchet of pink magma, and immediately reeled with a hushed nicker.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh Celestia, please no, I'm so sorry...

A startling hush stabbed through the heart of the room, even the cold winter drafts of lapping rhythmic wheezing stopped buffeting against the window. He looked at his mother, she seemed paralyzed, as if choking for any word to come out. Her eyes exclaimed don'tchu use'at tone'it me there young man! But her lungs, scrounging for resonance, flailing for the vernacular, came up empty-hooved, her mouth agape in wait for the words that would never come.

He'd seen that face before, on many late nights, hours after he'd been given his sweet-dreams story and saying prayers to Celestia...sneaking to the banister long past his bedtime to listen in on the raucous commotion of quarrelling voices below. That face, her face, a haunting memory he'd witnessed too many times from the safe refuge atop the stairs...for the first time in his life now locked...onto him.

The anesthetized silence cracked away, a very subtle, somber note. Almost undetectable, but so very definitive in this auditory limbo. A sniffle.

"Devon, thou art one mentally insignificant bastion of cantankerous obliquity!"

He heard the goring words of Luna echo in his recollected consciousness. He yearned for her to be there, to beat him over the head with his own stupidity as she always was so good at. He snuck a glance out the bedroom window to escape his mother's expression, to distract his eyes from her pained gaze with the stirring night life ebbing beyond in the streets...

...And from the sky, they stared back.

No! Devon closed his eyes, swallowing hard, and turned back from the cackling specks of opalescent starlight to face his mother. Where she stood just seconds ago, voluminous mango light now poured through the empty door. A hollow slamming of the front door downstairs transcended through the bedroom walls. The thunderous bang shook the floorboards, knocking a Soarin action figure off the bookcase, bouncing with a flat thud against his canvas book cover on the dresser.

There was an errant shattering of glass emanating from downstairs, the force of her departure still reverberating through the other loose furnishings in the house. In the decaying whisper of subsiding noise, otherworldly snickers, jeers, and laughter taunted at him through the window from the heavens. There was no way he was entitled to the hero moniker if the very enemies that threatened him and the Princess were ever present, immortal, eternal and in ultimate control of the fates. Already, they were relishing in their first comeback victory, watching with condescending smugness from the safety of their astral thrones, getting a good laugh at how he could triumph over them momentarily but still couldn't get an edge against his own flesh and blood. All while denying him the prize.

Mentally. Insignificant.

On his dresser, a warm green needle of light punctured through the book, peering curiously through a small gap at the base of the zipper. With a tired groaning chirp, Glyph extended with a yawning arc onto a Daring Do poster hanging above, reforming into the familiar bobbing splotch of iridescent circles and spiraling lines. With a pulse of light, Glyph twirled into a succession of orbiting dots. A wafting of sporadic memory triggered in Devon's mind-

“Dev’s?” A pang of deja vu shot through Devon, Glyph’s swirling designs reached with warm tendrils into his memory. "What's wrong?" Gina asked him through the projection on his bedroom wall, pink magma trickling down the corridor behind her.

"Nothing."

With a rapid shuffling of light and errant symbols, Glyph reformed, then expanded once more across the whole poster. Another shot of deja vu correlated with the organization of swirling dots and lines before him.

"Dearest, art thou well?!" Luna's voice carried forth softly from the projection. He flinched, hearing the familiar memory so clearly from Glyph’s essence, but only saw a blurry library floor in the paisley weaves..

"There's nothing wrong, she...mom...she's just being, you know...ever since my old m-"

"You can’t break star contracts,” Ghasen appeared, destruction and clutter reverberating around him. “That’s just all in sorts’a oatmeal, kiddo. Stars make em that way. No matter what you do, they find some new way to make you leashed to it." Ghasen’s tired dejected eyes slowly closing over his drooping expression at the statue garden, his pupils lathered in hushed defeat. "I did everything a pony could do to break one and everything..."

Like hoisting a palette of bricks with his skull, Devon looked up to the projected memory of Ghasen, mouthing the words along with him. "...and everything I did was a failure."

Ghasen was unable to save them...because he was too conflicted to maintain his own contracts with the stars. But why, then, were they not inclined to help him earlier? He had all his conflicts in check. He felt he’d made amends with Gina, that he’d at least gotten a bit of respect from Ghasen, but why were the stars so concerned about some contract he made fifteen years ago? Sonic rainboom? Magic coming alive within him? One last contract?

Glyph flickered to life. “You’re just like...him!”

Fifteen years ago.

When he saw the sonic rainboom outside, causing him to see the lone figure disappearing into the distant platinum haze.

Everything I did was a failure.

Mother!

With a quick tug and wave of his horn, he lifted the crochet sweater and rolled his forelegs through it. He galloped into the mango light, tugging at the sweater's collar with his teeth to straighten it out.

Glyph chirped with concerned trepidation, curving towards the door frame expectantly. Upon hearing a percussive racket of hoofsteps clamoring down the stairs, Glyph swirled and danced quickly back into the canvas bag with a proud melody of quavering tweets.

Devon bounded with long strides through the living room, dodging a chair, a table, and the jacket closet door that had been left open by a pony in a particular hurry to leave. The front door curved into view as Devon slid over spinning hooves to the dark entryway, lonely pale blue moonlight bathing the walls in a pale blue coating of luminescent paint.

Twenty haunches.

He had no time to waste, Devon needed to catch up to her and apologize.

Eighteen haunches.

He should've known better. He should've been more mindful. How could he have been this stupid!?

Fifteen.

He can't run from the past anymore. While he'd spent the last fifteen years ignoring it, stomping it out, summoning it away from his collected consciousness, she had been simmering in every painful second of that day ever since.

Twelve.

How could he do this to her? "All's I'd ever wanted's fer'my fam'ly-" No, no no. Not now. Don't think about those words now, must keep strong.

Ten haunches.

"Get off of me!"

Ten haunches...

He stopped, looking at the door, his lips quivering with the inevitable fate he had been sentenced to face.

Looking at the floor, he saw a shattered picture, bits of glass speckling the dark wooden floor, catching errant blades of the the moon's blue radiance, surrounding the frame like a hundred bellowing pinpricks of vengeful starlight. Streaked in the spiritual glow of the cold atmosphere, the ethereal image within the frame reached out...a blurry ghostly stallion standing in the distance beside a blue ranch home.

Ten haunches.

Every year that passed, one year of inexcusable ignorance feigning as blissful fantasy, how try as we might there are sometimes variants of destiny that must be confronted.

Whether we want to...or not...

Ten haunches.

We must.

Nine haunches.

We must.

Eight haunches.

We must!

Six haunches.

I must!

Three haunches.

I must!

With a sprinting dive, Devon dropped a hoof onto the door latch, flinging it open to a volley of blinding streetlight, a salvo of winter wind becoming the only sensation he could hear and feel...

One haunch.

I MUST!

...and with youthful grace, he bounded desperately with suddenly tear-laden eyes-

O - O - O - O - O

-Into blazing mid-morning light. The golden sun kissed the blue porch, the wooden blue floor creaking to the cadence of his quick gallop. The dark unicorn colt followed the path he thought he heard the rapidly clamoring hoofsteps go, leading out a front door violently bucked shut with such force it dislodged from the hinges. He weaved around toppled furniture, collapsed porcelain vases, and smashed plates that were strewn across the porch's blue floor.

Nearing the maw of the gravel path leading from the porch, he cleared the three steps in a single bound, quickly making distance between his tail flowing in the warm summer winds and the blue ranch home blending nonchalantly into the crystalline sky. There, at the end of the gravel path ahead, surrounded by an angelic golden aura of light reflected from the dirt road before her, she sat alone, motionless, her gaze fixated upon the singularity where the road collided with the horizon through an unbroken jade ocean of grass. The road fell away before her, disappearing inevitably to the obscured veil of platinum haze.

Platinum haze. Streaks of rippling green waves carried by the persistent drafts of temperate air filled the atmosphere with a perpetual rustling of benign sound, a monotone orchestra that enveloped and embraced her...until the gradual arrival of Devon's crunching hoofsteps encroached upon her stoic resting place.

Her ears perked up. She turned her head to meet him, but only made it halfway before stopping, sinking, and leveling back with the expanding horizon before her, the road seeming to lurch further and further away as it distorted through the clouding vision of narrowed, wet eyes.

He slowed his pace, not knowing all that was happening. The rustling of the tall grass around him enveloped his ears, a delicate gust of wind wailing lightly across the fragile blades of sun-drenched brush into a melancholy chorus of lonely melodic despair. Devon couldn't even see above the grass, he was far too short to get his eyes above it; a weakness his school mates took advantage of while playing tag in those fields, but now a weakness that only acted to prevent Devon from distracting himself from anything.

Like a gnarled ancient corridor, the grass waved like a thousand pointing hooves, constantly pressing his attention forward to see...her...The only feature from his short vantage point. The road sunk away in front of him. The blue ranch home subsided behind him, trying to camouflage itself into the sky.

The anesthetized silence cracked away, a very subtle, somber note. Almost undetectable, but so very definitive in this auditory limbo. A sniffle.

"Mommy?"

She couldn't anymore. She tried to cover it with a cough, tried to choke it down, but there was no hiding it from her son.

"Are you...?" All his short life, Devon knew that mothers care. Mothers help. And mothers will shout and yell and go bananas on the moon every now and then. "What...are you? Are you...?" But they would always laugh and snuggle and make it all better with tea and cookies, mothers never actually started... "Crying?"

She snorted deeply, riveting her face into her forehooves with a sudden twisting motion. Turning to the side, the morning sunlight projected a ghostly cross of pearly glare through a telltale streak of moisture rolling gracefully down her cheek. She sniffed again, a high-pitched whine croaked from the trembling depths of her heart, delivering rhythmic gasps of broken breath.

"Mommy?"

"All's I'd ever wanted's fer'my fam'ly," she started, but rasped her words into another fluttering bouquet of pitched whines, the lapping despair crashing heavily upon her exhalation. "All's...I'd, I'd ever want...wanted fer'my fam'ly, was t'have somethin' I...I..." She turned her shoulders towards Devon, trying to pull a smile onto her face. "T'have some'un..." Her eyes opened, a distinct glow emanated from them, a glow Devon knew. He remembered how they lit up so when she surprise-enrolled him into ballet classes at the buffalo dance school, or when she hoof-stitched a pair of bright purple boots with bells on them to wear on his first day of magic kindergarten. That look of a mother's true grace. Power. Love.

And now, they were lighting up...just seeing him there.

"T'have somep'ny t'give all m'heart to."

A shadowbolt bit Devon in the fetlocks, the life from his legs asphyxiated into a numb coldness.

Him.

Where did he...? Is he...? Can dads even do that!? You can't just take off down the road, and leave her behind, leave...everything...behind...a distant speck of a sad silhouette projected against the telescopic memory of a blue house fading against the morning sky. Can you!? Can you!?

Platinum haze. Just how far did the world extend beyond it? Into it? How many souls have descended into it, never to return?

Stumbling forward, Devon faltered lightly in shocked inebriation, ultimately twirling with lucky clumsiness right against her. He didn't know what to do, he'd never seen her cry like this before, never even imagined her being so vulnerable and out of ideas. She always had ideas! She always had something to do! She was always coming up with plans, galas, dinners, parties, festivals, carnivals, charities, galleries, auctions, bashes, feasts, festivities, fiestas, tailgates and hosting delightful soirees! And she was always in a bustle getting everypony ready for them and bringing them along! But to see her lost, motionless, obliterated and so depleted...it didn't make sense.

To Devon, it didn't even register. No other impulse coalesced within him but one.

He limply plopped his head against her neck, and nuzzled against her.

"You can always-" Devon squeaked through trembling lips, and caught himself. He didn't even realize, similarly, he was tearing up. His suspicions were immediately confirmed when he felt the soft caress of a marbled tear cascading across an eyelid. He breathed in deep, "You can always give all your love to me, mommy."

She flinched, closing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth. She pulled him close against her chest, and embraced him with the orphaned love long-intended for another stallion. Through the whispering summer breeze, hiding behind her flowing mane, the blue ranch home stood like a solemn ghost, bearing witness to them. Watching. Almost...conspiring.

"I promise," Devon continued against the muffled whimpers as she clenched him with soft hooves. "You can always love me, I mean it." A sudden tide of words came forth. Words from...but not of himself. "I'll be your's. I promise to never leave you...I promise..."

Words bearing witness to them.

"...To the sun..."

Watching.

"...To the moon..."

Conspiring.

"...And the stars."

Comments

[IronicSolutions]

Pretty great chapter, my only (slight) problem would be the vocabulary used in this fiction.
Now I'm not saying that you should suppress what might be comfortable for you as an author, but some of these words tend to get... wordy.
Otherwise I overall liked the chapter, pretty interested in what Devon might get into next.

[-Brutus]

This looks awesome, immediately reading this now!

[djthomp]

Holy crap. So the stars that aided in her escape were the ones that Devon wished would do so when he was a colt? So that means Luna went back to the moon as a result of him breaking all the contracts?

Ah man. Wishes for a sign, nothing happens. Wishes for no sign, gets attacked by fish.

"Jeez, look at me, covered in angry fish, talking to myself with imaginary beings like Gina does when she said she was talking to the st-OH SWEET PRINCESS BUTTER CHURNING CELESTIA!"

Ahh, so not quite what I was thinking towards the beginning of the chapter, but I'll leave it for posterity. Interesting revelation about Devon's first contract.

[Themaskedferret]

As much as I enjoy this fic it's really starting to feel like Devon is the representation of someone you hate since he literally never gets a break. You do everything in your power to make him miserable and traumatized and to suffer and while I understand the need to grow from pain, to me it's hit a point where it's just excessive and needless cruelty. There has to be some forward progress by the character as otherwise it simply becomes pointless.

[Spacecowboy]

Devon
Okay, so, character development here. Devon Bookmark. Bureaucratic underling. Gets walked all over every day at work it seems, and his mother is an over-loving pain in the ass. Black Unicorn, dark mane, and his ability with magic is the definition of retarded. Doesn't stand up for himself, has no self-esteem from what can be gleamed. He is, for all intents and purposes, a doormat for everyone to use.

Sidetrack, Mr Bojingle-Jangle
Now, enter Luna in an attempt to simply get away. With a character like Mr. Bojingle-Jangle, I'd want to hide in the further recesses of whatever faraway or secret place I could find as well. Sidetrack for a moment to describe this character, and why the attempt at using him as comedic relief falls utterly short. Especially when every entrance he makes is a jarring change from the flow of the story, and forces it to slam on the brakes before it hits a bunch of children crossing the road. Except the story is an 18 wheeler, and those kids never stood a chance. While there is a time and place for comedic relief contained within a tale, this particular story has gone down the avenue of a mix of Mystery, Adventure, and some attempts at Romance. (Being magically bound by stars to 'love' Devon doesn't really count as such in my books.) The best I can relate Bojingle-Jangle to is that really bad attempt at comedy movie, Kung Pow Enter The Fist. It's something that attempts to be funny by being so, so, soooooo bad. This character could maybe work in a story that didn't feel as if it has such a, hmm, serious is the slightly wrong adjective to be using, but it is close enough for now. The tone is in complete contrast with the piss poor attempt at comedic relief Bojingle-Jangle strives to achieve here.

Back to Devon
Now, back to our doormat Devon. So, he and Luna cross paths one day in the library, and inadvertently end up in a labyrinth of his ancestors design, one which utilized the magic of the stars, and a whole bunch of other things that we really don't find out until later, which leaves the reader rather confused in the mean time. It feels like Indiana Jones, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls all had an orgy and birthed the mother-of-god labyrinth for this story to use. Trap after trap, after trap, after trap, after trap, after trap... where was I? Oh yes, and after trap lay in their path. All for something that Luna wishes to find at the end of the road. The end that doesn't lead to death anyways.

So, now enter numerous chapters filled with death defying stunts, some 'personal bonding' time for Devon and Luna, well, if you count Luna ready to strangle him herself such a thing anyways, and their movement ever closer to their own 'Crystal Skull' (comparison used, shitty movie to shitty story). Throughout the hours they spend traversing the depths of this labyrinth, slowly learning to at least tolerate each other. Or, more specifically, Luna learns to tolerate the retarded unicorn. (Retard - d. Delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment. With his magic, the glove fits). Around the time of, oh, the magic mirror (snicker snicker, oh magical mirrors), there's an unexplained shift in characterization. Sadly, it's not in Devon.

Enter attempts at Luna OC Romance
So, Luna starts to get closer to Devon. Gina is around a bit too now. And then Luna starts hanging all over him. And then, she doesn't let go. And oh, he somehow thinks everything is just A-okay. the fuck, this kid having illusions of grandeur? Gina, who was previously insane as fuck due to 'the stars,' is the only one making any sense at this point. Over the course of hours, maybe a day (don't recall the exact passage of time), Devon somehow thinks Luna swooning and hanging on his every word is how everything should be. Ri-i-i-ight. Frankenstein was a big, cuddly bear who did not want to tear his creator limb from limb. It takes a ridiculously long amount of time for Devon to be woken up to the reality of the situation. This is the only 'romance' we see in the story to date. Gina telling Ghasten to fuck off isn't really romance, unless one is into that sort of thing.

Devon's lack of character development
Now, back to the time after Devon realizes something is wrong. He vows to 'make things right' and eventually, he manages to get ahold of the contracts the stars held. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. Or at least, as far as he thought. He starts tearing through them, maybe the only thing commendable he, as a character, manages to accomplish in the entire story. However, sadly, in the process, Luna gets whisked back to the moon. Ain't that a bitch. Now, Devon, in his time underground, defying death, spending time with the 2nd most powerful pony on the planet, what does he do to try and remedy the situation? Does he try and solve whatever issue there is, does he go boldly charging off somewhere, does he go to the other princess for help? NOPE! He goes to his place of employment in an attempt to get back inside. He then proceeds to be walked all over by a bitch of a boss. AND HE FUCKING TAKES IT UP THE ASS. After that, what does he do? RUNS BACK HOME LIKE A LITTLE BITCH. Jesus christ, zero change in his character. Still a fucking doormat. There is basically nothing about Devon that has endeared him to the readers, as all he manages to do is be, well, useless. Even now, it took the stars talking to him to point something out. His character is, well, stagnant, and it's beginning to reek. Well, truthfully, it began stinking quite some time ago, but nobody wanted to be 'that guy/girl,' and point it out.

OranGina
Here's something, that, although extremely confusing at first, I believe you did right. This character was the right balance to provide comedic relief, while also being part of the driving plot. You should've extrapolated some of what you did with this character when coming up with your piss poor attempt at Mr. Bojingle Jangle. Her character at the start is quite honestly, bat-shit crazy. She talks to herself, makes no sense, steals the Element of Magic, and something about a train caboose comes up on numerous occasions.
Her first visit, where she pilfers the Element of Magic, that was comedic gold. A bit long winded at times, (I'll hit on the issue you have with Exposition later) but her character is good. It's a solid contrast to everything else that is going on at the time. And stealing Discord's statue? Hilarious! Also, it gave the misdirect of one thinking perhaps Discord was behind her actions, not the thousand year plus contract her dumbass husband pulled on her.
So, after a long jaunt through the story, she ends up with Devon and Luna down under. Her contract is the first one Devon manages to break, freeing her mind and returning her sanity to her. She goes from a bat-shit crazy plot force, to a sane, but still pretty damn good plot driver. She somehow becomes the voice of reason between them all during the last leg of their trip. So, good job with Gina.

The Writing itself
For starters, the 'basics' are all present and accounted for. Grammar and Technicalities are spot on. Your biggest issue is the pointless exposition you tend to go on tangents with. You have these large chapters, (relatively speaking) and you frequently drag scenes out. It's obviously not to get a word count, as there's already plenty of content to do that for you. The most recent scene I can pull up as a good reference to this issue is when, after the collapse of the tower, Gina and whoever it is end up fighting. That scene alone is approx 3,500 words. There are other moments where it feels as if the story drags, scenes are too long, etc. The exposition hurts and hinders the progress of the story even moreso than your ill timed Bojingle-Jangle comedic relief scenes.

Well, last time I summed my thoughts up in a few sentences. Here's a more constructive form of the same thoughts, from sentences to pages for your viewing pleasure. Certain I've missed some point, but hit on most I was looking to. You are a good writer, but the poor execution and some of the concepts and characters in this story take it from good to poor. Between Devon's flat character, his utter lack of spine or development, and the piss poor Bojingle-Jangle 'comedic-relief,' it falls flat on its face numerous times. Moving forward, remember. Keep the story flowing properly. Save those children.

[Shachza]

booj

Book? What an interesting typo.

2623196

I think I managed to call it during an earlier chapter; Luna got out early because the stars were interfering with Celestia's spell. Now that they have no hold on Luna, Celestia's spell picked up where it had left off and sent Luna back.

What we really need is for Bookmark to get in the same room as either Twilight or Celestia. Sheesh...

[RoboRed]

Damn persistent koi there, I tell you what...

[-Brutus]

Oh boy, I want more soon!

[Alondro]

>>>We’ll be there.

...The very beings who have subliminally controlled him for a decade and a half.

When you fail her.>>>

*Alondro stands aside humbly as his Mistress emerges in full wrath, blazing with rage* Ssssoooo... they deign to twist even the innocent wishes of a child, do they, and enslave him to their will. False gods indeed! They will pay dearly for this affront!

[Alondro]

>>>Words from...but not of himself. "I'll be your's. I promise to never leave you...I promise..."

Words bearing witness to them.

"...To the sun..."

Watching.

"...To the moon..."

Conspiring.

"...And the stars.">>>

Oh for fuq's sake, Devon. Could you possibly get any more pathetically useless? Geez, I tell off my mother all the time! Sitting around and watching TV all day while I'm at work... Does she expect not to get a beating when I get home? Seriously! She's lucky I don't use the board with the nails!

Anyway, utter doormat Devon is really getting old. And the stars need to be sent into supernova right now. And Celestia... god, for such a old mare she really has no clue about anything. She's even more pathetically stupid than Devon.

This is really dragging now. No one, no one at all has thought that maybe they should start working together (excepting Captain Asshole, I mean Stormblade, from the collaboration. He needs to be shot, stabbed, poisoned, decapitated, and then burned to make sure he's gone for good. He annoys me.) and try to find some way to directly attack the stars. Because nothing other than hurting them is going to do any good. They think themselves untouchable, immutable. Nothing scrambles the plans of such a haughty enemy than proving that you can hurt them. All their machinations are thrown into disarray if you manage to make so much as a scratch upon those who think they are infinitely above you.

[Otsdarva]

Two simple errors. Which, I'm surprised no one caught.

No reason there wouldn’t be such clamor at Ponyville urgent care with active guardsmen of such high rank as him.

They're in currently still in Canterlot, you dreaming of writing a Ponyville scene?

This was different. “A...colt?” Strange, all the reports she heard from the guard was that it was a unicorn mare the whole time.

This one... is a bit of a story inconsistency. I get the joke you're making with it, but one little thing. Twilight was there in the tower, with him, spoke to him. Even if you can write that off as lapsed memory due to an intensely stressing situation it doesn't exclude the other contradiction it brings up. There were scenes of the guards lead by Stormblade looking for Devon in the previous chapter mentioning they were looking for a 'him.' Now, yes in this chapter he rounds up a group of scrubs and swears them to secrecy... do you see that means? The last group he was patrolling with that he gave out Devon's description too were just ordinary guards, not ones he made Jingle swear only to speak with him.

As much as I hate to give him credit, he did catch Gina, regardless of how he did it. That in itself should lead to some credibility in his claims, despite being such a chowder head! If he's telling guards to be on the watch for a gray unicorn with blue hair while using descriptors like 'him,' 'he,' and 'his' then the guards should be able to tell that it's a male they're looking for.

Overall, I'm enjoying this story. And I can't wait to read on and see what happens next!

[Scyphi]

Huh. I never realized the stars were so...snarky.

Or such jerks, for that matter.

Stupid stars.