The Scrapyard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“N...no…” I said meekly.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, thanks kid.”

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

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

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

“Ah...I’m ten, ma’am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Celestia.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...alicorn.”

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

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

“T...that’s good, right?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

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

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

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

“No way!” she gasped.

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

“What did she say to you?!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’ll be an adventure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

iii

Alicorn were dangerous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wings.”

I was growing wings.

I was a unicorn, and I was growing wings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Does she know?”

“About what you are?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Luna!”

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

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

“Where are we going?”

“Away. Away from Cyclosa.”

“What?! For how long?”

“Just grab your jacket, Luna.”

The Wasteland

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Though Luna had persistently begged me for answers as we weaved our way through the claustrophobic network of streets in Cyclosa’s slums, I did not stop to offer any explanation until we were a considerable distance from our home. After fifteen minutes of moving briskly through the night, I ushered Luna into a back alley which reeked of trash and urine but was at least a far enough distance from any of the silent houses that I did not have to worry about anypony overhearing what I was about to tell her.

“What are we doing?” Luna groggily questioned as we came to a sudden stop.

“I told you. We’re leaving Cyclosa.”

“Are you running away?” she asked.

“No, I’m not,” I sighed. I cast a wary glance at the filthy dirt road beneath my hooves, and slowly sat down as Luna did the same. The cloak I had donned before leaving had successfully hidden my wings from sight, but I pointed to them anyways as I explained.

“Luna, the wings on my back...you do know what I am, right?”

She didn’t say the word aloud, but shook her head in fearful assurance that she indeed did know.

“Mom and Dad are worried that I might be a threat, or that I at least might attract the attention of the guards and put you three in danger. I’m not running away, I’m fleeing. Fleeing Erisia. If anypony finds out I’m an alicorn, there’s no way they’d let me live. Remember those celebrations six years ago when that one alicorn was captured and executed?”

“But that alicorn was bad! It tried to attack the capital!” Luna protested, flinging her hooves in the air. “You haven’t done anything wrong!”

“I doubt Discord cares about that,” I spitefully mumbled. For the first time in my life, and without any other choice, I looked at the treatment of alicorns by Erisia’s Royal Guard not through the lens shoved in front of us by Discord, but through the unsullied view my own personal perspective provided me. I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet I had been forced to flee like a criminal. I had not asked for anything, I had been perfectly content with my dull, repetitious life in the scrapyard. Whatever it was that had caused me to grow wings, were I given a choice I would gladly have rejected it.

If that had been all, however, then I would not have any reason to be anymore than afraid. As it was, I was not only terrified, I was furious. Not for myself, and not due to the actions of anypony in particular, but due to the fact that I had no control over the situation I had found myself in, and no ability whatsoever to change the circumstances.

“There’s another thing...” I continued. “You might be an alicorn too, Luna.”

“What?!”

“I’m not sure. It’s possible. And if you do grow a horn in the same way I grew wings, I don’t want you to be all alone. So what do you say? Will you come with me?”

“Yes.” Her answer was quick and certain, spoken in a firm tone even for a young filly. I was slightly taken aback by the swiftness of her answer which was expressed without so much as a thought but without a trace of uncertainty. “Where are we going?”

I did not provide an immediate answer. It was a question I had not yet answered myself, for I saw no reason to provide one. Where did not matter, so much as the destination was someplace beyond the borders of Erisia. All nations outside of Discord’s rule were said to be populated by brutes and barbarians, unrepentant monsters who would kill ponies for sheer amusement and without guilt or second-thought. I had never met anything other than ponies in my relatively short life, but I had always carried with me curiosity of what the inhabitants of the other nations were like, as well as my doubts that they were as malicious and terrifying as we were told.

Regardless of the pathetic amount of knowledge I possessed of Erisia’s surrounding nations, they would still be where I was headed, one way or another. I had seen a map of Erisia only once in my life, and it was of only the nation itself with none of the surrounding ones labelled. Perhaps this was done with ulterior motives, to deter ponies from doing exactly as Luna and I were attempting. One fear that seems to be consistent amongst everypony I have seen is the fear of the unknown, and it seemed as though this fear was easy to intensify by keeping the population as uneducated about their surroundings as possible.

“Celestia…?” Luna said after awhile, prompting me to finally reply.

“North, I think,” I said. “Maybe we should look for a map of Erisia...”

Luna perked up suddenly and a noticeable grin cracked across her face, as if she had just thought of something which greatly pleased her.

“I think I saw one in the marketplace! Mom sent me to buy some bread earlier today and I think I saw one while I was looking around!”

I did not necessarily share in Luna’s instant enthusiasm, for the marketplace was past the slums in the opposite direction we had come. My intention had been to flee Cyclosa as swiftly as possible before dawn, but to divert our route back into the heart of the city would potentially place us in a vulnerable position. I’d needed to wait until late at night in order to double-back to the slum to get Luna, and as a result I had already spent far too long in the streets with nothing but a cloak between me and capture by the Erisian Guards. If we were to return back to where we had come then it would perhaps be dawn before we even had a chance to leave Cyclosa.

But to venture into the Grey Wastelands without direction seemed equally as suicidal. True, we had no set destination in mind, but simply wandering in a random compass direction and hoping for the best could not have decent repercussions. There was more than likely only dirt, stretching for too many miles for us to reach anything beyond. We were venturing into the unknown, like explorers sailing towards the great waterfalls at the ocean’s end. Beyond Erisia would always be the unknown, but within its borders lay two things exclusively: life in the cities, and death everywhere else. And while the life that the slums provided was hardly sustainable, it was at least possible.

I did not want to turn back out of fear of being discovered, but if I was then at least Luna would perhaps be safe still. If I blindly led us into the wastelands and we both got lost, I wouldn’t only be dooming myself but my poor sister as well. Besides, the map wasn’t the only thing we could grab in the marketplace. Food, clothing, perhaps a compass or more maps, or even a weapon of some sorts would be greatly helpful to our precarious cause, considering I had little more than a dozen bits to buy the resources myself anyways.

“Alright, Luna,” I conceded reluctantly, “Let’s go back to the marketplace. But we need to be quick and quiet, do you understand?”

“Yes, Celly!” she cheerfully saluted.

I felt a terrible tug in my heart as I witnessed her seemingly-oblivious joy. I was forcibly pulling her from everything she had ever known, and putting the two of us in immeasurable danger, and there was no way she did not know it herself. But instead of lashing out in bitter frustration and anger at my parents, as I had done, Luna carried a smile and added a skip to her walk, joyful at the very thought of something different in her monotonous life of meaningless chores in a city with nothing but filth below and bleak, featureless grey skies above. Even in the face of the unknown, and against the possibility of some terrible judgement the Erisian Guards had in store pending we were discovered as refugees, she wore an optimistic smile and walked with a playful bounce in her step.

In many ways, I believe Luna’s joyful confidence was the only thing that salvaged my dwindling equinity on our journey, and stopped me from being twisted into everything else under Discord’s rule; corrupt, hopeless, bleak, and entirely without fate.

Traces of undesired sunlight would already have been swelling beyond the grey clouds, but they would not be strong enough to actually lighten the starless sky for at least another hour, and gradually at that. There were no seasons in Erisia, although the night and day lasted the same varying hours even then. When Luna and I fled Cyclosa, I believe the month would have been August or September by Equestria’s current calendar, but I am only guessing.

We traveled swiftly to the marketplace of Cyclosa as I led the way at a brisk gallop, one which we only broke when I thought I heard another pony or perhaps a guard out at the same early morning hours. We stuck to back streets that I knew they did not to dwell in too frequently, and even if we did not often venture too far from our ramshackle home, almost twenty years in Cyclosa had rendered the layout of the town quite familiar in my head. There wasn’t an actual curfew in Cyclosa, but two fillies quite literally running about in the dead of night was bound to raise questions I could not afford to stop and answer.

The marketplace was, surprisingly, deserted. I had never been in the marketplace at such an early hour even when I worked well into the night in the scrapyard and did not return home until well after midnight, but I had always presumed shopkeepers would occasionally stay. Hunger, greed, and despair had rendered the city's residents desperate, and thievery had always been something I’d expected them to carry out very frequently.

It seemed like the shopkeepers had greater faith in ponykind than I did, for save for a few glowing lanterns the entire sprawl of stands was deserted.

Luna and I did not emerge from the shadows of the alleyways until I had swept the entire area under my meticulous gaze, and even so we did so as stealthily as possible. The few lanterns I’d seen glowing belonged to shops we had no need to visit anyways. I reluctantly let Luna lead the way ahead, for we were here due to her claim of seeing the map we needed.

“Celestia!” she suddenly stopped and turned around to face me, her voice a hissing whisper, “Why don’t we split up? I’ll go get the map and you can get something else we need! I just need a few bits for the map—”

“No way, Luna.”

“Why not?” she pouted, “We’d be quieter that way anyways! And we’d be out of here faster! Please, Celly?”

“You’re too young to understand why,” I said, ignoring her accusing glare. “I can’t risk losing you, alright?”

She kept her judging eyes on me for a few more seconds, before letting out an annoyed snort and continuing on forwards. We ducked in the shadows of stacked boxes, barrels, and wooden planks that come day would be stands or shops, stopping every few seconds to listen for patrolling hoofprints or to look for peering eyes which had glimpsed movement in their peripheral.

I could somewhat understand why the marketplace was deserted when I saw the stands, relatively clear of the wares that had clustered them during the day. With disdain I noted that some of the crates next to the stands were kept sealed with rusty, pathetic looking locks. I greatly hoped the map that we needed was not kept in such a crate, although the more stands we passed the more I noticed it seemed to be the norm amongst them all.

Along the way, I passed one such stand, whose wares had vanished but curiously had a heavy looking bag stacked atop one of the crates. Hesitantly, I let Luna carry on ahead while I stopped to peer into the bag, hardly able to restrain an exclamation of joy when I saw what was within.

It was a coinpurse, one which was considerably heavy as I lifted it in my telekinetic grasp. In fact, it was so heavy that my weak and untrained horn actually wavered while I was placing in my saddlebag, causing it to clumsily fall the remaining precious inches and slam against the fabric. To any calm pony it would have meant nothing, but to a mare as desperate for silence and secrecy as I, the sound was deafening.

I was worried Luna would hear the tell-tale shaking of coins as I trotted to catch up to her, but thankfully she seemingly did not. I did not want to explain to Luna why her older sister was a thieving rat, especially when she had evidently built such a strong view of me being a strong, hardworking, and compassionate mare. Her notion might not have been incorrect, but I knew that regardless of whether or not what I was doing to survive was justified, it still was not right.

After what seemed like an eternity of our creeping transit, Luna stopped and pointed in the direction of a specific stand. With growing dread we both realized it was across a large clearing in the marketplace, one that we would have to leave our cover of shadows to cross. This in itself would not have been too much of an issue, if an Erisian Guard would not have been milling about directly in our way.

There was a derelict fountain full of water and urine that probably predated Luna and I ten times over, and it was against this that the guard was lounging. He thankfully did not seem to be looking in our direction, instead his focus seemed to be diverted elsewhere.

I suppose a description is in order for Discord’s loyal guard. The draconequus did not seem to have any preference, anypony stupid enough to actually wish to serve him seemed to suffice. From what I could understand from what little I was shown, life for the guards was an improvement to that of citizens, although to what extent I cannot tell for certain. They most definitely did not have the misfortune of living in the slums like Luna and I and millions of others, but I do not believe they had any family anyways. If they did, they carried no memory of them. I suppose it was a sacrifice they had been willing to make in order to escape the squabble they’d have to endure otherwise. A better life, at the cost of all memory of their friends and family. This was the choice they would have made. With this knowledge, I did not have any reason whatsoever to pity them if this had indeed been a conscious choice they had made.

Their actual physical description was that of ferocious, harsh looking spiked armour which carried a relatively consistent design and colouring but was fashioned from just about anything. This gave it a chaotic feel most certainly reflective of the actual creature they served to protect. The helmets traditionally carried with them white antlers sharpened like razors, very much like the identical horn on Discord’s own head.

This guard was nothing beyond the norm, right down to the exact same horns on his helmet. Cautiously I pointed him out to Luna, but her hushed silence as she nodded frantically told me she had already seen for herself. It seemed like, if we were to avoid attention, we would have to travel the long and tedious circumference of the pointless clearing in order to get our map. I would have groaned in frustration if I was not utterly paranoid of every sound we made.

“Celestia…” Luna tugged on my cloak to get my attention, her voice as quiet as mouse. “I can go around...I’m smaller, so I can be sneakier.”

“No. What did I just tell you, Luna?”

“Please! Just trust me! I can do this.”

I looked back at the guard, still lounging senselessly about. Luna was not necessarily wrong, and the chance of her making it around without attracting attention was perhaps greater than the two of us. I was hardly a small mare even if I had just left my adolescence, and Luna was quite a bit shorter even for a filly of twelve years. Her eyes were nothing if not pleading, and her logic was difficult to argue.

To my surprise and horror, Luna did not wait for a further response. Instead, she continued heading forwards around the perimeter of the clearing.

“Luna!” I hissed angrily. “Get back here!”

She either did not hear me or refused to show that she did, for she continued moving forwards without turning around to acknowledge my furious but near-silent voice. I did not dare call again, for the distance between us was too great for my voice to reach her without reaching the guard also. Instead of calling out, I crept after her, moving both as silently and as swiftly as I could manage. Nevertheless, Luna was still much faster, her smaller stature indeed helping her greatly.

In my rush, I did not actually see what had brushed against my side, but the sound of it falling and striking the cracked cobblestone was more than enough to instantly slice through my anger at my sister and replace it with fury at my own foolishness. I saw Luna instantly stop and duck for cover in the shadows of one of the tall crates, while I did the same behind the stand closest to me.

There was to be no mercy on the end of the guard, either. A quick glance showed me that he was now looking in our direction in shock, doubtlessly aware of the presence of somepony lurking about in the dark, wishing not to be seen. My frustration became terror when he began advancing towards Luna, but even despite my frantically beating heart I motioned for Luna to keep moving ahead.

“Go!” I whispered, “Meet me at the marketplace entrance!”

While she scrambled onwards with far greater purpose than before, I picked up a heavy looking rock off the cracked cobblestone street. Floating it in my telekinesis, I carefully took aim with one eye closed. Before fear further intensified the wavering of my magic, I flung the stone directly at the approaching guard.

I did not see it strike, but the sound of rock hitting his steel helmet, followed by a furious and surprised cry, was more than enough to keep me informed of my success. Wasting no more time, I turned and started sprinting in the direction of the alleyways, kicking crates and barrels directly in the path of my pursuer. The moonless and starless night was enough to keep me rendered as no more than a silhouette to anypony not directly beside me, and I took this to my advantage as I fled. The sound of rushing hooves on cobblestone told me the guard had indeed given chase, which would at least allow for Luna’s safety.

“Stop! By the order of Discord, this is your first and last warning!” he barked between heavy breaths.

Order of Discord. The irony of the words almost could have made me chuckle if the urgency of my situation was not so rich. His heavy breathing was hardly surprising; with everypony living in a state of perpetual fear, any actual activity that would warrant the guards having a purpose was kept to a significant minimum. As a result, they did little else other than lounge about. I imagine the guards in larger cities had a far more important purpose, but in Cyclosa their need was quite minimal beyond the fear of Discord that they invoked throughout the squalor.

A few lanterns sprung to life across the shantytown I was sprinting through, undoubtedly awoken by the guard’s scream. I ran as quickly as I could, ducking through the endless maze of houses and trying to keep my frantic breathing silent. Where the guard was weakened through a lifetime of doing nothing, I was for the first time thankful for the hard, grueling strain of work in the scrapyards, for it allowed me to evade him with ease. He shouted several more times, but every time it seemed further and further away. Eventually, I reversed the direction of my run and did my best to navigate back towards the marketplace, which was considerably more terrifying now that half the neighboring houses were beginning to awaken thanks to the guard screaming like a fool.

Soon, I heard other loud voices shouting, too. They sounded just as harsh and purposeful, leading me to believe that other guards or perhaps even awakened ponies had joined the cause of hunting me down. I cursed bitterly as I tore through the streets. If a single pony were to get a glimpse of me now, then it would not be long before every guard in Cyclosa had a clear and pronounced troublemaker whose identity could be whittled down enough to put me in considerable danger. I wouldn’t have been the first to speak or act against Discord’s order, although if I actually managed to do so and then get away with it, I certainly would be the first at something.

I had been sneaking around at times no doubt apt to cause suspicion, and then I had assaulted a guard and promptly fled, ignoring his orders to stop. This was more than enough to get me killed even despite my youthful age, and I’d seen it more times than I could even remember. Any sensible pony played things safe and did not so much as look at the Erisian Guards, let alone lug rocks at their heads and steal bits and maps. I needed no motivation to escape beyond what had already been drilled in my head across two decades of eternal fear, but there was plenty more motivation to spare anyways.

I tore back into the marketplace clearing where the whole damned business had begun, taking care to stick to the shadows as I sped towards the entranceway, in the opposite direction of where Luna and I had previously been heading. I whispered a prayer that she had made it through alright, all the while cursing myself for letting her be alone for even a moment.

Luna was not waiting in the alleyway like I’d been desperately hoping, which meant she was either unable to get there, or simply had not arrived yet. The wild chase I had led the guards on had taken all but ten minutes, so it was with only a tiny bit of doubt that I settled on the latter, more comforting option.

I was in the middle of contemplating heading back into the marketplace to search for her despite what I had said before, when she came running down the cobblestone street at a brisk pace, a large parchment bulging from beyond her black hooded jacket.

“Luna, you idiot!” I scolded her the moment she arrived. Her beaming smile vanished in a moment when she saw how furious I was. “What were you thinking?”

Her mouth opened a little, but no actual response was made. Her lip quivered a little and her eyes grew wide with regretful sorrow, watering ever-so-slightly.

“Don’t cry, damn it. Just don’t do that again.”

“I...I got the map…”

“Yeah, great,” I scoffed. “I had half the Cyclosa guards chasing me! I hope it was worth it.”

“I’m sorry…” she mumbled, her voice weakening as she tried to repress a sob. “I thought you were following me. I didn’t know…”

“Luna, you can’t just be sorry. Do you think they care if you're sorry? You have no idea how vulnerable we are by ourselves! Now half the city is gonna be searching for me, and that includes guarding the road to the Grey Wasteland. We’re gonna have to lay low and wait until all this shit dies down, and it’s your fault!”

“I said I was sorry!” Her held back sobs lasted no longer, and tears began streaming down her cheeks. Her crying was silent, but were not lacking in strength. I was still angry with her for putting us in mortal danger so early into our journey, but there truly was nothing further to be done. She’d learned, and there was nothing to gain out of tearing her down any further. I leaned forward and hugged her lightly. Our embrace lasted not a moment, before she pushed me away. I sighed, and placed one of my forbidden wings on her back instead, causing my cloak to sag a little onto the unmoved wing. She initially shirked fearfully away from the freakish appendage, but calmed down once she looked into my forced smile and widened eyes.

“Come on, Luna. Let’s hurry to the gate. We might make it there before word of our little incident does.”

iii

I’d imagine one might be wondering why the Erisian guard would put so much apparent effort into apprehending a mare such as myself, whose actions had posed very little of an actual threat. It might actually seem like a bit of a logical contradiction after what I previously recounted of the guards in Cyclosa being quite lazy and unfit for their actual duties.

To answer simply, there was no practical reason behind the efforts they put into finding me that morning. Instead, the main reason lay in the mere fact that a mare had apparently disrupted the peace and gotten away with it, thus in a way beating their tyrannical rule. This was something they simply could not stand for, even if the extent of which I had ‘disrupted the peace’ was something negligible whose effects did not last much longer than a few seconds of minor shock on behalf of a single guard, followed by a brief sprinting chase that had lasted a little over ten minutes.

Luna and I traveled quickly towards the gate to the Grey Wastelands, but despite our haste we could not outrun the growing dawn. Ponies rose early in Cyclosa provided they had some sort of work like I had. I’d been expected to be in the scrapyards before six in the morning, and did not dare venture any later than that time. I was never in a mood to find out how tardiness was dealt with, and I had my sincere doubts anypony would have cared that I had been working my hooves to the bone for five years and made a nearly negligible amount of noticeable mistakes across them.

Whether they had a shop in the marketplace, were fishing for resources in the dump, or worked in the farms lacing the South end of the city, there was never a shortage of ponies with places to be come morning. We skirted as best as we could away from the route where the largest amount of activity would be, instead ducking between the shanties and sticking to the shadows as we had grown quite used to by that point. With the morning light slowly casting back the much desired night, the streets slowly became more and more populated by ponies running about with delusions of a purpose. They did not pay us any mind, and for once I was thankful that the majority of the pony population was stupid, selfish, and about as complacent as sheep, never venturing too far from whatever roles their trifling place in Erisian society required of them.

Such was my mindset as I led the way through the blooming crowd, ignoring the ponies around us and avoiding the occasional guard whenever I spotted them on the more populated sections of narrow shantytown streets. In my ignorant, cynical, and centralized inclination, I was not oblivious to the hypocrisy in my actions and thoughts, but to dwell on them served no practical purpose.

In a vivid contrast to my stoicness, Luna was providing fleeting but welcoming smiles to the rare pony who intentionally met her eyes, clearly too young and sheltered to have already subscribed to the egocentric psychology that had infected Erisia and I was doing my best to drive back. It was rare for any of the ponies to return Luna’s subtle attempts at anything beyond apathetic self-concern, but it did not seem to deter her from radiating as much warmth as she could.

Eventually our journey came to an abrupt end as I stopped my swift trot in the face of a wide clearing, populated by less than a dozen ponies. It was the most open area we’d seen since the deserted streets at midnight, and it was also the first time in my life that I glimpsed anything beyond the towering walls enclosing Cyclosa.

At the end of the clearing comprised of more decrepit cobblestone was a derelict looking guard-tower, placed right beside an entirely unsullied exit from Cyclosa. The Grey Wastelands were beckoning us, uninterrupted by the encasing brick walls for an impossibly brief area of twelve feet. Stationed at the foot of the sad guard tower was an actual guard, holding a spear and looking much more attentive than any other guard that I had seen prior. The clearing was deserted save for him; it was quite obvious the incentive to leave the protection of Cyclosa’s brick walls was not too prominent amongst the population.

“Damn it,” I spat. This complicated things.

“A guard!” Luna chattered excitedly. “What do we do?”

“There’s no way we can get by him without a few questions being asked,” I mumbled. My wings were pressed firmly against my sides, with my cloak keeping them further flush for safe measure, but nonetheless they were the only thing on my mind as I sat contemplating our actions.

All it took was for one guard to ask me to remove my cloak, and I’d might as well surrender myself then and there.

“Hey!” A loud, harsh voice rung out. I whipped around and felt my blood curdle in fright. “White mare! Stop right there!”

A guard was walking towards me, brandishing a spear. He must have seen me in the streets before and been following me, no doubt seeing a young mare and an even younger filly travelling towards the town gates as more than a little suspicious.

It took the greatest of my self-control to keep my voice and breathing steady, but even so it sounded only a little less uneasy and frightened than what I truly felt. My entire body had tensed, and my mind instantly felt emptied as fear overtook all my other thoughts.

“You’re just waltzing out of Cyclosa?” he barked, pointing towards the gate with his spear, and promptly turning it until it was only an inch from my snout. The other guard, seeing the commotion, began heading towards us as well.

“Is that not allowed?” I shakily replied. The moment the words left my mouth, I instantly wished I could take them back, even before I saw the guard’s grip on the spear tighten further and the dull head scrape against my snout. I did not intend to come across as sarcastic, but I very well knew he would take great pleasure in presuming I did. I dared not take my gaze away from my own hooves, even though my common sense was desperately screaming at me to ensure Luna’s safety.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, filly?” he screamed.

“I’m sorry!” My response was immediate, albeit panicked and unintentionally loud. “Please!”

The other guard was with us now, too, I’d seen his hooves even from my gaze at the cobblestone street, and while he was not pointing his spear at us like the first one, I felt no further comfort from his presence.

“Where’s a young filly like yourself going so early in the morning?” he drawled. “Leaving Cyclosa is prohibited for a mare of your youth, you know.”

“No it isn’t, you son of a bitch,” I spat at him in my mind. The fired up guard was disregarding the rules he was supposed to uphold, and he didn’t care even in the slightest, nor would he face any punishment for doing so.

My actual vocal response, of course, was far from confrontational than the one I gleefully spoke in my head.

“The farms,” I said. While I had been too foolish to think of an actual excuse beforehand, the fear speeding my thought process was swift enough so as to formulate one without delay. “Our father hasn’t come home, and my mother is too sick to go herself. So she sent us to see if he’s alright.”

“The farms are to the South!” While the first guard again did the talking, I felt a sharp pain in my side as the other spear was driven into my cloak. It was accidental, I would later decide, but at the time my mind was thinking only of the wings on my back I desperately had to keep concealed.

“Please don’t hurt us!” I yelped the moment the pain registered.

“The farms are to the South!” he repeated in nearly the exact same voice, ignoring my plea and instead keeping the spear locked directly in front of me.

“There is no exit from Cyclosa in the South,” I said as calmly as I could. Blood was trickling down my side where the spear had accidentally hit, which meant there was now a hole in my precious cloak.

What I was saying wasn’t untrue. I would know, the southernmost part of Cyclosa was the scrapyard, and past the brick wall were the farms that I had no actually seen with my own eyes even from the highest point on the piles of scrap.

“What are your names?” he barked.

“I’m Selena,” I lied without delay, “And this is my sister Moonli—”

“I don’t care about her! I asked you!”

“I’m Selena.” I simplified instead. I knew they were the wrong words in moments, but once again there was little I could do to change them now. My irritation with his inconsistency and unnecessary harshness seemed to be almost potent enough to overpower my terror.

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty—”

“And her?”

To my surprise, Luna answered before I had a chance to. Her voice was squeaked and had about as much volume as a whispering breezie, but somehow the three of us heard her quite clearly as she honestly told the guards that she was twelve. Any of the hostility that had been directed at me was spared with Luna, for reasons which I truly did not know.

There was a brief, horrifying period of several quiet seconds, in which my story was clearly being turned around in the guard’s heads as they tried to sense some sort of flaw in it’s validity. In an attempt to ease the growing feeling of dread in my chest, I rationalized that they had no reason to care whether or not I left Cyclosa, unless word of what happened in the marketplace had indeed travelled quicker than we had.

“Go.” The guard eventually muttered. “Your sister can wait with us till you get back. Just in case you two had any ideas of escaping.”

When I looked up at the second guard, the one who had remained entirely silent, I realized with dread that they were keeping Luna, while I was apparently being allowed to leave. Before I could say anything in protest, the first guard took a step towards me, twisted his spear around, and used the blunt end to push me backwards. I lost my footing and stumbled to the cobblestone street, as they both roared with laughter.

There was a thousand furious responses running through my head as I processed their actions. But even with countless insults in my head, I did not speak at all. Even with the shame of being ordered around and the bitter sense of loathing as they held my younger sister hostage, I drove back the urge. Instead, my response was kept to a dejected sigh. I truly did not know what to do...if I refused to leave without Luna then it would be clear to them that my story was a fabrication, but if I did then I would be leaving her behind. No matter what route I took, there was no way I could save both of us, at least not without creating a scene and having to revert to simply trying to flee into the Wasteland and hope they didn’t catch up.

Luna was being held firmly between the shaft of a spear and the second guard, looking at me with a pleading expression. I turned my tail to her and looked at the Grey Wastelands beyond the gate, desperately trying to think of a solution.

“Wait!” I heard him scream at me again. I could have sworn I’d heard his voice waver a little, as if he had just been given cause for fear.. “Are...Can those be…”

With blooming dread, I turned to look to my sides. My cloak...my precious cloak that had been the only thing standing between myself and a swift execution, had come undone as a result of the guard’s harsh shove. It must have been sagging a little, and fallen further when I’d begun to walk away. My wings were hardly visible, but nonetheless a few stray feathers stuck out from beyond the precious cover of the thick, itchy fabric, revealing to all what I was.

There was deathly silence for almost ten seconds, silence in which both myself and the guards were too terrified to do much more than stare; me straight ahead at the Grey Wastelands so close yet so far away, and them at the tiny bit of protruding wing.

Then, without the slightest movement to telegraph my intentions, I whipped around and fired a single magic blast directly at the guard holding my sister. It struck him point blank, sending him flying back. Luna stumbled to the ground and the spear fell with a clatter, but she wasted no time in rolling back to her feet and sprinting in the direction of the gate. I was on her tail without hesitation, only breaking my stride to fire another blast which struck the ground close enough to the other guard to at least pelt him with a bit of exploding cobblestone, some of which flew directly into his face and eyes. The one that had grabbed Luna had not yet risen, and in my quick glance I thought I could see blood trickling from his skull, now without his helmet which had rolled off when he had fallen.

I believe a unicorn of science would classify my instinctive actions as a magic surge, a quick, short-lasting increase in magical potential caused by a large amount of fear, fury, willpower, and a lack of organized and distracting thoughts. Regardless of what the specific classification was, it was a degree of magic I had never in my life thought myself capable of performing; I had trouble levitating objects for too long, firing even a semi-competent beam of magic was something I couldn’t pull off even with intense focus and zero distractions.

"You little slum rat!" I heard a furious voice scream after us as well as chasing hoofbeats, but whether as a result of my unexpected attack, or simply because Luna and I were faster than the guards, we made it through the gate ahead of them. We tore out of Cyclosa, and into the Grey Wastelands, not stopping as we continued running into the great unknown.

The sight of uninterrupted space was an almost unique experience, one I surely would have reveled in a little longer if I hadn’t been sprinting as fast as I could manage with my heart and mind both working furiously just to keep me from passing out. All around us, the Grey Wasteland was sprawled out like a rolling ocean, the same colourless dirt stretching for as far as we could see. The dirt plain was not necessarily formless, on occasion it rose or fell in hills or holes, and even the occasional dead tree existed to break up the monotony, although at the time I did not know for certain what the straggly bits of twisted wood actually were. A thick smog hung over the ground in every direction, and any distance more than a few hundred feet away was practically swallowed up by the thick yellowish mist. I’d once spoken with a pilot in the scrapyards who had called it ‘City Piss’ and informed me that it was a tell-tale sign one was approaching a settlement as they sailed through the skies. Apparently, it died out the further one got from a city, where there was less filth to sully the skies.

There were many treadmarks in the dirt where carriages had been pulled between Cyclosa and whatever town was closest to it, even though I had greatly come to understand that airships were the preferred method of transport in Erisia. I imagine a few centuries ago, carriages would have been more widely used, largely due to the fact that pollution was non-existent, but now with the sky always grey and the air always filthy, pollution had ironically become an ignored issue. It was so abundant that it wasn’t noticed. Airships were faster, could carry more passengers and cargo, and were less at risk of getting stuck in marshlands.

Of course, one issue that neither could skirt around were the dust-storms. They were the reason for the massive stone walls around Cyclosa and other settlements. When a strong wind picked up, and with very little to stand in it’s way, the smallest bit of dust could snowball into a wave of destruction with humbling simplicity. Whether a pony was in the air or on the earth, when a strong dust storm picked up there was no difference between the two. They were both as good as dead.

And that was to say nothing of crossing the Grey Wastelands on hoof.

Behind us, a splitting screech tore through the gloomy, early morning air, replacing our frantic hoofbeats as the only sound we could hear. It was Cyclosa’s siren, one which had sounded only twice before in my life, both times being when somepony had acted against the guards in a violent way and was attempting to escape. I didn’t know how their stories had ended, and the only way I had actually found out the reason for the awful sound at all was by eavesdropping on the guards during one of their card-games while I worked. I imagine if I asked they would have told me—the trust I had built with them was in no short supply—but I never mustered enough courage to approach them with the question.

Luna, on the other hoof, responded to the sound with a yelping scream. She surely would have heard it before, but it’s source I had never told her.

Still, we had been running for almost five minutes before the guard’s word must have reached the ears of any others, and when I turned around to look in the direction of the noise I saw that Cyclosa was already mostly lost to the smog. I’d been greatly looking forward to triumphantly watching it sink into nothingness as I left it behind forever, but it seemed like I’d missed that opportunity, with the reality of our sprinting escape clearly contradicting my mind’s image of a slow, gradual walk to freedom.

In moments, pegasi guards would be taking to the skies in search of us. The magic surge that had helped me before was no more than a memory by that point, and we would be defenseless if they saw us. Instead, I slid to a halt, and Luna carried on running for several more meters before realizing she was alone and stopped as well.

The Grey Wastelands, while not featureless, might as well have been. There was nothing nearby to provide any sort of cover, and certainly no caves to hide in or thick forest canopies to veil us. We were a random patch of white and blue in a plain of grey, surely visible to any pegasus flying close by.

“What do we do?” Luna shrilled. “Celestia! What do we—”

“Calm down, Luna!” I said. “Look for something to hide under.”

“There’s nothing!” she moaned. “They’re going to see us, Celly, they’re going to fly over and—”

“Luna! Stop!” I screamed.

My eyes swept the Grey Wasteland, searching for anything that could help us. As unhelpfully panicked as Luna had been, it didn’t make her wrong. There really was nothing around us. Nothing but the high-pitched wail of the distant Cyclosa siren announcing to us that our actions were not going to be ignored. The closest thing to us was a slender looking tree, and so I trotted over to it.

Next to the tree was what looked like the ruins of an old carriage. I spotted a wheel, and some tattered cloth, which had been stained grey as a testament to the dust-storms it had survived. The actual body of the carriage had survived too, but only somewhat, and was now rend into two separate pieces. The whole thing was as grey as the rest of the surrounding area, and with nothing better in direct sight, I stumbled inside and motioned for Luna to follow. Perhaps with the thick smog around us, it might actually work. It was better than huddling out in the middle of the beaten path and praying for the best.

We huddled in the beaten carriage for what seemed like an eternity, but surely could not have been more than thirty minutes. There were wide cracks all across the broken surface that we could see out of, and I looked in the direction of the wailing siren in search of movement in the clouds. They would surely roll out perhaps a few pegasi guards, but I had my doubts—or perhaps they were more akin to frantically hopeful thoughts—that anything further would be done to find us. We’d injured one incompetent guard and then fled into the Grey Wasteland with practically nothing but a saddlebag. It was hardly anything to send airships over the Wasteland to remedy, and hopefully it would not escalate any further.

“He saw your wings, Celly!” Luna whispered, after remaining silent for so long.

“Oh right,” I thought to myself. Any thought of this simply blowing over quickly vanished. “Never mind.”

“That means they know,” I said hopelessly. “We’re hardly out of Cyclosa, and they already know. Every guard in Erisia is going to be looking for us now.”

Or, if we were fortunate, the word of the two guards would be seen as foolish, delusional, and impossible. It was traitorous blasphemy to speak against the decisions and statements Discord made, and it was him who had claimed that alicorns were an extinct species. If I was lucky, Discord’s own reign of terror would help us remain discrete for a little while longer.

“It’s my fault,” Luna said with a sniffle. She wiped her watering eyes with her jacket and looked away from me.

“Luna, no it isn’t. I’m sorry I shouted at you earlier.”

“It is my fault.”

“Who cares?” I nearly exploded. “Luna, I don’t even care if it’s your fault or not. It’s over with, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m not blaming you for anything, but I need you right now, so please stop blaming yourself. Look at me.”

Shakily, she turned her tear-filled eyes to meet mine. I gave her a weak smile and rested my wing on her back again. Unlike before, she did not shirk away from it, instead seeming to take comfort in it’s feathered softness.

“We’re going North no matter what. And we’re going to be fine.”

“Thank you, Celestia. I really am sorry I went to get the map without you.”

“There would’ve been a guard at the gates anyways. There was no way we could have gotten around that.”

“...Celestia?”

“Yes, Luna?”

“Do you think I’m going to grow a horn like you grew wings?”

“Do you want a horn?” I asked, playfully giving her forehead a tap.

“After seeing you totally kick that guard’s butt? Yes!”

I chuckled lightly and reached a hoof up to touch my own horn, realizing for the first time how fortunate I was to have pulled that off.

“Well then yes, Luna. You’re gonna have a horn and it’s going to be even more powerful than mine,” she grinned widely, her previous sorrow fading away. “But my wings are going to be stronger than yours, I’ll bet.”

“You wish!” she laughed, pushing my wing off her shoulder. “We’ll probably be the coolest, strongest ponies in Erisia!”

She was smiling ear to ear, and I did not have the heart to tell her that if everything went without a hitch, not a single pony in Erisia would ever pay us any attention again before long. I’d been toying with the notion of cutting off my own horn and starting a new life in another city, but the thought of putting Luna through the same thing, especially with a horn she had just gained, sickened me. And if what had happened in Cyclosa was any indication, there was only so long I could keep my wings hidden. The only option that remained was to flee from Erisia. At least by doing so, we could live a somewhat safe life as what we were, instead of what we were forced to be.

The thought of living with Luna alone in some shaded forest on the outskirts of the Northern Tundra didn’t seem too bad to me anyways. Our whole lives, we had known nothing but the crowded conditions of the slums, and the unpleasant smell of pollution at every hour of the day. What a beautiful contrast a life up North would allow us.

Of course, there was also the more rational (or perhaps more cynical) part of me which always served to point out that my dream was a wishful fantasy, a delusional utopia lifted from one of Luna’s story-books that couldn’t exist in the squalor of Erisia, nor in any of the neighboring lands beyond.

After what I would estimate as at least an hour—it was difficult to tell for certain—the screeching sirens suddenly ceased, and the Grey Wastelands once again tumbled into it’s typical sprawling, dead reverie, with only the sound of the wind howling over the dirt. We waited several minutes after we’d heard them stop, and then finally crept from the carriage and back onto the dirt. Amazingly, it would seem like they had given up, with much more ease than what my fear had dreadfully predicted of them.

Or so I had thought, anyways.

Many Erisian guards faced Discord’s judgement because of what occurred on that day, simply for being in the city at the same time as us. I would find that out much later on, and even as I recall them now I am quite unsure whether or not I feel guilt in somewhat being responsible for their deaths. I don’t truly know why I should, considering it was my intention to simply leave without causing a scene, but now that their memories exist practically in Luna and my minds alone now, I carry a much different perspective on them than I did as a young mare. I pity them...not for what they were, but what became of them. They abandoned their own families and the very memories of their past lives in order to serve Discord, and for that I have no empathy for, but I don’t believe they deserved to die for their failure in finding the two of us through the fog.

It was the cruel reality in Erisia that, provided they were foolish enough to mess up, the guards were just as vulnerable to the reign of Discord as the ponies they thought they were above.

For a long while, Luna and my world became nothing but dust. We made our way back to where we had seen the wagon tracks, and continued following them onwards to whatever city they led to.

Even though we walked for hours, we did not speak. No longer in mortal peril, we both had plenty of time to simply think about where we were, what we were doing there, and the whole mad affair of it all. Several times, I heard Luna’s breathing cease, resume at a more rapid pace for a moment, and then gradually ease back to normal, as if she had just realized or seen something which surprised her. I certainly shared in her sentiments; without a proper time for us to fully come to terms with what we were doing, the true blunt of it was instead being thrust upon us at random intervals when our minds chose to wander upon some memory of our pasts which we quickly realized we would never be reliving again.

Every once in a while, I would hear Luna add a sniffle to her suddenly sporadic breathing. I knew she would be embarrassed if I asked her what she was crying about, and I didn’t have to ask to know the answer anyways.

While Luna did her best to hide her brief moments of emotion, I found myself disturbed by how empty I felt by comparison. I knew I should have felt something...fear, sorrow, guilt, but as I walked on, listening to the howling of the wind and the sound of the bits I’d stolen rattling in my saddlepack, I felt nothing at all. The only emotion in my head at the time was perhaps a weak sense of curiosity at what lay ahead, although my curiosity was unmistakably driven by fear instead of optimism. I had promised Luna that everything was going to be fine, but it had been a promise I had made with perverse doubt in my heart. A promise whose foundation lay on emotion instead of rationality, which truly was risky and unwise despite how beautiful it sounded.

Because if it came to be Discord’s decision, to call that promise pathetic would be too great of a compliment for the worthless absurdity of the words.

It was more than three hours after we’d left the carriage that we next saw something else to break up the monotonous grey earth and sky. Rising strangely alone with nothing but dirt around it was a tall formation of several slab-like rocks, looking foreign and alien but showing the weathered signs of being there for centuries. They were large in form and thickness, layered on top of each other so as to form multiple cave-like entrances. A few more of the rocks lay around the formation in similar clusters, but none as large as the one Luna and I were currently trotting towards to inspect.

“A cave!” Luna chattered excitedly. “Cool!”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wonder what these are. They look old.”

“They look like rocks,” Luna stated bluntly. I sighed and brought a hoof to my face, before turning my back to them and beginning to trot back to the carriage tracks leading us forwards.

“Aw, Tia…” Luna’s reluctant voice came from a distance, and when I turned I saw that she had not followed me, “My hooves are sore! Can’t we take a break here?”

“No,” I shook my head. If we did not hurry, the word of another alicorn in Erisia might make it to the next city before we did, and entering it without a hassle would be considerably difficult. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

Luna let out a protesting moan, but trotted to catch up to me without any words of protest. Our walk swiftly resumed it’s quiet and sombre tradition, with nary a sound save for the wind.

When we had first entered the Grey Wastelands, I had found the eerie ambience of the wind to be unnatural and unnerving, a feeling only intensified by the otherwise mute world around us. It’s howling tone rarely took on any variation, instead drawling on with no deviation of pitch or volume. But after awhile, I began to find solace in it’s sound, for without it the only sound would be our hooves in the dirt and the coins in my saddlebag. There was something strangely humbling about the sound which I could not control like I can control the sun or moon in this distant, present day.

“Celestia, can I ask you a question?” Luna said hesitantly from behind.

“Of course you can. What’s up?”

“You’re...not going to be going away anymore, right?”

I stopped my steady pace to look at her, an eyebrow arched in slight confusion.

“Going away where?”

“Well, you always leave so early in the morning every day. And then when I wake up it’s already morning and you’re gone again. When we get to where we’re going, you’re not going to have to do that anymore, right?”

It took me a moment to realize Luna was talking about our life back in Cyclosa. Every day when I left for the scrapyard, Luna was just waking up. Sometimes, she would stay up late waiting for me to come home, but the sad truth was that we saw each other in the brief moments when I was either coming or going, and the span between I was always working or sleeping. There were no days of the week in Erisia, either, so any breaks we were given were extremely rare, spontaneous, and often unexplained. And for a worker as respected as I had been, and whose competence could usually be counted on, such luxuries were often reserved for the ones whose presence was not as vital.

In a cruel, humorously ironic way, it seems like as a princess so much later in my life, not much has changed in this aspect.

“No, Luna. I won’t be.”

“That's good," she said, with very little emotion.

“Do you still have that map with you?” I asked, in an attempt to break the ensuing awkward silence.

“Yeah. Do you wanna see it?”

“Sure. Might as well get an idea where we’re heading, right?”

Luna nodded, and reached a hoof into her saddlebag. She withdrew the map and I took it in my magic, unfurling the thick parchment in front of us so that we could both look. I noted that it was made with real parchment, not paper, meaning that some animal had died for this map. I wasn’t about to tell this to Luna, who undoubtedly would not have liked to hear that the map she had risked both of our lives for had such a sick and barbaric point of origin. Even in those days the killing of other animals beyond small rodents was seen as largely despicable amongst the public, or at least the public that I had grown around.

Cyclosa was a small dot at the very bottom of the map, with no immense stone walls depicted to represent the dystopian hell it actually was. The artist had even had the nerve to depict a beautiful river flowing outside the town, but if it had ever existed at all it had dried up decades ago. All around the town was empty space, in which the cartographer—perhaps out of cruel humour or perhaps out of paranoid delusion—had drawn barely visible pony skulls and wagon wheels lost in the sand.

The next town to the North of Cyclosa was one called ‘Pillory,’ which seemed larger than Cyclosa. Even this information I carried with skepticism; if this town truly did exist, the map was ancient and archaic, and so too I presumed the towns to be. Whether they still existed truly did remain to be seen.

“Pillory,” Luna said aloud, also spotting the point. “Cool name. Is that where we’re going?”

“Yeah. It looks big. Maybe they have a shipyard.”

“Like, airships?!” Luna gasped excitedly.

“Yeah.”

“And we’ll be riding in one?!” Joy and enthusiasm gradually pulled Luna’s voice higher and higher in pitch to a near-squeal of delight.

“It would be the fastest way out of Erisia,” I shrugged. The idea was still fresh in my mind, and I was already regretting bringing it up when I was still in a state of relative uncertainty. “We’d just need to find a ship willing to take passengers.”

Luna was about to respond, when a sudden burst of wind blew, grabbing the still unfurled map like a kite and sending it flying into the air. I screamed out in surprise and pointed, while Luna began dashing after it with her wings buzzing wildly. I had never before seen her fly, and it wasn’t a sight I was greeted to that day, either. As motivated as she was, her wings had been next to worthless her whole life and as a result the strong muscles they possessed were quite unfamiliar to the entire flight process.

As surprisingly as the wind had billowed, it fell to nothingness just as quickly, and the map thankfully fell back to the ground. Luna leaped on it, grabbing it and rolling several times in the dirt, somehow managing to maintain her grip on it throughout the entirety of the melodramatic procedure. I trotted after with a small grin, one which did not take long to vanish when my eyes ventured past Luna at what lay beyond on the horizon.

The strange, unpredictable pattern of the wind suddenly became a lot less strange. I once again raised a hoof to point, and Luna’s exalted smile died as quickly as mine when she saw my widened eyes and raised hoof.

The entire horizon of grey sky directly ahead of us had changed to a lighter shade, no longer stationary sky and instead towering clouds growing in height by the second. They were clearly moving at a rate much swifter than the smog around Cyclosa or the clouds far above. With the changing wind acting as the tragic catalyst, this colossal wall of billowing dirt was an immense dust-storm, one that the wind was pushing straight into our path.

Pillory

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The closest thing to us that was not barren dirt were the odd rock formations. With the dust storm looming ahead and promising death for anypony foolish enough to get caught up in its midst, it was in this direction that Luna and I turned and began sprinting. The dust storm was eternally growing at our backs; it seemed every time I cast a glance behind us it was larger and closer still. I could hear the wind from within, an aggressive howl that was the siren of death, and above us I saw crows and other birds I could not name flying as hard as they could in the same direction we were sprinting. Had they taken even a moment’s rest, and the strong backwinds of the dust storm would have grabbed hold of their wings, and pulled them back into the storm.

This was hardly a threat reserved to the birds in the sky, though. Both of our cloaks were blowing wildly about, threatening to drag us backwards if we allowed the strong winds to get any closer. I continued running in a frenzy, swearing under my breath the whole while.

“Celestia!” I heard Luna scream behind me. “Celestia, help me!”

Without hesitation I skidded to a halt, looking behind me. The mountain of clouds took up the whole sky now, so that above and before me was nothing but dark grey clouds, growing closer and closer by the moment. But even with this incredible sight before me, my eyes focused instantly on the small blotch of blue against the grey.

Her cloak had come loose, and had been picked up the backdrifts of the dust storm, pulling her upwards like a kite several feet off the ground. She fumbled for the twine keeping her cloak on, ripped it off, and fell to the ground. Her landing was less than graceful; she slammed hard against the dirt and did not immediately rise.

“Luna!” I screamed, wasting no time in running back to her limp form.

The storm was pulling at my cloak, too, threatening to do to me what had just happened to Luna. I had no time to waste. With a click, my saddlebag came undone, and I ripped my cloak off next. I grabbed the bag with the bits within and laid it on top of my cloak, and then bundled the whole thing up in a ball. I placed it on my back and then lifted Luna’s unconscious body on top of it.

My sprint to the rocks resumed, but it was much slower with so much discomfort on my back that I needed to carry with me. Luna had not been fed nearly as well as she had a right to, and as a result she did not weigh too much. Ironically, the malnourishment we had been forced through perhaps saved both of our lives; if Luna had been any heavier, I doubt I could have made it to the rocks at all.

I felt Luna stir on my back, and while I let out a long sigh of relief, I did not stop to let her back on her hooves. Any delay, even one of mere moments, could be lethal. I could not stop when I was so close to the rock caverns.

“Our saddlebags!” Luna said upon regaining consciousness. Strangely, it had been her first thought. “Celly, the map! Our bits! Our cloaks!”

“Not important.” I grumbled. We had made it to the rocks, and I set Luna down. I first threw my bundled up cloak with the bag of bits into the crevice, and then waved frantically for her to get in, too.

Luna was quite a bit smaller compared to me, and she fit in the cave-like opening easily. By contrast, I had to squeeze my way in, which took just long enough for me to focus on the dreadful thought that I might not be able to fit in at all and I would have to face the full blunt of the storm. Thankfully I managed to force my way through with only a bit of effort, and the crevice seemed to widen as it deepened anyways.

“Pass me the cloak, Luna,” I said. I opened it up once again, letting the bag of bits fall and then using the cloak to close up the crevice opening as best I could. It actually worked somewhat well, but we were instantly thrust into complete darkness once it was in place.

Outside, the sound of the wind grew to a terrifyingly loud howl, louder and more unnerving than even the most booming of thunder rolls. Even with my cloak stuffing the entrance closed, the air was filled with dust which caused the two of us to cough frequently and made breathing a chore as time stretched on and the dust storm refused to pass.

Thankfully, the stones had survived many dust storms and the present one was no exception. And while they did vibrate and occasionally creak as they were beaten mercilessly by the elements, it seemed I had not made a mistake in choosing them to flee to.

“Woah!” I heard the sound of bits jingling against each other in the dark. “Where did ya get all this dough, Celly?”

“Ah...I’ve been saving up. Put that down, would you?”

“You didn’t steal these, did you?”

“Luna, give them here,” I blindly reached into the darkness, and amazingly managed to grab the bag of bits regardless. “Are you alright? Nothing’s broken?”

“Nope! I’m good.”

“You had quite the fall there. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “You don’t have to treat me like a filly you know…”

“Sorry,” I sighed.

As we sat in silence, listening to the wind outside refusing to lessen in intensity, my thoughts wandered to my horn, and before I knew it I was feeding magic into it simply to see what would happen. For a long while, nothing did. It produced a barely audible hum and I felt it vibrate ever so slightly, but whatever I was hoping would happen ultimately seemed unwilling to.

And then, after a long while of focus, a burst of light erupted from my horn, illuminating the small cavern. Luna’s eyes grew wide in amazement, as did mine, and the revelation that the cavern was actually infested with insects was not nearly enough to break through my awestruck expression.

Light magic is hardly anything special, it’s most commonly the first spell many unicorns learn after levitation, but nonetheless for a pony who had never had any reason to cast magic at all, it was nothing short of astonishing.

“How are you doing that?!” Luna gasped.

“I...I’m not exactly sure,” I admit. “It just sorta...works.”

Unfortunately, the light flickered out as suddenly as it had sprung to life, thrusting us back into complete darkness once again. I tried to take note of what exactly I had done to pull off the light spell, but I earnestly could think of no logical progression of thought that had led to its conception.

We lapsed back into silence again, and in the blackness I heard Luna’s breathing gradually begin to ease into a pattern of sleep. The dust that had been assaulting our senses when we first arrived had settled down as we became motionless, making breathing much easier than it had been when the air was plagued with a thick cloud of the wretched stuff.

After another hour had crawled past, the sound of the wind outside finally began to die down, and after yet another it had vanished completely. Nervous bird song could be heard from outside, and I shook Luna awake as I removed my cloak from the entranceway and led the way back into the Grey Wastelands.

The dust storm had removed nearly every trace of the carriage tracks that we had been following. I screamed a loud cry of frustration as I saw this, while Luna watched on with speechless apprehension, while beating her recovered cloak free of an immense weight of sand.

“Perfect!” I seethed, once my animalistic fury had weakened enough that words could be formed. “Now what do we do? Those tracks were everything! We don’t even have the damn map!”

“The sun is setting…” I heard Luna say. I followed her gaze, where the sight of the sun approaching the horizon could be seen only as a flare of light beyond a thin cloud of grey dust that still remained.

“Oh, brilliant. We’re hopelessly lost in the middle of the Wastelands without a map, and it’s going to be night soon.”

“But doesn’t the sun set in the West?” she asked. “Can’t we use that to find North?”

“The sun sets in the West?” I irritably questioned. “Where did you learn that?”

Luna shrugged.

“In one of my storybooks. The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West.”

“Luna, those are fairy tales. How could the sun know where to rise and set?” I recalled the other senseless, magical things in those stories, the things that were a vast contrast to how orderly life in Erisia was actually supposed to be…

And the more I recalled them, the more I realized I was more willing to take the words of ancient, imaginative fools than I was the chaotic rules Discord’s reign enforced.

“Alright, fine,” I said, taking a moment to orient myself properly. “So that’s West. That makes this direction North.”

And in that direction we walked, as the sun dipped into the Western horizon and the Moon rose overhead. Little by little as the night turned around, the looming remains of the dust vanished away. Miles from the grasp of the city the sky was free of the looming pollution, and as the musty grey shifted first to an inky blue and then a resolute black, the sky began to populate with millions of beautiful pinpricks of light where only clouds had ever been.

“Stars,” Luna gasped. “They’re beautiful.”

They must have been another thing Luna would have seen in her storybooks. We certainly would never have seen them in Cyclosa. Where she had gotten the name for them, I truly do not know.

We stayed under the cover of the stars for a long while as our tired hooves carried us across the desert and through the night. I know it was only a matter of time before exhaustion got the best of both of us, and without shelter for miles it truly would be catastrophic if it did. Both our throats were parched as our bodies desperately begged for food and water, and we had not even been in the desert for more than two days. With the map lost, I was forced to recall as best I could how far the city of Pillory was simply from the memories I carried of my brief glance at it. It did not seem considerably far, but that was assuming we were going in the correct direction, which I could not even be certain of.

While I did not dare express it, I walked on with a bitter sense of dread and doubt, knowing I had made a grave and foolish mistake bringing Luna with me when I myself was not prepared to survive. Frankly, I did not have much confidence I had not led us into certain death, and so it was with immense relief that I noticed the terrain we were trotting over seemed to be changing, many hours after we had left the dust storm behind.

Gradually our hooves began carrying us over rising hills instead of flat desert. The hard-packed sand under our hooves seemed to be changing, too. It looked more like the fertile dirt which had the miraculous ability to sustain plant life, and less like the dead grey sand that we had been surrounded by.

The grass was another sight entirely. It poked freely from the dirt in odd clusters at first, but soon it’s frequency changed to become more regular as different plants began sticking out of the dirt, too. I speechlessly led the way into a forest of strange looking trees, standing tall and proud with their leafless arms stretched towards the star-filled sky above. Bats and small birds flew freely through this strange, isolated forest, which had not appeared on any maps and had no place in the dead wasteland.

It was then that I realized that the world outside of Cyclosa was not dead. The cities were not divided by miles of nothingness, and the earth had not been damaged beyond repair. Life had carried on where the tendrils of pollution had not yet reached. And life carried with it something else entirely, not a material thing, but something equally as powerful. I felt hope as I led Luna through that forest, as well as a sense of determination that was stronger than the foreboding dread I’d carried not an hour prior. True, the odds were against us, and we would eternally be in danger from now until the end of Erisia, but the end of Erisia was not out of our grasp.

In Pillory, we would find an airship. I was sure of that now. Surely we would be able to pay passage aboard a smaller one, and from there we could be heading North at a swifter pace than our hooves could take us, and without the risk of exhaustion or hunger.

The leafless trees had more life to them as our trek took us deeper through the forest, and soon enough we came upon a pond of murky water. It was less than appealing, but Luna and I gratefully drank anyways. It was as good a place as any to rest for several hours, and so I slumped down next to the water, my back on the dirt and my eyes trained upwards at the stars peeking through the thin foliage of the tall trees above us.

iii

I knew we were approaching the city when the lush trees around us started becoming more and more thin and straggly once again, victims of the dust and pollution just like the ones on the outskirts of the forest. Eventually, there were no trees at all, and instead a grey field of dirt dividing us from the great Southern city of Pillory. We were standing atop a small hill which gradually fell towards the dry, apocalyptic field I’d grown accustomed to seeing.

The city looked much grander than Cyclosa even from our great distance, and the elevation of the hill we were on showed us that it was built in a pattern much like a wagon wheel, with a main and pronounced center, half a dozen districts working their way out towards a brick wall of a dozen feet circling the entire city. At the very center of Pillory was what looked like some sort of garden, but like the trees outside of the town it looked like it had seen more life in better days. In the center of the garden a taller spire towered into the sky, looking as though it’s purpose was solely aesthetic. Age had reared it’s teeth at the spire, for it was now at a slight angle, in a few dozen years it would probably fall, and crush a few houses and kill a few ponies, and no one outside of the vicinity would know or care.

About a mile outside of Pillory, the first few drops of rain started falling from the sky, starting as a simple light drizzle. For two weary and exhausted fillies, the cold water falling from the sky in a gentle spray was welcomed and indeed quite refreshing, but I knew that if it escalated anymore than we would be wandering into town shivering and dripping wet, which was a state I was in no mood to be in.

“Welcome to Pillory,” I muttered. “There, Luna, look…”

One of the six districts of the city looked like it was devoted entirely towards airships, for dozens were moored there and one was presently in the process of taking flight into the cloudy sky. That was apparently the district we had to head for, but before we could even think of moving past Pillory we had to worry about finding somepony else flying North and willing to let two young fillies pay passage aboard as passengers.

And besides, this was provided we could even enter the city without it being a problem. If Pillory were anything like Cyclosa, the only entrances into the city would be guarded. I did not know whether or not word of our escape from Cyclosa had already reached Pillory, but if it did then I could not count on using the front gate that the trodden path from atop the hill lead to.

I explained all this to Luna and she nodded in understanding.

“The walls look kinda...old,” she suggested. Indeed, she was right. Pillory was much larger than Cyclosa, but it was also much older, and this was no more evident then in the walls surrounding the city. They had been beaten mercilessly by the ages, and seemed to be crumbling apart in places. Nopony cared if anyone came or left the city, and as such no move had been made to fix them. Discord’s guards could not have cared less if the occasional dust storm seeped through the cracks and destroyed some poor ponies house.

“Maybe we can find a crack big enough to fit through,” Luna said.

“Yeah. Good idea.”

It took us shy of thirty minutes to scale the steady decline until the towering walls of Pillory were before us. It perhaps would not have taken as long if we would have followed the pronounced path in the dirt leading to the front gates, but our desire for secrecy made it an impossibility to do so. As such, we descended at a diagonal, and reached the wall at a position where we were clearly beyond the range that any guard could have spotted us.

We circled the immense perimeter of the town for another half an hour. The rain grew as if to accompany my billowing dread. Soon it was pouring down our manes, weighing down our cloaks and sending shivers down both our spines. The dirt under our hooves quickly became sloshy and unpleasant, as if we were travelling through a marsh. I knew that too long in the wet and cold would make us sick in no time, and my desperation grew as the rain mercilessly beat down.

Finally, our trek heralded an entrance into the town. It was a section of the wall that had collapsed significantly, so that bits of destroyed concrete formed a crude incline into an abandoned, roofless building that at one point could have been a factory. Gratefully, we scuttled up the miraculous entrance, and into the city of Pillory.

We entered on the second floor of the abandoned building. The floor was riddled with holes and signs of decay, and it groaned and creaked as we moved towards the broken steps and descended them. The first floor was empty also. Even with the roof of the second floor above us it was still covered with at least an inch of water, and the concrete ceiling sagged down at intimidatingly steep declines, but nonetheless we both lay down on the floor to rest.

“Celly…” Luna said once we were both sitting. “My...my forehead feels funny.”

My blood curdled as I recalled the feeling of pain in my sides, several months ago. I had gone to sleep in slight pain, and when I had awoken the beginnings of my wings were already jutting from my body. Could the same thing be happening to Luna already?

I was in the middle of contemplating whether I should tell this to Luna or simply let it happen, but it seemed I did not need to decide.

“I think my horn might be growing in.”

Silence, save for the patter of water outside.

“That’s...wonderful,” I said eventually.

“It hurts though. It hurts really bad.”

“How long has it been hurting?” I asked warily. I didn’t like the idea of my sister being in pain and me being oblivious to it for so long.

“Since...since a little after the dust storm,” she admit sullenly.

“Come on, Luna! You need to tell me about stuff like this! Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s honestly not that bad, Celly,” she said, although the sudden grimace seemed to differ. I had no way of knowing for certain, but I imagined the pain associated with a horn growing from a pony’s forehead would have been quite significant. Not that my wings had been a walk in the park, but the complaints Luna recounted of intense headaches and the times she almost lost consciousness led me to believe she had it much worse.

But, even if she did have it worse, she certainly did not show it. Even as a filly, Luna was one of the strongest ponies I’d ever seen. Through hardship, discomfort, pain, she did her best to not let her good nature waver. Any longer in the slums of Cyclosa, and I doubt that she would have been able to maintain that resilience, however. I truly believe I saved her at the dwindling moments of her equinity, and I believe by doing so she managed to save my own.

The abandoned building was hardly an ideal place to be staying, and when Luna began to cough uncontrollably I decided that finding an airship and getting the hell out of Erisia was more important than resting our hooves. Besides, we had both gone nearly three days without food and were both incredibly hungry.

At the prospect of food, and seeing airships, Luna was ecstatic. Before trotting into the city, I took care to make sure my cloak was secured well and was successfully concealing my wings. I did the same with Luna, although it did not matter too much with her.

The district of Pillory we entered into seemed to have fallen into disrepair. It seemed the building we had entered into was not the only abandoned one; this entire section was a maze of old factories and other tall buildings whose purposes had seemingly been deemed useless, and whose presence now served no purpose. It was largely uninhabited, although the ponies who did inhabit such a decrepit part of the town were not ones I would have liked to encounter. The shattering of bottles and burning of barrel fires confirmed they were indeed there, but through the darkness of the storming skies overhead we silently made our way towards the center of Pillory so that we could find the airship district.

It might have been noon or it might have been the middle of the night. It was impossible to tell with the sky nothing but a sheet of black cloud and descending rain. There were no torches or streetlamps until we finally left the ghost district behind, and entered the center of the town. The tall spire loomed ahead of us, it’s spindly top stretching far into the sky. It might have been a monument or it might have actually had some sort of purpose. All I know for certain was that it was a hideous eyesore that I tried not to pay attention to.

Even if it was primarily a garden, the center of the town seemed to be where many of the ponies were, and as such we steered clear of it. From the garden the town split into six different directions, but I had no idea which one led where. Bewildered, I stopped dead in my tracks and frantically wished for some sort of sign to help me distinguish where I was supposed to go.

There is little to be described of Pillory that would not simply be a reiteration of what I have already explained of Cyclosa. In many ways the larger city was an improvement over our home town. Perhaps if the rain had not reduced the streets to a hideous sludge my opinion on the city would have improved. The buildings were taller, some as much as five or six stories, but many of them seemed to be abandoned just like the first district we had entered.

The town had guards who resembled the ones in Cyclosa almost exactly. Fortunately, the crowd was dense enough even in the middle of the night that their attention could never have solely fallen on me and Luna.

Even though it’s purpose was to be a garden, the center of the town seemed more like a clustered hub of all the districts compiled into one. I smelt burning food and I could see vendors and other ponies trying to sell rotten looking fruit. It was a mad congregation of ponies with every possible purpose.

There were many more barrel fires, some of which seemed to be in use as makeshift cookstoves. Luna seemed to noticed them too, because she tugged on my cloak and pointed.

“Uhh...Celestia…” she muttered uneasily. “W...what’s that on the spit?”

I followed Luna’s gaze, and the moment I caught sight of the skinned red carcass above the flames I felt as though I was about to be sick.

“It’s cattle, Luna,” I said, my voice quavering as I realized how savage this city truly was. “They eat meat here.”

“Dear Discord…” Luna murmured, unwillingly using his name as an expletive like we all had grown accustomed to doing. “That’s...that’s disgusting! It’s murder!”

Round and round the dead creature spun, but worse than the cow itself was the nonchalant, uncaring expression of the stallion spinning it. He was preparing a sentient creature to be devoured and he did not look even remotely bothered by it.

“They aren’t even a little guilty about it!” Luna echoed my thoughts.

“Come on, Luna, let’s keep moving.”

For the first time, I realized there were signposts next to each of the six spoke-like pathways. Realizing how preemptive my bewildered panic had been moments later, I approached them with a slightly amused smile.

My smile was quick to fade when I saw a sizable sign depicting of a young white mare posted on the side of a brick building directly beside the signpost. Crude though it was, it was unquestionably supposed to be myself.

And it was unquestionably an alicorn being depicted.

“Have you seen this mare?” The sign asked in harsh block capitals. ‘Missing’ or ‘Wanted’ signs were nothing new, but any hope of anypony passing this one by was quickly snuffed out by the capitalized, painted red word directly underneath, confirming to anypony too stupid to see both wing and horn that this particular refugee was an alicorn.

There was a short descriptive passage, too. Fully understanding the risk of somepony bearing witness to me looking at my own Wanted poster, I took a moment to glance at it. I saw my name, the word alicorn too many times, and the word Cyclosa. Fortunately, the other name I’d been dreading was not mentioned.

My name had most likely been provided by one of the guards from the scrapyard. But I’d never told them of my sister, let alone given them her name. While I had been identified, Luna was at least safe. And, considering she was not included in the depiction, it seemed she was not even a target. I breathed a sigh of relief and led Luna onwards, even though she was still heavily focused on the poster.

“Celly, that was—”

“Shut up! Don’t call me that!” I cut her off sharply.

“Celly?”

“Shut up!” I hissed again. “Yes!”

I leaned down to tell her more directly. The streets were relatively deserted, but I did not want to take any chances.

“You saw the poster. Ponies are gonna start looking for me, so if you go around blurting my name for them all to hear…”

“Oh my gosh!” Luna gasped. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” I smiled. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. If anypony asks your name, it’s Selena, alright?”

Luna let out an amused snort.

“I thought you were Selena.”

“It works better for you,” I said, shrugging.

Luna’s response was lost to a hacking cough, and a grimace as it further led to an intensification of the headache caused by her growing horn. Wishing for nothing but warmth before her sickness got worse, I increased the rate of my trot into the shipyard, any of our rarely occurring good humor dying off in an instant.

So they knew. In time, all of Erisia would know. That made things considerably more problematic.

All I could do now was simply hope we could find an airship pilot who either had not seen the posters, or had some shard of mercy in them that they would pretend they hadn’t. If even for a moment they made an attempt to pry into our stories (or remove my cloak) then I would swiftly deny passage and flee without a second thought.

Pillory’s shipyard was a maze of airships all docked haphazardly in a space that seemed to small to support them all. But I was not hoping to secure passage in the yard itself. Surrounding the yard itself were several filthy looking bars, and it was towards them that I trotted. Luna stayed outside while I nervously pushed the door of a gondola-turned-bar open and strode in as confidently as I could manage. I’d raised the hood of my cloak, largely concealing the tell-tale signs that I was a foolish young mare quite clearly out of her element.

Eyes turned to watch me regardless, but I ignored them as I eagerly approached the counter.

“Excuse me…” I greeted the stallion on the other side.

“Evening, young mare.” he said, his grin showing teeth I’d have prefered not to have seen. “Are you lost?”

He guffawed at his own joke, and I grimaced and narrowed my eyes.

“No. I’m not. I need passage on an airship that’s flying North.”

I was well aware of the fact that I had an audience, but I dared not turn around to greet them. I was trying my hardest to appear purposeful and confident, but truly I was nearly shaking in uncontrollable fear. I’d seen another poster of myself on the way into the shipyard, and I was praying that one had not been presented directly to this stallion or anypony else in the shipyards.

“North? Where’s about? Gotta give me town, young mare.”

“No, I don’t. I’ll discuss that with a pilot.” I said. “And not one in this dump.”

I turned from the counter angrily. I knew full well I had made a grave mistake entering the bar, and with dozens of gruff ponies watching me as I exited I came to the conclusion that I would get Luna and sprint as far from the shipyards as possible and think of something else.

I hurried outside whilst doing my best not to look like I was hurrying. Luna was by my side in a moment.

“That was fast! Did you get us a ship?”

“No, I didn’t.” I said, bring a hoof to my nose and grimacing. “Come on, Luna. Let’s go.”

“But...but the ship!” I was already heading back in the direction we came, but Luna had stayed behind and was motioning upwards at the flickering sign of the shabby bar I had just exited.

“Let’s go.” I snarled. Seeing my urgency, she quickly obeyed, but it was all too late.

“Wait!” A voice called after us as I started to leave. “You wanted passage North?”

“I changed my mind.” I said without turning around.

“Are you sure? Me and my wife are more than happy to offer it…”

That had been enough to cause me to stop and turn around. I’d been expecting to see a gruff, harsh looking pony. What I saw instead was an older stallion with an honest grin and a beautiful mare standing next to him. The Earth pony couple both had vibrantly coloured and well-groomed manes and coats, the stallion had a bright pinkish-ivory coat with a red mane, while his wife had a similarly coloured coat but with a mane of a deeper pink.

“Who the hell are you?” I rose an eyebrow. The thought of anypony wanting to help us seemed ridiculously suspicious, even if this...oddly happy looking couple were the ones offering it.

“Rose. Mr and Mrs. Pleased to meet you, Miss…?” he offered a hoof, one that I did not shake.

“Solana,” I said, taking a step back. “And my younger sister Selena.”

“Pleased to meet you two,” he smiled. “So you need a ride North?”

“Yeah. You have an airship?”

He nodded eagerly.

“ The Damask Rose. As I said, we’re pleased to offer help.”

“Not for free, I presume,” I questioned. That would be too good to be true. Evidently, he also thought so, because his grin faltered at the urgency of my question.

“Well, no. We can take you due North a couple hundred klicks for…let’s say a hundred and fifty bits.”

“A hundred and fifty?!” I exclaimed. “Are you nuts?”

In the coin purse, I’d had a little over a hundred. I’d known booking passage aboard an airship would have been expensive, but a hundred and fifty bits was more than I was willing to pay in any universe. I removed my coin-purse from a deep pocket in my cloak and quickly looked at the mass of bits within.

“How about ninety?” I offered.

“Ninety bits for two passengers is a little shallow…” he began. “But fine. You two seem rather desperate.”

My thoughts were a flurry of gratefulness and suspicion as I counted out nine small piles of bits and offered them to the Rose couple, doing so with my telekinesis as a simple means of exercising my magic. I was content we were getting passage for nearly half of what he had asked, but at the same time I knew damn well that his initial price was ludicrous anyways. It wasn’t as though us being in the ship came at any cost to them anyways; they were flying North regardless of whether or not we were in the ship or not.

“Thank you!” Luna piped up, contrasting my judgmental thoughts.

“You’re certainly welcome, young filly.” Mrs. Rose said with a wide smile, placing the bits into a saddlebag of her own.

“So where’s the ship?” I cut in. “No offense, but we’d like to be out of Pillory before too long.”

“Oh...we weren’t planning to depart until morning,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

“What? Seriously?!” I exclaimed. I was inches from demanding my bits back, when another thought struck me. If I made it obvious I was in a rush to be out of Pillory, there was simply no way it would not rouse suspicion. It was a miracle they had not recognized me in the first place, and I quickly decided I wasn’t going to push that miracle any further.

“Fine. One night.” I said. “Come on Selena, let’s go get some food. See you two soon.”

I didn’t wait for any further response. The eerily cheerful smiles they had given me had made me feel uncomfortable, and my stomach had been giving me hell for some time and I imagined Luna’s was quite the same. Strange and eccentric as they were, the Rose couple seemed nice enough, and if they had any (admittedly justifiable) suspicions of us, they did not show them.

We traveled back down the spoke-path towards the center of the town while the rain continued falling. It had not lessened for hours, and it would not end for many hours more. Somewhere in Pillory I imagined we would be able to find some form of food that we could actually eat. If we were fortunate, we’d even be able to find a tavern to stay in.

Come morning, we would be in an airship, leaving the steep, gritty, mud-filled streets of Pillory far behind anyways.

The Blind Bat

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I didn’t really want to have to spend our little remaining bits, but Luna’s health was a matter of much greater importance than keeping our wallet full. If it came to it, I could always steal a couple more bits or supplies. Even with the storm rumbling above, I wanted nothing more than to board the Damask Rose and leave Pillory and eventually Erisia behind. But I doubt her owner’s felt the same, and if I wanted to steer clear of prying questions then I would have to avoid any and all confrontations with them.

“Keep you eyes open for an inn, Luna,” I said to her as she walked behind me. Save for her occasional cough, the only other sound was our hooves sloshed through deep puddles of freezing rainwater. The maze-like streets of the city didn’t quite help matters, since they were all angled to allow the water to fall into wide storm drains and into the wide sewers below. As a result, it was almost like we were constantly traveling against the force of a river of sludgy water.

I spotted the hanging sign bearing the miracle promise of shelter, complete with the words ‘Inn’ stenciled in proud red capitals underneath a crude silhouette depiction of a bat hanging from a branch with it’s wings unfurled. Lanterns and firelight bloomed from the windows and was reflected by the rushing water we were trodding through, promising warmth and comfort at a price.

‘The Blind Bat’ was as disgusting and filthy as the rest of the city of Pillory, but even if it was a dingy dive, it was a dingy dive with food and a roaring fire, which was a vast improvement to the freezing, rainy city streets outside. Luna’s was now shivering madly, and her cough was at times so violent that I was afraid she would attract the attention of the city’s guards.

The rain continued falling in a torrential downpour outside when Luna and I stumbled into the Blind Bat Inn. A dozen gruff looking stallion’s eyes sitting with their muzzles half engulfed by large mugs of liquor followed us as I lead the way to the front bar where a mare was polishing glasses that would be filthy no matter how hard she tried.

“One room, and a meal,” I said. Luna already had our wallet drawn and dropped it down on the counter. It sagged significantly, undoubtedly quite used to holding many more bits than what Luna and I currently possessed.

She rose an eyebrow, probably wondering why mares as young as ourselves were alone in such a dangerous world, but if she had any suspicion beyond that then she did not show it. The guards had been one thing, but the last thing I needed was for somepony else to recognize us from the crude alicorn depictions the posters had warned of.

“That’ll be a dozen bits, and an extra five for the meals.”

Luna was digging through the wallet in a moment, but before she even withdrew a single bit she turned to me with a panicked expression.

“We only have ten bits left,” she whispered.

“Please…” I began, floating the wallet across the desk towards the mare, “We...we don’t have enough bits. It would really mean a lot if—”

“I’m sorry,” she shook her head, pushing the wallet back, “I’m not running a charity here, darling. No bits, no room.”

“But it’s freezing out there!” I protested, motioning outside. As I did, I caught the judging stares of the many intimidating looking ponies sitting around us, but I ignored them and pressed on. “And I think something is wrong with my sister. I realize this is your business, but she might be in danger! Is that really worth any bits to you?!”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle as she shook her head again and turned her attention back to the glass that she apparently deemed more important than us. There was a long period of silence, broken only by a single cough from Luna, while the innkeeper moved her attention from the cup to the counter. It was pretty clear that this was a battle I wasn’t going to win without attracting a bit of attention.

“Fine!” I said sharply, “Just something to eat for both of us then. And a mug of whatever the hell you have here to drink.”

I withdrew five bits from the wallet, and turned from the mare before my irritation ended up getting me and Luna kicked from the inn entirely. I’d have loved to show that wench how much I cared about her putrid little inn which I think would be a comfortable home to indeed a blind bat alone.

Luna and I sat down at a table close to the fire, as far from the prying eyes of the other customers and the innkeeper counting our bits to make sure I’d given her enough. Luna began removing her soaked hood and cloak, but I shook my head.

“They’re all looking at us right now, Luna,” I said in a hushed whisper, “I’m not sure, but they might recognize us from those posters that Discord’s guards are putting up.”

“When does our airship leave?” she cast a few nervous glances behind her.

“First thing tomorrow.” I gave her an enthusiastic smile. “We’re almost out of this, sis.”

“Do you think they know what we are?”

“The Earth ponies? Maybe...but they got our bits, I can’t imagine why they would care.”

Luna nodded, but still the obvious traces of uncertainty lingered in her expression as she idly scratched the tarnished table.

“Here, scoot over,” I said, digging out our tattered, dust-filled map and unfurling it across the table. We'd found it someways down the path after the dust storm, and while it was greatly damaged it was still legible. I rolled out of my spot across from her and instead sat on the same side of the table, so we were both looking at the map from the same angle.

“We’ll be traveling as far as Oppidium,” I pointed at the settlement with a hoof. It was a point further north than I’d have ever imagined traveling, but it was still only part of our pilgrimage out of Erisia. It was as close as I ever dared to get to the heart of Erisia, where Discord was fabled to rule.

“In Oppidium…” I continued, “We’ll find another airship that’ll take us as far north as possible, but I imagine we’ll have to walk many miles after that.”

“What about this city?” Luna asked, pointing to a large and harshly drawn star a hundred or so miles north of Canterlot Mountain. “Stormsbor—”

“No!” I said loudly, slamming a hoof down on the table. “We steer clear of Stormsborough at all costs!”

“Why?” Luna meekly inquired.

“That’s where Discord is said to rule. It’s the biggest city in Erisia, but it’s also the most dangerous. For two alicorns, it’s nothing short of suicide. We avoid Stormsborough no matter what, understood?”

“I’m sorry...I didn’t know.”

“It’s alright,” I sighed. Luna let out a wide yawn and leaned her head against me while I continued contemplating the map in front of us. “How’s your horn?”

“It’s fine. It feels a little tingly, but it doesn’t hurt too much anymore.”

“That’s good,” I said. “It seems to be coming in fast, like my wings. You’ll be casting spells in no time.”

Luna giggled and brought a hoof to her forehead, feeling where the bump of her horn would soon start growing. Making contact with the still sensitive area made her grimace slightly, but I was relieved to see that it wasn’t nearly as violently as before, as if it simply felt a tad uncomfortable as opposed to downright painful. It seemed the pain came and went as it pleased.

The innkeeper brought us our food before long, along with a bottle of mead which I didn’t really want but needed to clear my mind if I was going to be able to make it until the morning. Alcohol was something my parents could never have afforded, and I'd always wanted to try it.

While Luna drained her stained glass of murky water and devoured her meal as swiftly as possible, I lightly prodded mine and took cautious sips of mead, choosing to stay more focused on making sure we weren’t being watched than on the meal in front of me.

Finally, I looked down at my plate and was shocked to see an odd food I had never seen before. I poked it cautiously with a hoof, looked over at Luna’s plate, and found that she, too, had left it alone out of uncertainty.

“Luna…” I said, “This...this red stuff they gave us. I think it’s venison.”

"Venison?”

“It’s deer, Luna.”

With horror, she looked down at the untouched meat, eying it as if it was a volatile substance about to explode. She extended a shaking hoof and pushed the plate away from her and across the table.

“I came so close to trying it…”

“You didn’t know any better, sis,” I assured. “I thought this city had run out of ways of making me sick. They serve it like it’s not even a big deal.”

Luna sighed in disgust, yawned, and did not touch her food again. Between quick swigs of mead, I listened to her breathing gradually change pitch as she slowly fell asleep. Even close to the fire, her fur was still damp and cool, but it didn’t seem to be enough to hinder her tired eyes from shutting on the world and her mind to settle on a much calmer, happier world in her dreams. We may have been denied a room, but I wasn’t about to leave the inn any time soon.

For nearly an hour we sat in total silence, Luna fast asleep as I slowly worked my way through the sizable bottle of mead.

Just as I was reaching to grab a baked potato Luna had left abandoned on her plate, I felt a biting pain in my long-grown in wings, and moments later the pain was echoed through my horn and then into my hooves. As Luna slept, I saw her shudder without waking, as if affected by the same sensation as me. Following the pain, I felt a lump hit my stomach and then crawl up my throat, and before I even knew what I doing I was stumbling to my feet and out the door into the rainy streets of Pillory.

I shakily navigated my way to the alley closest to the inn, ignoring the ponies keeping warm beside bonfires watching as I collapsed to the cobblestone.

I felt as if I was going to be sick, and sure enough the lump in my throat changed to a tingling and I realized that I was sick.

I squeezed my eyes shut and simply listened to the unsteady pattering of liquid joining the drone of the rain. I think the ponies outside the alley that had been watching may have started laughing and making snide remarks as I was sick, but I found my head felt heavy and it was difficult to focus on anything but emptying my stomach. When I was finally finished, I felt dizzy and the dull light of the moon beyond the storming clouds was too bright and forced me to squeeze my eyes shut tight.

When I next opened them, the alley was gone and I was standing on a bridge seemingly made of starlight, surrounded by the same small stars as well as a milky stream flowing through the sky like the aurora borealis, but all the same greyish white. It was a majestic plain of white and blue and black, and as I beheld it the pain in my hoof, wings, and in my head faded away.

“CELESTIA, YOUNG MARE OF CYCLOSA.” A loud voice rang out suddenly. I whipped frantically around, trying and failing to find a source. It had no discernible gender, it sounded more akin to the low rumble of thunder than it did a ponies voice.

“YOU ARE NOT ORDINARY.”

As I had expected, it had no source. It seemed to be booming out from the sky itself, and from the space below the starry bridge I was standing on.

“YOU ARE NO UNICORN. YOU ARE NO EARTH PONY. YOU ARE NO PEGASUS. THERE ARE NONE LIKE YOU.”

The colossal voice paused for a short while, before continuing.

“YET YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”

“What are you?” I finally said. I was hardly aware of the celestial sky around me, nor confused as to how I had appeared there. It was stating information I needed not hear, but doing so in a voice bordering on threatening.

“I swear, if you want trouble, I’d be happy to—”

“YOU ARE HOPE. YOUR SISTER IS HOPE.”

“Hope for what?” I chortled, growing tired with this delusion and simply wishing I was back in the rainy streets of Pillory. “I’m not hope. I’m just trying to keep myself and Luna alive. I never wanted these wings.”

“YOU HAVE NOT YET RISEN. THE WINGS ON YOUR BACK AND EVEN THE HORN ON YOUR HEAD MEAN NOTHING YET. BUT THEY SHALL.”

“What are you talking about?” I screamed. The moment the words left my mouth, my head resumed it’s throbbing as the pain in my horn and wings and in my head once again resumed. As simple as with a single blink, the world of the starry celestial plain disappeared, and I was lying drenched in the middle of a dingy alley beside the Blind Bat Inn.

For several minutes, I simply sat on the cobblestone street, listening to the rain’s song and trying to piece together what I had just heard. I’d heard of ponies becoming delirious or having their perceptions affected by the consumption of alcohol, but I did not think for even a moment what I had just experienced had anything to do with it. It felt as though I had just borne witness to some foreboding prophecy, and even my bitter attitude towards superstition and fate could not deny that there was definitely something unnatural about the dream I had just had.

“Celestia!” I heard Luna exclaim, and groggily I rose to face her as she ran up to me, weighed down only slightly by both of our saddlebags. Her enthusiastic, boisterous run managed to garner a few chuckles from the ponies who had been watching me earlier.

“Luna? What are you doing out here?”

“I woke up and you were gone. I got scared and went looking for you.” Luna paused, as if contemplating saying something else.

“I...I had a weird nightmare, sis,” she began. With obvious hesitation, Luna shakily recounted with frightening similarity her dream, which was almost exactly the same as what I had dreamt, right down to the specific details of the celestial plain we had both been standing on. Luna broke off again as she saw my evident uneasiness, but I nodded for her to continue anyways.

“It didn’t feel like a dream, though. It felt more like...”

“A prophecy?” I finished.

“Yeah! Like a prophecy!”

“I had the exact same dream, Luna.” It would seem it wasn’t the mead after all.

“Really?!” she cried.

“Luna, please stop shouting. But yes, I did. Come on, let’s go back inside where it’s warm.”

“But what about the dream—”

“Luna, it was just a dream,” I lied, and started walking back towards the entrance to the inn. I didn’t believe even for a moment that it indeed was just a dream, but that did not stop me from carrying a firm disapproval of the words it had spoken. Hope? Not Luna, and certainly not myself. Hope against what?

We weren’t saving Erisia from anything nor anyone. As far as I was concerned, me and Luna were just flying north. Somewhere there, before the tundra in the lush forests by the Crystal Mountains, we would live in secret and silence, so that my younger sister might still have a chance to live in the first place. It would be difficult getting there, miles upon miles of grueling road and treacherous skies, city after city of curious ponies and Erisian guards.

I’d never asked for the life thrust at us, in my case by the wings on my back and in Luna’s case by the horn forming on her head. But regardless of what we were, I carried the obligation of survival for myself and my sister, and no voice in a dream was about to shift me into something more than I was.

I pushed the Blind Bat's doors open and we once again entered the filthy inn. Thankfully, our spot by the fire had remained vacant after Luna had left it, but it had since been cleared and unskillfully wiped clean. We resumed sitting where it was warm as we waited for the night to pass.

Luna brought the dream up once again when we sat down, and I simply let her talk while giving off simple one word answers of my own. She was enthusiastic and excited about the prophetic dream, and while I did not like it, the thought of crushing her boisterous attitude was hardly a welcoming one. Her life was too hopeless for me to justify destroying the tiny glimmers that occasionally made it through the dark to make it look as though we were anything more than victims under Discord’s fearsome rule.

So instead of stopping her, I let her speak and I simply listened. Her wild fantasies and predictions were sweet and innocent like those of a young filly should be, full of adventures and happy endings, as if Erisia was less a bleak dystopia and more akin to a fairy tale kingdom from the books I used to read to her back in Cyclosa.

She was right in the middle of offering her interpretation of what heroic deeds we were expected to do, when the ringing of a bell perched above the inn door announced somepony’s entrance into the building. I peered over Luna’s shoulder to see who, and felt my blood curdle as I beheld the pegasus ponies striding purposefully up to the innkeeper.

“Luna,” I cut her off sharply, the word half hissed, half whispered. “Don’t look now, but two Erisian Guards just entered the tavern.”

Instantly she fell silent and tensed in her chair, but did not turn around and instead looked to me with wide and terrified eyes.

“What do we do?” she whispered, but I didn’t answer right away and she did not ask again.

As inconspicuously as possible I watched them traverse the inn, some ponies turning to watch them but many choosing to mind their own business, for unlike us they had no trouble with Discord nor his guard. Like the guards in Cyclosa (and, all of Erisia I would later find out) they wore helmets with the same sharpened black horns like tree limbs. My worst fears were confirmed when the leftmost guard withdrew one of the posters of me and Luna and showed it to the innkeeper with a curious expression.

“Shit,” I said as she looked at the picture, and then raised a hoof to point us out. For a split second our eyes locked, and I think the terrified, wide eyed look of horror given by Erisia’s two greatest alicorn foes caught even the guards by surprise. Whatever they had been told about us, I doubt any of it was true.

I didn’t see their immediate reactions, however, because in a moment we had risen and bolted through the door from the warmth of the inn into the streets of Pillory. We instantly both broke into a canter simultaneously, turning wildly and randomly through alley after alley until we were nearly lost into the heart of the city’s slums.

“H...how…” I panted angrily as we ran. “How in Tartarus do they know we’re here?!”

Luna didn’t have an answer for me, but her huffed sigh lead me to believe she shared in my frustration. As quietly as we had been slipping from the inn and into the night, our saddlebags made quite the racket at our fastest speed, so once I deemed us far enough from the inn I slowed to a nervous walk.

“Alright, so they’re looking for us. Let’s get on that airship and get out of this city right now.” I asserted firmly.

“But it’s not leaving until morning.” Luna pointed out.

“I don’t care. For ninety bits, they’d better be a little more accommodating anyways. I’ll steal their ship if I have to, but those guards can’t be far behind us, so we need to move fast.”

In the stillness of night, Pillory’s back alleys were no more than wooden shacks, and the only sound was the rain falling and our own hooves as we ran. Only once did we have to hide in the shadows when the sound of pegasi wingbeats rung out overhead, and the guard flew by us without so much as noticing our presence. We made it to Pillory’s airship berths without incident.

I motioned for Luna to lead ahead and look for the Damask Rose while I branched off and watched our surroundings for signs of life. Many of the ships had windows which were illuminated, and even in the dead of night the sound of maintenance machinery rung out every once in awhile in the distance. For the most part, though, the huge envelopes of the airships stood still like great black balloons overhead, eerily silent in the midnight rain.

Suddenly, I heard voices, and crawled underneath a dirigible hovering several feet off the ground to watch. I saw torchlight and if I focused I could hear fragments of their conversation as they walked.

“...from a dump like Cyclosa? It’s no wonder Discord didn’t see them coming.”

“Silence, you fool! That’s the Lord of Chaos you’re talking about!”

“So what? It’s not like he’s here to do anything.”

“Look, let’s just find those fillies so we can go home, alright? I’m freezing out here.”

"Did you see the look on the blue one's face?" A shiver of fury erupted down my spine as the guard chuckled. "They looked a little too cowardly to be the great threat they're supposed to be."

"You'd be too, if the entire population of Erisia wanted you dead. Instead of just me."

Their conversation continued as they moved further on into the maze of airships, their words quickly fading into the sound of the rain. I crawled out from underneath the dirigible and broke out into the fastest trot I could afford while still moving as silent as possible.

A whispered hiss of my name rung out from behind me as I did, and whipping around I saw Luna crawl from underneath a pile of scrap metal and discarded materials.

“Guards, sis. Two of them.”

“I heard. But I found our ship, Tia.”

“You did?” I felt like screaming with joy and hugging her, but I restrained myself and settled for a loving nuzzle instead. “Great work, Luna.”

“Thanks. It’s over here, come on.”

She led the way on the tip of her hooves, creeping as silently as possible between dirigibles and airships. The whole while I watched the dancing of the guard’s torchlight as they stalked the berths. Before long, she stopped in front of a boxy, hideous looking gondola, connected to a yellow balloon that was imploding in several places where tears in the fabric had been haphazardly sewn back together. It was a dirigible style airship, with the gondola bolted directly onto the balloon. In addition to the bridge and living quarters of the airship’s envelope, another shoddily constructed mass of wood hung below the sternmost half of the ship like a wooden parasite, perhaps a room added to the ship as an after thought.

I was almost disappointed to see the name Damask Rose painted across the hull of this piece of junk and scrap metal, but with the guards coming ever closer to our location, I had very little time to care.

There were lights on in the cabin, so I grabbed a stone and threw it at the glass pane while praying the noise it made wasn’t loud enough that the guards heard.

It hit, made a light tapping sound, and I heard shocked and then hushed whispers from within the ship. After one long, unbearable minute, a window cracked open and the earth pony stallion poked his head out to look at us.

“Evening girls! You’re quite earl—”

“Shh!” I hissed, doing my best to project my voice upwards at the hovering dirigible instead of across the berth to where the guards were. “Keep your voice down! Look, we need to leave Pillory now, alright?”

If he looked reluctant, I didn’t see it in his apathetic expression. He nodded slowly, turned around to speak with his wife, and was gone for but a shadow of a moment before the gangplank of was dropped and only hardly stopped by me before it hit the ground with a loud thud. I struggled a little as a I grasped the heavy wooden plank and eased it down onto the dirt as slowly as possible. Quickly we both dashed up the board and into the gondola, shaking ourselves free of the water in our soaked manes.

“Here’s a couple of towels for you girls,” Mrs. Rose said warmly, and me and Luna wordlessly lunged for them and began drying ourselves off. I discreetly motioned for Luna to keep on her hood, and I too kept my cloak safely concealing my wings.

“We...I’m sorry...we really have to get out of Pillory,” I began. “I’ll give you the rest of our bits as compensation, but I’m afraid the rest of our bits isn’t much.”

“That won’t be necessary Miss Solana,” Mr. Rose called from the front of the gondola, which I turned to face for the first time and saw was covered from the plank floor to the low hanging roof in buttons and switches and various improvised bits of machinery undoubtedly designed with an initially different purpose. Nearly everything in the Damask Rose had been something else at one point, even the gondola itself was more than likely a small fishing boat in it’s past life.

“We’re not cleared to take off until the morning,” Rose explained, idly tapping a hoof against the control panel while taking a sip of some steaming beverage in the other. “But you two are welcome to stay onboard until we do.”

Well, it wasn’t exactly what I had wanted, but ultimately it would suffice. I couldn’t see the torchlight of the guards through the musty, wide window at the front of the gondola, but I knew they were out there. A ship departing early would raise suspicion immediately, and I doubt the Damask Rose was equipped to survive an assault from an Erisian scoutship if it escalated to that.

Still, they had seen us in the Blind Bat, which meant our presence in Pillory would be common knowledge amongst the guards by morning. Even if we had escaped, we had still been seen and so it mattered not. It was a distinct possibility that all ships would be stopped from leaving the next morning, perhaps even inspected by the guards like our home had been back in Cyclosa.

My panicked thoughts were interrupted by a sudden question said loudly from behind.

“Solana, dear? I asked, did you two want anything to eat?”

Luna looked at me with eyes that told me she did, so I nodded.

“That would be very much appreciated, Mrs. Rose.”

She smiled and headed off towards the back of the gondola. The entire gondola was one room, with the control panel, wheel, and speed throttle which was divided into the familiar speeds from full ahead to full astern. Presently it was sitting comfortably at ‘stop’ and locked in place. If one pressed their snout to the glass, they could just barely see the twin propellers on opposite sides of the dirigible jutting out. Behind the control panel was the now raised gangplank rising against the wall, with a coat rack next to it. Directly in the middle of the ship was a ladder leading up into the balloon. Behind where we were standing was the living area of the ship, no more than a few cupboards and wardrobes half-heartedly organized close to one bed which I assumed the Rose’s shared. Two stained rococo-styled couches that may once have been expensive were bolted to the floor next to the ship’s lone stern window.

Mrs. Rose was preparing what looked like soup over-top a simple wooden stove sitting just within the living quarters of the ship. Me and Luna was instantly enticed by the smell, but politely made our way to the couches to sit and wait in silence. I watched the rain streak down the window and tried to catch a glimpse of the guards, but I saw nothing.

Luna was smiling ever so slightly, the way she did when she found somepony to be exceedingly kind or generous. The way I hadn’t seen for quite some time. It was a smile not necessarily expressive of joy, but more satisfaction. Satisfaction perhaps at the exposition that the world wasn’t as cruel as it looked on the exterior, and good existed without fail.

With the wood-stove burning warmly and the scent of the soup wafting through the air, I couldn’t help but smile, too. I leaned forward and looked into Luna’s bright blue eyes.

“We’re almost out of this.” I said for the second time that night.

“Tia...what do you really think those dreams meant?”

“I don’t know, sis, and that’s the truth. Sometimes dreams are just dreams.”

“They said we were different,” Luna recalled, apparently not hearing me. “But, they said it in a good way. Not like the guards or, like…”

She stopped herself before she said the two names on her mind, but I knew exactly what she was going to say anyways and nodded.

“We don’t need them, Selena," I said. I doubt the Roses could have heard us, but I wasn't taking chances. "We’ve got each other. We’ve left Cyclosa behind.”

Mrs. Rose arrived with two steaming bowls of soup and me and Luna took them gratefully and both muttered our thanks, before digging into the delicious meal without any further hesitation. It was a mushroom soup, perhaps not the greatest in the world but to two near-starved fillies it could have been our last meal and we would have been satisfied. Luna finished before me and politely asked Mrs. Rose for more, and the pink earth pony gladly complied and returned our bowls once again filled to the brim with soup.

"So, what exactly are two young fillies like yourselves doing all by yourselves, if you don't mind my prying?" she asked, instead of immediately leaving.

It didn't sound as though she had asked it with any ulterior motives in mind, she simply sounded genuinely curious, so I held back any cold, biting reply or assertion that it was no business of hers.

"Ah, well, it's probably pretty obvious, but we're sisters," I said between sips of my soup. Most untruthful tales are easier to spin with the threads of truth. "Orphans, actually. I just turned eighteen, and they were quick to show me the door, but I didn't want to leave my little sister all by herself. So she ran away to travel with me, and we decided we would high-tail it from this dump."

She nodded at my story. I was actually somewhat impressed how truthful it really was. We practically could have been orphans and the circumstances of our upbringing would most likely fail to shift in the slightest, and it wasn't a lie that I was being forcefully exiled from my home nor that Luna had chosen to run away with me. In fact, all I had truly done was recount our circumstances without any mention of the fact that we were both alicorns and presently refuges being pursued by every guard under Discord's rule.

"So, where did you two have in mind to "high tail it" to?" she asked.

This wasn't a detail I was going to share. If they turned out to be untrustworthy, then my destination would be a secret worth keeping.

"Nowhere, really. I was aiming to just...travel. Maybe find work with an airshipping convoy. I have a little experience with repairing airships, I was kinda hoping it would come in handy."

I'd seen such ponies in the scrapyards before. I'd even seen one young filly who had been traveling with her mother. I remembered vividly the several seconds when I had locked eyes with this young mare of about Luna's age, looking at me—a pathetic, soot stained white unicorn standing in the middle of a mountain of jagged scrap and garbage—with what almost seemed like pity. And I had looked back at her and felt an emotion that quite matched it, for she had the whole world below her and I had poverty and ever-hanging smog in the air I breathed.

"Well, good luck, Solana," Mrs. Rose said earnestly, pulling my thoughts back to the present. "I'll go get you mares some water to drink."

She returned in a moment with the clear liquid. It was easily the cleanest water I had ever seen. She gave us two tall glasses, but before I could even lift mine to drink it a strange sensation of vertigo came and left. Shaking my head clear, I experimented with my magic and tried my best to move the glass towards me. I managed to lift it off the ground and to my lips, but it came at the cost of a great multitude of lost water. Luna giggled at my theatrics but said nothing. She herself had drained her glass the moment she had received it.

I'd never tasted water as pure as what we drank then, but even as I gratefully chugged back the clear liquid something about its taste felt odd. It tasted not dissimilar to the mead I'd had earlier, but much, much richer. In a moment my head was throbbing further, the vertigo sensation back in full force. My muscles felt stiff, my eyelids unnaturally heavy. I let out a wide, involuntary yawn and nearly collapsed into unconsciousness right then and there. My yawn was so loud that it seemed even the Rose couple heard from the bow of the ship.

“Clear the moorings, honey,” Mr. Rose said, and as if in a trance I watched him unlock the speed column and gently ease it slightly towards the front glass. Outside the propellers sputtered to life.

Too unnaturally calm to be panicked, I groggily turned to Luna, only to see that she had lost consciousness and was laying half on the floor and half on the couch. In mere moments, I too was closing my eyes even as I fought to stay awake.

The last sight I saw before I lost consciousness was the pathetic outlines of the buildings of Pillory descending into the earth as the Damask Rose dropped ballast and ascended into the sky.

The Damask Rose

View Online

Slowly, my consciousness returned and my senses crept their way from beyond the darkness as I lay on the surface of some hard, uncomfortable floor. I smelt diesel and rotting wood, and besides the steady drone of airship engines I could also hear a repeated slam of something soft against what sounded like a wooden wall.

My eyes fluttered open, but there wasn’t a lot of light to greet them as I groggily rose to my feet. As I did I heard a sudden surprised gasp, and before my vision fully returned I was tackled off my feet as panic swiftly replaced my confusion, if not for a brief moment, before a familiar voice rung out.

“Tia! You’re awake!” Luna cried, hugging me again tightly.

I hugged her back and once again rose to my feet, taking in my surroundings and being far from pleased by what I saw. It was a tiny room built from flimsy looking wood, with piping and cables snaking every which way across the floor, ceiling, and walls. Every once in awhile, they’d spit out quick gusts of steam, and I could see that Luna was already covered in several burn marks from accidentally touching the maze of machinery we were caged within. Suddenly I realized, this was the lower deck of the Damask Rose.

“Are you alright, Luna?” I said, putting my hooves on her shoulders and staring straight into her eyes.

“Yeah. I...I think we’re flying. I tried to find a way out, but…”

I nodded as she trailed off. I could feel the distinct difference in air pressure, one which clearly told me that we were indeed soaring far above the earth.

“What happened to us?”

“They tricked us. The soup, it must have been drugged.”

“What are they going to do with us?” Luna asked, terror in her voice.

“Sell us, I imagine. To slavery if we're lucky, to Discord if we aren't." I still had my heavy jacket on, it was entirely possible they did not even know how valuable we truly were. "There’s a high price on the heads of alicorns, especially the last two left.”

“We’ve gotta escape!” Luna cried, stomping a hoof against the wooden floor.

“I know.”

Wasting no time, I started searching every corner of the room, looking for loose boards, bendable pipes, or anything that could help us out of the flying prison slowly but surely approaching Central Erisia. From the outside, the airship had looked pathetic and unfit for flight, but now it was quickly becoming clear to me that she was a sturdier ship than I’d given her credit for.

Seeing me thoroughly examining every nook and cranny of the tiny room in the belly of the ship, Luna instantly mimicked my actions.

“Here!” she said excitedly, and I heard the sound of bending wood. Ecstatically I leaped over the wires and pipes on the floor until I was next to her and helping her rip a small board of around three inches in width from the wall.

It bent inwards, cracked near the bottom, and I proceeded to push it straight out. It tumbled down and down, me and Luna both watching with our faces pressed against the small gap we had just made as it dropped beneath the clouds and out of sight.

Occasionally I saw a patch of desert poke from beyond the cover of clouds, at least 5,000 feet below. My heart sank as new-found panic fluttered down my spine. I might be able to glide the necessary height to safety, but Luna...

Sooner or later, one of the earth ponies would come back to check on us, and if they found out we were trying to escape then they would surely kill us. I might have currently been conscious, but the poisoned soup they’d given us still made me feel only a little stronger than a filly.

Luna was still clawing hopelessly at the other, sturdier boards directly beside where the other one had been, trying and failing to find another weak one right beside it. We could’ve shrunk by at least half of our current size and still been too small to fit through the tiny gap we’d just made, but nevertheless it was certainly large enough to show that we’d been trying to find some way out.

“Why are they doing this to us?” Luna said softly, sounding more sad than scared as she gave up and slunk to the floor with her back against the wall. “What did we ever do to them?”

“Nothing, Luna. To them, we’re wealth. The reward they can receive for turning us in is enough to take this piece of junk and fly clear out of Erisia entirely. We’re nothing but currency.”

“But we’ll be killed! Don’t...don’t they know that?!”

“Yeah, they do. And they don’t care. Ponies are trash, Luna, and they’ll leave us to the wolves at any opportunity they get, so long as it helps their worthless hides.”

The sound of hooves beating against the outside metal gangway of the airship grasped my attention, and gingerly I leaped to my feet and followed the sound until I was facing the sturdy locked metal door.

“Are you two alicorns alright in there?” The almost sympathetic sounding voice of the mare rung out. A latch on the metal door opened and I met her sad eyes with a bloodshot stare. “I...I brought some food…”

“Yeah, more poison to keep us quiet for the rest of the ride into Erisia, no doubt,” I snapped accusingly, wrapping Luna with my wing and snarling at her, “I hope this bucket of nails you call an airship crashes and burns.”

“We’re both very sorry,” she offered, and I believed her. “Ponies need to do what must be done to survive.”

“Yes,” I hissed, casting a weary glance back at the hole me and Luna had made and praying she didn’t see from the small window she was peering through. “No arguments from me on that.”

"You're worth a great amount, Celestia," I grimaced at the use of my name. I didn't like the sound of it escaping the lips of a mare I hated so dearly. She did not say it with malicious intent, but it struck me as a ferocious insult all the same. The way she was speaking to me as if I were a...product, instead of a pony, made me sick, even if I had grown used to it over the course of my whole life.

"What about my sister, huh? Is she worth anything to you?" I asked acidly. "Cause she's worth a whole lot to me..."

I muttered the words through the small opening in the metal door only at a little more than a whisper, but still with enough power to cause her to back off a little in response. It would have been easier if the Rose couple had been emotionless monsters. Truly they were still the latter, but I knew she felt sorrow and guilt towards her actions, and as such it made it harder to hate them completely.

“Please eat something," she said, choosing not to answer my question, not that she could have anyways. "I promise you it isn’t poisoned…”

“I don’t care,” I said, and spat at her through the window, causing her eyes to grow wide with surprise and her lip to quiver as if she were about to cry. She wiped her face clean with a hoof without saying a word. I imagine her sorrow was not because of me, but rather because of Luna, whose wide, desperate eyes were pure and innocent.

“Go to hell, both of you,” I sneered, turning away.

No longer sad and now probably as frustrated as I was, she huffed and slammed the window shut. I heard her hoofsteps echo across the airship gangplank and the distant slam of a hatch which probably lead to the airship’s bridge.

“Celestia...I am hungry…”

“I am too, Luna.”

“She said it wasn’t poisoned…”

“Luna, stop being a fool! Do you seriously think she would tell us the truth?”

Like with the mare, Luna’s lip started to quiver and her eyes water. But, unlike the mare, I actually cared about whether or not my sister was insulted and I laid a hoof on her shoulder. She pushed it off and looked away, purposefully dodging my eyes.

“You don’t trust anyone, Celestia,” she sniffled. “Y’know, not every pony is evil.”

“What indication could you possibly have to think that?” I said gently, once again trying and failing to meet her gaze. “The world is a sick, cruel place, and we're the only ponies who truly care about each other. Look where we are, Luna. What good have you seen since we left Cyclosa?”

“They’re scared!” she protested. I thought of our parents, of their fear, and how sending me away was supposed to help Luna but ultimately would have gotten her killed.

“I don’t care if they’re scared, Luna! If we stop to care about every pony who treats us like dirt then we won’t last a day!” I signaled wildly around at the prison of cables taking us to our deaths. “Case and point!”

Luna looked like she was about to protest again but before she could, she collapsed to the ground, cradling her forehead with a hoof. Her breathing increased in intensity, its sudden rapid tempo one of terror and pain. I was beside her in a moment, but she pushed me aside and continued panting and gripping her stubby horn pulsating with faint light.

“I don’t want to be an alicorn,” she murmured through quick gasps of air. “I wanna go home.”

“Me too,” I said.

Slowly the sun slunk out of sight beyond the thin layer of clouds peeking through the crack in the wall. We flew on through the crepuscular desert sky, the insistent wailing of the ship’s engines never ceasing even for a moment. Once more the mare came, this time with the stallion. They'd simply wanted to talk in an attempt to ease our terrified thoughts, or perhaps salvage any sense of morality that they themselves knew they no longer had. As before, I cursed and insulted both of them until they once again left me and Luna to our own tense silence.

I wanted to have something to say to Luna, some sort of words of apology or assurance, but I couldn’t seem to find lies rich enough to fool even a young filly’s disheartened mind.

Through our crack in the wall I watched the distant desert slowly turn to grass while the sky first exploded in red, before fading to black. I listened to Luna’s snoring and the whistling of the air, the drone of the engines and the growl of our stomachs begging for the food I had refused to accept.

The little sliver of moonlight that was allowed to enter the room through the crack was not nearly enough to keep the room illuminated, so I flooded the room in light magic of my own. Over the hours I'd had nothing to do but perfect it, and in it's steady yellow glow I could see Luna’s wide eyes, watching me intently and with hopeful curiosity, wondering what plan I was silently birthing in the static darkness.

I took a deep breath, and without saying a word rested my head on the cold floor. I didn't feel like sleeping, but certainly I didn't feel like looking at the featureless blackness, either.

“Tia?” my sister’s nervous voice inquired. “Are you alright?”

I didn't answer her. She sighed and I heard the sound of her hooves as she walked over to the hole we'd made and looked outside.

When Mrs. Rose finally returned, hours later, I didn't immediately push her away. Instead, I decided for Luna's sake I would get some answers.

"Where are you taking us?" I asked her calmly. It took the best of my ability to keep the anger I felt buried below the surface, but for the purpose of productivity I managed to do so. "Stormsborough?"

"We're stopping at a little trading cluster to refuel first, but...yes. I'm very s—"

"I know," I interrupted. I looked behind me at Luna, she was still looking outside, but I could tell she was listening to our conversation. While my pride was nearly enough to make me refuse to do so, I decided there was still one thing I had not tried and I'd be a fool to not at least give it a shot.

"Please don't do this," I whispered. "Whatever you've been told about alicorns...Luna and I aren't like them. We don't want to hurt anypony, we just want to leave Erisia where we won't be killed just for what we are. Please..."

"I'm sor—"

"If your response is sorry, I don't want to hear it at all." I snapped, my calm disposition gone in a moment, "I'll just go and tell my little sister that we're both going to be executed in a few hours, but oh, it's alright, because you two are sorry! You're worse than Discord or the guards, because you know that what you're doing is murder and you're still doing it!"

"Is your sister an alicorn too?" she questioned. I folded an ear and perked up a little, first in confusion, and then in hopeful optimism. They didn't know about Luna's horn...how could they? It hadn't grown in nearly enough to be noticeable. Perhaps there still was a glimmer of hope after all.

"No, she isn't," I lied. "Take off her hood and look for yourself. I told her not to, but she ran away with me."

In my peripheral I could see that Luna was now looking at us both completely. I doubt she did not know what I was planning, and the horror it entailed was creeping into the recesses of her mind already.

"I'm one story," I said. "There's a bounty on me, so...fine. I understand, even if I don't agree. But please, don't let Luna die because I'm a terrible sister."

"No!" Luna screamed, running up to me. "Celly, what are you doing?"

"Trust me, sis. This is better."

"No! I don't want to leave you! You'll die!"

"But you won't," I nuzzled her. "There's no reason we both have to."

"I...I'll let you out, Luna dear," Mrs. Rose said, sounding quite unsure with her own actions. "Your sister is right. Nopony gains anything if you have to die, too. We're landing at a trading cluster in a few hours. I can let you off there."

"I'm not leaving Celestia," Luna shook her head, backing as far from the door as she could while still remaining under my outstretched wing. She was pulling on my feathers while doing so, and while it hurt I stood resolute all the same. "You can't make me!"

"No," I shook me head slowly, lifting my wing just a bit to expose the hiding filly beneath. "I can't. It's entirely your choice, but I promised I would keep you safe. Please let me keep that promise..."

I turned my attention to the mare on the other side of the door.

"And if you lay a hoof on my sister..." I threatened, although even I knew it was an empty threat I could never carry out.

"I promise we won't." she said, and once again I believed her. "Sweetie, are you coming?"

"Luna, everything's going to be okay," I lifted my wing off her back and used it to give her a gentle push. "Go ahead."

"No.” she said firmly, her eyes starting to water. “I'm not.”

I nodded slowly, shooting a quick glance at the mare on the other side of the door that wordlessly told her all she needed to know. Luna had started sobbing, so I returned my wing atop her back and sat down with her on the hard metal floor. She was shivering a little as she cried even despite the maddening heat of the steam spitting out around us, but she seemed to relax a little in my embrace.

"Together," she managed through her sobs. Perhaps it had been part of a sentence, but the rest of it was unintelligible.

Rose was looking at us sorrowfully from the entrance, but at that one hopelessly spoken word she must have decided she could not bear witness to the crimes she had committed any longer. I listened to her hooves beat against the metal gangplank, the hatch door open and slam, and then silence save for Luna's continued sobbing.

“It's gonna be okay, Luna,” I whispered. “I'm proud of you.”

“Proud?” she asked. The question came out as a croak, distorted by her tears still flowing freely.

“Yeah. Proud. You're a brave filly,” I told her.

"I'm crying!" she protested, and coupled it with an uneasy laugh that somehow managed to lessen the intensity of her sobs. "That's not brave!"

"You're twelve, Luna," I smiled at her, and the sight seemed to lay waste to the residual remains of her sorrow. "Give yourself a bit of leeway. I'm...sorry I put you in that position. I'm proud of the choice you made."

"I'm scared, though. I don't wanna go to Stormsborough!"

"Me neither. That's why when we land at the trading cluster, we're going to make a run for it."

"...A run for it?" she was bewildered, her gaze eventually shifting to the hole in the wall that we had made. "But how? We're still stuck in here!"

"I'll think of something," I rose and folded my wings again. It occurred to me that I perhaps could have exploited Mrs. Roses' offer to let Luna go free, and have her double back and unlock the metal door when we had landed. It was a plan I had foolishly overlooked, instead believing that forcing our way out through brute strength, perhaps using a blunt object to pry loose the boards.

With that opportunity gone, I decided the latter was still a viable solution. We were surrounded by heavy piping I could use to this effect, and all that remained was to wait for an chance to do so without attracting attention.

I reached into the pockets of my heavy jacket to draw out the tattered parchment of our map, and quickly found that my pockets had been emptied. "Damn it. They took our map and our bits. Honestly, they're taking our lives, they need to take our possessions, too?"

Luna was silent. I remembered her happy smile when we had first entered the airship, back when we had assumed the water and soup that was being offered to us was a show of kindness, and not something quite the opposite. She didn't seem to regret her optimistic view, but she seemed greatly disappointed it had proven to be wrong. I decided that the further I insulted the Roses, the more distressed she would feel in turn, and so I said nothing further.

I wandered back to the hole. We seemed to be descending, which meant we would soon be arriving at the trading cluster. I could not remember if it had been on the map or not, but regardless I had no idea what to expect of it when we arrived. I did, however, carry with me a greater sense of suspicion and a determination not to repeat the mistake of trust. By time we landed, I imagined the tale of Celestia the Alicorn would be common knowledge across most of Erisia, especially after we had been spotted a second time in Pillory. It was mirthlessly humorous how infamous I had become relative to how little I had actually done. In the eyes of the powers that were, Luna and I were the two most fearsome things alive.

And yet one of us was presently wiping her running nose with a hoof while the other was looking sadly at the dancing clouds through a hole in an airship's wooden wall. It was amazing what the collective hivemind of paranoia had twisted Erisia into.

A faint rustling signaled Luna's presence beside me. She was trying her best to look optimistic, and it was enough to make me smile, too.

"It's...kinda pretty," Luna said, unprompted. "The night, I mean. From this high up. You can actually see the moon and stars at the same time."

"It is pretty," I agreed, for the first time noticing their presence in the dark above.

"Celestia...do you ever feel like—" she suddenly trailed off, blushing in embarrassment. "Ah, nevermind. It's stupid."

"I doubt it. Go ahead. Tell me."

"Do you ever feel like the sun and moon are...connected to you? In a way?"

"Well, I doubt being named Luna would harm that thought," I began, turning my gaze to the silver sphere in question, hovering motionless just in view through the small opening. "But, no, honestly I never thought of it."

And truthfully, I hadn't. As I said before, I'd seen my life working in the scrapyards as relatively complete. My own name, as prophetic as Luna's, mattered as little to me as the present state of Cyclosa or the fates of the Roses after we escaped. Erisia had twisted me into being overtly apathetic about practically everything, and my identity was no exception.

"Yeah...sorry, I was just...I dunno, the dream we both had in Pillory kinda made me feel that way."

I didn't answer her. I never did like the idea of destiny, and I felt perfectly content thinking that our fates lay at some point much further than the borders of Erisia, and certainly not within it. This was a time long before anypony bore cutiemarks, because without a purpose or talent the very notion of a mark expressing such seemed absurd. It happened in some of Luna's fairytales, but it was hardly the only strange thing that those books had contained.

From one of the pipes burst a sudden hissing sound louder than any of the others. I craned my neck in an attempt to see upwards through the hole we had made, and from the curved fabric envelope I could see what looked like white smoke venting into the cool night air. It took me several moments to realize what I was seeing, but the approaching ground beneath us confirmed my belief as correct. The ship was venting gas, which meant it was descending. Behind us I could see that tail-fins of the airship—oddly small proportional to the boxy nature of the ship—with their elevators angled as far up as they could have allowed.

"Whatcha' looking at, Celly?" Luna asked, following my attentive gaze and quick movements.

"We're loosing altitude. We're almost at the trading cluster."

"Wasn't that part of your plan?"

"It...was." I confirmed with a nod, but internally I was already beginning to have my doubts. They were stopping to refuel, but if there were any guards in the trading cluster, and if they had any sense whatsoever, then they would ask to inspect the Damask Rose. And it wasn't as though the Roses would refuse, it would simply mean they would be receiving a little less bounty payment from Discord and would be saved the flight to Stormsborough. I suspected the bounty on us—alive and healthy, and with our wings and horns intact—would be substantial enough that any significant degradation of it would still be a massive amount of bits. Which meant that if the trading cluster were indeed populated by guards, then it would most likely be our final stop. I was quite certain that there would be no flimsy wooden walls in the Erisian Scoutships for us to exploit in order to escape.

"We need to escape now." I said simply, turning from the wall and taking a deep breath. Luna's face spoke unexpressed questions, which went unanswered as I pointed my glowing horn straight down until it was rubbing against the hot surface of a sturdy looking pipe snaking across the ground. Immediately I felt it start biting in pain, but instead of drawing it away from the heat I fed magic into the horn with one and only one goal in mind. The magic culminated into a quick, silent burst, and directly after I fell to the ground. My horn sputtered a little and died, as the room once again entered into darkness.

Groggily I stumbled back to my feet and groped around in the dark, finally once again finding the piping I had just finished assaulting with magic. Now, there was a deep gap in the pipe and it was gushing out steam rapidly, but regardless of the boiling heat I reached a hoof into the midst of it, grasped the pipe firmly, and started forcing it upwards. Groaning with intense concentration, I forced it higher and higher until it was almost facing the ceiling, and let go. By then my horn had regained enough magic for the previous quick laser spell to be repeated, so I pointed my horn at the bottom and recast it. This time, it wasn't a magic surge that led to my ability. I believe it was simply a matter of determination and pent up ability I'd always possessed but had never had the use of.

A dull clanging sound, followed by Luna’s cry of surprise, were instantly drowned out by the sudden hissing of gas now escaping an enormous hole in the conduit. Luna let out another cry of pain as she was burned by the venting vapour, so I wrapped her in my wing as best as I could and stumbled my way to the sliver of light on the wall, the outside world that I was so close to flying out into.

I jammed the long portion of piping through the gap and started prying with as much force as possible, and before long more and more wood broke free. Occasionally, I removed it from its prying position and instead smashed it like a spear into the flimsy wood, causing the whole ship to shake and the couple who had imprisoned us to undoubtedly realize that something was amiss.

Luna heard their urgent hoofbeats on the gangplank before I did, and tugged on my feathers to get my attention.

“They’re coming, Tia! Hurry!”

I could hear the jingling of keys and their galloping hoofbeats, and within seconds they were at the door. The keys entered the lock, and I once more slammed the metal bar into the now sizable hole I had made.

It was small enough for Luna to fit through.

Regardless of how much bigger I made it, I had at least managed to save my sister. I had won.

“Luna!” I removed my wing and pointed through the hole. “Glide!”

“I...I can’t, Tia! I don’t know how to use my wings!”

“Luna, it’s fine!" I said, despite having no idea what I was talking about any more than Luna did. "Trust me! It’s as easy as walking!”

I almost screamed in fear as the door burst open and the two ponies stormed into the room, flooding the darkness with torchlight.

“I’m sorry about this,” I said quickly, before pushing Luna behind me, through the hole and into the night.

I slammed the wall once with the piping, heard a bit more wood crack, but before I could hit it again the stallion had lunged forwards. I swung the bar at him instead, missing his skull but striking his side and sending him flying with enough force to hit the wall on the other side. His mate shirked back in fright as I threateningly brandished the heavy length of piping. The stallion didn’t seem to be getting up anytime soon, so I instead struck the wall one last time and heard the wood scream and shatter, as well as a more intense increase in hissing steam and other vapour as more piping came loose at its loss.

Without looking I whipped around and dove through the hole, unfurling my wings and soaring into the night with a shout of victory and glee. For the first time in my life, I was gliding, and it was every bit as easy as the birds had made it look.

My joy, however, was quite short-lived, for the moment my watering eyes adapted to the rushing of air as I glided, I caught a glimpse of a dark mass of blue fur in free-fall several hundred feet below me, her wings hopelessly pressed to her sides.

“Luna!” I screamed, but the words were lost to the wind. I pitched into a dive and flapped to gain speed in order to catch up with her. I don't know if the wild movements of my wings did much more than make me look like a fool, but after a few seconds I was looking upwards into her wide and terrified eyes.

“Open your wings, Luna!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Over her shoulder I could see the airship starting to make a gradual spin, as its controls were left unattended to. Without attention it would come crashing down towards the earth, but I didn’t really care if it did and the ponies inside went down with it.

“Luna! Please!” I repeated. “I know you can do it!”

“I’m not strong enough, Tia! I tried! I’m too weak!”

“You’re not too weak! You need to do this! Please, for me, try again!”

The ground was quickly catching up to us. If we didn’t resume some sort of glide then it would be too late. We’d since passed the thin layer of clouds, so that only the grassy fields and occasional sand dunes lay a thousand feet below.

With evident effort, Luna opened her wings against the insistent beating of the wind, whilst simultaneously angling her nose towards the ground at the perfect degree by which she could glide safely. I opened my wings in synchronization with her, mouthing words of encouragement that only I would know I had spoken. The frequency of the wind changed, its intensity dimmed, until I could hear Luna’s frantic breathing and the airship engines above. From the pitch of them, it sounded as though the ship was banking and slowing.

Neither me nor Luna landed onto the dusty desert ground with any measure of grace. If our panicked gliding could be called sloppy, then our crash landing was something else entirely. For several seconds we both lay dazed in the dirt, coughing and panting and doing our best to recover our wits enough to stand again.

“That was...awesome!” Luna’s smile shocked me perhaps more than the impact of our landing had.

“You were awesome,” I said. “Certainly one quick way of learning to fly, isn’t it?”

“I think we both have to work on our landings though,” she said sheepishly. I followed her gaze in the direction of the two long trails in the dirt where we had both came to our sliding stops, and then upwards into the sky where we had come from.

I could still see the airship hanging far above us, the balloon and the shoddy two deck basket both swinging precariously as it rapidly changed direction and altitude. It had already passed the thin and wispy layer of clouds, and I could see the traces of venting hydrogen gas ascending into the still dark morning air.

It was growing in size, unmistakably descending in pursuit of its precious alicorn passengers.

“Tia…” Luna’s voice was a shaky whisper.

“I see them,” I replied. I hadn’t seen any gun mounts or rocket batteries, nor had I any reason to suspect that such a ship built from scrap would have any, but these two earth ponies had proven to be full of surprises and I wasn’t going to be caught off guard again.

Looking around frantically, I felt my heart plummet into my chest with panic as my surroundings sunk in. In every direction stretched sand or grass, nary a tree in sight for miles no matter which way we ran.

"What do we do?" I said out loud. Luna had no response, but her presence beside me was comforting nonetheless. Before us the airship continued descending, but I slowly realized I had given too much credit towards the controlled nature of it's decreasing altitude. It was not being guided down normally, it looked more like it was desperately trying to come to a controlled descent but failing miserably.

I don't truly know what was happening within the Damask Rose as it fell down and down, it's collision course with the ground clear and unavoidable. I suppose Mr. Rose was the only one who actually had the knowledge necessary to fly it, and with him unconscious there was little his wife could do. Then again, I had my doubts she had traveled with him for such a large portion of her life and not gained any bit of knowledge in the field.

It was also possible that the piping I had broken in order to escape was not by any means worthless. Indeed, it seemed as though I had caused more damage to the ship then I'd intended, damage made worse as I repeatedly smashed the side of the ship and nearly shook the flimsily screws clear out of the rotten wood.

Regardless of the reason, and even at the visible effort her pilots were making to prevent it, the ship struck the earth with no measure of grace. The propellers ground into the earth and struck stray bits of metal, sending sparks which eventually set fire to the gas within. In the blink of an eye, the gondola and balloon were lost to the ensuing inferno.

It had fallen about fifty feet before us. Far enough that we were safe from the flames, but still close enough that we could feel their heat upon us.

Luna's eyes were wide with horror the like I'd never seen from her before.

"Celestia, we've gotta do something!"

"Do something?" I snarled. "This is what they deserve. Come on, let's go."

"Deserve?" Luna exclaimed. "They're dead, Celestia! How can you say that they deserved to die?!"

I stopped in my tracks. I...hadn't meant it like that...had I?

"There's nothing we can do," I said instead. "We need to keep moving."

Luna did not speak further as she begrudgingly walked next to me, dragging her hooves. I could tell from her grimace and her silence that I had greatly shaken her perception of me with the words I'd spoken. For a long time her image of me had been that of a saint. Now, in this moment, she was sickened by the mare I actually was, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to make her see otherwise.

Some thought or realization struck her, and she abruptly halted her walk, and instead sat down on the cold earth, looking away from me and instead at the burning wreck of the Damask Rose. I had no motivation to walk on either.

We sat with our backs to each other, not speaking. I slept, awoke, and Luna was still staring at the flames that had begun to die down.

"You okay?" I asked, still not looking at her, instead looking at the empty grasslands before us. Luna did not answer me.

"Look, I'm sorry, Luna."

"Sorry? To who?"

"To you. I haven't been a good sister lately."

"No. You haven't been a good pony lately."

"Well, what's a good pony?" I questioned.

"I dunno." I didn't see her shrug, but I heard the fabric of her cloak shift as she did. "A pony who cares about others. A pony who forgives. A pony whose nice and kind and loyal and honest and—"

"How many of those ponies have you seen, Luna?"

Silence.

"They exist, Celestia."

"No they don't. When you're as old as me, you'll know that."

"You're wrong."

Luna's denial came without evidence or confirmation, but it was firm enough to drive me into bitter silence as I once more rose to my hooves and led the way towards the trading cluster.

The Trading Cluster

View Online

I awoke to cold, and saw that despite the darkness of night, the sun and not the moon was poking its way through both a hole in the clouds high above and the ceiling of moldy boards before me. It would seem Discord had been exercising his control over the celestial bodies to some ridiculous extreme, although the difference was merely aesthetic. Most ponies did not quite know what had brought about such a strange shift in the draconequus’ behaviour; normally he seemed content to keep his chaos limited to his immediate surroundings. I had some vaguely selfish, inkling suspicion that the recent silence on the subject of Erisia’s “Alicorn Hunt” had something to do with his restlessness.

Luna was still asleep, curled into a ball and with her blanket scattered haphazardly about, kicked away by some vividly active dream—a good one it seemed, judging from the small grin she was wearing. I couldn’t help but smile myself as I delicately rose from beside her. I gingerly crept my way up until I was first sitting and then standing, and then I left the raggy cot that we had been sharing behind.

Rotten boards—perhaps from some airship or fishing boat—were still contained within the small indent in the wall of the single-room building, but they had refused to catch fire as the others had done, thus flooding the room in a frigid cold several hours earlier than I’d intended. Even as I removed them from the fireplace in my telekinesis I could feel the moisture within the wood, and let out a disappointed sigh. I’d done my best to keep the wood we had found amongst the scrap dry from the storm, but Discord’s rapidly changing weather made it increasingly difficult to do so. I would set them out to dry in a blistering summer heat, and awake to find them soaked with melting February snow.

I found a few dry logs and placed them in the fire, and then I removed the lid off of the musty glass jar Luna had found amongst the other garbage in the scrapyard. Encased within were several papers from the weeks past, the sad few bits of news that actually made it to the tiny, isolated trading cluster. I stopped for a brief moment to gaze upon the headlines, not surprised in the slightest by the titles for I had read them many times before. The bold text proudly screamed to me lying headlines like: “Search for Alicorn Extremist Still At Large!” or “Alicorn Runaway Murders Earth Pony Couple In Fiery Airship Disaster!”

I would enjoy—as I had every time I’d lit a fire in the weeks prior—watching the front page sketched depiction of myself curl and wither into ash. At the bottom of the jar I found a single unlit match—my last one, I noted sadly—and used it to ignite the newspapers I had tucked underneath the firewood.

With the fire lit and it’s heat sweeping through our hasty shelter, I grabbed my heavy jacket from the nail on which it hung, with my intention being to make a clean escape without Luna waking. I tiptoed towards the gaping tear in the wooden flesh of the derelict airship gondola and slipped out into the midnight, sunlit darkness of the scrapyard. Luna did not stir.

I emerged into the cold, the entire world being assaulted by snow. Through its swirling midst, I could still make out the tall mountains to the East, standing like giants overlooking the insignificant trading cluster below.

Eight weeks. Eight weeks since the Damask Rose had exploded in flame.

These weeks had crawled by agonizingly slow. The trading cluster (an unnamed settlement known simply as Cluster 13, built between two mountain passages to the North and East) became Luna and my temporary home; I was unwilling to wager our lives on an airship as passengers once again, but without an airship of our own we were as good as stranded.

Luna and I lived off muddy rainwater and rodents we found scuttling across the discarded scrap. It was hardly pleasant, but it kept us alive and we had been conditioned not to ask for a whole lot else.

The stretch between Cluster 13 and the nearest actual settlement was too far to walk with Luna without preparation, but it was not my intent to walk this distance at all.

I was going to steal an airship. A small, vulnerable one, that would not be missed too dearly.

Yet small and vulnerable airships were not often seen in Cluster 13—Discord’s sporadic weather had made flying an unwelcome activity—and as such I was forced to revise my plan. Instead of waiting for a small airship to appear, I would attempt to repair one of the many left to the snow. I’d done it before in Cyclosa, and for myself and Luna, I could do it again.

Luna had not taken a liking my plan at all. She had insisted that stealing was wrong, especially with something as large and expensive as an airship. After what she had seen with the Damask Rose, and her clear and evident disgust at the apathy I had expressed, it had only served to further disintegrate the illusion she had always carried that I was a good and caring pony.

I trotted my way from the scrapyard into Cluster 13 proper. The settlement itself was nothing particularly impressive, a few tent-like-houses, and many grounded airships.

One of them, the Sisyphys, was hovering several feet off the ground. I smiled a little at the sight of the familiar ship. Obviously it wasn’t mine, but I had spent so much time working on it that it almost felt as though it was. Her history was a mystery to me, all I knew was that her original owners had vanished and the ship itself was making no flights any time soon.

The Sisyphys resembled a giant goldfish, with its crimson red balloon arching into an enormous fish-like tail fin. I’d done my best to repair the holes in the balloon, but it still evidently sagged in places. The electrical wiring was another problem that I had yet to remedy; the small gondola bolted directly to the balloon had no working running lights, and the propellers had a lottery’s chance of activating.

Still, as pathetic as it was, the ship was the product of my work, and I was proud of it—although certainly not proud enough to bet my life on it with the prospect of flight.

The Sisyphys was berthed alongside a few other airships that easily tripled it in size. The little goldfish was nestled beside the immense whales that were transport ships, each with a dozen propellers to the Sisyphys’s two.

Beside the airships was a cheery looking tavern. Warm light beckoned to me through the darkness of the black sun overhead, the lines of glass windows against the shockingly well built building considering the decrepit nature of its surroundings. On some nights, I would be able to hear the sound of boisterous jubilation from within, but now the stillness of the early morning seemed uninterrupted by any drunken stupor.

And yet when I pushed to door to the tavern open and made my way into the familiar building, I saw that it was populated nonetheless. About half a dozen ponies beyond myself were also there; none of them sitting alone but not all sitting together. The barkeep traced my own path to an isolated booth and nodded to acknowledge my presence. It was to be a lonely one once again.

“The usual, Solana?” she asked as she trotted over to the booth I had sat down at. I didn’t know her name and I didn’t really remember how she knew mine, but I was just thankful she didn’t care enough to dig into my story any further.

“Actually I’ll just have a...” I started, and then cursed when I forget the very name of the thing I wanted. “Y’know, that imported stuff from Griffonstone?”

“Coffee?” she guessed.

“Yeah, yeah. Coffee.” It had been bitter and dreadful, but it had also been different. A illegally imported relic from a city that did not exist on a map and may as well not have existed at all in the eyes of the average fool complacent to Discord’s rule.

“Are you gonna be paying for it this time?” she ventured.

I reached into my saddlebag and dropped my coinpurse onto the table with a sheepish smile. She nodded without breaking her stern expression and left to get me my coffee.

As I sat waiting, I found my mind wandering—as it so typically did—towards the other ponies around me. I knew some of them were watching me with curiosity, but many of them had grown quite used to the lonely cloaked unicorn mare, and knew better than to disturb her.

It was when I first started frequenting the tavern that I found out I was seen by stallions as a relatively attractive young mare, and it was also on that same occasion that I taught them that when I stated that I would prefer to be alone, I truly meant it. I broke one stallion’s nose and then was kicked out of the tavern by the same barkeep that was preparing my coffee.

Ever since that occasion, though, most ponies knew to leave me alone.

The barkeep, I think, knew that Solana was not my true name, and that my story about being a repair technician on a cargo ship shot down by raiders was a silly fabrication. Word of “Celestia the Alicorn” had not simply blown into Cluster 13, it had swept through it like a tempest. Erisian Scoutships had descended around the pathetic trading cluster like vultures to a corpse, and Luna and I had been forced to stay in hiding underneath piles of scrap for the better part of a week. And when their search turned up nothing in the settlement, the assumption they produced was that I had perished with the Roses in the fiery inferno that their ship had become.

Still, they continued to search. And yet the barkeep did not say anything to tip them off. I respected her greatly for that, even if I did not express it with my inability to pay for the bottles of mead I drowned myself in.

More importantly, she did not object to me working on the Sisyphys, choosing instead to turn a blind eye to my morally grey actions.

“Mind if I sit?” A stallion’s voice jerked me from my reverie. I darted my attention upwards and met his eyes… he was several years older than me, although surely no more than five. He had a grey coat and long black mane, and was peering at me with wide green eyes. He was, admittedly, quite a handsome stallion.

“As a matter of fact, I do mind,” I replied without hesitation. “Sorry pal. Not interested.”

“You sure about that, Celestia?”

I nearly started at the mention of my name—my actual name—but knew better than to express my shock. Instead, I locked eyes with him, glaring for several seconds, and let out a grunt like some feral animal.

“Fine. Sit down,” I growled through clenched teeth, motioning at the booth across from me. I knew I was in deep trouble the moment my name was dropped, but I also knew that to make a scene out of it would not help. “An Erisian Royal Guard, or a bounty hunter?”

“Curious stallion,” he replied, sitting. “Nothing more.”

“Name?”

“Is it important?”

“Discord knows it is for me.”

“Well. Aren’t you the charmer, Celestia.”

He grinned innocently and extended a hoof, as if expecting me to shake it. Like doing so was some rite of passage I’d need to fulfill in order to hear his name.

Instead, I bared my teeth and scowled.

“Stop calling me that!” I barked. In the corner of my eye, I could see the barkeep looking at me warily. From last time, she knew that me sitting with anypony other than myself usually meant something was wrong. “Listen, pal. I don’t want any trouble, but if you don’t leave me alone—”

“With respect, Celestia, if I so much as raise my voice and scream the word “alicorn,” then there will be trouble. So just settle down.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked, my brain a swirl of activity as I analyzed my situation. If things escalated… if this stallion truly followed up with his threat (which he was in no position to be frightened of doing) then I was good as dead.

I could only imagine what terrible things he wanted from me, with the knowledge that I was in no position to refuse.

“So it’s true what they say about you, huh?” he drawled. “You’re an alicorn?”

“Yes.” I said, with plenty of malice lining the one sharply spoken word.

“Your wings,” he said simply. “Can I see them?”

“In here? How dense are you?” I snarled. “Just take my word, or else get lost.”

“There’s really no need to be so rude, Celestia.”

“You’re threatening me. My life's in danger just by talking to you. I think there is.”

He was about to speak, but the sudden presence of the barkeep bringing me my coffee was enough to flood him into silence. She looked at me and I met her eyes with clear desperation, but there was nothing she could do.

She probably knew exactly why I had not simply told this stallion off already.

Yet instead of intervening, she set down my coffee, returned my desperate look with a sullen frown, and left us alone once again.

“She knows, too.” The stallion said, the moment she was out of earshot. “About your secret.”

At that moment, and for some strange reason I cannot explain, I felt more frightened than I had ever felt before. Even when I had been sprinting for my life while being chased by the guards in Cyclosa, it had been a logical fear. One that motivated my actions and drove me forwards. This was a different fear entirely.

What sickened me further, however, was how selfish my fear had become. When I look back at that moment, I remember no amount of concern being directed at anypony other than myself. It was as if I had forgotten Luna had existed at all.

“Please don’t do this,” I heard myself saying, as if I were listening to my own voice speaking to me through a long tube. I hated myself, I hated the words I was saying and the cowardly tone I was speaking them in.

“Relax, kid. I just want to ask you about your wings. How you got them, and why.”

“I don’t know,” I replied instantly. “Honestly. I went to sleep one day, the next morning I’ve got two wings on my back. Didn’t want them, didn’t ask for them, would give them away in a heartbeat.”

“So you fled.”

“Well yeah. No shit,” I said, and laughed awkwardly, the sound coming out as more of a demented squawk.

“So you don’t know where your wings came from?” he asked, sounding quite disappointed.

“No. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true,” I replied. “I’d give you mine if I could, pal.”

“Celestia.” he said, adding a bit of volume to my name. This time, I knew for a fact that he had done it intentionally. “I don’t want any harm to come to you, but you’re really giving me no choice.”

“I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know.”

“You parents were alicorns, weren’t they?” he ventured. I shook my head. “Just your mother then? Father?”

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” I said, no longer afraid, indeed quite furious by contrast. “My mother and father are nothing. To Equestria, and to me. I’ve been alone my whole life, and I only made it a full-time gig when my parents decided a winged unicorn was the last thing they wanted to be the proud mother and father of.”

“So, where do you get your stunning good looks from, then?”

“Is… is that what you want from me?” I gawked. “Are you out of your mind?”

He shrugged.

“Eh. Not every day you meet a pretty young mare who also happens to be an alicorn. Worth a shot.”

“Yeah, I suppose it isn’t,” I replied, not paying much attention. “And sorry. No. Not interested. You seem decent enough to let it go at that, so please don’t prove me wrong.”

“You’re worth a couple thousand bits, you know,” he mentioned almost casually, as if it were a passing point of interest.

“Yeah. I am,” I replied calmly. “Of course, I can also buy you a drink instead. Worth considerably less, but wouldn’t you much prefer that then letting such a ‘stunning’ mare get hurt?”

He looked stunned by my demeanor the moment he realized I was being fully serious.

“Did you really kill that Earth Pony couple?” he asked, referencing the Roses without bothering to connect the awkwardly phrased question to the rest of the conversation.

“Yes,” I lied. “They shouldn’t have put me in a position where I had no choice. And trust me… neither should you.”

“I have no intention of doing so.”

“Then what exactly do you want from me?”

“First of all, I want to offer you some advice,” he said, his playful demeanor evaporating in a moment. “Quit being stupid. Wandering into taverns and becoming a regular… are you nuts? You’re Erisia’s last hope for peace, don’t end up dead because of some bounty-hunter in a tavern.”

“Duly noted,” I rolled my eyes. “Not keen on Discord’s rule, I take it?”

“Not the sort of thing a stallion goes screaming out, but no, I’m not. That’s why I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah?” I said, and snorted rudely. “Then you’re delusional. I couldn’t care less about Discord’s rule.”

“You’re a liar,” he replied shortly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He narrowed his eyes. “Listen to me, Celestia. You’re more than just a slum-rat without a destiny. And I know that you despise Discord. Don’t let him win.”

“What did I say about calling me—” I began, and then sighed and shook my head. “Ah, forget it. So is that all you want from me? To tell me some cryptic nonsense about destiny? You think you’re some kind of sage? Who are you, anyways?”

“Let’s just say I’m a stallion who shares an ‘anti-Discord’ common interest with you. Are you travelling north, Celestia?”

“No,” I lied instantly. “East. Griffon Kingdom.”

“You’re lying again, Celestia. First of all, it’s Griffon Empire. Not Kingdom. And the Griffon Empire is to the West. And they kill ponies on sight anyways, so you’d have a piss-poor chance of surviving.”

I said nothing, and took an angry drink of coffee.

“Have you heard of the Crystal Ponies before?” He asked. I said nothing and shook my head.

“Then I suppose that means we’re doing our job properly, ” he shrugged. “Well if you do end up going north, you’re always welcome with the Crystal Ponies. You’re somewhat of a legend amongst us.”

“Yeah? How can I expect to find your little alicorn fanclub?”

“You can expect us to find you.”

“There you go, speaking like a sage again. Sorry, but I’m really not impressed or whatever.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “I’ll introduce you to the Crystal Ponies when we meet again in the Frozen North. I imagine that then, you would be impressed.”

“You… knew I would be here,” I said, ignoring his boasting. “How did you find me?”

“Another answer for another day,” he replied. “But I’m not the only one, either. I’d bet Discord’s been watching you for awhile. And just so you know, an Erisian Scoutship is enroute towards you. Straight out of Stormsborough. If you’re gonna steal an airship, you’d better do it now.”

I tensed a little, but recovered in an instant and narrowed my eyes. The stallion echoed my response and narrowed his own eyes, evidently quite finished with my snarkiness. “And trust me, Celestia, they’ll make those earth ponies look like sweet old matriarchs.”

I remained silent, stirring my coffee passively.

“I’m giving you a warning,” he continued. “You’re lucky I want to help you, because if I was them, you’d already be lying face first in your coffee with a knife in your back. I suggest that you keep the ponies who care about you close. They are out there. You belong with us in the Frozen North.”

“I travel alone,” I replied firmly. “But thanks anyways.”

“Understood,” he nodded, and then, rising, outstretched a hoof. “Good luck, Celestia. I sincerely hope we meet again.”

“Never did get your name,” I replied, ignoring his outstretched hoof but giving him an enigmatic smile all the same.

“Yeah, you deserve to know it. Sombra, at your service.”

I finally took his hoof and gave it a shake, without bothering to get up. “Sombra. I’ll try to remember that name, in case we really do meet again.”

“You owe me a drink, after all,” he teased. “Good luck, Celestia.”

Where are you going? I felt like asking, although he turned and left before I had the chance. I had seen no airship besides the huge transports, and I didn’t really think for a moment that he was the sort of character who would be serving on one.

Instead, I watched him trot his way out of the tavern and into the snowy shipyard outside. The wind slammed the door behind him, and he vanished from sight.

I sighed and turned my attention back to my mug of coffee with a little chuckle. I sat alone in introspective silence through the growing midnight darkness, although a clock on the wall told me it was the middle of the afternoon—Discord still had not allowed the celestial bodies to resume their natural progression.

The odd stallion’s claims about the Erisian Scoutships reverberated through my mind at random points as I stood sipping my cooling coffee. Surely he was mad, but still his warning resonated with me despite what logic dictated.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and bled into concern. I rose from the booth and collected my coat. I withdrew from it my coinpurse, removing two silver pieces and slamming them onto my table as I left.

It came as a subtle sound carried on the wings of the blowing winds, nearly drowned out by my hooves crunching through the snow. A droning sound, like humming machinery.

I heard it before I saw it, but I recognized the sound in an instant all the same. I strained my ears to listen closer, and felt my blood curdle as they confirmed what I desperately hoped I had not heard.

Airship propellers.

I stood like a fool in the snow, staring in the direction of the sound. The wind that had saved my life tugged at my unbuckled coat, sending shivers into my unkempt wings, and I could not manage to force my hooves into action to bring me home.

They were coming, after all. Sombra had been telling the truth. He hadn’t been a mad stallion after all, rather, I had been the stupid one. I hadn’t even come up with a plan.

Or rather, I had—the Sisyphys. It was my only chance, now. It had been my plan from the beginning, but the ship could barely stay afloat, let alone outrun an Erisian Scoutship.

I cleared the remaining distance to our temporary home in record time.

“Get up!” I barked, violently throwing Luna’s heavy cloak at her sleeping form the moment I was inside the warm derelict gondola.

“What’s going on?” she grumbled.

“I… screwed up. We’ve gotta go.”

“What happened…?” Luna said through a yawn, wiping the sleep out of her eyes.

“Get up!” I shrilled loudly in response. “Do as you’re told, Luna!”

In a terrified frenzy she stumbled onto her hooves and into her cloak. Already I was stuffing as many of our gathered articles as I could fit into the pockets of my own cloak; wet matches and rusty knives and empty cans, anything that would come in handy if we became stranded yet again.

I had no doubt in my mind that we would be. The pile of scrap that was the Sisyphys would not be getting us far.

“Did you find a ship?” Luna guessed shyly, evidently frightened I was going to snap at her again. I had never permitted her to leave the scrapyard and venture into Cluster 13 proper, nor did I tell her anything about the Sisyphys.

“You could say that,” I replied, softly this time, less out of guilt and more out of fear of my voice carrying across the scrapyard. I wasn’t about to repeat what Sombra had told me. He was an insane old nutcase, and Luna had already gotten too excited at the prospect of her possessing any sort of destiny when we had dreamed that odd dual-dream in Pillory.

Fly north. It was simple. Tangible. Like birds migrating. We didn’t need to do anything more. I repeated it over and over in my mind, like a war cry.

Steal an airship, fly north. Steal an airship, fly north. Steal an airship, fly north.

The promises of some distant glorious sunrise (or, moonrise, as Discord’s present chaos seemed to demand) were thankfully not yet lingering on the cool early morning sky when I led the way out of our temporary home for the last time.

Thanks to my panicked rushing, it had taken all of ten minutes for me to rush back home to Luna and make it back to the tavern. The lights of the incoming Scoutship were now visible as a pinprick on the horizon, like blinding stars splitting through the swirling snow. They must have had searchlights, sweeping across the wastelands below and seeking out ponies attempting to flee Cluster 13 by hoof.

The barkeep was watching us as we trotted from the depths of the scrapyard. She was wearing a vibrant red scarf as if to conceal her identity, but I recognized her from her stronger build all the same. Her focus was evidently drawn more towards Luna than it was the arrogant young mare who got into fights in her bar on bad days and refused to pay for her drinks on good ones.

Against my own common sense, I trotted towards her first instead of darting for the Sisyphys.

“So, you must be Celestia’s sister, huh?” She ignored me and immediately greeted Luna instead, lowering her scarf. For the first time, I saw her smile; a cautious affair probably reserved exclusively for innocent little fillies and colts. It looked akin to attempting to smile after reading an instructional book on the concept of joy. A book without illustrations.

“Yep!” Luna smiled back. “I’m Luna!”

“Pleased to meet you, Luna,” she trained her smile on my sister for all of a second, before turning her attention to me, her usual cold glare returning. She pointed to the approaching airship without speaking. “You need not worry, alicorn. I’m not gonna rat you out or anything. I’ve got no idea why, other than that I hate Discord more than I hate you.”

“Thanks,” I nodded. “I appreciate everything. Truly.”

“Can’t say you deserve it,” she replied. “Get moving, before you cause me any trouble.”

“Right. Come on, Luna.”

We made our way towards the gondola. Luna gasped in wonderment as she beheld the whole thing before her, evidently looking beyond its clear imperfections to instead focus on its strange and intriguing design.

“Thank you,” I turned towards the barkeep again, casting one quick farewell glance back.

“I don’t really feel comfortable accepting thanks from an alicorn, all things considered,” she replied dryly. Like everypony else, she spoke the word like it was an insult, but ironically I felt rather complimented that she saw me as a freak but still insisted on helping me. It was refreshing to know that behind illogical fear was equine morality, and that the latter was still stronger than the former.

I nodded humbly and turned back to the airship. Luna was already analyzing it curiously, but she sprung into action the moment I started up the gangplank into the gondola proper. Only one flimsy mooring line had been attached, and with our sudden weight the ship shifted dangerously as we clambered into the gondola.

Two battered seats faced a musty window that stretched across the majority of the forefront of the ship. The control panel was nearly identical to the quick glimpses I could recall of the Damask Rose, although the Sisyphys had a relatively simple steering column by comparison; it was less a full wheel and more like half of one, without any spokes.

I wasted no time in sitting in the seat facing the steering column, and Luna leaped gleefully onto the passenger seat beside me.

Starting the Sisyphys was a troublesome affair, but the initial step was as simple as the flip of several switches. A few lights on the control panel flickered to life with a warm glow cutting through the cold cabin air.

“This is really happening!” Luna gasped merrily, forgetting for a moment to wonder why it was happening. She looked as though she had the urge to flip every single switch and throw every single lever on the control panel, but instead she stood back and regarded me with implicit curiosity.

“Yep.” I said after a short lull. Surely I’d seemed considerably less enthused, my cloudy gaze locked on the ship coming at us on the horizon.

“What’s going on, Celly?” Luna sighed, detecting my troubled tone. “Why now? Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Luna… I’ve been working on this ship for a few weeks now,” I explained. “She’s not really ready to fly, but I don’t have a choice.”

I outstretched a hoof in the direction of the speck of brightening light approaching us.

“That light there? You see it?”

“A star…” she breathed.

I laughed rudely, without humour. “No. Not a star. A ship. An Erisian Scoutship.”

Luna’s eyes widened. Wordlessly, she leaned over the control panel and peered through the musty glass at the approaching light, although her own uneasy breathing instantly clouded the glass anyways.

“So listen, Luna,” I forcefully reached forward and turned her around. I could not afford her mistaking my instructions. “We need to escape now. Problem is, this piece of junk’s electrical wiring is shit, and the props won’t start. So we have to improvise.”

Luna said nothing, but nodded slowly.

“There’s a strong wind. It’ll take us South, but it’s better than nothing.”

“What about out running that Scoutship? Didn’t you say those things are super fast?”

“Yeah… with their engines. That’s why when they land, I’m gonna sneak over and sabotage them.”

“But they’ll see you!”

“Possibly. But we don’t really have a plan B.”

In sullen silence we sat as the ship formed out of the blinding star on the horizon, it’s black balloon and freshly painted white gondola gaining shape. I saw venting gas swirl and dance through the wind and snow as she shed altitude. We could only watch for so long before I commanded Luna to follow me as we hid underneath the control panel instead of exposing ourselves from the wide front window. A few flicks of the switches and the glow of the instrument panel dimmed and died.

Still, I listened closely as the frequency of the engines shifted in pitch as they slowed, descending from a healthy hum to a sickly warble, and then cutting out completely. I heard gangplanks open, then close again, and I knew it was time to make my move.

I found my set of tools in the dark underneath the control panel, and threw the bag across my back as I darted into action.

“Luna, stay hidden no matter what happens, alright?” I said, pausing as I tiptoed to the back of the ship.

“Hurry back, Celestia,” came Luna’s simple reply as I eased our own gangplank open and tiptoed into the swirling snow and surrounding shadows.

iii

The Scoutship was even larger up close.

Seeing nopony around, I wasted no time trotting over to the exposed engine car jutting off the side of the gondola. I knew from my work on the Sisyphys exactly what I was doing, and with my familiar tools I made quick work of the maintenance panel, revealing the intricate system of wiring inside.

I gutted the thing quickly with a rusted knife, enough that I knew it would take a little time and effort to repair. There would be no way I could actually permanently harm the engine with what little time and resources I had, but it would be enough to allow me the time I needed to flee the trading cluster.

Coiling the snapped wires up, I tossed it as far as I could manage into the freshly falling snow. Then, I rose to my shaking hooves, ready to canter back to the Sisyphys.

Before I could, however, a sudden feeling of sharp cold split through me as something distinctly metal was pressed almost gently to the back of my neck. I knew without looking that it was a blade, and the feeling of my blood already gently trickling further confirmed what I desperately did not want to know.

“Don’t move, alicorn.”

It was a deep voice, although it sounded less like a natural one and more like some stallion trying to sound more frightening than he was. I knew without turning that it was a guard.

Despite his orders for me to remain motionless, the guard wasted no time in grasping me by a heavy bundle of my mane and flinging me back in the direction of the Scoutship gondola.

My head struck first, and I fell without grace into the snow. I flinched and tried to scuttle backwards, only succeeding in colliding with the hard surface of the gondola once more. My head was still throbbing the whole while, sending rhythmic courses of pain through me as my vision struggled to focus on the stallion attacking me.

I felt another sudden burst of metallic cold, this time around my horn, as something was forcibly placed onto it. Instantly I was snarling in fury and pain as I felt this strange object split into my magic flow, so that every spell I tried to cast resulted in a splitting headache.

“Celestia the Alicorn,” I heard somepony say, although with the object tearing my magic and thoughts apart it sounded like it was coming through a funnel.

I replied with profanity, which despite nearly screaming I could not hear myself speak. The guard replied not with words but by using what I could only presume to be the shaft of a spear to harshly strike my forehead, sending me sprawling down into the snow once more.

I stood gasping for air, whirling around in a frenzy, trying to recover even for a moment so that I could at least get a good view of my attackers. Every time I managed to rise, I was promptly beaten back down. Even with my head throbbing in pain and my world a blur I could feel the trickle of blood down my sides and from a gash underneath my left ear, the blood seeping down my face. I was merely thankful he had not hit my eye with the shaft of the spear instead.

Amidst the panic, Sombra’s warning suddenly rung clear. These guards weren’t like the Roses. They would be satisfied simply dragging my corpse to Discord.

Had they not taken me by surprise, I imagined I could have taken them, although even I knew it to be a wishful internal boast considering they had weapons and I did not.

I snarled like a caged animal as my mane was pulled again, and I was jerked to my hooves to face an Erisian guard who, to my surprise and indignation, looked younger than me. And furthermore, he was wearing a jubilant grin that went beyond sheer satisfaction and ventured into the realm of enjoyment.

I swallowed and stared right back, keeping my eyes narrowed and my terror buried deep. Slowly the device on my horn ceased it’s painful throbbing (or perhaps I’d simply grown used to it), and I allowed my mind to calm from animalistic survival instincts and return to rational thoughts.

The guard looked at me quizzically for several more seconds, before hitting me with an armoured hoof once more, sending me crashing back down into the snow which was quickly becoming red with my own blood.

“Stop it!” Another voice rung out, somewhere between scolding and pleading. Distinctly a mare, and not sounding a whole lot older than myself. “What are you hitting her for?”

“You saw the way she was looking at me! Alicorns like her deserve a whole lot worse.”

“Well, she wasn’t doing anything. Can we try to be civil about this?”

I stumbled to my hooves once again, hoping to whatever was above that the hotheaded little snot-nosed savage of a stallion didn’t strike me back down again. Fortunately, the mare who had intervened seemed to quell his unjustified violence, allowing me to finally analyze them closer.

They were both Erisian guards, although despite being younger the stallion seemed to be the authority. He was wearing a helmet with horns from a minotaur, and extravagant looking armour compared to the armour that the mare was wearing, although I saw as my vision focused that she had been wielding the sword that had first stopped me dead in my tracks. They were both unicorns.

With surprise, I recognized the mare as one who had owned a stand in the marketplace of Cyclosa. She had disappeared not long after I had started working in the scrapyard, although I had never found out where to or what her name had even been. I did not exactly have any ponies who I could have asked.

“She sure is quiet,” The mare observed, earning a chuckle from her partner. “Hey, alicorn! Tell us your name.”

“Celestia,” I said simply, looking down at my hooves dug into the reddening snow. “My name is Celestia.”

“From Cyclosa?”

“Yeah. From Cyclosa.”

“Told you,” The stallion took a step forwards, wordlessly grasping the mare’s sword in his own telekinesis. He brought it down towards me, and when I instinctively moved to back away he scowled and used the sword to cut the twine of my cloak. It fell away, my wings catching the howling wind and instantly unfurling.

“Told you,” The stallion said again, giving the mare her sword back. “Celestia, the scrapyard alicorn from Cyclosa.”

“Can we hurry up and take her inside the ship?” The mare groaned, beating the snow with a hoof impatiently. “It’s cold out here!”

The guard in the horned helmet rolled his eyes, but nodded. Before I could react, he had grasped me by my mane again and begun walking towards the opened gangpank of the Scoutship.

“Y’know, I’m capable of walking!” I snarled, trying and failing to wrench myself free. The guards ignored my protest as we mounted the gangplank and entered the ship, and the stallion rudely pushed me the remainder of the distance inside the moment he could.

I hit the metal floor of the ship, and before I could recover back onto my feet I heard the gangplank slam shut again.

I stumbled up, backing away instinctively from the guards. We were both silent for almost a minute, almost calmly examining each other. I took the time to analyze my surroundings, too, although I felt no increase in confidence as I looked about and realized the guards were standing in front of the only route of escape.

The first true sentence I spoke to them was—at the loss of my pride—a shakily asked question.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“That depends on what you tell us, alicorn,” The stallion responded. It seemed as though he would be doing most of the talking.

“Not sure what I can tell you that you don’t already know.”

“Why don’t you start from the top? You’re from Cyclosa?”

“Yeah. I was a scrapper there,” I said.

“Slave work?” The stallion guessed.

“Only for the first year. They started paying me during my second.”

“And how long did you work in the scrapyard? A few years?”

“Yeah. Since I was a filly.”

Both guards shared a surprised glance, as if having an intense and silent conversation, and finally the mare piped up.

“Since you were a filly?” she repeated.

“Twelve,” I elaborated, although the moment I opened my mouth I realized the reason for their confusion. “I wasn’t an alicorn then. My wings grew in not long after I turned eighteen. A year ago.”

“So you weren’t born an alicorn?”

“Obviously,” I snorted. “You really think I managed to stay hidden in a city like Cyclosa for eighteen years?”

Both said nothing in response. I tapped a hoof on the metal flooring impatiently as the silence stretched on. It did not take long for the creeping tenseness of the situation to grow maddening.

“Is that all you want to hear?” I finally asked. As much as it did not affect me, these guards knowing about my pathetic fillyhood was hardly bolstering for my pride. “Are you going to cut off my wings and send me off with a slap on my hoof, or what?”

“What about your sister?” The stallion asked calmly, once more ignoring me completely. I could hardly believe that this was the same stallion who had been beating me merely for enjoyment a moment ago, for he seemed completely unimpacted by my sarcastic remarks now.

And that was to say nothing of the question that he asked… for a moment I felt my throat catch and my mind reel in fright. Then, equally as calm as my opposition before me, I quelled my emotions and looked them straight in the eye as I replied.

“My sister is dead,” I said flatly.

There was no hesitation on the part of the stallion. He leaned forwards and brought an armoured hoof sideways across my muzzle. I was dazed for a moment as I felt blood trickle from my freshly broken nose.

“You’ll get that every time you lie to us, alicorn,” he seethed with a grin. “Now, where is your little sister?”

“My little sister is dead,” I said, keeping my tone level and still meeting his eyes.

True to his promise, he once more struck my already broken nose. This time, my response was beyond sheer surprise and I cried out in indignation and pain.

“Your sister! You’ve hidden her, haven’t you?”

Clearly, they would not accept my lie no matter how firmly I stated it. Instead of repeating it a third time, I twisted my false desperation into a knowing smile.

“You’ll never touch her. She might be a little filly, but she’s already braver and smarter than you two halfwits combined.”

This time, when the stallion approached me I was ready for him. I couldn’t hope to overpower a muscular and armoured stallion, especially one with a partner and a sword, but I’d be damned if I would simply accept the injuries he was inflicting on me. The moment he moved closer, I spat directly into his face.

His armoured hoof came once again all the same, once more onto my broken nose, fueled by a much greater degree of fury, but I had my satisfaction all the same.

“She isn’t gonna tell you that,” The mare had been watching, looking detached from the scene before her, but she had not spoken for some time and her voice came to me as a surprise. She was lounging against the side of the gondola, more focused on polishing the silver sword before her then the two of us.

“If she knows what’s good for her, she will!” The stallion turned his fury to his comrade, who shirked a little in response but remained largely indifferent.

“We’re not threatening her with anything,” The mare pointed out. “Except pain. And she’s experienced a lifetime of that.”

He looked back at me critically, as if weighing her points. Under his glare, I looked down at the metal floor, wiping my broken nose with a hoof. It was bleeding profusely, but I could already feel it starting to clog from the cold.

Eventually, he sighed, turning away from me to address his companion.

“Alright, Wisp. You’re right. She ain’t talking. Kill her and let’s go home.”

In an instant, the panic and fear was back, but I’d be damned if I would let the guards see it. Instead, I swallowed it down with effort and kept on glaring daggers at them. The mare rose to her hooves and angled her sword towards me.

She took a cautious step towards me—clearly, she was reluctant even now to approach such an infamous foe to Erisia, but with her sword drawn she seemed much more confident.

The stallion, on the other hand, looked relatively indifferent. When he saw his partner’s sword, however, he rose an eyebrow and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Damn it, Wisp. Take her outside if you’re going to be using that. I just had these floors waxed.”

“On your hooves, alicorn.” The mare guard—Wisp, it seemed—ordered, her voice wavering slightly despite her best efforts to keep it sounding firm and commanding. “Move towards the gangway. Don’t make a move, unless you want—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said impatiently, already rising and turning back towards where I had entered the airship. “I know. I’m not stupid. I’ve seen this routine many times now.”

I was marched at swordpoint to the closed gangplank, which Wisp opened with a quick flare of her magic. The whole while I could feel the sharp steel of the sword rubbing against my mane, wordlessly warning me that any sudden movements would result in an end more painful then I was hoping for.

The gangplank fell and in an instant the howling winds and swirling snow were all around us, grasping my mane and further rubbing it against the silver sword. My hooves crossed from metal to snow, and I continued staring straight forwards as I stopped walking.

There was an audience watching from the windows of the tavern—they must have seen the Scoutship land and been fearfully curious as to what it was doing in such an isolated trading cluster. A few stray feathers flew freely from my wings, which I awkwardly shuffled as if to take flight. In truth, I was merely gauging what her reaction would be, but received no obvious signs.

She seemed reluctant.

“Hey,” I called back at the guard mare, not daring to actually turn. “Wisp, right? That’s your name?”

The wind was the only reply, so I chuckled lightly and tried once more.

“Come on, I’m just asking your name. Don’t I have the right to one final request or something?”

“Willow Whisper,” she finally sighed. “My name is Willow Whisper. What are you doing, alicorn?”

I did not answer her question, but instead posed another of my own. “I used to buy fruit from you in Cyclosa. You were friends with my boss in the Scrapyard. ‘Heard good things about me,’ you’d said. Do you remember?”

“No,” she replied, although it sounded like half of a lie to me. “I don’t remember. You know what they do to Erisian Guards.”

“I’ve heard stories. Didn’t actually think it was possible, myself,” I shrugged, grimacing a little as the sword scraped against the back of my neck.

“What are you hoping to accomplish, alicorn?”

“Celestia. Call me that. It’s my name.”

“I don’t give a damn what your name is! You’re a dangerous little slum rat—”

“You’re conflicted about doing this, aren’t you?” I cut her off. “Murdering me, I mean. You don’t want to.”

“What are you talking about? You’re an alicorn! Of course I do!”

I let out a long sigh through my broken nose. Looking up, I saw that the ponies were still gathered at the Tavern window, watching both myself and the mare holding a sword level with my neck from behind me.

The silence stretched for what surely was no more than ten seconds, but it was time that I had expected a sudden sharp pain to split through me as she dealt a fatal blow with her sword. It did not come, nor did she speak again. Instead, I was the one to break the silence once again.

“Hey, Willow Whisper,” I said. “I’m gonna turn around. Just to face you. Don’t freak out and lob my head off, alright?”

I received no response, but I began slowly turning anyways. I felt the blade brush against my mane as I moved, turning my back to the onlookers in the Tavern and instead meeting the eyes of the mare who was supposed to be killing me.

“Listen to me, Willow Whisper,” I said softly. “You are not evil. You are not Discord. You’re just afraid. I guess fear does things to the way ponies think, and it gets to the point where you feel so committed to whatever path you’re on that you don’t think you can change.”

“You can’t seriously think you can talk your way out of this!” she said, narrowing her eyes and letting out a harsh chortle.

I continued as if she had no spoken.

“You know, that’s how I thought, too. In fact, hell, the path I was on was the same as yours. I thought that there were evil ponies, and then there was me. Everypony that wasn’t me was an evil pony. Have you ever met a young foal or filly, Wisp?”

Willow Whisper shook her head to tell me that she had not.

“Heh, well, it’s neat the way they think. With their hearts instead of their minds. My sister thinks like that. I used to think it was a problem—y’know, I think I still do—but I’m backed in a corner now and I’ve tried everything already. Maybe she really was onto something.”

I gave Wisp a sly smile, and it was a smile I saw echoed back at myself from the blade angled level with my snout, wavering weakly from the doubt in the mind of the mare keeping it levitated. I met Wisp’s eyes reflected with mine down the cold metal of the sword, as I searched for any signs of equinity still lingering there.

“I can introduce you to my sister, Willow Whisper. You’d probably like her. She’s very sweet and kind. Just put down the sword.”

“You’re insane. How weak minded do you think we are, that you can manipulate us so easily?”

“Well then… who are you killing me for? For yourself? For Discord? Or because you’re too afraid of what’ll happen to you if you don’t do what you’re told?” I rose a hoof and rested it on the top of the sword, guiding it downwards so that it was no longer level with my snout. She did not make any obvious moves that told me she even noticed. “Open you eyes, Whisper. You know that what you were told about me isn’t true. Do you really want to kill an innocent young mare and her twelve year old sister?”

“Discord will have me killed if I don’t,” she replied. I felt a rush of excitement as the tone of her words shifted suddenly. I’d suspected her doubt up until then, but now she had just admitted it herself with blunt honesty.

“Yeah, he probably will,” I nodded. “But I can give you a lift to the nearest settlement if you want to slip away. Trust me, I don’t really think hunting you down would be Discord’s priority with me on the run.”

All through my speech, I had refused to break eye contact with Willow, and for the first time I looked away from her and back in the direction of the Sisyphys.

Then, I turned and started walking in the direction of my ship.

Judging solely by the fact that the action was not followed by a sudden assault from a sword, it seemed Luna’s childish preachings of kindness had really gotten through to somepony after all.

The Sisyphys

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My tools were right where I had left them when the guards had first confronted me, and I grabbed them as I started back towards the Sisyphys.

I thought I heard the sword fall into the freshly fallen snow as it was dropped carelessly and the mare who had been holding it followed me as my pace increased to a mad canter.

The gangplank of the Sisyphys was still down. I sprinted into the dark interior of the ship without once turning to see if Willow indeed was following me.

“Luna!” I called as I trotted back to the control panel. “I’m alright! Come on out, I need your help.”

“Celestia!” I heard her muffled voice scream, and then the board on the ceiling was pushed aside as Luna dropped back down into the gondola. She wasted no time in dashing up to me and nearly tackling me off my hooves with a flying embrace.

“I thought they had you!”

“They did.”

“What’s on your horn?! And why are you bleeding? And how did you escape?”

“I had help,” I said simply, motioning back to the mare still standing on the threshold between the gangplank and the deck of the airship. In Luna’s mad jubilation, she must have completely missed the mare in Erisian armour, but her eyes widened in shock and confusion the moment I pointed her out.

...Or perhaps she was simply in shock of the airship she had found herself in—built from everything and anything, and looking about as flightworthy as a bag of bricks.

"It's... a piece of junk," she said bluntly.

“She's decided killing me isn't on her agenda. We'll talk later,” I forcibly grabbed Luna and turned her attention back to the snow covered window at the front of the ship. “We need to take off now. And I need your help, Luna.”

Luna nodded once to show me that I had it.

“We’re gonna use the eastward wind to escape, but I need to get the propellers started so that we can outrun that Scoutship.”

Luna said nothing, but nodded again.

“See this switch here?” I pointed at it with a hoof. It was a small steel affair painted black, with three different positions. “This is the choke. It primes the fuel intake for the engines. Understand?”

She looked lost, but nodded again nonetheless.

“I’ve gotta go outside and start the props manually. Once they’re started, you need to fiddle around with the choke until the engine catches the fuel and stays running. Got it?”

“Yeah… I think so…”

“Good,” I gave her a supportive but obviously false grin, and then, still toting my tools, I was off.

Back in the snow, I ducked underneath the hovering gondola and made my way to the propeller car bolted to a protruding fin near the stern of the ship. The propellor itself was covered with snow and ice which I promptly cleared off with a rusty knife that was amongst my tools.

Once the propellor was clear, I clambered atop the car itself, the thing only just large and strong enough to support my weight. I pried open the maintenance panel and stood staring at the bundle of wiring within. The ignition coil was clearly visible amongst them—I had started the propellers manually before, although without anypony to help me with the fuel choke it hadn’t stayed started for long.

I took one glance back at the Scoutship—hovering menacingly and motionlessly—and then connected the wires on the ignition coil. In a burst of electricity the propellor sputtered a massive amount of smoke and grease as it attempted to ignite the fuel.

“Luna!” I screamed, giving the gondola a hard hit with a wrench for good measure.

The frequency of the ship’s engine grew more frantic, and I dropped my tools and wasted no time in sprinting back to the gangplank and then to the control panel.

I took the choke switch from Luna and brought it to full, half, then back to full, repeating the procedure rhythmically until the props irritated whining grew consistent.

“Alright. Once more. Same thing.”

I tore into the snow a second time, hesitating for a moment to first glance at the running engine, and then in the direction of the Scoutship.

I was quickly thankful I did, for I saw from the quick glance the stallion guard tearing through the snow after me, wielding a sharp looking spear and snarling in fury. I grinned in response. He wouldn’t be getting me off guard and by surprise this time, and I was hardly frightened of him now.

The device was still attached onto my horn like a troublesome tumour, cutting off my magic, whereas he was using his to keep the spear angled towards me as he charged. He was all fury and no tact.

I dodged underneath the spear easily, and barrelled into the stallion with all my weight. The moment he hit the ground I bucked him with both my back hooves, pushing him at least an additional half-dozen feet through the snow.

I grabbed his spear, snapped it, took one glance at his form in the snow—unconscious from one buck alone—then I spat on him and tore back towards the Sisyphys one final time.

After having to fiddle with a faulty wire on the second engine car, the infernal thing started, giving me a sharp electric shock in the process.

Trotting back up the gangplank once more, I seated myself next to Luna at the control panel again, this time with the din of the spinning propellers ringing out on both sides.

It would be several minutes before they were at a speed that would actually be able to move the Sisyphys forwards with any speed, of course. Several minutes I could not spare. The small sails mounted on the sides of the ship would have to suffice. If the Sisyphys was a goldfish, then the sails were her pectoral fins.

I grasped the steering column in my shaking hooves and stared straight forwards.

“Do… do you even know how to fly an airship, Celestia?” Luna asked pensively, noticing my troubled expression.

“Of course I do!” I squawked abruptly.

To show that I indeed did know what I was doing, I threw a lever at random and gripped the control column tighter. My guess with the lever was apparently quite correct, because outside I heard the sound of the mooring line being snapped by some mechanically activated blade mechanism.

The moment the mooring was loose the wildly blowing wind caught the airship's sails and started pushing her forwards. Even with the propellers dead we started moving forwards with the wind.

The transport ships crept past on our sides, and a building directly in front of us threatened us with the promise of an incoming collision.

“Ah, Celestia!” Luna shrilled. “Might wanna make us go up!”

“I know, I know!” I snapped, hunting for some sort of ballast control. I began throwing more switches at random, and eventually the satisfying sound of a sudden torrent of water outside greeted my efforts. The ship lurched suddenly, and the whole gondola pitched as the Sisyphys struck one of the transport ships during its ascent.

The Sisyphys reeled to the side from the impact, barely clearing the roof of the tavern. I battled with the steering column, managing to level the ship’s flightpath above Cluster 13.

“Told you I knew what I was doing,” I said, smiling triumphantly and closing the ballast tanks again, locking the lever in place to make sure it would not be flipped again accidentally

“The Scoutship is gonna be on your tail in seconds without your props running full speed,” Willow warned after a while, still standing alone far from the control panel Luna and I were seated at.

As if on cue, we were suddenly blinded by bright light as the Scoutship angled it’s searchbeam directly at us, mounting into the air just as quickly and much more gracefully than we had, and with her left prop churning the winter air. By contrast, I had to rely on the awkward and inefficient crosswinds to try and make my escape, with the engines hardly up to any measure of speed that could propel us forwards. I cursed and twisted the column around again. The Sisyphys began gradually turning away from the ship coming at us headlong, and the searchlight was no longer blinding us through the long glass window at the bow of the airship.

Underneath us the lights of the few buildings of Cluster 13 passed as we crept away from the tiny settlement. I’d haphazardly bolted a maritime compass I’d found in the scrapyard to the Sisyphys’s dashboard, and it spun as our course changed to show me that we were now flying to the South-East. It was a direction that would ultimately take us back to Pillory, but at that moment I hardly cared about flying North. I could worry about that when we were not being pursued.

Besides, to the East was the towering mountain range, violently and abruptly jutting out of the outskirts of the flatlands. It was hardly ideal, but seeing the freakish behemoths of nature looming dangerously close to us gave me a daring idea.

“Luna, go check on that Scoutship behind us,” I commanded, hoping it would distract her. I was concerned about the Scoutship, anyways. My eyes were locked directly ahead and I dared not leave the controls to look out the round window on the stern of the gondola.

Luna obeyed without protest, forsaking her seat beside me and making her way to the back of the ship.

“It’s getting pretty close,” she said warily. “I think they’re faster than us.”

Of course they were. It was stupid to think they wouldn’t have been. I was flying a rustbucket schooner that had probably been left abandoned for a good reason.

“Hey Willow, is that thing armed?” I called backwards. The mare looked oddly calm, leaning against the side of the gondola.

A sudden, booming sound rung out from some point outside the Sisyphys, as if we were flying through a thunderstorm. The sound instantly answered the question Willow had no chance to.

“What was that?!” Luna shrilled, dashing back to the bow of the ship and leaping into the chair next to me.

“Rockets,” Willow replied, suddenly beside me at the bow. “They’re firing at us.”

Sensing Luna’s terror, I finally looked away from the twin-peak-entrance to the mountain range before us and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry. There’s no way we’re already in range.”

Nodding reproachfully, Luna turned back to the blackness sprawled across the windows before us, noticing for the first time the mass of ancient stone. We were so close now that I could see scraggy trees clinging to patches of snow on the side of the mountains. I kept the yoke steady despite my shaking hooves.

“Celly… what are you doing?!”

I said nothing. Another rocket exploded against the mountain ahead of us, this time close enough that the sound of stone and shrapnel ringing against the gondola could be heard even over the Sisyphys’s droning engines. I was not entirely sure whether I was right about them being out of range, but it was likely they were merely warning shots anyways.

Luna repeated her question in a more panicked tone, and instead of remaining silent I retaliated sharply.

“Shut up, Luna! Let me focus!”

The Sisyphys crept into the mountain range, skirting along the side of the towering mountains. The sound of wood rending split out as the downwards pointing sail masts struck the mountains and were instantly torn off. The entire ship keeled a little from the impact.

I cursed loudly and jammed the throttles for the propellers all the way forwards. The props rose in pitch, sputtered a few times, but stayed spinning all the same.

The mighty goldfish crept forwards into the mountain range.

The sound of the unhealthy engines was so loud that I could not even hear my own voice as I told Luna to grab hold of something. Then, the Sisyphys lurched downwards as I vented the hydrogen gas from the balloons.

The crosswinds that had gotten us as far as the mountains were now no more, thanks to the walls of stone around us, but the propellers continued pushing us forwards as we descended into the snowy valley below.

I perhaps vented more gas than I’d intended, or else grossly underestimated the height of the valley, because in moments the stone ground had filled the front window with alarming detail.

“Pull up, you moron!” Willow barked suddenly, as the ground crept closer and closer. “Did you forget you’re flying an airship? Not exactly the most nimble vehicle!”

Despite my indignation at her bossing me around, she was not wrong. I twisted the control yoke forwards, and the sound of the once-derelict fins creaking responded. The ship recovered from its rapid descent with only about a dozen feet to spare.

“Keep her level,” I spat at Willow, clambering out of the seat so I could get a look at the Scoutship.

The Scoutship was keeling to the side, with only the power of one engine to push her forwards. The mountain range only got more and more difficult to navigate later on—I could see them arcing in impossible patterns so that sometimes, massive caverns formed out of immense slabs of stones pushed against each other.

We were hardly piloting a nimble craft ourselves, but to follow us further into the mountain range with a crippled ship was suicide. And the only other option would be to land and repair, in which case we would be able to escape all the same.

I trotted back to the controls grinning, and nearly shoved Willow out of my seat as I retook the steering column.

“Celestia… are we going through there?” Luna asked warily, pointing to one of the larger slab caverns that I indeed was heading towards.

“Yeah.”

“What?!” Willow shrilled. “You’re nuts! You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

“Wouldn’t you love that,” I retorted without bothering to turn around.

“But… what if it’s a dead end?” Luna asked. I gritted my teeth and tried to quell my indignation at her taking Willow’s side.

I didn’t speak as the Sisyphys crept into the gaping cavern entranceway.

Behind me, the Scoutship was evidently slowing her engine as she saw the same entranceway before us and prepared to give chase, but with only one her descent was slow and lethargic compared to our nimble and hectic drop.

“Why isn’t he flying over?” Willow breathed, looking backwards also. “What the hell is he thinking?”

I once again remained silent, although I had a thousand insults on my tongue I could have spat as an answer to her query.

The simple answer was that he was probably too frightened of losing sight of us with the snow a swirling blizzard. And besides, going over the mountains would be next to impossible with only one functional propeller.

So, through the cavern it was.

“Do you even have working running lights on this piece of junk?” Willow Whisper was complaining.

I cast her a bitter glance and flipped the switch to turn them on.

Nothing happened.

“Shut up,” I grumbled.

Fortunately, the Scoutship’s searchlight was directed on us once more as she also reached the gaping entrance.

Unfortunately, the gondola suddenly lurched as another explosion rung out directly beside us, close enough that the sparks from the rending stone showered against the windshield of the Sisyphys.

We were a looming target now, without much room for the Scoutship to miss. The walls of the cavern were so close that if I were perched on the engine car, I could lean over and tap them. Any narrower and we would be crushed between them.

This, however, gave us an advantage. With no room to navigate, the Scoutship would plow into us headlong if she successfully shot us down, and it seemed like the cowardly Erisian guard stallion had no intention of sacrificing his own life and ship to take us down.

“You’re nuts,” Willow muttered again, watching the stone passing within spitting distance of us.

“Heard you the first time,” I shot back. “Luna, mounted at the back of the ship are two oil lanterns. Go grab them.”

Without uttering a word, Luna crept from her chair and did as she was told. The poor filly’s eyes were wide with terror as she deliberately avoided allowing them to turn towards the narrow cavern walls beside us.

“Listen,” I whispered the moment Luna was gone. “That little filly is terrified enough as it is. Do you mind not making it worse with your constant negativity?”

Willow Whisper’s disgust was evident. She looked as though she were ready to spit in my face as a response. Fortunately, she too kept her voice low. “You’re the terrifying one to her.”

To my surprise, Willow followed her attack by withdrawing a book of matches from her armour and offering them to me. I was unphased and responded with indignation all the same, rudely tearing the matches out of her hooves.

“And you’re the reason I have to be,” I managed to shoot back, but I fell silent in a moment as Luna struggled back with two heavy looking oil lanterns.

“Take her steady forwards,” I commanded, offering the yoke to Willow as I rose again and took the lanterns from Luna.

I lit both lanterns with the matches Willow had given me. One of the glass windows on the side of the ship slid open, and a rusty nail had been pounded in and arced upwards against the outside of gondola, and it was on this that I mounted the lantern. The light was enough to touch the sides of the cavern on both port and starboard, which would at least offer us a bit of reference once the Scoutship’s searchlight was off.

Willow, despite her generally sour attitude towards me and Luna, was piloting the ship smoothly through the cavern all the same, so I afforded myself a backwards glance at the Scoutship.

I was glad I did, because in the moment I turned around I saw her one running propeller suddenly start grinding against the stone. The sound was audible even over both of our ship’s droning engines, and the sudden shower of sparks were like fireworks exploding in the cavern.

Then, the entire engine car burst into flames.

Without thinking, I let out a jubilant shout. The damage from the exploding engine car had already spread to the wooden gondola. In moments, the whole thing would be a nest of flame. The balloon would sag from the heat, and the entire ship would come to rest permanently in the stone cavern.

My plan had worked.

There was no time to celebrate, however, because the awful sound of the propeller striking stone had been enough to eclipse Willow’s attention. Our ship began keeling also, rising from only a slight nudge of the control yoke. The Sisyphys’ goldfish caudal fin ground against the roof of the ceiling.

I cantered back to the controls, shoved Willow out of them, and levelled the ship without a word. I was still grinning even as I felt the yoke respond sluggishly. The impact must have severed one of the control cables.

Nonetheless, the flames of the burning Scoutship were enough to light our way forwards, and I was still smiling at the sight.

Luna, however, was not.

“Celestia…” she growled. Our situation was a mere repeat of the wreck of the Damask Rose, and Luna was no such fool to not realize it.

“I don’t want to hear any of it right now,” I replied. My smile had fallen and guilt had begun to tug it into a frown.

We continued flying on, past the lights that the flames of the Scoutship produced. We flew on into the darkness, with only the dim light of the lanterns clattering against the airships wood to navigate by.

With the Scoutship gone, the only sounds for some time were random unseen parts of the Sisyphys striking the stone walls, never with enough intensity to actually do any crippling damage.

After a short flight, the cavern opened to moonlight. The Sisyphys once more squeezed through without a foot to spare, and we continued our flight through the mountain range.

The maritime compass spun as I twisted the steering column. We were once more flying North.

Despite all the excitement, Luna had dozed off by time we left the mountain range behind and were once more flying over the infinite plains. I’d lifted her delicately and carried her to the back of the Sisyphys, setting her down gently on an old, moldy couch and spreading my torn cloak across her as a blanket.

Willow Whisper wordlessly took the seat next to me not long after Luna had vacated it. I wasn’t about to speak it out loud, but part of me was thankful for her company.

That wasn’t to say her company entailed a whole lot. Neither of us did a whole lot more than simply stare at the night below us. I made one passing comment about the night presently pushing its thirty-sixth hour, but it produced no response from Willow.

It wasn’t until I asked her a question that she finally spoke.

“Are you afraid of me?” I mumbled, casting a wayward glance in her direction. She continued staring straight ahead, pretending not to notice.

“Yes.”

“Really. You’re afraid of me,” I drawled, raising an eyebrow. “You’re afraid of the young mare you almost decapitated with a silver sword after brutally beating her and breaking her nose?”

“You don’t have to point out the obvious irony. I’m well aware.”

“Alright,” I looked back to the moving sky directly in front of us. “I won’t anymore.”

Heaving a sigh, I locked the steering column and rolled out of the seat, doing my best to tiptoe to the far end without waking Luna with the loudly creaking boards. Close to her sleeping form was my saddlebag, which I crept towards and silently sifted through. I withdrew a glass jar full of mead, and tiptoed back to the front deck.

The jar opened with a popping sound, and I chugged a heavy amount back and offered the jar to Willow, who stared dumbly at it for a while before finally taking it and drawing back a heavy swig herself.

“That’s the spirit!” I grinned. “Probably not a thing they really endorse with you guards, huh?”

She said nothing, and passed the jar back to me, still making a conscious effort to avoid my gaze.

“Did you lie about what you said?” she asked. “About knowing me from Cyclosa?”

“No, actually. Quite convenient,” I replied. “You seriously don’t remember at all?”

“I remember bits and pieces. But never for long.”

“Huh. Well, you were thoroughly average,” I assured. “So why help me then, if you don’t know anything beyond Discord’s rule or whatever?”

Silence.

“The hell is this?” I grumbled irritably. “Twenty questions? Do you talk at all?”

“You’re not exactly an easy mare to spill secrets to,” she replied sharply. “Your own little sister is terrified of you.”

My breath caught in my throat. I had half a mind to leap at her and start throwing punches like a madmare, but instead I kept those thoughts back.

A backwards glance showed me that Luna was still asleep, curled in a ball and using my saddlebag as a pillow. I was thankful, for I did not want her to overhear what I was going to say next.

“Don’t pretend you know anything about my sister,” I said, my calm tone not betraying the firmness of my words. “And if you value leaving my company with all of your teeth in line, don’t say something like that to me again.”

“Duly noted.”

I was hardly satisfied with her response.

“I regret helping you,” I spoke as if she hadn’t. “The only reason I did at all is because of my little sister.”

“I heard you the first time, alicorn,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“That’s another thing. Stop calling me that.”

“Why? It’s what you are.”

“Yeah, but you say it like it’s an insult,” I had to make a conscious effort to keep my voice restrained and not wake Luna. “Sorry I was born wrong.”

“See, the thing is, alicorn, you aren’t sorry.”

“Oh, and I should be?”

“Yes, you should be! If you would’ve come clean, I bet you they really would’ve just chopped your wings off and sent you back to your lonely little life. But instead you’ve gotta pursue some selfish delusion of importance.”

“I’m fleeing North! How is that a delusion of importance?!”

Willow said nothing for a short while, her icy glare trained straight ahead at the dark skies and snow passing beneath us.

Then, she brought her head into her hooves, as if she were sobbing. Fortunately for me she did not, but the expression of grief was all the same.

“I’m going to die,” she whispered. “Because of you. An ungrateful little brat. What was I thinking?”

“You had a lapse of morality,” I replied coldly. Even if I could have tried, I would have been unable to muster up any sympathy for this mare. “For a moment, anyways.”

She seemed to not hear me. “I’m going to be hung, as an example to the other guards.”

Her voice was rising in pitch as fear took control of it. Regardless, she was most likely correct. I had seen it only once before in Cyclosa; a thief had been hung for the rest of us to see, and learn from the poor mare’s mistakes. For a week she had stayed there, the rope was just low enough that the tips of her hooves could brush against the ground and keep her alive.

She had even addressed me. I had been making my way to the scrapyard in the dead of the early morning darkness, and the marketplace was deserted, but I kept my head low and avoided eye contact as I ignored her gurgling pleas.

I shuddered at the thought. Then, with a sideways glance at Willow, I realized that her fate would be much worst.

I couldn’t bring myself to believe that even she deserved it. An animalistic mind doesn’t always see a lot of merit in karmic justice. With a heavy sigh, I turned my gaze from the glowing control panel and directed it at Willow Whisper.

“You might be overreacting just a bit,” I said. “Cut your mane and tail, lay low, and you’ll be fine. Luna and I are the focus of Discord’s guard, not you.”

“What do you care happens to me?!” she exploded. I heard Luna stir, and I chanted a silent prayer in my mind for her not to wake.

“I care because I don’t like seeing ponies die,” I spoke calmly. “I’m not a monster. But do you know who does like seeing ponies die? Y’know who does it for fun?”

“You’re insane,” she breathed. “Aren’t you afraid of him? Afraid he’s… listening?”

I brought a hoof to the bridge of my broken nose. I’d heard the stories before; that Discord heard ponies when they spoke blasphemy against him, and punished them accordingly.

It made enough sense for me to consider them true.

“Yes, I’m afraid,” I admitted. “But I’d rather be myself and afraid than twist myself into somepony that I don’t want to be.”

It was a lie on my part, of course. The truth was, I simply found satisfaction in deliberately opposing the powers that were in any subtle way I could, without having any logical reason for doing so.

Willow didn’t have a response, but that was alright, for I had another question anyways.

“This thing on my horn,” I clawed violently at the cold metallic ring still clinging onto it with vicious intensity. “The hell is it?”

“It’s a magic suppressor.”

“Well, can you take it off?” I shot. “It hurts, and I’d like for my magic not to be suppressed.”

“I can’t,” Willow shook her head. “Honestly though, I’d personally feel a lot safer if you kept it on anyways.”

She couldn’t. It reeked of a lie to me, and I was quick to point it out with a narrowed glare.

“You’re not working for Discord anymore!” I protested. “Stop acting like you are. I’m saving your skin from the… the consequences of your own damn morality. Can you not help me out a little?”

“I can’t help you,” she repeated. “My partner activated it, only his magic can deactivate it. I’m no expert sorcerer anyways.”

For one reason or another, I decided to grant her the benefit of the doubt and drop the request. It would be something I could figure out later, anyways.

“Whatever,” I sighed, and then another part of her statement resonated in my mind. “Actually, that reminds me. You’re part of the guard, they must share a little more information with you, right?”

“What, you’re interrogating me now?”

“For crying out loud, I’m just trying to pass the time!” I motioned wildly at the featureless black plains before us, and then took another violent swig of the mead.

“Fine,” she sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know about a unicorn stallion named Sombra. Do you know him?”

“Nope.”

“Alright, figures. How about the Crystal Ponies?”

Willow tensed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. Should’ve figured you’d want to know about them.”

“Why?”

Willow blinked in confusion. “I’d think of all the ponies in Erisia, the alicorn extremist would know about the Crystal Ponies.”

“Well, I don’t,” I rolled my eyes. “Can you just tell me?”

“They’re… extremists like you, really. Wanna usurp Discord. But they’re a lot more proactive about it. They are expert sorcerers. Ponies say they can even move the sun a little.”

“Well, seems like that’d be a necessity if they really do plan on killing him,” I replied.

“They’re insane if they think they can,” Willow yanked the mead out of my hooves and took a swig herself.

“That we can agree on,” I couldn’t help but crack a smile as she downed a good quarter of the jar in one swoop.

“So you really are running off to the North then?”

“Yeah. And no, you can’t come with us.”

“I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail.”

“Good. Least we’re mutual there. Then we’ll part ways at the next town.”

“You’re… honestly letting me go that easily?” Willow asked, her voice somewhere between confused and—oddly enough—grateful.

“‘Letting you go?’” I blinked. “Letting you go from what? I’m no saint, but I’m not going to hurt somepony for no reason. And you decided not to do the same to me. We’re even. Besides, my sister would probably kill me. You saw how she reacted to that Scoutship going down.”

“Yeah. Hard to believe you two are sisters. You couldn’t be any more different.”

For some odd reason, her remark caught me off guard. Did we truly? Nopony had ever said it so directly before. Were we some freakish polar opposites?

It wasn’t a thought I’d ever considered, or perhaps it was a thought I’d never allowed myself to consider. I loved Luna, and I knew she loved me back. And we respected each other…

I found myself turning that thought over. Yes… we carried respect for each other, even if I did not often express it with my snappy and impatient tone. But Luna’s innocence, her kindness… surely that was not something I merely scoffed at and ignored.

The thought seemed like a self-defensive lie. When did I ever value Luna’s innocence? When did I ever meet it with anything but hostility?

And my own behavior? When did Luna ever meet it with anything but fear?

Respect was not synonymous with fear. And I was beginning to have trouble telling myself Luna carried the former more than the latter.

“Your own little sister is terrified of you,” Willow Whisper had said. I had responded with blatant hostility.

But not because it was a lie.

Rather, because it was the truth.

And I hated myself for it.

iii

When Luna awoke and stumbled her way back to the bow of the ship, Willow moved to abandon her seat and offer it to Luna. I shook my head and scooted a little to the end of my chair, and Luna reluctantly sat next to me on the edge of the chair.

She stared at Willow for some time, and then with evident fear asked:

“Are you a guard?”

“Uhh… not anymore,” Willow replied, shuffling in her armour awkwardly “Your sister managed to dupe me into helping her.”

“Celestia?” Luna looked at me for confirmation with wide eyes, sounding as though she figured Willow’s story was too farfetched to be true and yet was hoping it was all the same.

“She’s right,” I said, staring straight ahead at the landscape ahead. “Willow Whisper, meet my little sister Luna.”

Luna was beaming in a moment. Evidently, she was attributing a little too much morality to the risky action I’d taken just to stop my head from being taken off my shoulders by the very mare now scratching her mane nervously right beside me.

“Hello!” Luna greeted, all her fear gone, replaced by blind trust of the mare decked out in Erisian guard armour.

“Yeah, hello, kid,” Willow, like me, chose to stare straight ahead instead of meeting Luna’s joyous expression.

She said nothing further, not that there was a whole lot else to say. I took the opportunity to talk to Luna instead.

“How is your horn?” I asked, pointing at the stubby thing on her forehead, now evidently clear even from afar. She was as clearly an alicorn now as I was.

“Still hurts,” Luna confessed, sounding a little impatient. It was a question I asked her often. “Only sometimes though. It’s fine right now.”

“That’s good,” I attempted a smile. “We’ll get you practicing with levitation soon.”

She nodded and smiled back, even if she knew very well how average I was at magic. I was hardly in any place to be teaching her.

“Thank you, Celestia,” Luna gave my shoulder a little nuzzle with her snout. She didn’t have to elaborate; it was clear to me what deed it was that she was thankful for.

Our escape in the Sisyphys had been an impressive feat in itself, made even more impressive by the fact that I'd managed to do so while helping another pony in the process. Some inkling feeling within me knew that it was not the former that Luna was thanking me for.

“Celestia?” Willow spoke abruptly. I rose an eyebrow at the use of my name, without any utterance of ‘alicorn’ to identify me as some sub-equine freak.

Perhaps Luna was not the only one who was thankful after all.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I was so… sharp with you,” she said with evident effort, looking from me to Luna. I could only imagine what was running through her mind—what visions of an alternate reality were playing out had her decision to help been different. Perhaps visions of my little sister freezing alone in the snow in Cluster 13, or perhaps marching us at swordpoint to Discord’s throne and watching passively as the draconequus turned us both to ash with a snap of his claws.

Willow closed her eyes and sighed. “You’re not a bad mare. I’m… content with my decision to help you.”

Luna concealed a smile with a hoof, and I continued staring ahead without turning. I said nothing in response.

Instead, I gave the maritime compass a hard tap with my hoof. The thing had started spinning in wayward directions, and upon being hit it corrected itself:

North.

The snow swirled onwards through Discord’s eternal night and the Sisyphys carried on her skyward crawl as a lonely pinprick of warm lantern light hovering through the air like a ghost.

Trance

View Online

Hours later, and still the night had refused to end. Willow and I watched the moon fall directly ahead of us over the Northwestern horizon. It had not been casting any significant light, anyways, and the night continued on unbroken as Discord refused to raise the sun. Not long after the moon had set, the snow had begun falling once more, dancing wildly about despite the lack of wind disrupting our forwards-flightpath.

I was slumped back with my hoof lazily resting on the steering column, drifting in and out of sleep, trusting Willow enough to wake me should anything severe occur. Despite the snow, we were floating above featureless, barren land, with no crosswinds to interrupt our flight. My churning mind never allowed me much longer than ten minutes of sleep at a time, anyways.

Luna seemed content peering out one of the side-windows at the starlit night-sky.

A rustling of parchment bade me cast a sideways glance at Willow, who was examining my map of Erisia. She had spread the thing across the Sisyphys’ dashboard and was holding it open with a hoof.

“Trance,” she grumbled, catching my glance.

“What?”

“Trance,” she repeated louder. “Name of the next town we’re gonna hit.”

“Hm. Know anything about it?”

“Yeah, we stopped there to refuel not long out of Stormsborough, when we were coming after you. Shitty little shantytown. You'll fit right in. Anyways, it’ll have what you need. Including fuel. How much do you have now, anyways?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged, giving the rusty gauge a tap. “The gauge doesn’t work.”

“Should’ve figured,” Willow said. “Well, you’ve gotta be pretty low by now. And you’re missing a sail on your port side, so if you run out we’re screwed.”

“I've got another tank," I replied, and indeed, I did. I'd been siphoning fuel from the other derelict airships back at Cluster 13, and I had two whole tanks to show for it.

Still, the fuel I had was watery and ancient, and it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more going forwards.

"How far is this Trance place, then?”

“Close. Half-an-hour out.”

“We should be able to see it, then.”

“Through the snow?” Willow rose an eyebrow. “You sure about that, alicorn?”

“Alright, point taken,” I replied shortly. “Hey, Luna, did you hear that? We’re landing soon.”

“That’s good,” she called to us through a yawn. “I’m getting pretty hungry.”

“Well, we can go to some tavern once we land,” I said, with genuine good humour. “Been awhile since we’ve eaten real food, huh?”

Luna nodded her head in affirmation and smiled at the passing flatlands below us.

“Not to sully the moment,” Willow leaned over, keeping her voice low. “But how exactly do you expect to pay for food?”

I was silent for several seconds.

Then, remembering my cloak still lying in the snow in Cluster 13, with my barren coinpurse within, I cursed silently.

Willow continued to stare at me, before grumbling something incoherent and digging into her armour. She withdrew a coinpurse of her own and slid it across the dashboard to me.

“There’s two dozen bits in there. Enough to feed you and your sister.”

I rose an eyebrow questioningly—Willow's generosity seemed rather uncharacteristic.

“Relax, I’m not asking to cling on your back all the way to the North. Trust me, Trance is an ugly place. We should stick close together.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled, wary and unsure. “Don’t go thinking I owe you anything, though.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. By the way, if you can find a bath-house, I'd hit there as well if I were you. Just my humble advice.”

I ignored her.

From the swirling snow the twinkling torchlights of Trance finally came into view. The city was built on an immense elevated plateau, as though the Grey Wastelands had swelled in one isolated place and the town built upon it. A dead marshland lined the outskirts—undoubtedly killed from the pollution hanging heavy in the air, and finally laid to rest by the endless snow now falling.

Even the airship’s propellers had taken on a higher pitch as they struggled to churn through the thicker air.

The fringes of Trance were lined with the occasional rusty looking oil well now left abandoned under several feet of snow. It was a sobering reminder of just how much control Discord had over this little settlement—its one purpose was to provide fuel for airships and it had been rendered obsolete based on a passing whim. Of course, I hardly cared about that, I was more concerned with whether or not they would have enough fuel on reservoir for me.

With the throw of a few switches, the Sisyphys was venting gas and falling gracefully towards the sprawl of light in front of us. I could see other docked at various places of the small settlement.

Suddenly, Willow jerked upwards, as she suddenly realized something severe.

“Shit.”

“Hrm?”

“You’re going to need permission to dock,” Willow breathed, and cursed again.

“What the hell do you mean, permission?” I asked shortly.

“You need to sign in your ship when you land. Give them her name, registry number, and reason for docking. We’re not a transport ship, and this thing looks as good as it flies anyways, so you can throw any concept of subtlety to the wind. So then what exactly are you going to tell them?”

I was stunned.

Then, I was furious.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I barked, narrowing my eyes.

“I forgot! You seriously didn’t think to come up with a story?”

“Not when I didn’t know I’d have to!” I snarled, although in an instant Sombra’s words came to mind. Be careful, he’d told me. I’d been doing a rather poor job doing so. “What… what about telling them we’re a passenger ship?”

Willow snorted. “Then where’s the passengers?”

“Y… you and my sister.”

“No. Nopony in Erisia has enough bits to charter a whole ship to themselves. And nopony is stupid enough to pay passage to strangers. That’s just asking to get drugged and sold to a slave market.”

I gritted my teeth and fought back a sharp retort. Trance was too close to be dawdling on anything but a solution.

“Willow… what happens if we don’t sign in or whatever?”

“Hell if I know,” Willow rolled her eyes. “They probably arrest you when you try to take off.”

“How long do we have before they check the registry?”

“Do I look like their secretary, alicorn?!”

“You look like the closest thing I’ve got to their Discord-driven hivemind!”

She gave me a filthy glare. “They’ll probably check right away. I doubt a lot of ships are flying in this weather, and they probably wouldn’t mind checking each one individually.”

I grit my teeth and stared at the approaching lights of Trance, on its little pedestal in the middle of the Formerly Grey Wastelands.

Without a cloak to disguise my wings, I would be defenseless if they came to search. Besides, even if they did not search us, I would still have to purchase food with bits I did not possess and receive docking permission with a ship registry number I did not know.

I’d gotten us to the city safely, but now I could not even relish in my own victory. My original plan of being able to spend at least one day to prepare for a long flight North was

With a harsh twist of the steering column, the Sisyphys swept around, violently and abruptly.

“What are you doing?!” Willow shrieked. Loose articles in the Sisyphys slid across the floor, Luna lost her footing and fell, and Willow had to clutch onto the control panel to save herself from falling out of her seat.

“We're not landing there,” I announced. “We'll put her down outside the city.”

“Yeah? And moor her on what, rocks?!”

“More or less what I was thinking,” I replied to her sharp retort with dry earnestness.

“You're gonna freeze up the engines leaving it in the snow.”

I ignored her and kept my focus on the snowy ground growing closer and closer. At fifty feet, I cut the engines, at thirty I realized I should have done so earlier—the ground was a blanket of white snow turned dark grey by the eternal night around us, and it arched upwards gradually as the plateau Trance was built upon steepened.

With a violent lurch, the Sisyphys struck the ground and kept sliding forwards, churning a path through the deep snow. Metal and wood creaked and groaned, Luna screamed as bits of the gondola floor broke and bent and shot upwards, and snow flooded across the front window, obscuring the entire world outside.

Finally the ship came to a lurching stop. For a span of several seconds, we were silent, simply breathing heavily.

“Good flying,” Willow finally muttered.

“Oh, shut up,” I spat. “Luna, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said. She looked a little dazed, but had already trotted up to the control panel.

“You're not hurt?”

“Uh... nope.”

“Alright.” I let out a long breath from my nose. The front window of the ship was almost entirely snow, obscuring the city ahead of us, but nonetheless I pointed as though it were there. “We're going to be quick in this city, understood? We're going to get our supplies, our food, then we're heading back here. I don't expect us to be any longer than two hours in there. Do you understand, Luna?”

“Yeah,” she nodded feverishly.

“As for you, Willow,” I turned to the unicorn. “Whether or not you stick with us is your prerogative, but you're not coming back here to the ship. Understood?”

“Of course,” she looked away. “Aren't you forgetting something though, alicorn?”

I gave her a blank stare, prompting her to continue.

“Your wings, genius,” she rolled her eyes again. “You can't honestly be that stupid.”

I whipped around, fully expecting my cloak to be there despite what my rational mind had already reasoned earlier.

“Exactly,” Willow sighed.

Then, she rose a hoof and threw a strap on her armour, followed by two others on each side. The whole affair detached from her and clattered to the ground, and she kicked it across the deck towards me.

“Wear it,” she growled. “Cover your wings.”

I hesitated, staring at the armour laying at my hooves.

Erisian Guard Armour.

Keeping my alicorn-wings hidden.

Smiling from the sheer irony alone, I lifted the armour around my chest and with Willow's snappy instructions managed to get it into a somewhat comfortable position—or, as comfortable as I could manage. The armour was as uncomfortable to the wearer as it looked to an observer, with the straps and metal plating cutting into my sides.

Willow had left her helmet back in the Scoutship, so I had to make do with just the armour.

“Well, you don't exactly look like you belong in it,” Willow said.

“Thanks,” I replied, waving a hoof breezily.

The gangplank opened only by a few feet before hitting snow, and we had to squeeze our way out of the Sisyphys. The inside of the ship hadn’t been heated, but nonetheless the force of the cold wind of the midnight blizzard was enough to catch us all a little off balance. Luna at least had her cloak, but I had lost mine back at Cluster 13 and Willow hadn't bothered to take one herself when she had left the Scoutship. The armour I was wearing did a poor job combating the driving cold.

Through patches in the snow, Trance beckoned us with promise of warm torchlight—even if the torchlight would be lighting another pathetic city of pathetic houses and pathetic ponies.

If anyone had seen the Sisyphys' less than graceful landing, they made no move to investigate—we saw nopony across our entire walk through the swirling blizzard as we trekked the half-kilometer or so between us and the city of Trance. The snow was deep and progress was slow, especially with the gradual incline we had to climb upon. It took us all of half an hour before we were close enough to make out the city in detail.

When we did, my first impression was that we had returned to Cyclosa. Willow hadn’t been lying when she had told me I would fit right into the shantytown, the narrow streets and enormous gate separating the town from the plains was almost identical.

There was a guard at the gate, and he saw us approaching from a great distance. There was perhaps somewhere else to sneak into the city from, but he had already seen us and I knew better than to unnecessarily raise suspicion.

Already, I had forgotten the armour I was wearing, but a reminder was quick to come as the guard shouted towards me.

“Are you from Stormsborough?” he called, looking surprised.

I blinked in bewilderment, for but a second, before nodding.

“Where are you coming from? You didn’t walk.”

“No, of course not.” One glance around and it was obviously an impossibility, at least with the eternal night and blizzard raging on. There were too many miles of frozen tundra between Trance and the nearest settlement to make walking even an option to an insane pony.

I gave Willow a sideways glance, silently begging her to speak. I'd forgotten that I was the one wearing the armour, not her, but thankfully her glare reminded me.

I gulped, trying not to look as nervous as I felt.

“Our ship went down a few miles out,” I motioned out at the snowy plains. “Engines and steering flaps froze. The three of us are the only survivors."

“And who are they?” he pointed a hoof at Willow and Luna.

“Uh…” I looked Willow over, my brain working furiously. “They’re Crystal Ponies.”

“What?!”

“You heard me,” I nodded. “Crystal Ponies. They claim they know where the two alicorns are hiding.”

“You’re lying,” he breathed.

“Yeah? You wanna find out?” I gave him a challenging smile. He’d recognized my armour instantly as coming from Stormsborough, which perhaps meant Willow would have ranked higher than him. Then again, I had my doubts Discord permitted any ranking system through his order of chaos.

Regardless, the armour was a symbol of a place no sane pony ever wished to go, and I saw it clearly in his thinly veiled fearful expression.

“I’m sure Discord will be pleased to hear you interfered with finding those alicorns.” I drawled.

“But… but the blue one is just a filly! How can she—”

“Be a danger? I’ve been wondering the same myself,” I said. Already I was walking forwards. His spear had been extended across the gate to prevent us from crossing. I went to move it with my magic, remembered the inhibitor still clinging to my horn, and calmly moved it aside with a hoof instead.

He didn’t protest any further. I let Willow and Luna travel in front of me—it seemed more consistent with my lie of them being my prisoners—and let them lead the way into the city.

When we were out of sight, Willow whipped around.

“You are the stupidest pony I have ever encountered in my life,” she snarled, right into my face.

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?!”

“Yeah it did, and I still can’t believe it,” she huffed. "How he missed the horn inhibitor on your worthless head, I have no idea."

"Shut up, Willow."

According to an impatient testimony from Willow, Trance had a marketplace—yet another striking similarity to Cyclosa—and it was in this direction that we headed. A few more guards we passed turned to look at me, and unsure of what else to do I simply gave the occasional guard a curt nod until Willow barked at me to stop as soon as we turned into a desolate alleyway.

"I have two dozen bits," Willow reported when we were out of earshot from anypony else. "Thanks to you, I don't have any sort of weapon, so I'm spending most of it on one."

"What happened to getting food?" I growled. "Seems like that's more important."

"Then get the bits yourself," Willow replied shortly. "I sacrificed my old life for you, and I'm not gonna lose this one at the hooves of some bounty hunter."

"You said—"

"I changed my fucking mind!" Willow barked.

"Selfish piece of sh—"

"Look, alicorn, just cause I don't want to give you every single thing I own, doesn't make me selfish. Find some food yourself. Or better yet, trade something for bits. Do something on your own for a change."

I was temped to tell Willow that my whole life had been spent on finding my own solutions to problems I'd never created, but it was too cold to bicker and I was too exhausted to try.

When we reached the marketplace, we subtly parted ways. Against my better judgement I let Luna go with Willow to find a tavern and thus some warmth, while I hunted down some stand that would sell me a cloak so that I could finally ditch the guard armour and be done with the awkward stares.

Of course, with Willow withdrawing her previous kindness, bits were once again an issue, but I was no stranger to pickpocketing. The marketplace was busy and I instantly spotted an easy target—a young mare a few years older than Luna dressed in a heavy coat much too large for her. She had not done the coat up completely, and the wind was catching it and splaying it out behind her. I could see a bag of bits in one of the wide pockets. For a moment I had a distant memory of Luna telling me stories about her trips to the marketplace buying food or firewood. I wondered, for an untraceably brief moment, just what my reaction would have been if I had learned that somepony had pickpocketed from Luna.

I quickly drove the unhelpful thoughts away and cleared my mind.

Willow’s armour rustled nosily as I crept forwards, but the marketplace was busy anyways. The filly with the oversized coat had stopped to look introspectively at the swirling snow.

Ponies assume that the secret to pickpocketing is stealth and dexterity. It really isn’t. Diversion and distraction is much more important—there are few ponies stupid enough not to notice somepony rifling through their pockets unless their attention is elsewhere.

This in my mind, I walked as casually as I could past the filly and let my own small bag of bits fall from its place between my fur and Willow’s armour. The bag hit the cobblestone street and instantly exploded open, spilling bits everywhere.

I cursed bitterly and bent to pick them up. As planned, the little filly with the heavy coat noticed, and wasted no time in bending down also to help. She flashed me a generous smile which I returned.

The whole while, I brought a hoof into the oversized pocket the moment she bent down and quickly plucked her own coinpurse, stuffing it under my own armour. She did not notice with her attention directed elsewhere, and the marketplace was too busy for anypony else to.

“Thanks, kid.” I nodded as she passed my own coinpurse once more filled with bits.

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” she squeaked, a little frightened as she addressed the ever-feared Erisian Guards. She scurried off quickly, disappearing into the crowd.

I did the same, in the opposite direction, navigating towards a tiny little pocket in the marketplace that was free of ponies. I found an empty stand and opened both coinpurses onto it. Combined, I had a little under fifty bits.

After several minutes of hunting, I found a stand that sold clothing. I picked out a fairly typical looking black cloak and left with thirteen less bits. I imagine it must have seemed an odd purchase for a pony clad in Erisian armour, but the salespony was much too frightened by my presence to do much more than take my bits and wish me a good evening through stutters.

I trotted from the marketplace at a brisk pace, navigating my way into a back-alley full of trash and reeking of pony’s waste. At first glance it was deserted, though, and so I ducked behind a heap of trash and shrugged out of the armour.

Although it lasted less than a second, I felt a flurry of terror as the armour came off and my wings were exposed to the empty air. Then, the cloak was over my wings and I was once again safe. I withdrew my meagre jar of mead from the armour as well as Willow’s book of matches, and stuffed both into the cloak’s wide pockets.

As I tightened the twine to keep the cloak on, I heard a rustling sound from the depths of the alleyway. I froze, perking an ear, trying to light my horn only to instantly remember the inhibitor clinging to it.

My perked ear caught more movement, and then a pony’s wavering breath.

My terror was back with a vicious vengeance. I crept forwards through the snow on shaking hooves, holding my breath, scanning the ice and snow for the source of the sound.

I nearly stepped on the pony.

He was a frail, ancient stallion, buried in the snow and frozen over almost completely. At first glance I thought he was dead, but my perked ears told me otherwise as they caught his desperate breathing.

A sick stallion—probably some homeless traveler like myself—caught in the middle of an eternal night and vicious winter storm.

The latter two were my fault. Directly. Had I never been born, had I never sprouted wings, had I only given myself up to Discord’s guards, then the winter never would’ve happened.

I pushed these thoughts back and let my breath calm.

The stallion was breathing like a beached fish, his mouth only able to take urgent little sips of the frigid air. He was covered in grotesque, blackish-red bulges brought about by frostbite, and he couldn’t move a single frozen joint.

This stallion had seen me. He had seen my wings.

Yet he was dying. Without help, it was inevitable—I could not imagine him lasting much longer than an hour or two.

He was a danger. To save him would be to trust him not to give me up. Trust hardly warranted—he was a stallion without a single bit to buy firewood, let alone food to survive. Showing him my wings and trusting him not to rat me out was the same as dangling a couple thousand bits in front of him and then acting surprised when he reached out and grabbed them.

Leaning against the backalley was a small little wooden sleigh that must have belonged to the dying stallion. I saw no reason why he would need it, and so I eased it down onto the snow and shuffled into the leather harness.

“Sorry,” I said simply, starting to walk down the alleyway back towards the marketplace.

The moment I was around the corner, I tore off in search of Luna and Willow at an urgent canter.

“Glad you could fit us into your busy schedule.”

I ignored Willow and shook the snow off my cloak before sitting next to Luna in the tavern booth. She looked up gratefully as I sat next to her, undoubtedly thankful for some interruption from what surely must have been awkward silence between her and Willow.

The older mare eyed my extra bag of bits suspiciously as I brought it down onto the table, wordlessly expressing her disgust at a crime she had no proof I’d committed. I could only imagine what her reaction would have been if she’d known it was a little filly I’d stolen from, but such knowledge was best kept private.

I noted thankfully that Luna had already downed a glass of surprisingly clean looking water and was nibbling away at a piece of bread. On Willow's side of the table, I could see a rustic looking recurve bow leaning against the booth. It looked ancient and unreliable, and judging by the food Willow had apparently purchased for Luna, it seemd she hadn't spent as many bits on it as she had let on she would.

Regardless, we had bits now and I was quick to order us some more food, and perhaps a bottle of liquor.

It felt a little strange to eat something that wasn’t greasy rat meat, and Luna and I had downed our sizable bowls of soup before Willow was even halfway through hers—she’d been plucking at the thick porridge-like-soup with a spoon while Luna and I simply drank it as the semi-liquid sludge it was.

Her spoon twirled idly in the soup and she spoke without looking up. “Listen, Celestia. You're gonna need some fuel if you hope to make it to the Frozen North. We saw some diesel fuel tanks in the airship yards. Forty bits even.”

I grimaced at the price.

Stealing the diesel tanks would be impossible, but we would make no progress without them. And yet the only way I could hope to obtain them was through honest means.

I needed more bits.

Which meant I needed to find work. But work in the Scrapyards had taught me that work, no matter how difficult, hardly rewarded well. To even think of being able to afford the diesel tanks would be to thusly consider working for several months in Trance. By time I had enough for the fuel, the Sisyphys would be beneath thirty feet of snow and the Erisian Guard would have hung our heads on sticks outside the city anyways.

While I did not speak a word, Willow seemed to read my desperate thoughts.

"There's a brothel," Willow suggested.

I blinked.

"You need bits quickly, right?"

"No," I growled. "Go to hell."

"Hey, I'm just making a suggestion." Willow threw up her hooves. "You're young and attractive. Honestly, it's one of the quickest way for a mare like you to make bits. Just keep a cloak on, stick to the stalls... you wouldn't have to go through any sort of guard screening, and all it would cost is your pride for three or four nights—"

"No," I said again. "Stop talking."

"Goddesses above, you're a selfish hypocrite," Willow said. "Acting like you're special for not seeing yourself as important, but then refusing to sacrifice your own dignity to save your little sister's life."

"I don't need the fuel that bad," I said, ignoring her. "I'll use the sails."

“Hm. Well you're still missing one. And good luck sneaking outta the city with all that stuff.” Willow prodded her soup, peering into the sludge for a long while, letting it twist her sharp, confrontational retorts into distant questions. Luna had fallen silent the moment I'd grown visibly upset towards something she surely could not have understood. I would not have answered her if she'd asked, anyways.

Especially since I'd already begun contemplating it as an option even despite the spiteful retorts I'd spat at Willow.

"Looking forward to flying again, Luna?" I asked warmly instead.

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Hopefully we won't have to worry about escaping another ship next time, hrm?"

"Yeah," Luna said again, scratching her mane.

More silence. By that point, I was beginning to lose any hope that conversations with Luna could lead to anything more than awkward silence.

Thankfully, even after being forced into silence thanks to me, Willow once more took a stab at prompting conversation.

“What do you think of the Crystal Ponies, Celestia?”

I rose an eyebrow at her abruptness. “Well… I didn’t know they existed before two days ago, so I’m probably not the best pony to ask.”

Willow brought a hoof to her temples. “Not them, specifically. Their goals.”

“Oh. Taking the throne, defeating Discord.” I looked around the tavern cautiously, but it seemed too busy for anypony to be overhearing us. “I admire their conviction and pity their imminent deaths.”

“Hm,” Willow said again. “I feel more or less the same. They’re throwing pebbles at a mountain and expecting it to topple. And as much as I want it to…” she sipped her soup. “They must idolize you two, though.”

“I… idolize?” Luna squeaked nervously. “Why?”

“Well, Discord claims alicorns are monsters to be killed. So naturally, those opposing him claim the opposite.”

“So then we’re…”

“Saviors, to be praised.” The hostility Willow loved to use when she spoke with me was abandoned when confronted with Luna’s wide eyed questions. “Erisia cheers on your failures, the Crystal Ponies mourn them. They’ll protect you while every other pony wants you dead.”

“Really?” Luna was grinning ear to ear.

“I mean, I don’t know for sure. But if what Celestia said about Sombra is true then… yeah.”

“So the crystals are trying—”

“The Crystal Ponies.” Willow corrected.

“So the Crystal Ponies are trying to beat Discord? And they want us to help them?”

Willow answered with a single nod.

“Celestia!” Luna gave my shoulder an aggressive shove. “Is that why we’re going north?!”

“No,” I growled, narrowing my eyes at Willow. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop telling her that.”

“Why? Afraid of letting her feel important?”

“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “Because it isn’t true. Thinking like that is how ponies get themselves killed.”

Luna fell silent. Her gaze fell.

I was just about to bark at her to grab her cloak and follow me out of the tavern, when Willow spoke first.

“Luna… your name is Luna, right?”

She nodded.

Willow smiled kindly. “Well, Luna, you are important.”

Abruptly, I rose from my seat as my temper flared.

But before it could culminate into anything, I realized just where my anger was directed.

At Willow. For telling Luna that she mattered. I was about to violently yell down Willow because she had the audacity to tell my little sister that she was important.

I didn’t sit back down, nor did I let my explosive thoughts go expressed. Instead, I grabbed my coinpurse of the table, picked out a few bits to pay for our food, and then shuffled out of my seat. One glance spoke my instructions to Luna, and she sullenly rose as well.

“You’re right,” I said simply. “Goodbye, Willow.”

I started to leave, but Willow's voice stopped me.

"Before you go..." she sighed. "I think there's a gate in the shipyard. You'd probably have more lucky sneaking through it than through the main entrance..."

I nodded once. Then, I turned and led the way out of the tavern without another word.

"Celestia,” Luna whispered warily, as I led the way through the backalleys of Trance at a half-trot. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t turn around to answer.

“Is she going to be alright?”

“Luna, I don’t know! Why do you care?”

"Why don’t you?” Luna mumbled sharply suddenly. I cast a backward glance, and saw that she was standing her ground on the snow-covered street with a pouting expression.

“Luna, move!” I barked. “Don’t be an idiot! Do you think we have time to waste here?”

“What’s your problem?!” she shot back, tears welling in her eyes. Like after the Damask Rose’s fiery demise, once more Willow’s kindness had been a catalyst to finally explode the culmination of all of the doubt she had formed about me and my selfishness.

She held her ground, even sitting her rump firmly on the icy cobblestone. “Why are you like this, Celestia?!”

“Like what?!” I didn’t even bother keeping my voice low now. “Huh? Like what, Luna? What am I like?”

“You’re selfish! And nasty! You don’t care about anypony except yourself!”

“I’m nasty?” I shot, and laughed rudely. “Listen, you stupid little filly. You haven’t seen nasty. And guess what? I have. What you think is nasty is what’s keeping you from getting skinned alive by the ponies you think deserve saving.”

Luna sniffled, but couldn’t find words to reply.

“Stop crying.” I ordered. “Get up. Don’t make me say it again, Luna.”

She obeyed with the second request, and did her best to obey the first, but even as she continued on I could hear her sniffling as she tried to control her emotions.

She whispered a single ‘sorry’ in between her sobs. I didn’t reply.

iii

Still lugging the sleigh behind me, Luna and I made our way into the deserted airship yard of Trance. As inconspicuously as we could manage, we crept into the yard to scout the entire thing out. Looking like nothing more than curious fillies, we strode in, Luna smiling and waving at whatever workers turned to look her way. I, meanwhile, kept my gaze low and only afforded myself the occasional glance around.

The shipyard was a glorified dump. I couldn't see a single airship I would trust with flight. Most had balloons without any hydrogen gas, sagging inwards like soaken rags.

A mooring tower jutted upwards in the middle of the shipyard, but it had started to lean precariously to the side. I could see a glass cylinder which I assumed was a beacon, but it seemed the cold was too intense for such a thing to exist now. The shipyard was surrounded on all sides by thirty-foot tall barbed-wire fence, although I thought I could make out a single gate on the side opposite the one Luna and I had entered from.

Even without brick wall dividing us from the plains of Erisia, the snow made anything beyond the fence completely obscured.

Not that it mattered much, for even from the considerable distance I was peering from I could see that the gate was secured rather firmly with a heavy looking chain and lock. I had little else but my bare hooves, and to try and break the lock would be to sacrifice any of the stealth Luna and I needed desperately in order to steal our fuel.

By the gate I could see a rather muscular looking stallion was siphoning fuel from a tank to a beat-up looking airship—some ritual to combat the freezing cold, I assumed. He caught my sideways glance, and I quickly averted it elsewhere. Something about his expression sent an uncomfortable wave through me, and I could not for the life of me think of why. I someho

Nonetheless, the fuel that Willow had promised was indeed here, stored in decently sized canisters looking like chubby little torpedos. I had little doubt that, with stealth and a deserted shipyard on our side, we could load one onto the sled and disappear back into Trance before anypony noticed they were even missing.

Of course, then I still had to get us through the guarded gate and down to the Sisyphys. I had my doubts that it would remain unguarded for any workable length of time, which meant that escaping Trance whilst remaining hidden was more or less an impossibility. Instead, we would have to settle for a harrowing repeat of our escape from Cyclosa—this time with the sled, the snow, and the sharp incline towards the Sisyphys fortunately working in our favour.

We left the shipyard without staying long, only to double back with greater caution. We hid in the gutted frame of an old airship balloon with bits of fabric still hanging in tatters like curtains.

"You're going to wait right here," I told her, stopping in my tracks. "I'm going to take the sled, get the fuel, and then make my way to the entrance. I'll signal you with a whistle, and you follow as quickly but sneakily as you can manage. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"And if anything goes wrong or happens to me, you book it and hide."

"What if you're in danger?"

"Then you run as fast as you can."

"B-but—!"

"Luna, I can take care of myself. You can't. Understand?"

Luna nodded somberly.

"Good. Now, stay hidden until you hear my signal. Once you do, we need to move fast across town to the entrance we came in through."

It was simply across the town square from the airship yard's yawning gate, but nonetheless crossing it would take several seconds during which a million things could go wrong.

"Will it be like in Cyclosa?" Luna squeaked.

"Yeah," I growled. "It'll be like that. We have an advantage though." I gave the sled behind me a firm tap. "The incline. Once we get through that gate, all we have to do is get to the Sisyphys and get her into the air, and we're clear."

"But... but wouldn't they just send a ship after us?" Luna cocked her head.

"Sure. But they'd have a hell of a time finding us through this snow." I motioned above at the blizzard. "And with the winds this strong, we're not gonna have much trouble with the sails. It's gonna be risky, but we can do this, Luna."

"There's not another way, is there, Celly?"

"I'm open to ideas," I replied. "But at the moment, I can't think of any myself. And if we wait too much longer, the Sisyphys isn't going to be able to take off. We're going to have to be a little stupid if we're going to make it out of this."

Luna nodded somberly. "Alright."

Creeping back out of the derelict balloon, I once more clipped on the sleigh harness and began towards the shipyard.

Trance's shipyard looked like something from a grim fairy tale; eternal winter had seemingly sped the time surrounding the yard, for it looked as though it had been lying in its frigid state for centuries. Besides the airship that I had seen the one muscular stallion caring for—which was still hovering proudly with a warm light burning within—the entire yard was a repeat of what I had seen in Cluster 13. A graveyard of airships that in another age only months ago had served a greater purpose than stealth cover for two alicorn refugees.

Immense propellers jutted from the snow, frozen wires stretching between the four-storey buildings surrounding the yard on nearly all sides save for the great wall circling the city. The yard was so dark that I nearly bumped into bits of wreckage on several occasions, and it took me all of five minutes of cautious creeping before I finally made it to where I had spotted the fuel canisters.

Finally, however, I reached them, and I wasted no time in lifting one of the generously heavy canisters onto the sled. I grimaced as my frozen hooves struck the canister, sending out an unwanted ringing sound, but I did not brace to assess for any potential dangers as I instead loaded the entire canister onto the sled and used a stolen length of rope to haphazardly tie it to the wooden planks that made up my toboggan.

Then, I turned with the intent to sprint, and instead crashed into a heavy wall of pure muscle.

My mind didn't even have time to register what exactly was in front of me before the figure moved towards my confused form.

I remember the handle of a pipe wrench flying towards the bridge of my already broken snout, and then I suppose I must have blacked out for several seconds, because when I next regained hazy consciousness, my broken snout being forced into the snow and a sharp weight on both of my outstretched wings. I realized without looking that the weight belonged to somepony's hooves keeping me pinned down.

Conjuring up morbid images of some ignorant young colt plucking the limbs off of a spasming spider, I struggled immediately, but the stallion above me easily doubled my weight, and I knew despite my efforts that it was in pathetic vain.

Instead, I flared magic into my horn, only to immediately cry out in pain as the inhibitor bit into my flow with no shortage of intensity.

"Let me go!" I screamed.

The stallion keeping my wings pinned gave a gruff laugh. "With the bounty on your pretty head? Yeah, right."

He shuffled a little, somehow applying even more weight onto the weak bones of my wings. I gave a holler of pain as I felt some bone in my left wing snap, the sharp sound echoing across the desolate shipyard.

"You... you bastard," I growled, my heart pounding. There was more to my statement, but it was lost to another scream of pain as the stallion brought a hoof down onto the broken bone.

Even amidst the haze of pain and fear, some fragment of lucidity remained in my swirling mind. The stallion above me was most definitely one of the workers I'd seen during my earlier scouts. A burly stallion I couldn't possibly hope to best in a straight fight. Reasoning with him also seemed off of the table—what could I possibly offer him that would be more valuable than whatever inflated reward was hanging over my own head? With Willow Whisper, I had her own reluctance on my side. With the Roses, I had the luxury of time and planning.

With this stallion, I had little else but my own desperate hope that he wouldn't kill me right then and there.

As if on cue with my thoughts, I heard a sudden clicking sound, and a heavy weight was suddenly placed around my neck. My confusion quickly faded into clarity when I heard the rattling of chains.

The bastard had just put collar around my neck.

Despite the implications, there was something oddly calming about the fact. It meant I wasn't going to die right then and there.

I was roughly yanked to my hooves as the stallion pulled the chain. Jagged spikes bit into my neck, drawing blood, and I snarled in fury like the feral beast I was being treated like.

On my hooves, I had a proper view of my captor. I had been correct in my prediction—he was indeed the burly stallion that I had spotted earlier during my scout. He was peering at me with an odd mixture of intrigue and intimidation.

"Outstretch your wings," he commanded the moment our eyes met.

"Go to hell."

"I want to look at your wings, alicorn," he said bluntly. "Outstretch them now. I'm not going to ask you again."

I was hardly holding any cards to bargain with, so I obeyed. Grimacing with my head low, I stretched both wings simultaneously. They were shaking as pain coursed through my upper back and across the long wings, and the howling wind hardly did wonders to numb any of it.

He stepped forwards cautiously, wrapping his end of the chain around his hoof before doing so. I kept my head down and my back straight, and did my best to keep my shaking wings still even as he reached an icy hoof out to touch them.

"You're quite the pretty mare," he reported, eying down my quivering form. "Shame, really. You'da fetched a nice price at a slave auction, alicorn or not."

I didn't know if it was supposed to be a compliment or not, and I knew better than to stick with my natural reaction of brusque irritation.

The stallion gave my sled a little kick with his back hoof. "You were trying to steal fuel?"

"Y-yeah."

"Why?"

"I have an airship parked outside of Trance. I'm... I was trying to flee Erisia in it."

"A ship? What's her name? Registry number?"

It seemed an odd question, all things considered. Considering the fact that he had just broken my wing and attached a choke collar to me, this stallion was being surprisingly civil.

Nonetheless I obliged. "I don't know her registry number, but she's called the Sisyphys. I stole it from Cluster 13."

"Hm. Haven't heard of her," he said, then shrugged. "Outside the city you said?"

I nodded.

"Lead me to her," he replied. "There's a gate there." He used the pipe wrench to point to a section of the barbed fence. "And you're currently wearing a horn inhibitor, a choke collar, and you're sporting a broken wing. On top of that, you don't seem too stupid, so... can I trust you to behave?"

I blinked. "You're... not bringing me to the guard?"

The stallion laughed. "Of course I am. But not these guards. I know better than to reap half of a reward."

I gazed beyond him at the destination in question. One that marked the end of my life as I knew it.

Twice now, I had made a fatal mistake in vivid opposition to Sombra's warnings.

Part of me thought I was stupid enough that I deserved to die.

Nonetheless, I kept my hooves rooted in the snow as the stallion continued to stare at me expectantly. In his impatience for some sort of action on my part, he must have instinctively pulled on the chain, because I felt the spikes in the collar once more cut into my flesh.

The pain somehow brought about a moment of lucidity in me. A strange moment of firm comprehension, and I dug my hooves more firmly into the snow and ice, much like Luna had when I had confronted her.

I would rather die trying to fight this stallion for freedom than die at the hooves of some guard because I was too frightened to fend for myself.

Just before the stallion translated my growing snarl into action, the squeaky, screaming voice of Luna rung out behind him, surprising us both.

"Celestia!"

It lasted a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction of a second I did not waste. The stallion whipped around to face Luna's scream, and I instantly tore off at a sprint. I hardly made it a half-a-dozen feet before the choke collar ran out of slack and dug firmly into my neck—this time with enough force to actually cause my head to waver a moment, as though temporarily refusing to register the pain.

In synchronization with the collar's rending, the stallion was swept off of his feet by the sudden jerking movement and crashed into the snow.

When he hit the ground, he did so with one hoof already flailing about through the snow searching for the pipe wrench that had fallen from his grip. Snarling, I brought my hoof down onto his arm, and to the symphony of his cry of pain I grabbed the pipe wrench and brought it down onto his other hoof still gripping the chain attached to my collar.

Ahead of me I could see Luna tearing through the snow in my direction, terror plastered on her face at the sight of me standing in a pile of bloody snow.

"Luna, get the sled ready!" I screamed. Then, I rose the pipe wrench again and brought it down firmly towards the dazed stallion's head. He rolled out of the way a split second before it made contact, the movement jerking me downwards by my collar, but I snarled and tried again as he backed away. On the second try, my efforts were rewarded with a horrid and dull thud as it made contact with his skull.

"Tia!" Luna screeched, turning just as I was about to bring the pipe wrench down a second time onto his already bloody skull.

I perhaps would have snapped back with some sharp retort, but a heavy feeling of incoming unconsciousness instead swept over me. My vision swam for a moment, turning an impossible shade of red, and when the world stopped spinning my vision was still largely flooded in red—this time of blood in the snow.

I was losing blood, quickly. Unconsciousness would be a side-effect.

In the midst of my fit of wooziness, the stallion leaped up abruptly, tacking my already wavering form to the ground. Then, he wrapped the rusty chain around my neck. The collar tightened and bits of rust caused my open wounds to sing their pain, and the chain itself was tight enough to cut off my air completely. The assault of the spiked collar on my neck was so intense that I became convinced the thing would decapitate me.

I could not hear the stallion's grunting, nor my own swearing or Luna's shrilled begging. Instead I could only hear the steady thumping of blood in my ears instantly wasted as it poured out into the snow.

Coughing and choking, I mustered all of my strength into a firm kick that landed directly into the stallion's stomach, sending him tumbling backwards. I followed his falling form to prevent the collar from once again tearing into me, and then, grasping the chain in both front hooves, I pulled it towards me without grace. After several wild tugs, it detached from the winded stallion's hoof with a horrid ripping sound, the rusty chains bringing chunks of fur with them.

"I know you said not—" Luna began, but I tore past her, already struggling into the harness of the sled. The stallion was rising, albeit slowly. It seemed that the bloody gap the wrench had made when I had struck him was only now having some delayed effect.

"No time, Luna! Get on the sled!"

"Get...on the sled?!"

"Do it!" I barked. "I'm losing blood fast, so we need to hurry!"

Luna obeyed without question, sitting awkwardly on the wooden toboggan, cradling the tank of fuel in her hooves to keep it from falling. I grunted as I started to pull, my adolescent muscles screaming in protest and the harness digging into my already aching wings and neck.

A thumping sound instantly flooded my ears. As my breathing increased with the effort it took to pull the sled, my own heart began beating my blood into the snow. My world began to spin, but I made it to the shipyard gate nonetheless.

The gate was locked, but I had tucked the pipe wrench into my cloak and I withdrew it, beating the thing down onto the rusty lock. My first two hits earned me with little else but another stab of near-unconsciousness—one intense enough that I actually lost my footing and fell back into the snow.

"Celly!" Luna called. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm fine," I grumbled, although my voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel. I tried to rise—already grasping the pipe wrench in a hoof to try again—but I hardly made it back to my hooves before falling back down again.

It took all but one backwards glance and a shrilling scream from Luna for my panic to once more return through the trance-like pain. The stallion had caught up to us, and before I could once more return to my hooves he had grabbed a heavy clump of my unkempt mane and jerked my neck back towards the snow.

I was about to slur a panicked insult, but it didn't make it past my throat as he delivered a firm buck directly to my stomach, sending me flying forwards against the gate. I'd hardly had any breath to begin with, and the action left me in a world of blackness and hollow sound as unconsciousness hung overhead.

When my sight returned through the film of nothingness, I could see that the stallion was now in the process of grappling with Luna. She was screeching and trying to draw magic from her stubby horn, but her didn't seem even remotely perturbed by her empty threats. The pipe wrench was back in his grip, and I had my doubts he had qualms about using it on my little sister.

I screamed as it rose, I tried to scramble to my hooves only to be forced back down by another horrid bout of blurriness.

Then, as the pipe wrench reached it's apex, an abrupt whistling sound rung out and was just as swiftly silenced.

For a moment, I simply stared. The stallion's head had inexplicably exploded from one side, and with a look of comical surprise, he tumbled to the ground, hitting the snow at the same time as his pipe wrench.

In a slurred frenzy, I turned back towards where we had fled from.

Willow Whisper was standing in the middle of the shipyard, the urgent winter winds sprawling her scarf all about like some great schooner sail. In her telekinesis hovered her newly purchased bow.

"That's three you two alicorns owe me," she growled. "Now get a fucking move on, already. I think the guard saw me come in here."

I opened my mouth to say something, but another throbbing ocean of pain tore through my head and wrenched the words away. Luna screamed something that sounded like my name, and when I looked up I saw her motioning frantically at the toboggan.

"Get on!" she was screaming. "I'll pull you!"

"No, Luna," I said. "You can't—"

Luna ignored me. "Willow, help me lift her onto the sled!"

I protested and rose to my hooves, but Willow had already trotted over by time I had risen. Just as I felt I could stand on my shaking hooves, she roughly shoved my weary body back onto the sled. I crashed painfully onto the wood, and before I could rise again the thing had started to move.

For a moment I thought Willow was pushing the sled, but a look behind me and I could see her already tearing towards some wrecked airship to hide. Instead, Luna was pushing me towards the gate, and freedom.

The rest of our escape wavered in and out of awareness as I continuously blacked out. I remember snow flooding our view as the toboggan soared down and down some harsh incline, but how it had crossed the distance between the shipyard gate and the incline I did not know.

Then, blackness.

The Sisyphys, and then more blackness.

Luna screaming at me, trying to shove me back onto my hooves. Some horrid screeching in the distance, back up the incline we had come from. Me leaning on my little sister for support as I fought my way up the gangplank of the Sisyphys.

Then, blackness again.

The Frozen North, Pt. I

View Online

When I came to, the world was still white, and the air still far below freezing.

The sun had still not risen, but through the long front window of the Sisyphys I could see a vast sky of stars.

I wavered in and out of consciousness, each time noticing something new and strange. First was the fact that I seemed to be underneath an itchy and uncomfortable blanket. Then, I noticed the choke-collar still attached to my neck, as well as a heavy clump of bloodsoaked bits of fabric masquerading as bandages.

I made to rise, but a sudden, spiking headache forced me back to the ship’s cold floor in a frenzy of grunts and curse-words.

“Celly!” Luna shrieked, springing seemingly out of nowhere and tackling me in a flying hug. “You’re okay!”

“That’s… one way of putting it,” I grumbled, rubbing my temples through the ratty blanket Luna had wrapped around me. “I feel like an elephant’s welcome mat, though.”

Luna gave a small smile, but didn’t laugh at my joke. “I was so worried, Celestia.”

“For me?” I smiled, too. “Well, now you know how I feel.”

Once more, I attempted to rise, and while my head was once more pounding at the tiny exertion, I managed to make it to my hooves and stumble over to the control panel of the Sisyphys.

“We’re… flying,” I said bluntly. We were flying through clouds and snow, so it was nearly impossible to tell just how high we were, but the sensation of movement—albeit one unaided by the rotors on the side of the ship—was unmistakable.

“Yeah,” Luna said. “I just kinda… did what you did. The spiny-things on the side stopped, though.”

“You dropped all of the ballast?” I guessed, but one look at the gauge answered my question. It was empty, and another glance showed me that our fuel was empty, too.

“I… I guess so?” Luna said.

“Damn miracle it didn’t freeze,” I said, but already my head had started to pound again with a returning headache.

“That stallion…” Luna pointed at my choke-collar. “He hurt you bad, huh?”

“I think I’m getting used to it. Anyways, it would’ve been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you and Willow,” I replied. “I… I wanna apologize for yelling at you, Luna. You really were right about her. I shouldn’t have called you stupid.”

Luna said nothing. Eventually, I turned my attention elsewhere, searching for a metal-file somewhere on the Sisyphys’ deck so that I could get to work on removing the choke-collar clinging to my neck.

The choke-collar was not only awfully uncomfortable, it rather easily screamed to every single onlooking pony that I was at the very least an escaped slave, which meant I couldn’t expect to go anywhere public and not expect some sort of confrontation.

To my disappointment but not necessarily surprise, there was no file to be found on the deck. I cursed under my breath when every minute of searching yielded nothing, but it soon became clear I was merely wasting my time. Eventually, I returned to the control panel where Luna was still sitting, staring straight ahead at the emptiness out the Sisyphys’ main window. I instinctively went to take the yoke in my hooves, but stopped when I saw that they had been locked in position once again.

“How long have we been flying, Luna?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “The sun still hasn’t risen yet. But the compass has said ‘N’ since we left. I had to steer it back a few times, but I guess the wind is keeping us going.”

“Well, that’s… a lucky break.” I said. “Any company?”

“I heard a ship a while ago, but I think it was below us. I don’t think it could see us, cause I couldn’t see it at all.”

“Nah, Discord’s snowstorm is probably starting to backfire on him,” I nodded. “I’m surprised he’s keeping it up.”

“What if he’s not the one controlling it?” Luna asked.

I laughed. “And who else would be?”

Luna shrugged. “Maybe those Crystal Ponies that Willow mentioned?”

“Maybe,” I said, sounding skeptical. “I don’t know, Luna. I’m sure they’re good with magic, but I think the weather is something only Discord can control.”

“Yeah,” Luna sounded rather disappointed.

“Listen, Luna. I’m gonna go into the balloon and switch the fuel tanks. Then, we’re gonna drop below the clouds and get our bearings. If we really have been flying North all day, we may well have already put Stormsborough behind us, but if not, I want to make sure our props are working in case we have to make a quick escape.”
Luna simply gawked as I made my way on still-wavering hooves towards the access hatch to the Sisyphys’s balloon. At one point there may have been a ladder, but a discarded table I had bolted to the floor had long since replaced it.

Entering the balloon, I could see more clearly that it had begun to sag in places, undoubtedly shrinking thanks to the great cold. The fact that it was aloft at all was impressive enough—it seemed that, for the junk it was built from, the Sisyphys was a surprisingly capable ship thanks to my restoration of her.

There was a small canister of fuel presently not connected to either engine, and I dropped the hoses to both engines into it. It was an emergency auxiliary store, enough for maybe half an hour of engine life, but it would be enough to get us out of a pinch if need be.

For now, the sails were doing just fine.

Back at my seat at the front window, I unlocked the control stick and guided it forwards. Behind us, the long-dormant fins gave a long groan as they were forced back into action, and soon the Sisyphys began to slowly descend.

Eventually, we broke through the cloud cover and the world was suddenly more than one ship in a veil of grey haze. Snowy plains sprawled on all sides, mountain ranges stretching into the northern sky directly before us. The blizzard itself had stopped, and the world seemed beautiful from so high up.

The moon was struggling to pierce through the cloud cover that had veiled the land from us, but it’s light was so strong that when it did, the silhouetted form of the Sisyphys was projected onto the sparkling snow, racing over dead trees and wrecks of airships far less fortunate than us.

I afforded a backwards look at the window to the stern of the Sisyphys, and felt my heart skip a beat.

For behind us, standing unsullied against the eternal night-sky, was the near-mythical Stormsborough Mountain.

It stood as though it had existed long before the world around it, mighty and proud amongst the stark plains and dead trees all around.

I breathed a long sigh as I took in the great city of Stormsborough. I don’t quite know what I had been expecting, but nonetheless it had taken me aback. Around the mountain, great masses of what looked like islands were impossibly suspended in the air. Atop them stood buildings taller than any others I had ever seen, and airships hovered between the islands like circling vultures.

“We’ve come a long way from Cyclosa, Luna,” I said. “I never thought I’d be looking at Stormsborough with my own eyes.”

Luna said nothing, and leaned her head onto my shoulder. I wrapped a wing around her, and we continued staring in awe at the islands of Stormsborough gradually losing focus against the hazy horizon.

With the knowledge that Stormsborough was already behind us, I felt less inclined to bring us back into the high altitudes and place more unneeded stress onto the Sisyphys’s balloon.

So, we continued to glide above the plains. The winds died down in strength and the ship slowed, but we continued onwards towards the mountains of the Frozen North all the same.

Not long after Stormsborough was less than a speck on the horizon behind us, I heard the distinct sound of propellers.

Luna was sleeping in the co-pilot seat when I heard them, and I decided not to wake her until I knew for sure we were in danger. I killed the lights on the control panel and extinguished the cabin lantern, and then searched for a spyglass I could have sworn was lying about in the Sisyphy’s cabin back in Cluster 13.

I eventually found it amongst the rest of the junk scattered about the cabin, and quickly looked to the pinprick of red light bearing down upon us from the East.

I counted four propellers, and to my chagrin, several rocket batteries. The airship itself was certainly no Scoutship, but I had my doubts they were anypony friendly.

“Luna, wake up.” I prodded her into wakefulness. “We may be in trouble.”

“Huh…?”

“Ship, bearing down on us. Could be pirates.”

Luna was awake in an instant, her eyes aglow with excitement. “Pirates?!”

“Yeah,” I said. I’d heard of them in the Scrapyards, from pilots spinning what part of me simply assumed were tall-tales. Ponies who made a living shooting down transport or passenger ships, raiding them for parts and taking the crew as slaves.

Hell, for all I knew, the Sisyphys herself had been a pirate’s vessel back in her heyday. She had the same haphazard amalgamation of parts one would expect from them.

“They must have spotted us when we dropped below the cloud cover. They’ve probably been waiting until we’re far enough from Stormsborough to intercept us.”

“What are we gonna do?”

I ignored Luna, and with a flick of a switch brought the Sisyphys’s engines back to life again. They’d seen us, I had no doubt, and we were getting nowhere drifting silently over the Frozen North.

The entire ship gave a sickly shudder as the propellers sprung to life, and I guided the throttle forwards gradually. The ancient propellers made a sound far from stealthy, but we seemed far past that point.

We needed cover, but the mountains that separated Erisia from the rest of the Frozen North were still several hours of flight away. It was nothing but ice and snow until then. Truly the perfect opportunity for the other ship to shoot us down.

And then what? Make our way across the Frozen North on hoof, on the slim chance they didn’t capture us anyways? We wouldn’t make it a day, and where was there to walk to?

Over the next hour, both ships continued forwards into the North—the pirate ship was constantly approaching, and soon I could make out the many sails and four engine cars on the ship that was not much bigger than the Sisyphys.

Nonetheless, I counted six rockets mounted on both sides of ship—easily enough to completely obliterate the defenseless little schooner I was piloting, although they looked to be static, and not the pivoting variety I’d seen on some more combat-centric ships in the Scrapyard. They posed a great threat to anypony in their crosshairs, but were next to useless to anypony behind them. Aiming was a crude affair anyways—most rockets relied more on the offchance of scattering fire onto the balloon than actually striking any target head-on.

Still, they were better than what I had—no more than several crude fire bombs made from a few jars of hard liquor and petroleum. Still, anything capable of producing flame posed a great threat against another airship.

At that thought, another idea struck me, and before I could rethink I gave the yoke a mighty turn and guided the Sisyphys into a gradual 180 degree turn. She turned slowly, and the wind was now fighting against us, forcing me to increase the throttle in return.

Now, we were flying towards the pirate’s ship head on.

“What are you doing?!” Luna screeched.

A flare of flame shot from the side of the pirate ship as a rocket was flung in our direction. It exploded off the port side, a symphony of shrapnel clinking against the side of the wooden cabin.

It was clearly a warning shot, which was exactly what I was betting on.

“What are you—!” Luna began again.

“They shoot us down now, and they’ve got a great big flaming projectile flying at them,” I replied. “They know that, too. So, I’m getting behind their rockets, where they can’t shoot us down.”

The distance behind the ships closed swiftly, and I mentally predicted the time it would take for the Sisyphys to bank out of a collision course. In just three days of flying her, I felt rather comfortable behind the wheel of the Sisyphys—truly, despite the garbage she was constructed from, she was a nimble and capable airship. At fifty feet, I knew I was cutting things close, and staring straight-on at the heads of the remaining five rockets was hardly a welcoming sight even if I knew they dared not use them at such a close range.

I counted several ponies in the cockpit, too—although with their flight goggles and helmets it was hard to discern mare from stallion. Their horrified glances, however, were quite clear.

At twenty feet I twisted the controls downwards. The Sisyphys banked, much slower than I’d intended, and entered a gradual dive to avoid the incoming pirate ship. While her nose managed to dip far enough to avoid a collision, the tall caudal fin atop the Sisyphys struck the pirate ship’s cabin. The sturdy frame of the fin began rending wood apart, and two loud thumps resounded onto the Sisyphys’s balloon as the fin sliced two engine cars off of the pirate ship’s side.

Finally, the awful sound of groaning wood ceased and the Sisyphys left the shadow of the pirate ship back into unsullied winter night. I twisted the controls again to bring us back North, but she was considerably less nimble with the cloth to the top fin now in tatters.

Still, both ships were now both flying to the North again, this time with us behind. If we'd had rocket batteries on our ship, we could have made quick work of the pirate ship, but for now I decided to simply count my blessings.

With both port-side engine cars gone, the pirate ship was starting to bank on one side. She had sails atop the balloon, but they seemed tattered and merely aesthetic.

With this in mind, I guided the throttle to full and brought the Sisyphys into ascent once more. Soon, we crept over the pirate ship, once again at an alarmingly close proximity. This time, however, it was intentional—the sturdy bottom fin, while smaller than the top, smashed into the pirate ship’s balloon, causing both ships to shake viciously.

The Sisyphy’s front window shattered from the impact, scattering powdery bits of glass all over the control panel and turning the ship into a wind tunnel for the frozen air around us.

While we continued to overtake the pirate ship, I brought my horn to the makeshift fire bombs I’d crafted. With the inhibitor still on my horn, I had to rely on simply getting the metal ring hot enough by forcing it into action, instead of actually casting magic myself. Still, with a little effort and a greater deal of throbbing migraine-like pain, the cloth ignited, and quickly began burning at a quicker speed than I’d intended. I hit the lever to open the gangplank and galloped to the slowly descending board, the bottles grasped in my unbroken wing.

The air was whistling madly, the cold and wind threatening to extinguish the madly burning bottles. I threw both at the pirate ship not ten feet below us, and they fell directly through the long gash the Sisyphys’s fin had made.

The pirate ship exploded in a great burst of flame. I could feel the burning hydrogen gas even through the frigid northern air, and the flames licked dangerously close to Sisyphys. The flames hit the rocket batteries, and in seconds bits of flaming airship were raining down onto the ice below.

The Sisyphys, however, was already passing the pirate ship now, leaving the great ball of fire alone to the south whilst maintaining her bearing forwards. The engines continued to sputter, but it was clear they were running on fumes now. Upon reaching the controls, I found my destructive maneuver had severed the steering cables, leaving the Sisyphys unresponsive to my attempts to steer her.

Still, the compass on the panel remained aimed to the north ahead. The wind would do the rest.

iii

For hours, the Sisyphys simply drifted. The fuel was long spent, the wind had died, and the temperature continued to drop as we flew. I had tried and failed several times to fix the steering column, but it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to do much unless we landed.

At which point, taking off again would be an impossibility.

It did not take long for hunger to begin hunting us, either. I searched about the Sisyphys for something—anything for Luna and me to eat. At best, I found several spores of fungus growing on a rotten board, but I hardly wanted to take a chance with eating it—more likely, I would just end up throwing up what little food was still in my system.

Defeated, I wandered back to the control panel, where Luna was staring blankly ahead at the passing ice. I wrapped a wing around her, although we both mutually shirked a little from the sudden contact—Luna felt frozen and I knew I most likely felt the same. Still, it was better than mutually freezing together, and Luna made no move to escape my embrace.

I noted with dismay that Luna’s breathing had a horribly laboured quality to it—hunger and cold already having a horrifying effect.

The cold became a sort of living shadow constantly lurking over us. Less a force of nature, and more a villainous presence constantly trying to wrap its icy tendrils around us. Our cloaks did little to deter it, and the shattered glass of the Sisyphys’s front window meant the entire cabin was flooded in inescapable cold.

Eventually, I lifted Luna up with one of my weary hooves, placing her onto my back in a piggyback-like position. She mumbled something but seemed too weary to object, so I rose and carried her to the back of the Sisyphys.

While the gondola of the ship was small relative to most other airships, it was still large enough to house—in addition to the main control area—a small bedroom. It, of course, had no proper furnishings, but there was still an old, ancient bed that, uncomfortable as it looked, seemed much better than the co-pilot’s seat. I put Luna down softly upon it, and then unclipped my cloak and draped it over her.

“Stay here, Luna,” I whispered. “Stay warm. I’ll come get you if something happens.”

Luna mumbled something in objection, but made no move to contradict me.

Back at the control panel, I continued scanning the wastelands for signs of life—some nomad camp or trading cluster I could land at. There I stayed for what must have been hours, only rising once when I had to pee, which I did leaning half-off of the Sisyphys's gangplank.

The whole while, I let my thoughts wander. Not on my future, like I had been expecting them to, but rather the world behind me. Ever since I had seen Stormsborough from afar, the idea of Erisia herself being behind me had finally set in proper.

I should’ve felt ecstatic, I suppose, but I did not quite feel such.

Nor did I feel melancholy—for what was it I was leaving behind? My parents, who hadn’t ever loved me enough to protect me? The scrapyard, that had stolen my childhood away and turned me into the cynical, survivalist brat I was? The cold, lifeless wastelands that surrounded the pathetic slums that ponies insisted were cities?

No, I didn’t miss anything at all.

So why did I feel so incomplete leaving it all behind?

A great, shimmering light suddenly caught my attention, wrenching my gaze from the land below to the skies.

The night sky, free from any clouds, stars, or moon, was instead a shimmering tapestry of green. It looked almost supernatural, waving like water but stretching across the air itself like clouds. It danced in beautiful patterns, rippling into the distance where we were drifting. It was as though the entire sky was pulsing with life, charged with energy no pony, and no chaos king could generate.

Something so beautiful was surely not Discord’s doing.

Suddenly, there was another flicker. This one, much brighter, and much more real. It stuck out against the dark, for it was a pulsating glimmer of red against a world of muddy greys and blacks.

An airship beacon! I’d only seen one in use before, during a dust storm back in Cyclosa. This one, by my memory’s comparison, looked considerably more crude, but it was ponymade nonetheless.

Surely then, they had seen us approaching.

And surely, I had no choice but to land, for what other option did I have? Trusting the intentions of a random nomad tribe on the outskirts of the Frozen North seemed like suicide, but without food, water, or fuel, Luna and I wouldn’t last the week on our lonely drifting journey.

Besides, hadn’t this been what I was searching for? Life outside of Equestria? Hope elsewhere? A start at an ordinary life, far from Discord?

Then again, the wings on my back wrenched that thought away quickly. No matter where I was, no matter if the ponies worshipped or loathed me, my life wouldn’t exactly be ‘normal.’

I could at least do my best to make sure Luna’s, at least, would be.

Instinctively, I reached to the lever on the dash that vented out the hydrogen gas in the ship’s balloons. The whole mechanism was either frozen, or the cable herself had snapped. Either way, the control panel before me was evidently worthless.

I was weak, weary, and did not wish to with every bone in my aching body, but before I knew it I was sliding the port-side window of the Sisyphys open and climbing out into the night. I suppose I could’ve gone through the shattered front window, but with such huge shards of glass protruding from the edges, I didn’t really want to risk any further injuries than what I already had. My whole ivory coat was probably more bruises and cuts than unsullied flesh as it stood, and my head was weary enough from hunger that any more blood loss would probably see me swooning over and falling to the ground a hundred feet below.

The Sisyphys had no ladder on her exterior to bring me from the gondola to the top of the balloon, but the balloon itself had enough precautionary ropes connecting it to the haphazardly bolted-on gondola that climbing it would at least be possible.

That said, possible didn’t quite equate to simple. Wrapping a hoof around a mooring line, I began my ascent. My urgent breathing was so intense that I almost couldn’t see my way forwards through the vapour I was stirring up in the cold air, but nonetheless after nearly ten minutes of climbing I found myself past the steepest angle of the balloon, and things swiftly got simpler as the curvature of the balloon lessened.

Regardless, I made a mental note to get a damn ladder put on the balloon as soon as possible.

At the top of the Sisyphys, I could see with even more clarity just how damaged she was. The balloon was sagging so significantly that parts of her metal skeleton were jutting visibly, making the ship look like a malnourished foal back in Cyclosa.

Nonetheless, it made finding the manual-release valve for the gas balloons within an easier affair, and soon I was huddling over the valve no bigger than a dinner plate.

Gripping the rusty thing in both hooves, I began to turn it with all my weight. It was reluctant to move initially, but after several turns the air was filled with the rancid smell of hydrogen gas as it vented from the ship.

The effect was instant. The Sisyphys was soon beginning to fall towards the ice and life below.

I began to make my way back down towards the Sisyphys, when I lost my footing on a patch of ice that had settled onto a puddle formed in a small dent in the ship’s sagging balloon.

It was a small slip, but that was all it took to send me slipping down the slanted balloon. I clawed urgently in an attempt to slow myself, when suddenly a sharp pain ripped across my neck, directly where my choke collar still stood.

I gurgled and flailed about, trying to detach the long chain tangled around a stray bit of docking rope, effectively hanging me off the side of my own ship, while the sharp spikes in the collar dug into my already abraised neck.

No. This wasn’t seriously happening. I hadn’t come all this way to bleed out on the side of my own ship.

Grabbing the chain in my hoof, I began to pull with all my weight, trying to climb back up to a point where the choke-collar wasn’t the only thing keeping me from a long fall and quick, painful end.

The moment it looked like I was making progress, however, the rope finally snapped and before I knew it I was sliding down the steep balloon which was only growing steeper.

Time seemed to slow; it felt as though I had been staring at the chain flailing above me in freefall before I even past the gondola, where Luna was undoubtedly sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to her sister’s peril.

Still, some part of me knew a hundred feet was no distance at all, and if I didn’t immediately focus I’d be dead before I knew it.

So, I did the only idea I could think of, and spread my wings.

With one still broken from the bastard stallion back in Trance, I couldn’t restrain a loud scream of pain as my wings caught the air, the pain singing in my frail bones becoming the only known sensation. I didn’t give a damn about the wind or the cold or the ice racing towards me, I was almost hoping the fall would be enough to kill me in order to put a stop to the pain in my broken wing. I didn’t register the Sisyphys falling past me, making a dangerously steep descent towards the ground below. I didn’t think of Luna, asleep peacefully, completely unknowing of the fact that the ship was seconds from crashing.

I couldn’t even fold my wings in if I wanted—they’d already caught the wind and I was far too weak to fight against them. I was instead being guided downwards like a four hundred pound kite.

I hit the snow before the Sisyphys did, my hooves flailing about in preparation for my landing. It wasn’t the most graceful thing, but it was certainly more graceful than certain death, and I was at least able to stay standing to watch the Sisyphys strike the ice. The great ship lurched forwards, one of the engine cars snapped clean off from the impact, and she continued to slide against the flat ice for nearly fifty feet, heading directly for the nomad settlement that I could now see was made up of a dozen or so tent-like buildings that looked alarmingly fragile against the encompassing cold.

The Sisyphys didn’t come to a graceful stop, she instead slid directly into what must have been a fishing hut. Either way, it laid waste to the small thing with ease, finally coming to a stop on it’s wreckage.

In an instant, I was galloping across the snow in pursuit, desperate to get to the ship before the nearby nomads. I didn’t even care that my cloak was still probably wrapped around Luna, leaving my wings exposed to all, all I cared about was getting myself between whoever these strangers were and my own sister.

It was, of course, impossible, considering the Sisyphys had crashed much closer to the settlement than I did. Before I could even reach the ship, a small group of thickly-dressed ponies were standing with spears and harpoons angled in anticipation to my approach.

They were all wearing enormous hooded clothing made from what was most certainly animal fur—I hadn’t seen enough wildlife to know which animal it belonged to, but either way, it seemed more than efficient against the Frozen North. I couldn’t make out any of their faces in the dark, but it was clear from their body language alone they were in shock at the sight of an alicorn sprinting towards them.

“Get the hell away from that ship!” I snarled, panting and coming to a skidding halt a dozen feet away from them.

They stared, perplexed. One muttered something in a language I didn’t know.

“Hey, you savages hear me? Back off! Don’t make me use my alicorn powers on you!” I snarled, spreading my unbroken wing for emphasis.

Without a word, each and every one of the nomad ponies dropped their spears and descended into a bow before me.

This time, it was my turn to stare. They stayed bowed, undoubtedly waiting for action on my part, but I didn’t quite know what to say.

Then, I remembered what Willow had said, about the Crystal Ponies.

And just like that, I knew.

These weren’t any random nomads. I’d stumbled across the Crystal Ponies themselves. Which surely couldn’t mean…

“Well well well,” a stallion’s voice called out. I turned—and there he was, walking casually towards me, nearly unrecognizable in the heavy fur attire he and the rest of the Crystal Ponies were wearing.

“Nopony lay a hoof on the alicorn,” Sombra said, smiling. “She still owes me a drink, after all.”

The Frozen North, Pt. II

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There was nothing but starry sky all above and beneath me. It was as though I was suspended in some great celestial plain where any manner of meaning had long ago passed.

It was most certainly a place I had been before, and confirmation came as a booming voice carried by every corner of the infinite void I had awoken into.

“CELESTIA, YOUNG MARE OF CYCLOSA.” The voice… whose words I knew well, despite seeming like it had been years since I had last heard them, came from something most certainly not pony in origin. Still, they had a distinctly female quality to them, even if they did not seem possible for any mare to be speaking them.

“YOU ARE NOT ORDINARY.”

As I had expected, it still had no source. Still booming out from the sky itself, and from the space below the starry bridge I was standing on.

“YOU ARE NO UNICORN. YOU ARE NO EARTH PONY. YOU ARE NO PEGASUS. THERE ARE NONE LIKE YOU.”

“I know,” I called back. “Trust me, I know.”

“AND YET YOU REFUSE TO SEE.”

I blinked. The last time I had heard this voice, it hadn't responded to me. It had been some message, surely, but not a conversation. Whatever this being was, whatever vision I was having… it was communicating with me directly, now.

“YOU ARE HOPE. YOUR SISTER IS HOPE.”

“So I've heard,” I replied. “But I don't know what to do.”

“DO YOU WISH FOR THE REIGN OF CHAOS TO CONTINUE?”

“No, of course I don't!”

“DO YOU WISH FOR BODIES TO CONTINUE PILING UPON THE STREETS? FOR THE DARKNESS AND COLD AND SORROW TO CARRY ON? FOR HOPE TO FINALLY FADE COMPLETELY?”

“No!” I screamed.

“THEN YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT TO DO,” the colossal voice returned. “YOU ARE HOPE, AND HOPE IS THE PATH TO HARMONY. YOU HAVE KNOWN THIS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT ALLOWED SUCH HOPE INTO YOUR HEART.”

“What are you?!” I screamed.

The voice was silent for some time. Even with no visual cue, I could tell it was thinking, letting my words reverberate through it's mind, thinking how best to answer.

“DISCORD'S GREATEST FEAR IS HOPE,” it finally replied. “YOU, AND YOUR SISTER… YOU ARE EQUESTRIA'S HOPE. AND AFTER YOU, THERE PERHAPS MAY NOT BE HOPE AGAIN.”

At that, I frowned. Equestria was a word I hadn't heard… and yet it seemed to be deeply rooted within my mind all the same. Like I had heard it a thousand times, like it had once been something so significant to me that it had formed the basis of my being… and yet I was certain I hadn't heard it even once in my life.

When I awoke to the freezing cold of the tent, my wing and the rest of my wounds aching once again and the world blending back into focus, the word was still on my lips.

Shaking my head, trying to bring myself back into wakefulness, I quickly noticed Luna's eyes upon me.

“You too?” she asked, her voice low, as though it were some well-kept secret.

I simply nodded.

Still feeling like I was in a trance, I accepted the steaming mug that a Crystal Pony was handing me, sniffing cautiously at the liquid within.

“Sik'sitsa!” The Crystal Pony declared cheerily, wearing a proud smile, catching my wary gaze and bowing politely as I took the mug.

I blinked, narrowing my eyes at the cowering mare. The Crystal Ponies seemed to have about them a certain air of passivity in their interactions with me and Luna. It seemed odd that the greatest foe to Discord’s rule were such quiet, easily-spooked ponies.

Then again, Sombra seemed an exception to such. He was hardly as passive as the Crystal Ponies, and seemed to have an affinity for commanding them about.

“What?” I said brusquely.

“You’ll have to forgive them,” Sombra said. “They don’t know much Equish. She just wants you to know that the drink is tea. Crowberry tea.”

“Not much Equish?” I asked. “The hell?”

“The Crystal Ponies didn’t know any Equish when I first found them. All they spoke was their native tongue, which they call K’anquitut.”

I had a reply on my tongue, but it was lost when a bolt of pain shot through my wing.

“Hey! Watch it, you crystal freaks!” I yelled, as yet another Crystal Pony mare flinched at my verbal assault, quickly readjusting her hoof to a less painful part of my broken wing. “How much longer are you going to be rubbing all my wounds with your creepy voodoo crap?”

“Probably hours, considering ‘your wounds’ now make up more than half of the total surface area of your body,” Sombra replied. “Did you by chance take a dive into a woodchipper on the way over here?”

“Shut up, Sombra,” I growled. Across from me, at the other side of the long wooden table, Luna snickered, unintentionally causing some soup to bubble upwards and splash her face.

It had been almost an entire day since the Sisphys had landed into the Crystal Pony settlement. And, as fearful as I had been towards the intentions of the nomadic tribe, it quickly became obvious that, true to Willow’s assertions, these ponies had nothing but respect for me and Luna.

Amazingly, Sombra, their apparent leader, was included under such umbrella. He’d quickly assured me that he’d have some of his ponies take a look at the Sisyphys, fuelling her and doing their best to repair the damage my reckless flying had caused her.

Luna and I had been given a tent to ourselves, which, given the small size of the nomad camp, was surprising to say the least. That wasn’t to say it had boasted much—simply a set of cots and a fireplace—but it was a much better affair than our shoddy room in Cyclosa.

And the food! I didn’t know quite what animal it had belonged to, and I had my qualms about eating most meat not belonging to rodents in the first place, but for a starving mare, the food the Crystal Ponies had given us had felt like it had single-hoofedly saved our lives.

“That’s quite the ship you have.” Sombra’s voice, and another sharp pain in my broken wing, drew me back to the present. “Amazed she made it here from Cluster 13, all things considered. Without a gun or rockets, no less.”

“I’m amazed, too,” I replied. “How the hell I came across you again, of all the ponies in Erisia, is beyond me.”

“I told you, Celestia. We would find you. And we did, didn’t we?”

“I wish you’d tell me how.”

“Well, you know what they say about magicians, Celestia,” Sombra replied, smirking. “The simpler truth is, destiny willed you here, and so here you are.”

“There you are,” I growled. “Going on about destiny again.”

“I don’t know how many ponies need to say it to you before it becomes a reality, Celestia, but you are destined to—”

“Enough,” I said, rising. The Crystal Pony still working on my wing jumped in surprise at my sudden movement, her plate of strange, shamanistic medicine falling to the dirt floor of the tent. “I’m going to my tent. Luna, come on.”

I made it as far as the opening flap of the tent when I realized Luna wasn’t following me.

“Luna,” I growled. “Come on.”

“I wanna hear what Sombra has to say,” Luna refused softly, not looking up from her food to meet my eyes.

“I can have one of my ponies take her back to your tent, Celestia,” Sombra said. “I wouldn’t mind having a chat with Luna, anyways!”

“Well, I would. I’m… look, I’m not trying to be rude, and I appreciate all the help you ponies are giving me, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t fill her head with dangerous ideas.”

“Maybe you are right,” Sombra replied evenly. Then, he rose from his seat, pointing a hoof at a Crystal Pony and sternly telling him something in K’anquitut.

“Luna, Muktuk is going to lead you back to your tent,” Sombra said to Luna in Equish. “We can talk later. Celestia, a word with you before you follow?”

Luna gave me a cold, angry glare as Muktuk rose, leading her with a warm smile towards the flap of the tent. Sombra growled something else in K’anquitut, and the moment he did the mare working on my wing also followed, giving me another bow as she exit.

“So what are those ponies?” I asked Sombra, as soon as we were alone. “They your slaves?”

“What?! No! I’m their leader.”

“Cause those are mutual exclusives? Sorry, no, not buying it. You’re, what, twenty five? Definitely not old enough to predate a language. They existed before you,” I replied. “So what? You came along, said, ‘hey, a stupid nomad tribe I can use!’, and claimed them?”

“They fled Discord’s rule about three generations ago. I’d heard stories about them, and decided to seek them out. When I did…”

“You made them yours,” I rephrased, bluntly. “For a heroic cause though, so who cares? Right? That’s what you want me to believe?”

For the first time since I had known him, Sombra gave me a cold, offended look. “You’re quite the paragon of morality to be telling this to me. Refresh my memory… how many ponies have you killed to get this far?”

“That’s not the same!”

“Don’t pretend to know what my relationship with the Crystal Ponies are,” Sombra returned. “This isn’t even what I wished to talk to you about. I wish to inquire towards your plans.”

“My plans.”

“You have made clear your distaste towards Luna’s desire to follow her destiny. So what, then, do you feel your destiny truly is?”

“Destiny. You keep saying that, like it’s a thing. Look, if destiny is so important, why don’t you and your Crystal Ponies go pray to it instead of me and my sister? How the hell do you know my destiny, anyway? You got some sort of crystal ball?”

“Celestia, have you ever had visions? Dreams you cannot explain? I cannot really describe it, but up here, in the North, so far from Discord… there is a sort of… Presence. I think that, were you and Luna to spend some time with me and the Crystal Ponies, you would come to feel such a presence, too. I can help show you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I replied. “What you’re describing sounds more like insanity then hope. I’ll take my chances with the North.”

Sombra laughed, taking a step closer. In contrast to his warm laugh, however, I felt my body become enveloped in a magic aura that felt more akin to freezing to death than the usual warm glow I’d grown to expect from my own magic.

Sombra focuses his magic around my head, roughly forcing it upwards so that he could look directly into my fiery eyes. I tried my best to worm my way out of Sombra’s grasp, but he was strong, and without magic of my own thanks to the horn inhibitor, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Do you know what lies beyond this settlement, Celestia? Have you any idea?”

It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother to answer.

“Death. That’s all. The Crystal Ponies have a word for it, they call it ‘angujaktuat—means endless blizzard’—but really, what they mean is death. This land will kill you as quickly as a knife to your throat, Celestia. And trust me when I say that they, of all ponies, know.”

“Then I’ll go East. West. I don’t care. Point is, I’m not staying here.”

Sombra took another step past me, examining the rest of my form—my body, covered in scars, my tattered and ragged mane that probably looked more grey than purple. He stopped moving when he was behind me, seemingly focusing on my cutiemark-less flank.

“Is that so, Celestia?”

I grimaced a little—every second alone in the tent with Sombra was giving me more and more cause to get as far away from this stallion as possible. There was no logical thought behind it—I’d been restrained with magic before and that alone was hardly enough to throw me into a panic, but there seemed to be something unnerving about the way Sombra was speaking to me. As though he saw me as fit for the claiming as the Crystal Ponies had been.

For all the trust I was putting into him, he hadn't really given me any solid evidence towards his intentions being entirely selfless, either. Beyond his utterances about 'destiny', I didn't even know why he had such an intrigue in me and Luna, but I knew without confirmation that it wasn't simply for the 'well-being of ponykind' or any such nonsense.

Indeed, I didn't even know what his cutiemark was, if he even had one. To be fair, many ponies didn't, but Sombra seemed to always be wearing a cloak even in the relatively warm tent. If I hadn't grown so accustomed to wearing a cloak for the purpose of hiding something, I most likely would not have assumed such, but as it stood I couldn't shake the feeling.

“And why is that? Why do you feel the need to quell what even your own sister sees as hope?”

“Because when the last thing you care about in your life is a ten year old filly, the last thing you’re thinking of doing is putting her at the front lines of a death march!” I shot back. “Just what do you understand? Did you ever have siblings, Sombra?”

“No. I grew up in an orphanage. In Pillory. Ran away to see the world when I was thirteen.”

“So, what? I’m supposed to connect with you cause of your ‘tragic upbringing?’”

“Actually, I remember my life in the orphanage rather fondly. Nonetheless, you are getting far off-track, Celestia.”

“Yeah, well, the mind tends to stray when you’re being forcibly held by a creepy, insane unicorn.”

In response, Sombra extinguished his magic, instantly leaving me to stumble back a little ways from the sudden release.

“Celestia, no matter where you run to, you will never reach the destination. You and me both know that you have one and only one way to save your sister. Me and the rest of the Crystal Ponies have already given up our lives for alicorns like you.”

“Look, don’t guilt trip me here,” I growled. “You think I’m blind to what Discord’s done? You think it doesn’t make me sick to know that ponies are dying out there in that snow and cold because it’s me he wants? But I never wanted any of this! If I had a say, I’d be back in Cyclosa, fixing airships for pennies! But I didn’t have say. I never did.”

“Now, you do,” Sombra replied. “I can promise you support and love from my Crystal Ponies. I can promise you my own companionship. You’re hope, Celestia—the first alicorn these ponies have seen in centuries—and they will gladly lay their lives before you at even the inkling of a possibility of you succeeding against Discord.”

“That’s all nice,” I said. “But my mind was made up long before I landed here. And as soon as your ponies have got the Sisyphys all fixed, I’m going to keep on flying North, with or without Luna’s agreement.”

With that, I turned my tail to Sombra’s frowning face, forcing my way through the heavy tentflap separating me from the blizzard outside.

Luna wasn’t exactly happy with me when I returned.

“You know, you don’t have to be so mean to these ponies,” she said. She had her back to me, carefully examining a hoofknit scarf that one of the Crystal Ponies had given her. “They’re only trying to help.”

“Well, we’ve made it rather far without their help,” I returned.

Luna said nothing, although she gave my entire form a scrutinizing gaze, as though wordlessly objecting simply by bringing her attention to my body riddled with injury.

“By the way, one of the Crystal Ponies left you this.” Luna roughly threw a sturdy-looking bonesaw in my direction, seemingly uncaring if she hit me with it. “For your collar and horn thingy.”

I took it with frantic haste, grasping the long chain attached to the choke collar and unwrapping it to its full length of about two yards. Figuring it’d be easier to detach the chain over the collar, and as eager as possible to no longer have to lug the long length around me at least, I made it my priority. Even if it were still latching onto my neck, the collar at least didn’t inhibit my movement nearly as much.

It was slow, tedious, and occasionally painful work when I screwed up my angle of attack and dug into my own flesh with the bonesaw. It took all of an hour to even make it through the chain, but when I finally did I felt like letting out a long whoop of euphoric joy.

Instead, I settled for a proud smile in Luna’s direction, but it was quick to falter when I saw that, under the cover of sparks and squealing metal, she had slipped out of the tent, back into the dark wasteland beyond. Scowling, and kicking the detached chain aside, I grabbed my cloak and wrapped it several times over myself before setting out to find Luna.

Outside, the blizzard—anjugaktuat, as the Crystal Ponies would’ve called it—had died down to a calm and serene snowfall, large bits of snowflakes the size of marbles falling between the nomad huts and frozen pines.

It looked as though there were still fires going in most of the huts, but they all were obviously deserted, since a greater fire had been erected next to the Sisyphys’s hovering body. There, it seemed like the entirety of the Crystal Pony camp had gathered, all circling the great flame licking higher than any of the ponies surrounding it. The sound of music and song was drifting faintly—the strong wind had been blowing away from my tent, so I hadn't heard it earlier, but now it became clear that some sort of celebration had unfolded in the time I had been focused on removing my collar.

I squinted, and through the blinding firelight I could make out Luna's jovial form, dancing with the rest of the Crystal Ponies, singing along with them in a language she didn't even know.

Sombra was there, also, holding in his magic what looked to be a stringed instrument. He wasn't playing it beyond a few key-setting strums—simply the bare minimum required to keep the Crystal Ponies in melody. Even at what was apparently a celebration, Sombra seemed to feel it necessary to keep the Crystal Ponies under his command, to the point that letting them deviate from his melodies was unwelcome.

“Hey!” I called out as I approached. “You watch yourselves with that fire around my ship!”

“Celestia!” Sombra said cheerfully, ignoring me. “Glad you could join us! Still wearing the collar? Is it a fashion statement at this point?”

“I was in the process of removing it, when I discovered Luna had wandered off without my permission,” I replied. “Get over here, Luna, now. Back to the tent, right away.”

Luna, who had only now stopped dancing, gave me a firm stare in response.

“No.”

In an instant, I was storming over, roughly forcing my way through the crowd of oblivious Crystal Ponies until I was looming over her.

“Right now, Luna.”

“No,” she said again. “I'm having fun here.”

“She's not hurting anypony,” Sombra offered.

“You shut up!” I snarled.

"No," Luna said for a third time. "What are you going to do, Celly? Kill me?"

At that, my glare faltered a little.

Then, it was back with newfound intensity. Just what had Sombra and these Crystal Ponies been saying about me? Regardless, Sombra's motive seemed quite clear: if he couldn't get me and Luna on his side, then at least one alicorn on his side was better than none at all.

If Luna and I had been close, it never would have worked. But, while I don't deny our love for each other, it was love built on idle assumptions about each other, and such were beginning to crumble day by day. For what did Luna know of me, truly? Her whole life, I had been like a ghost, rarely seen, always in the Scrapyard, coming and leaving when everypony else was fast asleep. Her memories of me were formed around assumptions, and by her groggy mind's recollection when I was a bit too careless and accidentally awoke her as I myself got ready for bed.

I loved Luna, and she loved me, but our love was like a poltergeist. We both knew it was there, but we would never be able to see it with clarity or even prove it existed at all.

“Celestia, if we're disturbing you, go back to your tent,” Sombra said. “But these are my ponies, and this is my camp. You may be an alicorn, but you're also our guest and should start acting like one. I've been patient with you thus far, but commanding my ponies around is crossing a line.”

“My sister is not your pony,” I replied levelly.

“So she's yours?”

I faltered. If I'd any words on my mind, they didn't seem to be able to make it to my tongue.

Instead, I marched back from the crowd of Crystal Ponies, away from Luna, to a lonely patch of snow far enough away that I was beyond range of interaction with any of the Crystal Ponies, but still close enough that I could watch them and hear their song.

Luna was quick to once more involve herself with the rest of the Crystal Ponies, ignoring my interruption entirely and ignoring me save for a few cold glances at my lonely form. None of the Crystal Ponies approached me even as the hours crept on.

I didn't dare admit it, but there was something cathartic about watching Luna in such a state. It was a jovial state I couldn't ever recall seeing her in—certainly not amidst the slums of Cyclosa. There was no fear, no judgement, and while it was clear that the Crystal Ponies saw Luna as something to be respected, they did not seem to be treating her with any manner of worship. She was dancing and singing as one of them, her wings and horn be damned.

I was brought back to the deck of the Sisyphys again, to what Willow had said, about my own sister being afraid of me. How Luna's respect for me had been waning, shifting from her idolized view of what little she saw of me in Cyclosa, to disgust at the survivalism-driven-savage I really was. Screaming bloody murder at the burning wreckage of the Damask Rose, lashing with hostility at Willow for daring to let Luna feel anything but inadequate…

I didn't feel sorry for trying to protect Luna. I knew that any slip on my part could mean unspeakable horrors falling upon her. We were walking a tightrope, and I wasn't about to let my guard down and let anything befall her…

And yet, here was Luna, with no guard at all. Simply being, enjoying herself around ponies who respected her. My skepticism towards Sombra ran deep, but the Crystal Ponies…

When Sombra had said that they would gladly die for Luna, I found it difficult to doubt him.

It was only a matter of time before my stubborness gave way to emotion, and I gradually began creeping back towards Sombra, still watching without interacting, having leaned his instrument against a pile of firewood.

He gave me an acknowledging sideways glance when I sat next to him, but did not immediately speak.

“I'm sorry to villanize you like that, Celestia,” he said after several minutes. “Especially in front of your sister.”

“No, I was being a bitch,” I replied. “It's just… confusing to see her acting this way. Like, something should be wrong for her to be like this.”

Sombra laughed. “Welcome to Erisia.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Somepony should do something about this Discord jerk, huh?”

Sombra laughed again. “Such a pony would surely be psychotic.”

Amazingly, I found myself smiling. “Dangerously psychotic. I'd bet they're almost as dangerous as those ferocious alicorn beasts.”

This time, Sombra's laugh was loud enough that a few Crystal Ponies and Luna herself turned to look at us. I saw Luna's eyes examining the two of us, both smiling and talking, and a small grin beginning to form on her face.

“Celestia… I know you don't want to hear it, but.. you know that there's nothing up there. No food, no water, no shelter—we're the last free tribe out there.”

“No food? Then how are you surviving?”

“I'm being serious. Even if you don't want to go fight Discord, please stay with us. I promise you—”

“Stop it, Sombra,” I interrupted, my smile vanishing in an instant. “Not now. I'm here until the Sisyphys is fixed. Plenty of time to consider the prospect.”

“Tell you what,” Sombra donned a mischievous smile, picking up the instrument once again. “If I play something, and you sing, I'll totally drop it.”

I scowled. “What are you? Seven years old?”

Sombra didn't reply, at least not vocally. Instead, he strummed a couple of disjointed chords, not quite a melody, but seemingly the inklings of one.

“Look, I don't sing,” I said. “Not in front of ponies. I'd probably sound like shit.”

Still no reply beyond the sound of the guitar. Luna had stopped dancing, looking in my direction, a mix of intrigue and anticipation on her face. She was no fool, and it seemed rather clear to her what Sombra was playing at.

Eventually, his chords started to make sense, forming into a basic sort of melody.

And eventually, I couldn't help myself. Perhaps it was Luna's anticipating smile, or perhaps it was simply my desire to cast away what disgust she still had towards me. Either way, when Sombra's playing hit its stride, I began, softly, cautiously, my voice low enough to almost be drowned out by the still-boisterous Crystal Ponies around me.

It was a song I'd heard in the Scrapyard. One whose source I probably could never hope to trace—I'd seen so many travellers and workers and guards come and go, and so many of them had sung whilst they worked, simple and easy-to-remember words and melodies that lived long after whatever pony had sung them had long left.

Alongside Sombra's soft, simple playing, and with the howling winter winds woven within his chords like droning ambience, I sang softly;

“This world is full of trouble and woe,
This world is full of trouble and woe
All I see is trouble, everywhere I go
I'm gonna sing the trouble that I know,

“This world is full of sadness and tears
This world is full of sadness and tears
They fill us full of sadness, and full of fear
I'm gonna sing until my eyes are clear.”

The Crystal Ponies song had ceased, as had their dancing. I afforded myself an upwards glance, but quickly returned it to Sombra when I saw that every pony was watching me intently, surprise and intrigue on their faces, even if many did not even know the meaning of the words I was singing.

My voice wavering a little, I continued nonetheless.

“Gonna dig deep down into my heart
Gonna dig deep down into to my heart
Gonna dig deep down, I'm gonna do my part
I'm gonna sing, sing a brand new start,

“This world is full of joy and mystery
This world is full of joy and mystery
This world will be our joy, I believe it will be
When we know what it is to be free.”

Sombra had apparently read in my voice that my song was ending, for he followed my final stanza with a final, bittersweet chord that was at odds with the near-silly smile still plastered on his face.

Silence followed. Luna's smile… I don't believe I'd seen such a wide smile on anypony's face, much less my own sister. And, as rich as the embarrassment and fear and paranoia ran within my own stomach, I felt the same joy Luna had within me, too.

Clearing my throat and rising, I looked to the watching Crystal Ponies and spoke in a language that meant nothing to them.

"Alright, so... you ponies have finally got your alicorns. Let's hear what you've got planned for Discord."

The Last Recluse

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They sputtered at first, but eventually the Sisyphys’s shitty engines started.

The mooring lines were cut, the fins angled to catch the arctic wind, and the ship began to rise past the tents and staring crystal ponies. After a painful two weeks of being grounded, we were finally leaving the settlement behind, and the compass on the Sisyphys’s dash was once more pointed North.

We were moving on, and I couldn’t be happier.

Sombra was sitting in the passenger’s seat, and Luna was in the back, talking with the half-a-dozen crystal pony passengers the Sisyphys was now carrying. The language barrier was hardly a barrier at all—even without the luxury of spoken words, they seemed to understand each other well enough.

We were flying North, but we were not yet leaving the Crystal Ponies behind. Instead, we were travelling to another settlement they had erected, an hour’s flight North from the camp where we had crashed. According to Sombra, it was larger, and more populated. It even had an airship yard, Sombra stated, which seemed odd to me considering airships had never been built to withstand such arctic cold. Sombra had jokingly referred to it as his ‘Empire’, and boasted that it technically lay beyond the borders of Erisia.

It seemed as though we were finally leaving Erisia, after all. After nearly six months, the world was before me. Stormsborough, Cyclosa, Trance… all names of cities I’d never have to see again. All memories of ponies I no longer cared for.

Erisia was no more than a land of old vibrations.

“You okay?” Sombra asked. “Looking pretty introspective there, Celly.”

“Huh?” I blinked, shaking my head clear. “Yeah, fine. And don’t call me that.”

Sombra laughed. “Try and stop me.”

I rose an eyebrow. “I think a broken jaw might have that effect. Don’t forget who's giving your sorry ass a ride home.”

“...on a ship my ponies repaired.”

“...shut up, Sombra,” I growled, but I was grinning too. “So… this ‘empire’ of yours…”

“I think you’ll like it,” Sombra said. “I know we’re seen as a bit of a basket case to the rest of Erisia, but the fact of the matter is with you and your sister, and the work we’ve accomplished… we might stand a chance against Discord.”

“Key word of the hour is ‘might’, is it?”

“Only because… well, nopony has even tried what we’re trying. All the alicorns have been like you—running away, because facing Discord is suicide. And honestly? Most of the crystal ponies don’t even believe they were alicorns in the first place.”

“Well, that’s silly.”

“Is it?” Sombra cocked his head. “It makes sense to me. It would be easy for a spirit of chaos to slap some wings on a unicorn and then execute them for show.”

“Right, but why? What’s the motive?”

Sombra shrugged, tapping a hoof on the dash of the Sisyphys thoughtfully. “Well, because it would be rather easy to turn Erisia against alicorns if they were already conditioned to hate them. It would be considerably harder to turn Erisia against something they’d never seen.”

“Yeah, whatever. Cool theory.” My gaze strayed, my hoof holding the yoke steady and my eyes turning to Luna in the back of the Sisyphys, cheerily butchering some K’anquitut phrase or name.

“I’ve only got one thing to lose, Sombra,” I said, my voice low. “And I trust her with you and your ponies. I’ve lived so long thinking my life is meaningless, and dying for a purpose seems like a fair trade. But her…?”

“That is a decision I think you should let her make, Celestia.”

“She’s twelve,” I replied shortly. “All the things I’ve done to keep her safe can’t be for nothing. No matter what we do, we do it without her. Do you understand me, Sombra?”

“I do,” he said, his humor and suave smiles gone, a sober face in their shoes. “You’re a good sister, Celestia.”

“I’m a shitty sister. I’ve been one my whole life, and I think I always will. For all your talk about destiny, I think I’ve got my glimpse of what mine is.”

Sombra didn’t answer, and I returned my attention to the flightpath of the Sisyphys. Sombra, whilst remaining silent, stayed in the passenger’s seat, his eyes closed and his horn glowing softly in the dark, casting soft red light across the foggy new glass on the Sisyphys’s front window.

He was humming to himself softly, lost in some ancient song or melody. I hadn’t the faintest idea what magic he was casting, but it seemed innocent enough, and so I did not bother questioning him.

Besides, he was first to break the silence regardless.

“There!” he said suddenly, opening his eyes and pointing a hoof at some lonely bit of darkness on the horizon. “See that?!”

“The village?”

“No… it… looks like a Scoutship,” he replied. “I’ve never seen one this far North.”

I squinted my eyes, and sure enough, there seemed to be something abrupt jutting from the droves of snow. The fin of a small Scoutship, like the one Willow had arrived at Cluster 13 in. The rest of the ship was mostly lost to snow, but the indent of its balloon in the snow was clear as day.

“We’ve got plenty fuel,” Sombra said. “Put us down beside it.”

“Are you crazy?!” I barked. “It’s a Scoutship!”

“It’s the ruins of one,” Sombra said, rolling his eyes. “Anypony in there is long dead. Anypony alive is no match against all of us.”

He rose a harpoon gun he had propped against the dash for emphasis.

I had an audience now; no longer were Luna and the crystal ponies chatting idly in the back of the ship, now they were crowding the windows as I reluctantly shifted the Sisyphys’s course and carefully twisted the former bathroom-faucet-knob-turned-ship-component that was the gas valve.

I flicked the engines off and we softly struck the snow, the ship gliding gently for several feet—a great contrast to the two other violent landings the poor Sisyphys had endured.

“Alright,” Sombra said, grinning. “Luna and the lot of you, stay behind. Celestia… shall we go for a stroll?”

He tossed me his harpoon gun, and I caught it in my newly returned magic. Sombra wordlessly took a shortsword from the various piles of junk and cargo that were now lining the Sisyphys’s bay, and the two of us opened the sidedoor to the cold outside.

“You know how to fire that thing?” Sombra posed, as I slung the speargun’s strap around my neck and climbed down onto the ice below.

“Point and release?” I replied, pointing the gun at him and a hoof at the switch on the side. “Can’t be too complicated.”

“Well, it’s springloaded, and you haven’t loaded a harpoon yet, genius” he replied. “Were you a whaler in a past life? You’re a born natural. And don’t point that thing at me.”

“Shut up, Sombra,” I snarled, but took his advice and removed the spear-headed harpoon from it’s perch on the side of the device and fed it into the barrel, pulling the spring back until it clicked into a locked position.

The Sisyphys had landed about a hundred feet from the downed Scoutship, and we reached it quickly, me leading the way with the harpoon gun hovering idly in my magic. Sombra had already sheathed his sword and seemed to find my caution amusing.

Most of the hull of the Scoutship was buried in snow and ice, but the balloon had been ruptured all down the side, exposing the steel framework of the ship and allowing for easy access into the gondola portion of the ship buried under the ice.

“Looks like the balloon wasn’t prepared for the cold,” Sombra observed, pointing at the tear lines. “See, they build these Scoutships like cannon fodder, and this is the result.”

“Surprised mine hasn’t had the same fate.”

“Eh. My guess is that yours was a cargo ship in her hayday. They’re built to handle the elements better. And by ponies who actually know the birdroads, instead of a bunch of scrapyard slaves. No offense.”

“You seem to know a lot about airships,” I replied.

Grinning, he pointed to his left ear. I squinted against the snow to get a closer look. On my first examination, I had thought it was an earring, but upon closer examination I could see that it was actually a sizable washer from some long discarded ship component.

“This is a souvenir from my first ship,” he said. “The Arkadia. Took thirteen Scoutships to take her down, and that’s only cause I got unlucky.”

I ducked under the bit of tattered airship balloon, the glow of my horn on the harpoon gun also lighting the interior of the Scoutship. It had crashed with its form largely intact—I could trace the balloons curvature even with the dim light of my horn as the only point of reference.

“Hello?!” Sombra called. “Any Erisian Guard assholes home?”

As expected, Sombra’s voice echoed, but no response came. I slung the harpoon gun back around my neck, fully prepared to wrench it back with my magic when I needed it. Then, I shifted my now dormant magic into a more potent light spell.

The Scoutship had evidently been lying there for some time, but nonetheless it was slightly unnerving as we worked our way into its depths—the portions of the ship that had been hidden from the outside—for I half expected it to abruptly give way and collapse in on itself.

“Waterline,” Sombra reported, pointing a hoof at a straight line carving through the opening of the balloon. “We’re on a lake right now, and it looks like she crumbled through the ice when she crashed. Water woulda frozen again quickly.”

Indeed, Sombra seemed to be correct. I could see where it had apparently been flowing freely into the ship, and it looked to be a very short distance—as though it hadn’t even had the chance to make it any further before the cold had worked its magic.

“That’s a hell of an impact,” I said. “Ice this thick is practically concrete, right?”

“Yeah. I figure it’s a ram-bowed Scoutship. They’re built to rupture far more than arctic ice.”

We ventured onwards past the waterline, which—relative to the ship—meant we were entering the gondola proper. I took the harpoon gun back as I led the way forwards, while Sombra cast his magic all about the battered gondola.

The sight we soon beheld was grotesque, but hardly surprising. Two ponies were slumped across the control panel—a mare in the pilot’s seat, and a stallion in the co-pilot’s. A bit of jagged piping had impaled itself into the mare’s open mouth, undoubtedly sent astray from the impact. Her skull had a tumor-like elevation near the back, as though the piping had tried to make it all the way through, but had fallen short.

Her hooves were still grasping the steering yoke, frozen in place. Long icicles of blood snaked down from her skull and snout towards the sturdy gondola floor, giving her a morbidly comical, dragon-like appearance. Her eyes were open in cloudy, eternal terror.

The stallion had it considerably better. He had simply struck his head against the control panel, and he must have lost consciousness. With the frigid cold considered, it seemed he simply hadn’t woken again.

“Their corpses are in good condition,” Sombra said, and indeed he was right. They looked as fresh as the day they had crashed, the frost-bite and frozen blood ignored. “Guess we have the snow to thank for that.”

“To thank for what? What good are corpses?”

Sombra didn’t answer immediately. It seemed he hadn’t heard me, because he had already diverted his attention to examining the dashboard in more thorough detail.

“Wonder what they were doing this far North,” he muttered. “I’m looking for a flight log or something. They might have kept one.”

Apparently they didn’t because he gave up on his search after several minutes. While he was searching, I myself had done the same around the cabin. My search was considerably more successful; in minutes, I had created a small pile of various tools in the center of the slanted gondola floor. Spears, swords, cylinders of gunpowder, a compass, an old map of Erisia, and a razor-sharp dagger.

The mare had been wearing a weapon harness around her barrel, and after fiddling with the frozen buckle for several seconds, I whipped it free from her frozen corpse and around my own waist. I shoved the dagger into one holster and the compass and map into the other.

“This was a good find,” Sombra whistled cheerily. “I’ll have to remember to come back here to scrap the ship herself.”

“Why do you suppose they were up here?”

Sombra shrugged. “Looking for us, maybe? Floating adrift after a battle? Who knows. In the meantime, wanna give me a hand dragging the corpses out?”

I blinked. “Uh… why?”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “Come on. We can at least give them the dignity of a proper cremation, right? I mean, look at the mare. I think anypony who dies like that, regardless of who they were, should at least have a dignified send-off. Especially if we’re stealing their shit.”

Reluctantly, I inched towards the corpses again. Sombra had already heaved the stallion onto his back, grunting a little from exertion. The mare seemed lighter, and a lifetime of hard labour had at least given me a well-built physique. Nonetheless, it took nearly five minutes to drag them out of the Scoutship, at which point Sombra hollered back to the Sisyphys for his crystal ponies to help him carry them the rest of the distance.

I trotted back into the Scoutship to grab the rest of the tools, and soon I was dumping them onto the floor of the Sisyphys’s cargohold, next to the pony-shaped lumps now thankfully concealed under a grey blanket.

I fired the engines up again, and guided the Sisyphys back up to the birdroads once more.

We came upon the next settlement shortly after the Scoutship. I could see from a distance that Sombra hadn’t exactly been mistaken calling it impressive. While the settlement would be dwarfed by anything the likes of Trance or Cyclosa, the very concept of such a village existing under Discord’s nose was perplexing.

The architecture, if it could be called such, was quite the same as the other crystal pony settlement, but to a more refined degree. Tents had been constructed from what looked like animal hides, looking surprisingly far sturdier than the ones I had grown up around in Cyclosa. They looked larger, too, which Sombra explained was thanks to the fact that several families typically lived in one. It was as though the village was a hybrid between the slums of Erisia, and the long barracks I’d seen the Erisian Guards reside in.

True to Sombra’s word, there was even a small area devoted to mooring and repairing airships. A nimble looking ship was berthed there, the balloon, fins, gondola, engine car, and two mounted guns all painted the same shade of white as the snow all about. With the sails retracted and the running lights off, I imagined this ship had taken many a larger ship down with the element of surprise as her only tool.

Sombra caught my gaze as the Sisyphys swung into the wind to descend. “Like what you see? That’d be The Last Recluse.”

“The Last Recluse?” I rose an eyebrow, opening the fin’s flaps to catch the wind and killing the engines to idle as the Sisyphys began to descend. “Seeing a pattern with her colour scheme.”

“She’s the ghost in the darkness,” Sombra said proudly. “A real bird of prey.”

“Wow,” I drawled sarcastically. “You’re really turning me on with all this dorky airship talk. How about you be helpful and get on the engines? We’re going in cold nose, so we’re gonna have to eyeball it. I need two-quarters reverse as soon as we’re at cherubs two.”

“I see you’ve got the jargon down,” Sombra laughed. “10-4, tiger.”

Our landing was shockingly organized and graceful. I called out our altitude as we descended, and Sombra shifted the directions of our engines gradually to slow us. Crystal Ponies were already scurrying out of their tents and trotting underneath the falling airship, ready to moor her as soon as she was within their range.

The moment we landed, I did not budge from the pilot’s seat, even as everypony else began to climb down the lowered cargo gangplank. Luna had been one of the first to disembark, already running ahead to explore the new settlement. Perhaps a week ago, I would have stopped her. Now, I didn’t have the energy anymore.

I watched the Crystal Ponies carry the veiled forms of the Scoutship pilots to some longhouse with a greater chimney than the rest. I listened to the clicking and clinking of the Sisyphys settling, and I watched the compass waver slightly, as though she were trying to convince me to fire the engines back up and keep going.

“Are you coming, Celestia?” Sombra was the last pony besides me still onboard the Sisyphys.

“I’ll catch up. Need some time to think.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Sombra, can’t you take a hint? Get lost.”

“Why?” he replied. “Call me paranoid, but I’m a little worried you’re going to kick the tires and light the fires as soon as I do. Come on. I wanna show you something.”

I gave him a huffy glare, but rose to follow.

Like in the previous settlement, the Crystal Ponies all responded to my mere presence with bows that seemed almost fearful. At first, I gave them all small nods of approval, but as Sombra continued to lead me from the shipyard into the settlement proper, it finally began to annoy me.

I had no reservations saying such to Sombra, either.

“Why the fuck are they bowing?” I growled. “I haven’t even done anything.”

“They’ve been conditioned to do so,” Sombra said cryptically. “Can’t say I’ve ever minded it, myself. One day, you’ll learn how it feels to be their queen.”

At that, I stopped. “Sombra?”

“Hrm?”

“I’m nopony’s queen. And you’re nopony’s king. That sort of life is Discord’s to lead, and trust me, we’re better than him.”

Sombra smiled. “Trust me, Celestia; I felt the same way. Now come along. We can continue this conversation out of the snow.”

Sombra eventually stopped before a tent that looked, for all intents and purposes, the same as all of the others. It was not significantly bigger, and although it perhaps looks a tad sturdier than the others, this could simply have been my own mind projecting its expectations upon it.

“In here,” Sombra motioned for me to go ahead. I gave him a raised eyebrow, but proceeded onwards nonetheless, pushing the flap aside and making my way inside.

It was an empty dwelling. Nothing about it seemed particularly striking, save for the notable fact that it seemed to be a single-pony dwelling despite it’s size being consistent with all the other tents.

Like the other Crystal Pony tents, while it appeared to have been erected by cloth and other easily-transportable materials, it had the same rigidity one would come to expect from any stone structure back in the towns of Erisia.

On it, hung various articles of junk that probably served some sentimental purpose. Maps and airship schematics and what looked like arcane runes were sprawled on every wall, but it was a framed picture I instead homed in upon.

It was what appeared to be a delicate graphite drawing.

Instantly, I was intrigued. This wasn’t some map or note or other practical affair, but instead something done seemingly out of boredom or interest. Such a thing was not uncommon in Erisia, but to me the concept seemed a little absurd.

The drawing was of a dozen or so young looking fillies and colts, surely no older than thirteen. They looked to be in some manner of cafeteria, but the drawing had been rendered quickly enough that it was difficult to tell.

Sombra caught my glance and smiled. “Was hoping you wouldn’t notice that one.”

I rose an eyebrow. “You hung it on your wall.”

“Yeah. Some memories are important, I guess.”

“What is it?”

“One of the orphanage hags was always practicing her art skill on us. Or so she said. I think she really just wanted something to remember us by.”

“...wait… this is…” In an instant I was grinning. “Which one’s you?”

“That one,” Sombra pointed at a young colt, standing on what appeared to be an overturned milkcrate, proudly proclaiming something to several amazed looking younger colts. “The mischievous troublemaker that the poor nurses had no idea what to do with.”

I chuckled. “Guess time didn’t change you much. How was it?”

“What? The orphanage?” Sombra shrugged. “Not like what you’d think, I guess. I called them hags, but really, it seemed clear they really did care about us. Kind of a rare thing in Pillory.”

I nodded. “I guess you never knew your parents then?”

“Oh I did,” Sombra said. “They cared for me till I was… uh, three, I think? Maybe four, but honestly, this is all stuff I've been told. I couldn't tell you a damn thing about my parents, to be honest."

"So, you don't know what happened? How'd you end up in the orphanage?"

"Oh, I know," Sombra assured. "One of the hags told me the story. My mother got ill, and they didn’t have enough bits to keep me. So off I went. By time I worked up the courage to look for them again when I was ten, they were gone.”

“From Pillory?” I asked bluntly.

“Dead. Illness spread, and got them both.” Sombra unclasped his sword and took to hanging it up upon a rack on the tent’s wall. “I guess in the end, they made the right call sending me away.”

“Damn,” I whispered. “That’s… rough.”

“Is it?” Sombra turned to me, wearing an innocent frown. “I don’t know. Like I said, the orphanage wasn’t bad. I’d like to go back one day, just to make sure all the old hags are doing okay.”

“When did you leave?”

Sombra grinned. “Can’t say I’ve seen you this curious before, Celly. I ran away when I was fourteen. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t thanks to some sort of argument or abuse or any fairy tale drama like that. I just… wanted to.”

I blinked. “You… wanted to.”

“Yeah,” Sombra said. “Hey, they were nice, and I had my friends, but what good are those when there’s a whole world to explore? I spent a while testing the waters of Pillory, but eventually I wanted to see more. So I stowed away on an airship and away I went.”

“Huh.” I didn’t know what to say.

“Yep. And what about you? What miraculous tales can the saviour of Erisia tell?”

“No interesting ones. Grew wings, ran away. Simple as that. Had it not been for them, I’d still be working for pennies.”

Sombra frowned. “Nothing more? What about your sister? Where would she be?”

“No idea,” I said. “My parents always kinda… saw me as a lost cause. Like, ‘damn, we weren’t paying attention and our first kid became a slave.’ They obviously wanted something better for Luna.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “She always wanted to leave Cyclosa. They probably would have tried to get her work on an airship galley or something.”

“That… would’ve made her a slave,” Sombra noted.

“Yeah,” I tutted. “Hypocrites, right?”

Sombra laughed. His sword away, he was now carefully creeping his way across the tent towards me, as though wishing to get closer but not betray his intentions. “We can thank Harmony it didn’t turn out that way, and our paths instead have intersected the way they have.”

I shuffled uncomfortably. “I guess.”

Sombra was standing before me now, looking me in the eyes, and I instinctively brought my gaze down to my hooves. Not that he was glaring at me in a scrutinizing or judgemental way, but the contact felt unsettling nonetheless.

“Sombra,” I said softly. “I see what you’re doing here. I think you should back off.”

“What?”

“You know what. Remember back in Cluster 13, when I told you I wasn’t interested? Well, I’ll let you know if I change my mind about that, but so far I haven’t.”

Sombra blinked in surprise, for a moment looking as though I had slapped him. Then, a wide grin cracked across his face and he laughed. “Right. Well, trust me, that’s not the reason I brought you in here. Nah, I wanted to give you something.”

“Oh?”

Sombra didn’t reply, instead turning back to the other corner of the tent. On the canvass floor lay a rather ornate looking trunk that looked unnecessarily heavy to be lugged across the Frozen North. Sombra’s horn was aglow as he opened it, his eyes closed in focus as he disarmed whatever enchantments he had placed upon the trunk to keep any unwanted access to it’s contents.

After several seconds, the trunk was opened with a loud squeak, and Sombra withdrew a heavy-looking object about the size of an electric light bulb. It was wrapped tightly in some manner of fur, and Sombra handed me the entire bundle.

It was evidently delicate, so I took caution as I unwrapped it.

It was a glowing stone, not much bigger than a vacuum tube. It was no well-polished diamond, but instead a crude and rough rock that looked as though it could have been plucked from noplace special in the Grey Wasteland.

“That,” Sombra said proudly. “Is the Sunstone.”

I turned the rock over, examining it for anything special. “The what?”

“It’s an experiment, of sorts,” Sombra said cryptically. “And it seems like the stars have truly aligned in this little stone’s favour.”

“What are you talking about? For once, can you speak an ordinary sentence?”

Sombra chuckled. “This stone is designed to bridge the gap between a group of highly skilled unicorns, and the Sun and Moon.”

I stared, for just long enough to realize Sombra wasn’t pulling my leg. Then, I let out a long sigh. “Willow was right. You ponies really are insane.”

“We’ve moved it before,” Sombra retorted. “Only by a hair, mind you. Discord’s control over it is… well, unparalleled. But we’ve already proven that theoretically, it can be done. That’s why I’m giving the stone to you.”

“I don’t get it,” I shook my head. “Why does raising the Sun change anything? It seems like a cool party trick, I guess, but how does it help us in any way?”

Sombra blinked. “Um. It’s been night for three months, nonstop. Ponies are freezing to death because of it. And you think a pony who can bring the Sun back is going to be brushed off as a ‘party magician?’”

I grumbled something unintelligible, wordlessly conceding my argument. Instead, I focused elsewhere. “Why me? Surely you’re more magically capable than me?”

“With certain types of magic, perhaps,” Sombra said. “But others, no. Magic isn’t one shade of study, Celestia. It’s a spectrum. There are facets of magical abilities that greatly differ from eachother. And right now, I don’t have the foggiest what facets of magic you may possess. So, keep the damn stone. It’s a gift. I don’t care what you do with it, just that I trust it with you.”

Giving Sombra a curious, raised eyebrow, I nodded and ripped off a line of wool from a discarded knitting project Sombra had lying about his tent. Then, I tied the line of wool tightly around the Sunstone, forming the whole affair into a crude looking necklace that I wore next to the neck strap of the harpoon gun.

“A good look for you,” Sombra complimented, examining me from hooves to head. “As for your sister… I have been thinking on the subject of magical apprenticeship for her.”

“Apprenticeship?” I cocked my head. “You mean you’re going to try and teach her magic?”

“The basics, yes,” Sombra said, nodding. “Basic combat magic, rune and enchantment detection, how to detect another pony’s magic stream. Little tools she may like to learn.”

I pursed my lips, unsure how to answer. The survivalist sister within me was screaming against trusting Sombra, but the more logical part of me reasoned that Sombra had done nothing to prove himself as untrustworthy. Besides, a more magically proficient Luna could only be useful in the long run, and in the end, should it not be Luna herself to choose her destiny?

“Yeah,” I waved a hoof. “Go ahead and ask her. I’m sure she would be thrilled.”

Sombra nodded, turning away from me with a satisfied smile upon his face.

iii

For all the ferocity of the Frozen North, the Crystal Ponies seemed to have a significant affinity for outside bonfires.

Of course, the reasoning seemed clear enough to me. According to Sombra, the camp lay only a half-day hike from a small oasis of coniferous trees, somehow managing to survive against nature. Some residual chaos magic from a battle some millennia ago, Sombra had theorized. Nonetheless, it left the Crystal Ponies with more than enough wood to burn, allowing for their continued survival for so long at such an isolated area. Some cultural barrier still seemed to be preventing Sombra to fully know just where this tribe of ponies had come from, as though it were some story already lost to the once-living tellers of it. Regardless, the residual chaos magic tear seemed to in some way be a source.

Sombra was off to the side, talking with Luna. There was a drum being beat and the fire kept burning, but it was clear that no attention was being paid to either. Instead, nearly every Crystal Pony eye was locked upon me.

I pretended not to notice them, and kept my focus instead on the skies above. The blizzard had broken to a starless black sky, hints of the Northern Lights twinkling on the fringes of some point further North than us.

My horn was aglow, and my eyes were closed. The fire was crackling and the wind was blowing, but I was in a soundless world apart from them as I swept probing bursts of magic into the unknown.

The Sunstone was glowing warmly around my neck, so that even through my fur I could feel its presence against the frigid air of the Frozen North.

I had asked Sombra for some degree of assistance with potentially raising the Sun, but at best I got vague, cryptic bits of unhelpful assurance. I would ‘find it on my own’ and would ‘know exactly what to do when the time came,’ he had said, but such could hardly be translated into action.

And so, here I was, casting magic wildly everywhere and nowhere. I could barely keep my horn aglow for light, and yet here I was trying to use it to raise the Sun. I felt as preposterous as I knew I looked, and it did not take long for me to begin to get restless and frustrated.

I surely could not have been trying for more than half an hour, but it was enough to grow frustrated. I opened my eyes again, extinguished my horn, and began to storm back to the bonfire.

“Show’s over!” I barked at the onlooking ponies. “Your alicorn failed. Big surprise. Where’s the food?”

They stared, obviously not fully understanding me, but Sombra quickly stepped in with a few barking commands in K’anquitut. I admit, it did make me feel rather awful for my aggressive tone when I had to view it filtered through the actions of another pony—it hardly felt nice watching Sombra yelling orders on my behalf at the passive Crystal Ponies.

Regardless, the end result was a plate of some manner of meat being placed before me. It looked as though it had been cooked, frozen, and then cooked again, and it looked too thick to come from and rodent or critter I’d normally have been comfortable eating.

“What is this?” I asked the closest Crystal Pony I could find—a pretty young mare several years younger than me. “Food. What is it?”

She cocked her head, pursing her lips as she ran my words over.

“Esktik,” came her confident reply. She beat at the snow with her hooves, and then brought her hooves to her head, as though they were antlers.

“Uh, jackalope?” I guessed hopefully. I was starving, but I still wasn’t quite sure whether or not stuffing my face with some poor murdered cervine was something I’d want on my consciousness. Then again, the Crystal Ponies hardly seemed the sort of ponies to be despised by principle, and they had apparently been surviving for some time on whatever I was now being offered.

It seemed I wasn’t going to get a simple answer from the pony, so I bit down my doubt and brought my snout towards the plate of meat. It was chewy and largely flavourless, which thankfully was a step-up from the horrors my paranoid mind had been expecting. I was able to finish off the plate I’d been presented.

I quickly found it easy to simply lose myself in the dancing flames before me. When my gaze did stray upon the cheerful and celebrating Crystal Ponies, I instinctively smiled, and when it strayed upon Luna and Sombra—the former’s horn aglow and her smile wide and exuberant—I felt a tinge of pride, too. As I watched, I once more resumed my practice with the Sunstone—this time far more conspicuous, with far less drama and cursing and audience. My sunraising practice progressed less as some manner of divine move, and instead with the casual calm one might see in an elderly mare knitting.

Luna was engaged enough in casting her magic that Sombra was able to give me a sideways glance.

We locked eyes, and instinctively, I smiled back.

He wasn’t such a bad stallion, after all. Maybe he really did deserve a chance.

It was amazing how quickly the days turned to weeks in the Frozen North.

The night remained eternal, so it was impossible to truly know for sure just how long I had been there. I began gauging my ‘days’ solely on when my last meal was—normally I tried my best to space them out as long as possible.

The Crystal Ponies did not eat frequently. I quickly noticed this upon arriving, and while such a thing was hardly uncommon back in Erisia, it stuck out far more evidently when Luna and I were being fed regularly whilst they were left to starve. Sombra ate a little more than the Crystal Ponies, but it was still clear that he could do with far more. Even back in Cyclosa, living on rat meat and homegrown fungus, I think I was better off than Sombra and these Crystal Ponies were.

And yet, despite a near universal-starvation, they all seemed far too willing to give their shares up for me and Luna. For somepony so willing to flaunt a life spent as the only pony caring for myself, I was surprised how guilty I felt seeing these ponies selflessly sacrifice what was once theirs for me.

It was the same strange meat that, no matter who I asked, nopony seemed to give me an answer in Equish. Eventually, growing tired of trust, I demanded Sombra explain to me what exactly it was so far North that we were eating. Surprisingly, his answer seemed rather anticlimactic.

'Most likely whale, but maybe arctic cod,' he had said, and then shrugged. 'Honestly, I'm still picking up on alot of these pony's traditions.'

Nearly every waking moment, I spent with the Sunstone, aimlessly casting my magic into the heavens, seeking some celestial body far past the blizzards and miles between us, although it seemed clear, everytime I was doing so, just where my attention truly lay.

Indeed, Sombra seemed to have rooted himself in the center of my thoughts; always some inkling thought in my head, as though I were being compelled to think about him regardless of whether I wished to or not.

I could not for the life of me work up any manner of courage to speak to him about how I felt, because truly, I myself did not quite know. A month ago, I had not even the inkling of an opinion towards him. He was a name and nothing more, some mad stallion I had met in a bar. Some warrior for a cause I did not care enough to believe in.

Now, though, things were changing. All his claims of destiny, and all my doubts about my future… they were braiding around each other, dancing to some hypnotic rhythm in my mind.

Ice was gathering on the Sisyphys, freezing the compass needle in place, ceasing it’s spinning pleas that I carry forwards.

In these weeks it seemed all my thoughts had become trance-like. All that had led me to where I know was felt like it had happened in a dream, and now I was caught in some foggy limbo cast by a groggy waking mind.

And still, Sombra was at the forefront of it all. Every gaze I cast towards him spurred strange feelings. Every thought was one weighed against his own judgement. Were I to fire the Sisyphys’s engines and continue my journey, what would he think? Would he approve? A stallion that, a month ago, I did not know existed, now seemed to be a sexton by which I was measuring all my actions.

Across these weeks, Luna had all but ceased speaking with me. I slept in the cabin of the Sisyphys, and she elsewhere. When we spoke, she seemed angry, and I did not know why. I did not know what I had done to warrant her distrust, but I certainly had it now. Too prideful to apologize and too afraid to ask, I could do little but watch as some unseen wind carried her further and further away from me.

The same starry plain.

I wasn’t scared or confrontational now, but instead curious.

“Hey,” I called out. “Creepy voice. You around?”

“Yes, child.”

I rose an eyebrow. No longer was it screaming to me from some corner of another reality—some extraphysical voice I couldn’t comprehend. It still had about it some otherworldly aura, but I no longer felt like some insignificant ant being talked down upon by a god.

“What is this place? Who are you?”

“Child, my time with you is waning, and I promise you that one day, all of your questions will be answered. But in this moment, you must be silent and listen. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

“You are the first,” the voice began without ceremony. “The first hope in a very long time. Yet you are fleeing from the land you are destined to protect. You must understand, child—all that lives has a purpose. Every breath of life taken in this land has value to another, and every pony has a role they must fill. And your role lies in the land you have turned your back upon.”

“I know that,” I growled. “I’ve already made my decision. I’ve gotten Luna to safety, so now… sure. I’ll help out. I just need to know what to do.”

“The Sun,” it replied. “With it, you will have power over disharmony. You will have some control over a world of disorder. Destiny has brought you to where you now are. Do not turn your back to it’s call.”

“I just don’t know what to do!” I replied. “I tried, and I failed! I don’t even have any idea what it is I’m supposed to do!”

“You have become lost. Your affairs have become muddy and confused, and you have become diverted to the desires of your heart. There is something amiss within you, and you feel it as clearly as I do.”

The Spirit wasn’t wrong. I said his name aloud, needing to hear it myself.

“Sombra.”

No answer. The spirit was right… it’s time surely must have been limited, for I felt myself awaking back to the Frozen North. The starry plain collapsed, and within moments, the celestial plain collapsed.

The wind was howling once again.

The snow obscured all beyond the glass windshield of the Sisyphys. The ship rattled as she was buffeted about, the mooring lines always screaming outside as the wind buffeted them about.

I couldn’t hope to trek to the other ponies in the Crystal Pony settlement. I had been alone in the Sisyphys, engaged in some introspective sulk, when the blizzard had begun, and before I knew it it was a barrier between me and every other living thing.

It was a strangely comforting feeling. Sombra was too far away, and for once I felt free from his omnipresent influence. I had propped an oil lantern onto the dashboard of the Sisyphys, and after sharpening my dagger and the end of the harpoon on my speargun, I then turned to the Sunstone around my neck.

I bowed my head forwards, guiding the stone free from my neck in my telekinesis.

This time.

It seemed odd, to say it with such certainty. What was different this time? I was alone?

No, I was aware.

A month ago, when the Sisyphys had left the distant Stormsborough beyond the horizon, I hadn’t cared for Sombra. When we had landed upon the settlement, still, I had not cared for him.

What had changed within me? I did not know.

But, like I had finally caught some glimpse of a star or moon in the empty darkness that the sky had become, I felt some strange clarity on the fringes of my mind.

Perhaps it was in my destiny to defeat Discord. Perhaps Sombra could help me.

Perhaps there was something more at work than simply that.

I’d thought that, with my mind so distracted on such strange and complex affairs I did not even understand, surely any concentration I had perfected would not exist as I outstretched my magic to the Sun above.

And so, it was rather surprising when I felt something that was not my magic collide with my own brightly burning stream.

I felt it, but I did not quite know what it is. To raise the sun is not something that can easily be described. It is not something one can read and possibly attempt to comprehend, and so it is with apologies that I state I will not attempt to make such an attempt.

All I will instead say is that, even with so much blizzard blocking my vision, I knew that for Erisia, the night of nearly eight months was breaking to some minuscule beams of Sunlight breaking the horizon.

One might imagine this to be some great ordeal. Perhaps the heavens were crying out in anguish, perhaps the glass on the windshield of the Sisyphys shattered…

Indeed, such would perhaps make for a more incredible moment, but the sad truth was that on one night, alone in a junky airship in the middle of the Frozen North, a nervous young alicorn cast magic into the sky and, after weeks of failure, met some semblance of success.

I screamed, not in pain or anguish, but instead in joy, but such joy was short-lived. My contact with the Sun had been in place for not a second, before it was met with resistance.

Chaos magic, like the magic of the Sun, cannot be easily described in words. It seems as though it creeps into every facet of a pony’s perception, striking so many of their senses simultaneously. It is not painful, and yet it is agonizing. It is invisible, and yet one cannot see anything beyond.

I screamed every curse I knew at Discord’s name, and I intensified my magic until I felt my horn and the Sunstone would shatter. The Sun was falling again. Still I could not see it, but yet I knew that the eternal night was once more upon us. I had seized control of an idling sun when Discord had not been paying attention, but now that he had been made aware of my intentions, he seemed to be taking it back with ease. For all the confidence such an achievement had radiated within me, Discord extinguished it as carelessly as one might extinguish a match with their boot.

I had time to scream one final curse at a draconequus miles away, and then Erisia was plunged back into eternal night again.

The Epithalamium

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I awoke hours after the storm had died, and soon found myself stumbling out of the Sisyphys and into the changed Frozen North outside. The poor Sisyphys had weathered the storm without much aid, but she seemed to be doing okay all the same. I made my way quickly back to the camp, fully prepared to find Luna and tell her what had happened.

The storm had left the Frozen North looking new—the camp was half-buried in snow, and there were hardly any tracks to be seen sullying the fresh white blanket. A few Crystal Ponies were milling about, wearing snow-shoes and using them to create proper paths between the buildings. They saw me trudging along with effort—the snow easily up to my wings—and before I could call out they were heading in my direction, their eyes alight with concern.

“T’aniqsali,” I said gratefully the moment my hooves touched hard-packed snow and walking was no longer a chore. It was one of the few Kanquitut words I knew, and it was only through simple repetition, but my thanks was greeted with a few chirruping replies from the Crystal Ponies who had helped me. The Crystal Ponies had an odd bird-like quality of them in that regard, it seemed—any praise warranted excited chatter on their part.

“Luna?” I asked them as I walked. It was a simple proper noun presented without context, but it was one they understood immediately, and quickly deduced what it was I wanted. Still, the only response I received were the same Kanquitut chattering—for all I knew it was a complete answer, but it meant nothing to me. I rolled my eyes. “Look, just bring me to her?”

Nopony offered, and I was quick to grow annoyed. I brushed past them and rose my voice, calling Luna’s name out to the whole damn camp, not caring if I made a scene. A few more Crystal Ponies left their tents to watch me, my anger slowly building as minutes past and Luna was nowhere to be found. I’d begun to add Sombra’s name to my calling as well, but he did not seem to be in the camp, either.

And then, when I looked back at the small mooring tower on the South side of the settlement, and noticed that The Last Recluse was nowhere to be seen, realization struck me like the ground to a flightless pony.

Instantly, my frustration drained into fear and fury.

I’d been sulking in the Sisyphys before the storm had struck us, and The Last Recluse must have taken off in that time. I hadn’t heard it, but depending on the direction of the howling wind, such could have been expected.

If The Last Recluse had been caught in the storm, her chances would have been slim. The Sisyphys had been moored and secured and she had weathered it adequately, but I wouldn’t have even thought to fly in such weather.

My heart thumping, I turned around and sprinted back to the camp, already yelling back at the Crystal Ponies as I did so.

“The ship! Where did it go?!” I barked directly into the face of the first pony I saw—a middle-aged stallion with eyes wide in confusion and terror. He simply stared at me, speechless.

“A direction!” I was yelling at the whole damn camp now. “North, South… give me a compass direction! Now!”

Eventually, after a stressed game of charades, I had a direction—East, in the direction of the sea.

I didn’t hesitate and I didn’t explain. Instead, I tore off through the snow, back towards the Sisyphys. My old tracks sped my return significantly, and I had already drawn my dagger by time I was back at the Sisyphys.

Sombra must have taken Luna.

Without my permission.

And now, they were in trouble.

“Celestia!” Sombra's voice rung out, just as I brought my dagger to the final mooring line keeping the wind from stealing away the Sisyphys. Suddenly, he was trotting towards me, the jangling of some blade ringing out in his scabard as he tore across the camp. “What the hell is going on here? What are you shouting about?!”

I jerked my head in his direction, already snarling and already trotting back to where he was approaching from to intercept him. “Where is she?”

“Luna?”

“Yes, you son of a bitch! Where is she?”

Sombra blinked, apparently not quite understanding my intensity. “With the hunting party..? You didn’t see them leave?”

“No!” I said. “And I haven’t seen them return, either!”

“They took off the moment the storm started to lighten up! Luna wanted to go, so she went. I don’t see what you’re so—”

“She doesn’t make that decision, Sombra! We talked about this! She’s my responsibility—”

“No, she isn’t,” Sombra interrupted coldly. Then, seeing my evidently distressed expression, he warmed significantly. “Celestia, hey... calm down. Listen to yourself. She wanted to go, and you can trust her with my ponies. We talked about this, and you agreed that she was mine to mentor, right? Trust me, she's fine.”

“That’s not what I meant!” I drove a hoof into the snow. “Listen to me, Sombra! Luna is—”

“No, Celestia.” Sombra’s said tiredly, his horn illuminated, but it was only to grasp the final mooring line of the Sisyphys, which I hadn't even realized had come undone. “You listen to me. You need to calm down. Forget about Luna—she is safe, and you are concerned over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing!” I started to protest. There had been more to my statement, but Sombra spoke first.

“Do not interrupt me, Celestia,” Sombra said, his voice an annoyed growl. His glowing aura seemed to intensify for a moment, as though some gust of wind had tried to wrench the Sisyphys from him. I couldn’t help but notice some of the Crystal Ponies assuming frightened looking stances. “Your sister is safe. She is my apprentice, and you can trust me. You already know this, don’t you?”

I simply stared, my mind a strangely idle frenzy—I knew something was terribly wrong, but really all I felt was a hollow confusion.

Sombra tied the mooring line once again, before stepping closer, his horn still alight. Behind us, the Crystal Ponies simply watched—although some had already turned away.

“She will be back soon, Celestia. In the meantime, you should get back to practicing your magic. Leave your worrying for your own affairs. You wouldn’t want Luna to start thinking you’re a poor sister, do you?”

I grit my teeth at that. Sombra seemed to know exactly what to say to provoke a response, but I’d be damned if I was giving him one. Instead, I simply shook my head ‘no.’

“Good,” Sombra smiled. His horn extinguished, and he brushed past me towards the crowd of still-staring Crystal Ponies.

“Wait!” I called after him. “The hunting party... where did they go?”

“To Harmony Bay. It’s a day’s flight from here, weather permitting.”

“A day?!” I sputtered.

“We’ve checked nearly everyplace close for fish, whales, seals... anything, and haven’t seen a thing. If they can’t find any there…” Sombra let out a long sigh. “Let’s just say I won’t be happy.”

There was something wrong.

I knew it, but I didn’t know what it was that was wrong.

Just that something most certainly was.

It wasn’t anything obvious, though. An excited Luna returned amongst a crowd of dejected-looking Crystal Ponies. I’d watched the exchange from the deck of the Sisyphys. I couldn’t hear them, but it seemed clear from their expressions and Sombra’s reactions that they had returned The Last Recluse with an empty cargo-hold.

After dropping Luna off at the camp, the ship had refueled and carried onwards, searching for food in the opposite direction.

The Crystal Ponies were starving, and now it was no longer a dawning problem, but instead a critical one.

Still, the Crystal Ponies had... an odd view of death, I had observed. It was considerably more apathetic than I could recall in Erisia. They did not seem particularly malicious in their intent; it seemed less akin to a devaluation of life, and more akin to a fearlessness of death. Either way, when they passed, they were mourned, but never for long. It was seen by them as a cycle, and a morbidly healthy one at that. The thought that, one day, they may starve to death in their sleep and not awaken... it did not seem to bother the Crystal Ponies as much as it filled me with dread.

Sombra, however, was clearly shaken. He had done well to disguise it, but it was clear with every failed hunting expedition that his desperation was rising. I'd listen to him talk of them for hours, wishing desperately I could say something to help. I felt worthless—I was sitting her eating the bulk of their limited food, while the rest of them starved and I stood dumbly watching.

I'd suggested an expedition to the South, and Sombra had reluctantly agreed that such seemed to be a dawning possibility. He didn't bother to excercise the idea beyond.

Still, Luna and I were fed that night and the next. Where the still-unidentified meat was coming from, I had no idea.

Whatever it was, it was starting to make Luna and I ill—I saw her throw up from time to time, and did so myself as well. Sombra had observed nearly immediately, and had soberly informed us there was little he could do. The only food we had was slowly making us sick. Thankfully, it didn't escalate much beyond our vomiting, but I suspected this was rather temporary.

I didn’t ever end up talking to Luna about what had happened with the Sun. I wondered if Sombra had told her about my reaction to her disappearance; she seemed even more distant, only communicating with me through quickly diverted glances. I’d contemplated confronting Sombra, but it never quite felt like it would be a good idea to bother him with it.

Instead, I focused my time with the Sun again—determined to grasp control of it if only to get back into Luna’s good graces. It was clear I was no more to her than some cynical beggar—any respect she’d had of me seemed to have gradually withered and died.

I still found my thoughts straying back to Sombra from time to time. They seemed to be growing again, and I didn’t quite know why. It was as though with every failed attempt to focus on the Sun, it became more and more clear why I was trying in the first place.

One night, laying awake and alone on the Sisyphys, I decided that I hated it.

I'd heard these stories before, off passing travellers in the Scrapyards. Stories of ponies slowly losing their minds to something else. Discord's residual chaos magic was fabled to linger over the land like locusts, carried over the birdroads by the winds. Grasping onto traveller's minds like ticks, dragging them down to their dooms.

I suppose I'd been flying far enough that I could have contradicted such a tick along the bird roads, but it eeehad all seemed like propaganda to me. Discord didn't approve of travellers much, after all—Sombra had often ranted of that, claiming he 'preferred to see us like separate little sandboxes in his playground called Erisia.'

I blinked, laying awake from the rickety bunk I'd been laying upon.

There. It had happened again. Back to Sombra. My own mind had been quoting the damn stallion!

Knowing any sleep was far past impossible, I rose groggily, wandering out onto the deck of the Sisyphys, to the frosted front window.

The arctic sky was empty of any clouds for once. The stars were sprawled for eternity, a million twinkling by the perfect dark at the top of the world.

I smiled, the strange fear in my mind slowly fading. It was truly a breath-taking sight, when one focuses upon it.

I'd never have seen this from Cyclosa.

The world, for all the times it had tried to killed me, still seemed to surprise me with its beauty at times.

I flipped the control panel of the Sisyphys on, soft yellow glow splicing through the arctic night. The electric bulbs flickered a little, occasionally dimming and relighting.

I'd been fleeing Erisia because I'd thought it was my only option. The idea of fighting Discord hadn't even clicked, but Sombra seemed to have kindled some long-dormant hope that Erisia had long since snuffed out.

Regardless, it seemed as though staring at the world from the deck of an airship filled me with... with... excitement.

Sailing the birdroads, like I'd always envied in the Scrapyard? Sombra, Luna and I, hunting after some foolish lead to help us in our fight against Discord?

Why the hell not? It seemed better than living out the rest of my days alone in hiding at some promised land far north.

Besides, the thought that, without my intervention, things truly wouldn't get better, had already rooted itself in my mind. The eternal night was passing into its seventh month, and I knew the bodies would have started piling to the South.

Knowing I wasn't going to get any semblance of sleep with that thought on my mind, I instead took to practicing with the Sunstone as I waited for the rest of the camp to awaken.

I knew I was getting close, but still, hours of effort brought no progress. The camp had begun to show signs of life before I'd made any contact as I had before, and eventually I gave up and trotted out to join the rest of the Crystal Ponies.

"Celestia!" As was more or less predictably typical of him, Sombra intercepted me before too long. I perked at his acknowledging shout, giving him a small greeting nod of my own as he trotted towards me.

He was wearing a twine harness attached to a sled—the same sled I'd stolen in Trance, I noted. Whatever he was dragging was hidden to me by a heavy cloth secured fast. Either way, it looked heavy, judging from how Sombra seemed to be struggling a little as he trotted.

"Hey, Sombra," I greeted. "Goin' good?"

"As good as it can up here," he replied. "Still bunking in that flying dumpster, I see."

"Watch it, Sombra." I narrowed my eyes.

He laughed. "I'm sorry. Actually, that's what I want to talk to you about. She's got no weapons on her, right?"

Shooting him a quizzical smile, I shook my head. It would seem weird to some, but unarmed ships were probably less common than armed ships. For a schooner like the Sisyphys to have made it as far as she did without arms was a feat in itself.

"Well, I was sorting through some salvage Luna and the Crystal Ponies brought back, and you may like this."

He gave the sled a backwards kick and shot me a smile. Approaching it, I tugged at a section of the twine keeping the cloth down, and gingerly lifted it, taking care not to let the wind grab it entirely.

Nonetheless, the sight of cold metal and the jangling of what could have been coins told me all I needed to know.

"It's a rotary gun," I said dumbly.

"Yep!" Sombra was smiling, like a proud colt at show-and-tell. "I was actually heading to the Sisyphys to ask if you'd help me hook her up."

I looked from the rotary gun to the ship, vivid memories of my nearly-unsuccessful battle with pirates bubbling to the surface.

"Good call," I said simply, and led the way back to my ship. "Is this how you pick up all mares, Sombra?"

"No, I do not believe 'give them an illegal killing-machine' is a strategy I've employed before."

"I'd bet it makes for some nasty break-ups," I replied levelly.

Sombra snickered. "Hence why I have every intent to stay in your good graces. I don't want a Sun-raising Alicorn out for my blood."

Ah, I thought internally. That's your only reason for sucking up to me, is it?

Still, as much as I smiled at my own cynical remark, I had to admit it was somewhat charming of Sombra. He seemed to be genuinely proud of himself, and truly, it would be an invaluable resource when things went poorly.

As we made our way back to the Sisyphys, Sombra drove into an extensive tirade about the gun, asserting that one nearly identical to it had nearly taken down The Last Recluse overtop the vortex-like-waves of the Shifting Sea.

I listened with passing intrigue—focusing less on the details of Sombra's stories and more the existence of such details. The average pony wouldn't give a flying fuck what he was talking about—they had their own lives in the garbage and dirt and they didn't really care much about anypony else unless they could gain something from them. I was guilty of the same damn thing after all, and yet hearing Sombra speak proper nouns of places I'd never known exist...

He wasn't some fraud. I knew that. He'd been to these places, seen them with his own eyes. He'd lived a life on the birdroads and it was a life I'd been pining for myself since the first damn airship I'd ever seen had broken over the mountains of scrap into line of my ten-year-old eyes.

And so, I listened. I offered what insight I could, but truly, I'd seen very little to share. I'd seen more than anypony else in Cyclosa ever would, but the world itself was wider than I'd ever imagined, and seeing more than my peers didn't quite mean I had seen much at all.

Nonetheless, Sombra listened all the same.

"So, where are we mounting it?" I asked, as the sled came to a hissing halt when Sombra stopped, the thing hitting his rump lightly and causing him to jump humorously in surprise.

"It's your ship," he replied. "But I'd recommend the crowsnest. That way, you're not shooting over the egg, and you have to worry less about balancing bogeys on your port and starboard sides."

I blinked, staring dumbly. Giving me a little smile, Sombra rephrased.

"You have more range, and you don't have to worry about shooting your balloon as much, since you're above it."

"Clearly," I said sarcastically, although the logic made sense to me. Still, Sombra's fluid use of airship jargon was amusing all the same. "Is there some sort of recommended reading I should know about that lists all this dorky slang?"

Sombra scoffed, looking faux-offended. "I'd hardly call knowing the proper terminology 'dorky', thank you very much."

The crowsnest of the Sisyphys was easily accessible through the balloon. A trapdoor on the roof of the gondola led into the balloon, with dozens of gasbags all hanging like stalactites from the framing. A metal spiral-staircase led up to the very summit of the ship—a glass dome that could be lifted open in the same fashion as the trapdoor in the gondola.

I admit I'd never been up there, and I was amazed the dome actually opened properly, after a bit of heat-magic encouragement. The dome itself was cracked and frosted to the point of complete opaqueness, but the hinges seemed to work properly all the same.

We hauled the entire sled onto the roof of the Sisyphys and Sombra had set to work. After securing the gun in place, he withdrew from the sled a long, wand-like device, which was attached by a wire to a cylindrical metal tube. I recognized it instantly—using such a device had been a regular occurrence to me, and I quickly rose an eyebrow in abject horror as Sombra set to work with the welding torch.

I continued to stare at him with my dubious expression, until eventually I gave his shoulder a tap, flashing him a disapproving frown.

"You're gonna go blind, dumbass," I said as he extinguished the torch.

"What?"

"You're staring right into the flame. And you're not even holding the torch right. Here, move, let me show you."

Sombra blinked, saying nothing as I forcibly took the torch. In the Scrapyards, they hadn't bothered giving us proper welding helmets, and so I had to grow used to doing it without. The result was a process the guards had nicknamed 'blind welding', which was as literal as it sounded—looking away or closing one's eyes, and simply hoping for the best. I'd learned to use my hoof as a guide, holding it one or two feet from my target and using the feeling of heat against it to gauge distance. The guards had always tried to distract me while doing so, probably hoping I'd slip up and burn a limb off, but I'd perfected the whole process practically to an art-form.

Sombra simply watched, transfixed but too afraid to comment.

When I finally finished, and the gun was secure on its swivelling-perch, he let out a long breath.

"That was..."

"Impressive?" I said, extinguishing the torch.

"Stupid," he replied. "And... oddly alluring. I'm starting to realize why I trusted you with the Sunstone."

"That's... playing with fire on a bit of a larger scale," I agreed.

"Mm, I'd say. If anypony were capable, though..."

I fell silent, and Sombra did too, for a while.

Something about the Sun seemed strange to me. It seemed so... unlike me.

I'd been practicing a lot, admittedly, but I was hardly doing such for myself. I couldn't have cared much if I could or could not raise the Sun. I practiced, but I did so because I knew it would be key to defeating Discord.

I could see it as a talent, perhaps, but everytime Sombra spoke of it, it felt like he was suggesting it was part of my destiny.

That one infernal word had brought me no shortage of conflict, it seemed.

"Sombra?" I said aloud.

"Mm?" he'd been lounging against the open dome of the crowsnest, his eyes closed, but he opened them to look at me.

"When you talk about destiny... about my destiny... what is it you see?"

He blinked. "Uh... this is... an abrupt thing to ask."

"I know, I know," I sighed. "It's just something that's been on my mind for awhile. I've been thinking about where my wings came from and what it is I'm supposed to do. Facing Discord I've come to terms with, but everything else..."

"Celestia, that is a question that is considerably difficult for me to answer," Sombra said. "But... perhaps if I were to show you something, I can help."

He cocked his head towards the interior of the Sisyphys—a wordless plea for privacy. I was reluctant but curious, so I nodded and let him lead the way into the Sisyphys proper. He trotted down the spiral stairs until we were back on the metal gang-plank weaving through the somber steel framework that was the ship's skeleton.

The moment we were on flat ground, it all happened so quickly. He took off his parka, and then rose a hoof to the twine keeping the cloak underneath fastened.

“Woah, hold up!” I said instantly. I admit my feelings for Sombra hadn't been subtle nor pure, but this wasn't what I meant! “I think we should maybe—”

The words died a lonely death in my throat as I focused on Sombra’s hindquarters.

They were… to be frank, a disaster. It looked as though he had survived some manner of roaring fire, and it had left the entirety of his back-half as a charred mess.

Except, even so, it wasn’t quite so simple. The charring seemed… peculiar. It had a strangely fractal-like pattern to it, in places wisping out like waves. It looked uniform and intentional.

I hadn’t even thought to be curious—whenever I had seen Sombra, we had been surrounded by cold. Him wearing the cloak seemed as natural as the blowing snow. But now, seeing what the cloak had been covering, it was far clearer.

“Do you know what a cutie mark is, Celestia?” Sombra asked softly.

I nodded, words failing me for the moment.

“When I was fourteen, I got a cutie mark. For a while, I was all the orphanage could talk about. Even ponies I’d never met wanted to see it. They’re rare enough to warrant it, you know? A pony getting their cutie mark has an effect somewhat similar to what you’ve seen as an alicorn, I think. Public intrigue, but more importantly, veiled fear.”

“You tried to remove it,” I whispered.

“I succeeded in removing it,” Sombra replied. “I know I talk of fate and destiny frequently, but when I saw my own laid out in front of me… I didn’t wish to accept it.”

“It’s a mark on your flank,” I returned. “That’s not destiny, it’s just… it’s like a birthmark.”

“No it’s not, and you know that better than anypony else. Do you really think your wings are just a birthmark?” Sombra levitated his cloak, once more fitting it over the fractal-burnmarks imbedded onto his grey coat. “I saw my destiny before me, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the path I thought it would put me on."

"Is that why you ran away?" I guessed. "If so... trust me, I can relate."

Sombra nodded. "It's a big reason why. I think it was going to happen anyways, but getting my cutie-mark really sped up my departure. But none of that matters. What is important to understand is that you, Celestia, are different from me. Destiny has awarded you a greater purpose than I. You received wings. Far greater than my insipid mark."

"What was it?" I looked closely, but I couldn't make out even a trace of what it had been.

Giving an awkward laugh, Sombra lifted his cloak over the mark once again. "I... feel like if I were to tell somepony, that's all they would see me as. I've tried very hard to move beyond that destiny, and I think I've succeeded. I don't want to be reduced to a mark on my flank."

"Sombra, look," I sighed. "I'm not good with this shit—hell, look at my sister and I—but trust me when I say... I really do respect you. I... like the idea of being around you. And no mark on your flank is going to change that."

"That's..." Sombra started, then the words were lost. He smiled warmly, and took a step towards me.

It seemed a strange atmosphere—surrounded by grease and steel and bits of airship machinery—but I felt something strange swelling within me.

Sombra clearly had some level of feeling towards me—of that, I had no doubt. When I'd told him off at the bar in Cluster 13, he'd brushed it off nicely, but I knew he'd been hurt.

And, looking at him now, I could tell the inverse was also true. It hadn't even been a lie on my part, and Sombra's smile made him look more sincere than I had ever seen him before.

So, with an internal cry of 'fuck it,', I took a step towards Sombra, too, and then leaned in and suddenly our lips were touching.

The look on his face was enough to almost make me start laughing. I’d never kissed somepony before, but somehow it came as naturally as breathing. Sombra, when he had gotten over the initial shock, settled casually into the embrace, lifting a hoof and tracing it smoothly up my neck.

It lasted all of three seconds, and when it ended, I instantly frowned, narrowing my eyes. If this was all there was to kissing somepony, I didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about.

“There you go, you creepy asshole,” I said, wiping my snout. “Hope you’re satisfied.”

Sombra looked a little offended, but he put on a small grin nonetheless. “Trust me, Celestia, I am.”

iii

Neither of us said it to Luna, but it was quite clear as the week crept on that she knew. She watched with a small smile when Sombra and I sat together at the evening bonfires, and when I began exiting from Sombra’s tent instead of the Sisyphys deck, she didn’t ask any questions.

Whatever strange force had wedged itself between us, it seemed that Luna’s seeing me happy was gradually fighting it back.

On the last day of the week—which marked Luna and my fourth month in the Frozen North—a group of excited Crystal Ponies returned with The Last Recluse, which they had taken South immediately after returning Luna safely to the camp. It seemed they had come across a lone Scoutship and had shot it down without incident. Sombra had been full of praise, and the Crystal Ponies had presented a proud display of salvage for the rest of the camp at the evening's bonfire.

As had become gradually become common, Sombra and I sat together, apart from everypony else. Normally, we would have been arguing vigorously over something, but tonight Sombra seemed sombre and introspective.

Eventually, I grew annoyed.

"Is something up there, Your Highness?" I said sarcastically.

"Huh?" he blinked, looking at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, the thousand yard stare is freaking me out. What's bothering you?"

"Oh," he laughed. "I'm just watching them celebrate. They're all excited about the salvage, but it's not exactly what I sent them out to find."

"Food?" I guessed.

"Yeah. I mean, we got some, but they destroyed the majority of it on impact. A lot of these Scoutships have started carrying their stuff in glass containers. That way, when they're shot down or crash, nopony else can loot them."

"That makes no sense. Why would Discord limit his own guard like that?"

Sombra gave me a cold look. "You're seriously asking that question? Because he doesn't care about them. They're cannon fodder. If we shoot down a ship and get nothing from doing so, it doesn't matter to him at all. He'll always have a steady stream of ponies just itching to be replacement cannon fodder."

"Alright, alright," I said, waving a hoof. "Gods above, for somepony who allegedly has my back here, you sure love driving in the 'universal hopelessness' of my whole situation."

Scratching an ear, Sombra fell silent for a moment or two. He didn't apologize, but it was clear to me he felt at least a little bad.

"But yes. They didn't bring back much food," he said. "I think this is all Discord's doing. He must know you're up here with us. He's sending Scoutships up here regularly, so clearly he at least suspects it. And these food shortages... I think he's trying to cut off our means for survival, too."

"If that's really what he's thinking, he wouldn't bother," I replied. "He'd send an army of Scoutships up here and that'd be that. We couldn't hold off more than three with the whole camp."

"Mm," Sombra nodded. "You have a point. He is the Spirit of Chaos, it could be this is entertainment to him. Like a board game. But that's too easy an explanation. More possibly, it is something tangible holding him back. Some fear or presence, I don't know. Either way, we are living in some manner of storm's eye, here."

"We should move on," I said. "Me, you, and Luna. Just, get in the Sisyphys and keep going."

Sombra shot me a cold glare. "And leave my ponies to get slaughtered by Erisian Guards?"

I bit my lip. "Okay, yeah. Bad plan. Whoopsy."

"Indeed," he said, still glaring. "No, that is a last resort. They are willing to die for you, but that does mean they are wanting to."

"Yeah, I know," I grumbled. "You can stop making me feel guilty anytime."

"If you are to one day rule Erisia—"

"I am not," I cut him off. "Trying to kill Discord and trying to rule Erisia are two completely different things."

"Sides of the same coin," Sombra replied. "Either way, we need to counteract."

"Like by raising the sun?" I blurted.

Sombra shot be a sideways look. "Yes, quite like that indeed. Have you made any progress?"

"I... have been getting close," I admitted. It was a half-truth—I'd gotten closer than my tone was suggesting, but it wasn't like I had been successful.

"That is excellent!" Sombra praised warmly. "To raise the sun will be to prove to Erisia that you are capable of doing so in the first place."

"Oh, come on. They won't know it's me."

"Not at first. But when it starts raising at the same time, every day? When this infernal night finally gives way to normalcy? I don't think anypony will be associating it with any Spirit of Chaos, that's for sure."

I couldn't help but feel flattered, and Sombra followed his supportive words by laying his head on my shoulder softly. One thing I'd noticed about the Crystal Ponies was that, amongst them, any physical contact seemed greatly popular. In a world almost perpetually frigid, it made sense that they would be so quick to gravitate towards each other's warmth subconsciously.

I understood why, but it frustrated me a little all the same, and I shifted against Sombra, forcing him off of me.

"I'm not your pillow, Sombra," I growled. "And my sister's watching."

And indeed, she was... she had been for most of the night, and a sideways glance told me that now was no exception.

"So?" Sombra cooed, fishing for a cigar in his coat and lighting it with his magic. "It's clear she knows. You're going to have to tell her one day."

He offered me the cigar after taking a few puffs, and I accepted it reluctantly, staring at it for several seconds before pathetically imitating what I'd seen him do.

As such, the evening had continued. Sombra's concerns about Discord were now in the corner of my mind near constantly. I hadn't even stopped to consider it before, but the more I thought on it, the more I felt a great manner of guilt. I was putting families on the line simply by being in their camp. Discord wouldn't care who he killed to get to Luna and I, and if whatever barrier was keeping him from me now—be it something indeed physical or simple ignorance—collapsed, there would be no saving them.

And yet, if I travelled forwards, this wouldn't matter. He'd still come after me all the same, and they would all perish.

Not long after Sombra and I had finished the cigar, Luna had declared herself tired, announcing in Kanquitut that she was retiring early. Biting my tongue, I found my gaze following her as she made her way back to her tent. Sombra caught my gaze, too, and gave me a playful smile and encouraging nudge.

When Luna caught be trotting up to her in her peripheral, and didn’t protest.

“Hey Luna,” I said, giving her a small smile. It had seemed like a while since we had talked, but it surely couldn’t have been longer than a day? It was getting so hard to tell.

“Hiya, Celly.”

“I… was talking to Sombra about your lessons,” I attempted meekly. “He says you’re doing great! A really fast learner, he says!”

“He said that?” Luna cocked her head. “Huh. Sometimes I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?” I frowned.

“I don’t know. He gets frustrated with me a lot, and sometimes it feels like no matter how hard I try, I’m always messing something up.”

I blinked. “Frustrated?”

I had been so worried about the things Sombra would be teaching her, that I hadn’t even stopped to worry about the very idea of him being the teacher in the first place.

‘Typical survivalist slumrat,’ I cursed myself internally.

“Yeah.” Luna gave her neck a little rub with a hoof. She kept her snout low, but I could have sworn I’d seen some sort of bruise upon it.

Instantly, my blood curdled.

“Luna, look at me,” I said.

She did, reluctantly.

And, as I looked, I let out a long sigh of relief to see that my fears were untrue.

Some trick of the lighting, perhaps. Some trick of the mind.

“Never mind.” I shook my head. It was like Sombra had said. I’d been worrying too much, when he had been nothing but accommodating and trustworthy. Besides… if Sombra really had hit Luna, even by accident, I could see no reason why she would try to hide it from me.

We walked on for some ways towards Luna’s tent, before she spoke again.

“Hey Celly?” she asked. “Are… we ever going to go any further North?”

At that, I stopped in my tracks. It was dark, and I couldn’t see her by the light of our horns, but I looked to the Sisyphys all the same.

“No,” I said eventually. “I don’t think we are, Luna.”

“Okay,” she said. “I didn’t think so.”

“Why? Do you want to?”

“No,” Luna replied. “I wanna go home. I miss mom and dad. I know they probably don’t love us, but I still do.”

“Luna…” I let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, but you and me both know we’re never going to see them again.”

“I know,” Luna said again. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” A sharp edge lined Luna’s tone, but it softened after the one word, so I pressed onwards all the same.

“Luna… is there something wrong?”

“With me? No.”

I kicked a stray chunk of snow. “No, not you. Is there something wrong, just in general? I feel like there is.”

Luna gave a small snicker. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Something just… feels off. I don’t know what. Maybe it’s the cold, maybe it’s the starving Crystal Ponies.... I don’t know. Everything feels weird.”

“You know what I think it is?” We were at Luna’s tent now. She gingerly tugged at the string securing the heavy seal-skin flap shut.

“What?”

“I think you’re happy,” Luna said, ducking into her tent. “You've found somepony you really love, and it just feels weird because you’re not used to the feeling.”

With that, she vanished into the warm glow of her tent, pulling the flap closed behind her as she did. I stared for a moment, first perplexed, and then amused.

Sombra had retired soonafter, and while I stayed by our spot at the bonfire with the Sunstone for sometime after, I soon grew tired and followed.

When I wandered back to our tent, he was lying prone on his cot, musing over some tattered old spellbook, his back to the entrance. I fastened the twine keeping the flap of the tent closed, and shuffled out of the seal-skin anorak one of the Crystal Ponies had made me. I tossed it in the corner of the tent along with my dagger and harpoon gun and crept onto the cot with Sombra. He let out an acknowledging little nicker when he felt my body heat against his as I lied down beside him.

I peered over his shoulder, resting my snout on it and letting out a small yawn as I peered at the book held in his telekinesis against the cot. It was not a spellbook, like I had been expecting, but instead a small, beaten-up leather journal, bearing pages of hoofwritten runes that I couldn’t even hope to understand. Sombra’s writing and diagrams were impeccable, jotted down with care by a practiced hoof and expensive ink.

“Looks like some boring shit,” I declared.

“Important shit,” Sombra replied, yawning too. His horn shifted in hue from green to red as he turned a page—surely he was turning some spell over, casually getting a feel for it.

“You’ll learn it someday soon, Celly,” he said, giving my ear a playful nibble.

“Mm, you’re right. I surely rue the day,” I replied sardonically, and rose to my hooves for a moment. There was a small mirror on Sombra’s desk, and I wandered over to it, plucking a bronze barrette out of my mane and letting the whole affair—now considerably longer than it had ever been in Cyclosa—down.

I bit my lip, watching Sombra’s reflection in the mirror, as he continued poring over his notebook. There was really no questioning things—Sombra was a gifted stallion. I could hardly deny it; the talentless alicorn freak I was, I knew I was hardly at a position that justified my criticism.

“I talked to Luna,” I said, wandering back to him, snuggling down beside him again, wrapping one of my wings over him as though it were a blanket. “How’s her lessons going?”

“Adequately,” Sombra replied, flipping a page. “But, she still needs frequent correction. She responds well to feedback, but does little thinking of her own. I’m trying to teach her to write spells, not regurgitate them from a notebook.”

“‘Correction?’” I repeated, for a moment feeling a little unnerved as the split-second image of Luna’s bruised snout reverberating through my head—as impossible as such an image was, considering Sombra hardly seemed the type. “What sort of correction are we talking about here?”

“What are you suggesting?” Sombra said, shuffling out from under my wing. “That I have hit your sister?”

I blinked. I’d thought I was being subtle, but Sombra’s response seemed to suggest otherwise.

“No, Sommy. Of course I’m not suggesting that. I’m sorry.”

Sombra softened in a moment, with a small chuckle. “Sommy. That’s a new one.”

I laughed, too. “Sorry.”

“Didn’t complain,” he stuck out a tongue. “Just observed. Luna say anything else?”

“Uh… well, she mentioned she’s feeling homesick.”

“Mm. That I know. She annoyed me to no end today,” Sombra replied. “You need to tell her to stop. It’s distracting her from her lessons.”

“I know,” I echoed. “But I think she may be right. I think that perhaps taking the Sisyphys south would be a good—”

“Celestia, your ‘thinking’ landed you on a slaver’s ship. Your ‘thinking’ stranded you in a trading cluster in the middle of nowhere. Your ‘thinking’ got your ship smashed nearly to pieces. And right now, your thinking would get all three of us killed and any hope for Erisia destroyed.”

“But the food shortage! Don’t you think it would be a good idea to—”

“No. There will always be enough food for you and your sister.”

“And the rest of your ponies?”

“...are capable hunters.”

“In a land without things to hunt. Just where the hell is all the food coming from?”

Sombra let out a long sigh, closed his book and intensified the light of his horn.

“Stop arguing with me, Celestia. You are wrong here. You are a newcomer to these regions, yes?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Then stop pretending you understand how to survive in them, and listen to the word of somepony who does understand.” Sombra levitated the spellbook over to his desk, and then shifted his magic to the oil-lantern perched atop it. He twisted the knob on the side, and the tent was flooded into peaceful darkness.

It hadn’t been doing much for warmth, but I felt a shiver when the light vanished all the same. Thankfully, Sombra must have felt it too, for he turned over, grabbing my body in a light embrace as he pulled the heavy wool blanket over us.

“I’m sorry,” I said eventually.

“Mm. It is no issue,” he replied, already sounding half-asleep. “After travelling so far in so little time, it must feel strange to have your journey so abruptly halted, after all.”

“Mm,” I let out a sigh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

For a while, we lay silent. I listened to Sombra’s soft breathing, watching my own rise as vapour.

It came to me, as I was lying beside Sombra, that this was something I’d never experienced before.

This closeness. A bond like this… it felt so natural. It was so new to me, but I knew exactly what to say and do.

If somepony were to ask me what I saw in Sombra, I don’t believe I could have adequately said. There was no singular reason, truthfully. Was it even who he was, or was it the idea of the two of us that was so compelling? I had in my mind some romantacized vision of the two of us, sailing the Sisyphys across the bird roads, seeking some level of meaning in the lost and dead plains of Erisia.

“Celestia?” Sombra said eventually. Incoming unconsciousness had turned all of his words into a slur, but that was okay. “Is there something you are hiding from me?”

It was subtle, but I felt him shift a little from me, instinctively shirking away from our contact. He took the wool blanket with him, and I shivered a little at the creeping cold.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but truthfully, I did. After we had kissed, it felt as though my mind had been flowing into his—like it were some old bucket with a pinprick hole on its underside. Still, I had held onto the raising of the sun as best I could. Neither Luna, nor Sombra had to hear of that.

Sombra exhaled. At first, I thought he was angry, but instead he leaned back, nuzzling his snout in the scruff of my neck. “You’re a terrible liar, Celly.”

"Guess I am," I said. "Good night, Sombra."

"Good night, Celly. I love you."

"Love you too."

We spoke no further, at peace in each other's warmth, the sound of our lungs fighting the Arctic easing the two of us into dreams.

Into dreams I awoke.

I was standing in the snow, although I could feel no cold around me. The snow was still and the Sun was down, and there was no sign of the camp or anypony else around me.

"Child, we must speak," the Voice said. Jerking around, I saw her for the first time.

She stood far taller than me, matching my size at least three-times over. Her coat was pure white—I'd never seen a mare so beautiful in my life. There wasn't a fleck of dirt or imperfection upon it, nor on her long blue-and-white mane.

She had no wings, but her horn was nearly as long as my entire body.

"Alright," I said, taking a single step towards her. I knew as though by instinct that this mare meant me no harm, even if she had done little to prove such. "You've been taunting me for nearly a year. Who the hell are you?"

"I have had many names through the ages. My personal favourite, I think, is 'Majesty', although there have certainly been others."

"Okay, Majesty," I said, taking another step forwards. I outstretched my wings for her to see. "You're responsible for these, I assume?"

"I am."

"Why?" I asked, looking from the wing to her. "You chose us, right? Of all the ponies in Erisia, you chose me and Luna?"

"That... is mostly true," Majesty said, pursing her lip. "I was, admittedly, limited in my choices. You see, I... am not necessarily what you see before you."

"A unicorn?"

"A physical being," Majesty replied. "Child, I'm sorry, but could you please fall silent and listen to what I must tell you? I promise that in time the rest will all be made more clear to you, but for now, I need you to listen."

I bit my lip. I was growing rather tired of being told to shut up and listen—it'd been happening my whole damn life, after all, and just when I thought it was a life I'd left behind in Erisia, here was this...deity, or spirit, or whatever the hell she was, doing the same to me...

Still, she'd sounded sincere, and so I obeyed, staying my tongue.

"I had been hoping you would progress alone, without my aid, but I see you are limited in what you can do," Majesty said. "So far from Discord, my influence is stronger. This is why you have been seeing more visions of me, and your sister the same."

Majesty walked past me, staring out at the horizon line so far away.

"However, he is approaching, Celestia. He knows you have fled to the North, and he is growing impatient. I have kept him back as best I can, but he is stronger than I. Soon, even I will be unable to stop him. He will not hesitate to kill you, nor your sister, when this happens."

"Trust me, I need no reminder," I replied, looking down at my hooves. "But what am I supposed to do?"

"You have discussed it with your other, have you not?"

I blinked. My what?

Sombra?!

"No no no," I gave a squawking laugh. "He's not that. He's a friend, Majesty, nothing—"

"I do not care. The point is, you have discussed these affairs, yes?"

"Yes," I admitted. "And I've tried. I'm getting close, I know I am. I just need more time."

"It is fading from you, child," Majesty said soberly, still not facing me. "You are hope the likes you cannot comprehend. Your sister has begun to progress along the path of her fate, but you have stubbornly rooted yourself apart from your own."

"Luna? What do you mean? What's her fate, relative to mine?!"

"That is her path to know, not yours. Now, awaken, child, and know this. Discord has no mercy. You are living only by virtue of his ignorance, and such is fading ever-so-rapidly."

I awoke indeed, out of a cold-sweat, jerking upwards from Sombra and my cot and nearly striking my head onto the top of the tent.

"Mm," Sombra let out a low moan. "Bad dream?"

"No," I let out a long breath from my nose. "Weird one."

Yawning, Sombra illuminated his horn, looking at me with half-closed eyes as wakefulness slowly crept upon him. "Details?"

"Sombra, have you ever heard of somepony named Majesty?"

In an instant, the sleeplessness vanished from him. "You dreamed of her?"

"I've been dreaming of her. For the better part of a year, at random occurences. But much more frequently up here."

"That's..." he scratched an ear. "...not particularly surprising. She has more of a presence up here."

"What is she?"

"I don't know, but you are not alone in dreaming of her. Some of my Crystal Ponies have spoken of some benevolent spirit roaming the Frozen North. I've never dreamed of her, but others have."

"She..." I gulped. "She mentioned Discord. She said he's getting closer."

Sombra rolled over on the cot, facing me once again. I'd never seen fear light his expression before, but when his eyes locked upon me, it was as clear as day.

He lightly outstretched a hoof, cradling it around my neck a little. Then he pulled me closer into an embrace, his breathing weary and unsettled.

"I know, Celestia," he said, sounding ready to weep. "And I don't know what to do about it."

Just where the hell was the food coming from?

It was a question that, no matter how many times Sombra reminded me I knew nothing, I still couldn’t shake.

It wasn’t something that could be disproved with experience. It was cold fact. Nopony but Discord could produce food from a land without life, and I was fairly certain none of us were in league with Discord.

For a while, I had simply thought there was some secret stash of food that Sombra had been dipping into to feed Luna and I, but the more I thought on it, the more it seemed peculiar. Just why, then, would it be a secret in the first place? If it was only intended for me and Luna, then why would he bother keeping it a secret from the both of us?

It just didn’t make any sense.

I asked him, and his reply had been level and vague. He’d been focused elsewhere, horn aglow and mind churning with tactics and planning, and his answer had been dismissive at best. Still, it was enough to satisfy me then, and it was only later that I realized I was still clueless.

A more selfish part of me was screaming for me to simply drop it. Sombra was good, I loved him… why would I possibly be exercising the concept of him holding secrets from me? Why would I deprive myself of him, when more likely, it was Luna who was right—I simply wasn’t used to being this satisfied with my life.

Staring over at the slow rise and fall of Sombra’s chest, his maw open in a comically exaggerated snore, I bit my lip.

None of that mattered. At the end of the day, the cold facts were still there.

Food was appearing out of thin air.

Mysterious food that even Sombra could not place an animal to.

It was an insidious thought that I couldn’t shake. I started paying more and more attention, and I seemed to have traced the source of it to The Last Recluse. I’d never been in the ship, but I’d seen through her windows before. There was nothing particularly striking about it—it was a smaller and cleaner counterpart to the junky Sisyphys. I helped Sombra tinker with both of them—even helping him install a rotary gun atop the Sisyphys’s back window—but truthfully, I had only a passing interest in airships. That is, while Sombra saw them as a passion, I thought they were more a tool.

Either way, come dinner, the food came from the cargo hold of The Last Recluse. It was as cold as the rest of the Frozen North, but sheltered enough to avoid frost-bite, so it made sense to store it there, but the idea that I was being fed some mysterious meat whose origin I had no grasp on ultimately made logic matter less and less.

I didn’t tell Sombra. These thoughts had been reverberating in my head as I stared at the rise and fall of his stomach on his side of the cot, and ultimately, they culminated into a single burst.

“Fuck it,” I thought firmly, and rose from the cot as quietly as I could. I took the oil lantern in my telekinesis, and then, for no reason at all, I also grabbed my harpoon gun and dagger, before ducking out of the tent and into the deserted Crystal Pony camp.

The Last Recluse was lying lonely away from all other signs of life. I trotted to her quickly, dimming the oil lantern as I approached. There were no lights on within, and I hadn’t been expecting there to be. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting anything except to be proven an overthinking dolt, and so I didn’t think much as I tried the door to the gondola of the ship.

Unsurprisingly, it was locked, but it was also frozen. Using the blunt end of the harpoon gun, I gave the lock a few firm whacks. It snapped off easily, and I perched the gun once more over my shoulder and ducked inside, closing the door silently behind me.

The deck of the ship was uninteresting and I was quick to disregard in favour of the cargo hold below. It was a small compartment not much bigger than a walk-in closet, fitted onto the underside of the ship in a way not dissimilar to the hold on the Damask Rose, only far more compact.

As I approached the hold, the first thing I noticed was the smell.

I’d smelt such a thing before—it was plentiful in Cyclosa, like most of the other unpleasant smells I’d grown to regard as normal. Back in the Scrapyard, I had a distinct memory of finding a small litter of wildcats feeding off of the rotting corpse of what I assumed was their mother. The smell emanating from the cargo hold was the same, which, again, was unsurprising considering the nature of my investigations.

Still, nothing could have prepared me for what the light of the oil lantern washed upon.

Limbs.

They were hanging from meat-hooks perched on the ceiling of the hold. Some looked to belong to seals or whales, but the larger percentage…

I don’t quite know why, but I instantly felt like retching. I did so violently, accidentally caking my parka and mane with bits of sick.

They were all dangling freely, like some exaggerated display in a horror story. Hind and fore legs of cervine species and even the occasional pony.

I backed slowly, back up the stairs and onto the deck of The Last Recluse. I did so in a trance, my mind both reeling and calm, as every piece of the last four months slowly turned over within.

The dead guards, that Sombra had insisted we bring back to the camp with us.

The ever fluctuating population of Crystal Ponies.

The secrecy behind it all, behind every non-answer Sombra had given me.

I threw up again, this time onto the glass of The Last Recluse’s front window. Panting, I looked up, and nearly screamed as I saw dancing lantern light approaching The Last Recluse. Cursing, I extinguished my own—I’d forgotten it was even still on in my horrified trance—but I knew it was too late. I couldn’t make out any faces, but I know it was Sombra all the same.

The only door I could hope to exit from was the one I had entered from, and so I started towards it. The ponies had been approaching from the opposite port side of the ship, so I exited into silent black night.

I had half a mind to sprint out blindly into it, but such would be suicide. Instead, I crept around the ship with the intent to find Luna and get to the Sisyphys.

I made it all of ten steps before Sombra stepped around the curvature of The Last Recluse’s balloon, regarding me with a calm frown.

He looked ready to say something, so I spoke before he could.

“Get away from me. Stay back.” I grabbed the harpoon gun in my magic, pointing it directly at Sombra. It perhaps would have been easier if he'd been the monster I'd been expecting out of the situation. Instead, his expression was exactly what it should have been—he didn't look like some emotionless murderer, but instead a desperate and concerned lover, begging to be understood.

"Celestia, please. You need to listen to me. I swear to you, there is an explanation for this."

“I don’t want to hear it!” I shot back, my voice a panicked shrill. I’d seen monsters and I’d seen evil and I’d regarded both with passing annoyance, but seeing this of Sombra, a stallion I'd spent the last four months falling in love with? This was something that seemed outside of my survivalist instinct.

“Please, Celestia. You need to understand what it’s like living up here,” Sombra said. "Do you seriously think I want this? I don't, and I hate it with every fibre of my being. But this is what Discord has forced me to do. He's taken away every other chance I've had, and this is the only way there is to survive."

“I’m getting Luna,” I whispered ignoring him completely, taking a step back, away from The Last Recluse. “We’re leaving.”

“Please, Celestia,” Sombra was begging. There was no attempt at manipulation on his part, he seemed genuinely shattered. I didn't care. "They knew. The ponies you saw in there. They were dying, and I spoke with them. They wanted this, after they passed. Do you seriously think me some raving lunatic, that I would do this to my own ponies, on my own authority? They knew this is what would happen to them, and they accepted. The Crystal Ponies know that death is natural, and they—"

"Shut. Up." I lit my horn, trying to conjure defensive magic without having any idea what it was I was doing. I knew damn well it wouldn't be enough against Sombra.

Looking about ready to weep, Sombra illuminated his horn, and all at once, as though the force of four months had hit me in that moment, it came to me.

Sombra’s horn had always been glowing.

It seemed like every time I had argued with him, he had begun casting magic—lighting a cigar, reading a book… always red, and hadn’t it always been green?

“Calm down, Celestia,” Sombra commanded. “Please, just calm down, and think this through.”

“It’s you,” I took another step backwards. “This whole fucking time, it’s been you! What the hell have you been doing to me?”

“I’ve been helping you,” Sombra replied. “I’ve been keeping you and your sister alive.”

“I kissed you…” I thought aloud in horror. I’d done more than kiss! For four months, I’d had these feelings! “How much of it was even me?”

“All of it was you. You were happy by my side. You will be happy.”

“If I’d have known what you were doing to me, I never would have—”

“Celestia, I was merely guiding you. Helping you make the decisions that deep down, I know you wanted to make. I would never force you to be anything destiny has not laid out for you.”

“Get the fuck away from me,” I said pathetically in response, still backing up, not quite sure why I hadn’t already turned tail and sprinted to Luna.

It didn’t matter, anyways. Sombra had taken a step closer to me, and without hesitating, he wrenched the harpoon gun from my grasp. I snarled, instantly trying to draw my dagger instead, but he knocked me back with a simple flare of his magic.

I tumbled backwards across the snow, my skull thudding against The Last Recluse’s wooden gondola. I scrambled up, just in time to see the same glowing red flare of Sombra’s magic.

For what seemed like a shaky moment, the world felt like it was being compressed. It was as though eveything I could see and hear was being forcibly shrunken, until I could hardly make it out. I was cast into a muddy blur somewhere in limbo between wakefulness and dream. I felt myself being dragged back into The Last Recluse, but it had felt as though it both was and was not happening. It was only when I felt my back strike something hard that I was jerked back to Erisia, the last traces of Sombra’s magic fading from me as he released me from whatever spell he had been casting.

And when I was, everything came into focus immediately. The blaring light of an oil lamp held straight up to my eyes. Sombra’s outline hanging over me, his magic keeping me pinned to some manner of large table.

“Get off of me!” I shrieked, my back hooves flailing about, trying and failing to make contact with Sombra’s still-cloaked form. “I swear to every god that’s listening, I’ll make you bl—”

“Shut up!” Sombra snarled, bringing his dagger down onto the table inches from my snout. “You had your chance, Celestia. And you blew it. It’s your own fault for making me have to do this.”

“Do what?” I snarled. “You gonna kill me now? Your precious, irreplaceable alicorn saviour?”

“No,” Sombra said. “I’m just going to fix you.” Sombra motioned to one of the Crystal Ponies without turning. As he spoke, he removed my dagger from its sheath, and brought the blade against my neck instead. “Muktuk, keep that bow nocked, just in case. Qimi’q, have the spell ready for me.”

“What spell? What are you doing to me?” I questioned again, this time unable to keep the fear out of my cracking voice.

“You have potential you can’t ever comprehend,” Sombra replied. “And you want to waste it on yourself. But not after tonight.”

I tried not to show my fear as I bared my teeth once more. “I’m not changing my mind, you crystal freaks.”

“Tell me Celestia, do you know what it even feels like to be anything more than an alicorn?”

I blinked. My struggling stopped for a moment, and I simply stared in confusion.

“What?” I croaked.

“Do you remember what it feels like to be nothing?” Sombra spat. “You were useless. You would have lived and died a waste, if it hadn’t been for those wings of yours!”

“I never asked for them!” I screamed back. “And you’re wrong! I would have made something of myself, wings or not!”

“You’re a liar,” Sombra snarled. “I had nothing. No gift of fate like you. I built the only resistance in Erisia that matters to Discord, and I did it alone.”

I didn’t speak—I couldn’t. I was scanning the tent I now found myself in,desperately seeking something. I’d been close to death so many times before, but this was something different. Even with Willow’s sword to my throat, there had been hope for Luna.

But if Sombra were allowed to succeed here?

She would never even know what was happening to her until it had already happened.

“Your fate...” Sombra was saying, “...Whether Erisia is with you or against, is to face Discord. If you really don’t know what gave you wings, how can you deny that?”

“I… I don’t…”

“You don’t know, because you simply cannot think for anypony besides you or your sister. You are a product of Erisia,” Sombra said.

“And you’re not?”

“No, I am not. I may have been ignored by destiny, but that does not mean I haven't made my own. I will claw my way from this wretched world if I have to kill Discord myself in order to do so. I will show Erisia a land of peace and prosperity. And you, Celestia?” Sombra frowned. “You’re… call it whatever you want. A queen. A love. An ally. The point is, you are a tool for achieving my destiny. In that sense, you’re really no different from the Crystal Ponies.”

“Do you really think I’d consider myself any of those things now?” I shrilled.

“You act as though you haven’t already been,” Sombra said, shaking his head sadly. “I tried to do this kindly, and you spat all over my hospitality. But it doesn’t matter. This is the way things were always supposed to be.”

A storm of pure, unbridled terror overtook me, as Sombra brought the scroll up to his snout. My mind conjured images of the rest of the passive Crystal Ponies. Bowing when told, revelling in Sombra’s glory.

Really, it was no different from the way things had been in Erisia. The king was different, perhaps, but little else had changed.

And then, there was myself, bowing to him along with the rest of them with a smile on my snout. Except I was bowing as his wife.

I felt like retching once again.

“Neztesa, Tozhe miy, yakyy z’haakyvyy slovo..” Sombra was reading, the scroll beginning to spark to life.

“No, wait!” I said. “Please! Let me at least… at least say something to my sister! Please! She needs to understand!”

“I don’t need her,” Sombra replied, glancing lazily up from the scroll. “She’s weak. A hindrance, really.”

“But can I just—”

“You’re not weaseling out of this one, Celestia. You’ve killed too many of my ponies to be in the frame of my mercy. Now shut up, or I’ll have Muktuk here cut out your tongue.”

I don’t know if it was some sort of placebo induced by my panicked mind, or if it was a direct result of Sombra’s scroll, but my head had begun to pound as though some monster were trying to claw it’s way out. My thoughts were scattered about, becoming distant, hard to identify blurs in a sea of confusion.

“Shh, Celestia,” Sombra cooed, and I only then realized my chest was rising and falling furiously. “This is your destiny. I’ve looked into the eyes of fate, and they’ve willed this to be. I know you can see it, too.”

I didn’t reply beyond a raspy cough, blood spattering out and onto my stomach as I did.

“It’s okay, Celestia,” Sombra said gently, stroking my mane. “Soon, this will all be a bad memory. My feelings for you were never false, and I don’t ever aim to hurt you again.”

I opened my mouth to reply—I don’t quite know if it had been agreement or protest on my tongue. Either way, nothing formed into words spoken aloud.

Sombra’s smile widened. He was now almost completely relaxed atop me. Muktuk was watching, looking somewhat bored, as though what had felt like minutes to me had in actuality passed through hours.

In my confused, shifting mind, I had already begun to calculate what would ensue. I don’t know if it was thanks to Sombra’s spell that I was allowed to do so—indeed, it seemed he had successfully seeped away my panic and fear, but in its place, something else seemed to have crept up.

What happened next happened without hesitation on my part. Or, perhaps it did not, but my trance-like mind hardly remembered it as such.

I spat, directly into Sombra’s face. Then, at the same moment my saliva struck his face, I pushed my rear hooves out with all of my might against his stomach.

Sombra went careening into Muktuk, but not before the Crystal Ponies’ nocked arrow was let loose. It whistled for a milisecond before striking my thigh.

Snarling in fury and pain, I grabbed Sombra’s dagger still stuck in the table with one of my trembling hooves, and stuck it directly into Qimi’q’s throat just as he made to tackle me down. The heavyset stallion hit the ground still making grotesque gurgling noises, blood almost comically squirting from the jagged cut in his neck.

Sombra was already rising and charging magic by time I turned, a savage maw of sharp teeth bared in fury. I wordlessly responded with a snarl of my own, and withdrew the dagger from Qimi’q in my telekinesis, flinging it towards Sombra instead.

He ducked, and it struck Muktuk in the barrel instead. Nonetheless, Sombra’s dodge had bought me a precious Manehattan Minute, and it was enough for me to tear towards the flap of the elkskin tent.

The howling wind became deafening in an instant, and I emerged into a complete white-out with no idea where to go. Another blizzard seemed to have cropped up out of nowhere, thankfully veiling me to my pursuers but casting me into an ever shifting maze. Finding Luna was my priority, but then what? I couldn't hope to fly in this weather, right?

Knowing Sombra was right on my hooves, I limped as swiftly as I could manage out into the snow, following the red wire stretching between the tents lost in the whiteout like isles in the middle of the sea.

Cyclosa

by NorrisThePony

The Scrapyard

The Wasteland

Pillory

The Blind Bat

The Damask Rose

The Trading Cluster

The Sisyphys

Trance

The Frozen North, Pt. I

The Frozen North, Pt. II

The Last Recluse

The Epithalamium

Borderlines (Interlude I)

Trouble and Woe (Interlude II)