And Let Me Sing Among The Stars
And Let Me Sing Among The Stars
He came out in the Night, closing behind him the door of his old house, taking with him only the small zither with which he earned his bits, and a small bag that he had knotted to the dark sackcloth that covered his body, so that it could be less obvious who he was, what he was, in the eyes of the ponies who strolled in the dark.
Looking up, he stood for a moment looking at the pearly shine of the Moon, with the clear shade of a unicorn's profile cast on its surface; it had been there for decades, and most of the ponies were now used to see that silhouette, ominous as it was. But he would never get used to it.
Leaving behind the bad thoughts, or trying to, he began to trot through the great city's streets, looking at the bands of young foals, dressed with costumes, that laughing went knocking on every door, asking for candies and threatening some sort of rebuttal if the sugar was not provided.
The tradition was still young enough for most of the parents to accompany them, a bemused tingle in their eyes as they saw their offspring feast on bonbons, sugar-coated apples, and various other delicacies.
Then, he turned and saw a group of foals who was looking at him with rapture; he smiled at them, paying attention not to show his small fangs.
“Wow,” said one, a small beige unicorn with big blue eyes and an orange tatter on his body. “That is a very nice costume, mister!”
He smiled a bit wider.
It wasn't a costume.
His eyes were yellow and with slit pupils not due to some appearance-changing magic, and his wings were leathery, devoid of feathers and with two small hooks at their end not due to a carefully-planned disguise, and his coat and fur weren't shades of black and blue due to bleaching.
“Thank you,” he said, and slowly nodded. Then he took a step towards them, and he simulated an appraising look in his eyes, rising a hoof to tap on his chin.
“Yours are very good, too. May I know...?”
The small unicorn who had spoken first spun on himself, showing his orange rags in all their tattered glory.
“This is a pumpkin lord costume! I made it myself over the summer!”
He nodded.
“Why, that's a very good job, indeed. And your friends?”
Another unicorn and a earth pony smiled and began to talk at the same time, so that he had to move his hoof.
“My old ears can't listen to two foals at the same time; please have patience with me, young ones.”
“I am the timberwooolf!” Said the earth pony, who was the quickest to answer, in a voice as raucous as that of a foal could go. “Give me caaandieees!” And indeed he was coated with small wood patches, covered with musk and kept together with strings; it looked less crude than his friend's, so maybe an adult had a hoof in its creation.
“And I am the Mare in the Moon!” said the other unicorn, not to be left behind.
He frowned.
Her armour was an amalgam of tin foils that were barely held together, and her 'helm' was a small white hood, and her shoes two pairs of crumpled tin foils, so he had guessed she was just dressed as a knight of some sort. She didn't even bother to put wings, as fake as they might be, on her costume.
Instead, no: tonight it was supposed foals impersonated monsters, and she decided that that monster had to be the Lady.
This time, his smile faltered a bit.
“Well... I think... it's really nice,” he said. Did he mean it? He wasn't so sure. To send the unpleasant sensations away, he shook his head slightly, still keeping his smile up, and reached for something inside his coat.
“And do you know how many candies foals who take their time to craft good costumes get?”
He watched with amusement the young ones' eyes open up wide in joy and hope, and he opened his small bag, looking inside and deciding how many candies he could left them, when he was interrupted by an angry voice.
“What do you think you are doing?”
He turned his head and saw two very angry-looking ponies, a unicorn and a earth pony; the mother put herself between him and the confused foals, and the father snorted, forming small white clouds in the cold air.
He sighed, but didn't recoil.
“I was just going to give them some candies, milady. This is Nightmare Night, after all.”
“Well, then maybe you should spend it with your similes, batpony,” said the father, chewing out the last word like a spat-out morsel of something that tasted awful, taking an half-step towards him. Still, he didn't move, even when he felt his breath coming closer to his face. The stallion was taller than him by a whole head, and he was many years his younger, probably in his prime, and he of course had magic.
And yet, he didn't move.
“I thought I was doing just that?” He offered.
The stallion snorted again.
“Get lost.”
He looked at him in the eyes for a very long moment; he saw his own golden irises reflected in the hazelnut of the stallion's, and sustained the gaze until his opponent frowned and looked ready to push him away.
Well, better not come to this.
He took a step aside, and began to stroll down on the road, the bag with the candies put away once more under his coat; he heard the words of one of the foals behind him:
“Did we do anything wrong?”
“No,” the mother answered, “but he is a very bad pony who did very bad things, and you have never to come near to him again.”
He looked behind his shoulder one last time, only to see the family going away, and the filly dressed as the Lady turning her head for but a moment; he smiled sadly at her and then he went away.
So it had come to this, then. Not that he hadn't his share of problems these days: batponies were becoming rarer and rarer, and the – already few – who had, all those years before been begrudgingly pardoned by the Princess of the Sun for their actions in the war had become scarcer and scarcer. He believed to be the last one in Canterlot.
Those who had refused the pardon had instead been scattered to the four corners of the earth, looking for a small measure of peace and oblivion in the dark pockets where the other pony races wouldn't look.
Some of the batponies had on the other hoof accepted the pardon with joy, even coming to the point to regret their choice, their heritage and their nature, and despise the Lady; he snarled at the thought, forgetful that even in the dim light of the roads that showed his small fangs peering out of his mouth.
He too had accepted the pardon. But he had done it for good reasons, and never had he praised the Princess of the Sun like the bunch of traitors he was forced to be linked with. Too bad that now, decades after, that good reason had passed away, leaving him without solace in a world that by day was sizzling with burning heat and light that went to his head, and by night was devoid of companionship and acceptance.
Even more so these days, when the sight of a batpony was becoming rarer and rarer, and his likeness made the others open their mouth in surprise, or, for those who had parents and relatives lost in the war, grimace in anger and disgust.
And yet, in a world that was growing more and more empty for him, occasions like this, Nightmare Night, were dreaded, yes, but welcomed as well.
As he looked around at the foals playing and running in the roads, under the Dome of the Stars and the -tarnished, but beautiful indeed- face of the Moon, he could almost pretend, for a few moments, that this was a great feast in honour of the Lady, and the young ones were celebrating the Night and its greatness not out of spite or a childish crave for sweets, but sincere awe.
Almost.
The looks that from time to time he got while trotting – a blue gaze of pity, a brown one of hatred, a green one of bewilderment - anchored him to the truth, that he was an old pony in a new world, one where the place reserved to the Lady and her memory had been reduced to but one night per year, and one of mockery and distrust, at that.
At last, he came to the park.
It was a small section of the castle he was bound to remain in, on top of the mountain, the newly-built fortress named Canterlot, and new seat of the power after the Castle of the Sisters laid in ruins, and he had to admit that it had been somewhat of a gilded cage for him and Alcor, all those years.
But when he seated on the very same bench where they had shared their summer together, he saw nothing but thin wooden planks, eaten by time and covered with the silvery sheen of hoarfrost.
Yet, he always came here to sing, between the small trees and the hedges, playing his instrument only by night, among the black and dark green and blue hues of the park. Somepony was bound to come by, even more so in so crowded a night, and drop a few bits for him to find his next meal.
Or at least a few foals, to whom leave the candies he had left on the bag, who was now next to him on the bench.
He began by singing one old story of his repertoire, and then coming back and forth between the ancient ballads and the newer ones, that he and Alcor had worked on for a whole life. He had stopped writing new ones, after.
The Moon marched on, and a few groups of foals passed, each of them attracted by the music, but then leaving with a few more candies in their pockets, and he began to feel the weight of loneliness and fatigue over his shoulders. He had done this for decades, after all.
A few more foals later, when the bag was emptied of candies and he had lulled in his delusion of a celebration for the Night, he put down his instrument on the bench, put his hoof where Alcor's would have been – and had, for years, been – to met his, and looked up to see the Moon's disc standing directly above him.
It was the dark heart of the Night, where portents happen, and the hidden magic in the world stirs once more to awe and inspire with its silvery hue.
Instead, only the leaves moved, caressed by a slight wind, and he shuddered in his robes; then, he heard a few low hoofsteps coming from the road that crossed the small park, and he turned his eyes to the left to look at a brown earth pony with a red mane and two striking purple eyes.
“I hoped you would never stop,” she said with a small smile. He smiled back, glad there was somepony who had listened to him.
“Old age's burden, I'm afraid. I understand you liked what you heard?”
She came closer, until she rested before him on the bench; she wasn't clothed in the cold night, but she didn't seem to suffer it.
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly, “I found it entrancing. And it's not usual to find a batpony minstrel.”
“No. No, it's not,” He answered, still shivering a bit in the air. Once he had been unfazed by the cold had he laid down on a glacier, but those were the nights of his youth, when the Moon was still true, and there was Alcor to warm his heart up, and the lady to guard them both. Times long ago past.
“May I know your name?” asked the mare, tilting her head on the side; her red locks fell down on the curve of her neck.
“They call me Goldcleaver.” He said, rubbing his forelegs on his body to try and warm it up; his breath released clouds of vapour, but he noticed that the mare's did not. Inside, he frowned at that, but said nothing.
“But this is not your true name.” It wasn't a question. He raised a black eyebrow.
“May I know why you believe this, lady?”
She smiled again, and he found in her expression something that wasn't unlike the sight of a cat that is getting ready to pounce on its prey.
“You are an elderly batpony, so you were around during the war. And if you were around back then, then this means you belong to the Firstborn, and you are named after a star.”
He pondered carefully his next words; this mare didn't seem hostile, and she had clearly enjoyed his songs, and yet. And yet he felt like stepping on very thin ice, with a dark and bottomless lake beneath.
“You seem to be fond of history, lady. This is not at all common, these days.”
She nodded.
“Alas. The memories of old are slowly forgotten, sinking into the background. Soon history will become legend, and legend will become myth. But I noticed you haven't answered my question.”
He bit his lip.
“These are not easy times for an old pony like me, lady. The nights are cold and lonely, and many times I found my trust not paid back in kind. I hope you will forgive me if I decide to cloak myself in mystery,” he said with a tinge of humour in his tone. He hoped she would understand.
“And yet you are among those who accepted the Princess' pardon, all those years back. Doesn't this make you safe in this regard, here in her newfound city, surrounded by thick walls of white and tall towers of gold? One would think you have nothing to fear.”
“You speak in a strange way, for one so young, lady. Your words are inquisitive, and yet kind. I have to ask myself whether there are not ulterior motives for your curiosity, though...?”
She shrugged.
“I just thought that a conversation with the batpony who sang those beautiful song could be a way to warm up the cold night, for both of us. I'm sorry if I peered where I shouldn't have. My curiosity is just that, curiosity. I haven't seen one of your kind for years, Goldcleaver.”
He pondered her for a long time, breathing white clouds in the glassy air of the Night. For months, no, for years, he had waited for an occasion such as this; and yet, as great as his urge for conversation, for easing up the great worries and sorrows that had pained him since Alcor's departure, he was afraid.
Afraid all this was a dark joke, made by the ponies who hated and feared those like himself, one of the People of the Lady, now scattered and reduced to a bunch of cooling embers in the four corners of the world.
And yet, he found himself saying words that he hadn't spoken in years.
“Mizar.”
“Come again?”
“Mizar is my name. Goldcleaver is the one that has been cast on me by the people of this city, but I have little love of it. Mizar is the name that has been gifted to me by the Lady, given the undeserved grace to be called like one of her stars.” He stopped for a moment, looked away, over the tall towers crowned by the golden Sun, its edges lit up, for supreme irony, by the silvery light of the scarred Moon, but then he steered his heart and kept talking. “I call her Lady, even if your kind has given her other names. The Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon, the Shadow Beyond the Stars. But to me Lady she was, and Lady she shall forever be.”
He stopped for another moment, and looked down at her, who was smiling at him, with what looked like... pride...? in her eyes. Once again, he felt himself uneasy in the presence of this mare. Maybe he should just leave.
And yet again, those huge purple eyes... they drove him to stay there, and talk.
“I understand that. But don't you think those names were well-deserved? She caused so much pain and destruction with her rebellion, so much sorrow. Why shouldn't we call her with names that befit her history?”
At those words, he felt something stir up in his heart – he had always avoided such confrontation with other ponies for these reasons: to end up talking, maybe arguing, about the Lady and her actions. But he was now entrapped by this mare's words, and he felt that if he just walked away, he would have betrayed the memory of his Lady.
“You speak of sorrow, and you speak of pain. But how much pain was caused to the Lady in the first place to put her on the road she took? For how many years was she shunned and deserted by the very same ponies who said to love her? For how many years she cried alone in the darkness without a soul to comfort her? For how many times she was forgotten, neglected, and silver was considered nothing but a pale reflection of gold? You speak of sorrow, but I wasn't one to turn his back on her when she asked for faithfulness, you speak of betrayal, but I wasn't one to make her pleas fall on deaf ears!”
He was breathing hard, a bit because of his old age, and a bit because, save for the songs, that was the longest string of words he had put together in weeks. And a bit because of the fire of anger that, at long coveted in his heart, was now being fuelled once again by his interlocutor.
But the mare just smiled, and the bit of pride, that hint of respect for his words that so confused him – shouldn't she feel outraged by his words, once again pleading undying allegiance to the Lady, when he was caged in the City of the Sun? - grew even more.
“And then why, why, Mizar, if you still believe so much in your Lady, did you accept the Princess of the Sun's mercy, and in the end feigned repentance, and asked for forgiveness, keeping your head down and living a half life under the looming eye of the dawn?”
“I never did such things. I was never one to renegade my Lady. I never swore allegiance, and I am naught but a prisoner in a cage with golden bars. I don't hate the Princess, but I don't love her either. Don't put me together with the traitors of their kind who bleached their coat, feathered their wings and magicked their eyes to hide their Lady's gift from the sight of others!”
By then, he was slightly panting. He should have stopped, before he said something he would regret, and, who knows, he was apprehended, be he couldn't. He quickly tossed glances at his sides, looking for a sign of armoured guards nearby, ready to take him in for his words.
“And yet you accepted.”
He looked down.
“There was another. I did it for her.”
He wasn't looking up, so he missed the curious look on the mare's face.
“Who? Mizar, who?”
He shook his head; the knot that held his heart in a clutch of pain begged to be released, but he was afraid to do so; afraid, he thought. For all those decades, he had been afraid, away from the light of his Lady; for many years, he had endured, helped by Alcor, but since when she was gone... how ironic that he felt fear due to the loss of someone that everypony considered an incarnation of nightmares!
It felt strange to have her name dance again on his lips; he savoured it while he said it, like a sip of pearldrop, the moon-wine, that he had tasted in the days of old. But her name was sweeter to him, and it sang stronger in his head than pearldrop.
“Alcor.” He breathed out until he felt his lungs empty and his wings relax, and the knot in his chest ease up, if only a bit. “Alcor was her name, and she was one of the Firstborn, like I was. Our union was blessed by the Lady herself, and couldn't bear the thought of living separate, so when the Princess offered her pardon, she begged me to accept, because she wanted a place where to settle down and build a family, and begrudgingly I did. For many years... for many years we sang, in this very park, on this very bench, until her skin became like parchment, and her throat dried up. We had planned to have a family, but we found ourselves to be sterile. And when she passed away in the Lady' sky, I found myself as alone as never I had been.”
“Why didn't you stop singing, then?”
Still looking down at the bench, he shook his head; gone was the anger with which this mare had roused his heart. Now there was just a strange form of sorrow, one that both made him sad and eased his heart.
“I couldn't. For her memory. And for the sake of the Lady: we always sang of her, you know? We didn't want her to become a shadow, lost forever in myth, a figure with which scare foals into bed and mock once per year. But it was for naught, because that is exactly what happened.”
“Don't you think, Mizar, that what the Princess of the Sun did when she created this holiday was to somehow preserve memory of your Lady?”
And there it was again: anger, like a burst of flame like when embers are stoked with an iron bar, and the sparks of fury ignited a light in Mizar's eyes that he hadn't felt since the days of the war. Years of unspoken words, of thoughts held secret exploded. No more he cared about hidden guards or a trap. To Tartarus with white lies and bowing his head to a ruler he didn't even acknowledge as such! He rose on his four legs, opened his leathery wings – even if it pained him, due to the tendons and ligaments that had been long since sawed off, to deny him flying, especially flying away from the city - so that their translucent membrane filtered the gentle rays of the silvery hue from above, and bared his fangs. He was old, and frail, and grey: and yet, he felt like an old oak, no more able to fruit, and which trunk might be grazed, and holes might have appeared in it, but its roots were still strong and his branches proud.
“Preserve memory!” He cried. “Preserve memory! Why not to build tall white towers with telescopes, and invite foals and parents, lovers and old ponies to look up at the night sky and remember who was who put those lights up there to guide the sailors in the night and inspire poets? Why not to plant again the night-flowers, so that they might glow in the darkness? Why not to treasure the Moonfire? Instead, the night sky is shunned and forgotten, and there's no pony, be it alchemist, stargazer or lovestruck filly to look at it in awe and comfort! Instead, the night-flowers orchards were blinded and burned, and what little could have been saved was left to the beasts to feast upon! Instead, the Moonfire is forever lost, and a festivity of mockery is put together to teach foals to be afraid of the Lady, and, in later years, to consider Her as a fairy-tale of the kind of the Crystal Empire in the North, or the Spirit of Discord!”
Mizar looked down at her; at her smiling eyes and her twinkling grin, and he hit the bench with his left foreleg.
“Preserve memory! Not a good way to do such a thing!”
Mizar shook his head again and sighed. At last, the fire that burned in his chest began to douse, but the heat it had created still run through his veins, so that he didn't sat down once more. Instead, he looked up at the sky. The Moon was now a bit more down the horizon. Then he looked away, not to meet the eyes of the mare.
“Strong words, batpony. And yet, I like them.”
He frowned.
“Do you now intend to mock me, after causing an old pony's heart to race again with memories of sorrow?”
“No. But I had to be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“Of your reasons. I had to be sure you stood loyal to your Lady.”
Mizar felt his ears stoop, and a pit open before his stomach. So it was true, then? Was this a test, and had he failed it? Was he going to be apprehended, and banished, or cast in a dungeon, or banished in the dungeon he would be cast? Or some other punishment?
And yet, he pursed his lips and didn't move his gaze. Too much he had said, and too much the emotions in his old heart had been roused. Let them come. They would found that in Canterlot there's still a batpony who knows how to fight.
“Because, dear Mizar...” he heard the mare say, and he was struck by the changing quality of her voice, that took on a musical, ethereal tone, one that he hadn't heard for so many, many years... “she is also my Lady.”
Mizar turned his body, and he stood, his mouth agape, his eyes wide, before a sight that he had thought he would have never seen again.
Before him stood the mare, but now she was taller, and her coat was black, streaked with white where her dark mane took in the Moon's light, two ample wings opened on her back, leathery like his, but much larger and with a transparent quality to it, like polished leather. Her muzzle was fair and opened in a smile, and her eyes, the only unchanged thing, her eyes: two orbs of purple, and yet shining with a light that had been obscured until then. She wore no clothes or armour, but in the middle of her chest stood a large pendant, cast in the shape of a winged alicorn, with its wings open and its proud head, by profile, looking aside with a stern gaze, a shimmering purple amethyst in its middle, cut as an oval.
Mizar fell on his forelegs, bowing his head down, surprise, joy and fear battling for domination in his heart; could it be... could it really be?
“There's no need for such acts, Mizar. You proved your loyalty to the Lady in both words and actions. Rise.”
Mizar did as he was said, but he felt uneasy standing on the bench, because he now could look directly in the eyes of the noble batpony before him.
“How...? How, my lady Alcyone, my lady the Bearer of Purple ? We all thought you were dead, or cast to the edge of the world, forever lost. Are you the only one remained? Or are other of the Seven Sisters still alive?”
The mare before him, Alcyone, smiled sadly.
“How? The power of the Lady is greater than we thought, that's how, my good Mizar. And yet, as of now only me and my noble sisters Maia and Taygete are accounted for. It's only the three of us, at least for the time being.”
“Maia!” cried out Mizar, in awe. “Maia the Great, Maia the First! Maia the Bearer of Blue! What a joy is to know that she still walks the earth! The eldest of our own kind!”
Alcyone smiled again, this time less sadly.
“Yes. My elder sister is alive and well. Now, Mizar, please listen to what I have to tell you. There will be time for joy and for speaking out loud the many honorific of my beloved sister, but now you have to open your ears wide and your heart wider.”
Mizar nodded eagerly, still overwhelmed by the surprise. What a night! To feel the fire of passion once again in his heart, to be able to speak the name of Alcor once again, to be graced by the presence of lady Alcyone!
“Long I have followed you, Mizar. Long I have felt your sorrow, and believe me that I did not relinquish in it. There were many others, far away, who felt alone an-”
“Others! Please forgive me, lady, but tell me! Is what you say true? Is there such a great number of others of our kind still alive, maybe in the darkness - but free?”
Alcyone blinked, and then she slowly nodded.
“Yes, Mizar, there are others. Many of them. Now, please remember your place and interrupt me no more.”
Mizar nodded vigorously. But how could he keep his calm with news like these? He wasn't alone anymore... praise the Lady, he wasn't alone anymore!
“There were others, I was saying, whose sorrow was great, and yet I believe that you suffered greater than most, being a prisoner in a cage. Or,” and she raised an eyebrow, “were you not?”
She came a bit closer, and her purple eyes, the pupils thin as slits, shone with doubt.
“I long wondered, Mizar. Was he a prisoner, or was he a convert? Had he forgot the Moonfire and the light of the Lady? Had he cast himself under the wings of the Power of the Sun, and swore loyalty to it, forgetful of his gifts?”
Mizar tightened his jaw; it wasn't lost on him that lady Alcyone was almost exactly repeating his own words. What was he supposed to do? Cry out for forgiveness, or let lady Alcyone speak?
“But there was another with him, I said to my older sisters. Maybe that is the reason? We remembered your blessed union with Alcor, and we said: maybe Alcor accepted the pardon, but Mizar is only bind by love. And we wondered: would the Lady allow such a thing? Would she approve it?”
Alcyone, slowly, shook her head. Her smile disappeared, like a small rock swallowed by a coming tide.
“And then, when we saw other Firstborn betray their ancestry and disguise themselves as simple, forgetful Pegasi, we decided that those were beyond salvation, and beyond our right to help them. Only our fury, they would ever cross our path, will meet them. And we saw those of you that still were here, in Canterlot, while the years accumulated like layers of fallen leaves, only for one by one dwindle and disappear, like Stars before the dawn. In the end, only you and a small bunch of others remained, with no more contacts, each one closed in his own world made of memories and regrets.”
Mizar nodded. The ache that he had eased before was coming back with vengeance.
“But you were singing, Mizar. You were always singing.”
Alcyone smiled again, and Mizar felt hope coming back with it; it looked like a small speck of Moon peering out of a dark cloud, that smile.
“You were singing about the Lady, and whether you did that out of misery or out of a tiny grain of faith, nevertheless you did; and you tried to sway the hearts of the young to the old stories, even if you were shunned and cast aside like a monster for that.”
Alcyone looked up briefly, and then she put one of her wings on Mizar. It felt warm and soft, despite the leathery consistence of it.
“That is why I came to you only now. And I ask you to leave, Mizar.”
At those words, Mizar felt his heart sink.
“But... lady, who will bring white lilies on Alcor's tomb every night? Who will sing for the young ones, telling them about a past they have only known through eyes of pain and fear? Who will be there to tell them the truth about the Firstborn, and how they came to be, and about the undying light of the Moonfire? Who will tell them about the Lady?”
Alcyone came a bit closer, and her gaze was sad.
“I know this might prove sorrowful, brother Mizar, but answer me. Please consider this as a request by a Firstborn to another Firstborn. I'm not Alcyone the Bearer of Purple right now, I'm just another Firstborn sister asking her brother whether he is ready to leave once again his life behind. Don't tell me a half truth, because that half lie will plague you forever if you don't cast it away.”
Mizar frowned, and looked inside himself; he had been in this city for decades, so many that he had lost the count of the Nights. He and Alcor had made a living out of something they had just liked as a pastime in the days of the Lady, and they had found joy and sorrow in it. They had shared everything, and the only regret they had was not having took part to the war, was not of having accepted the pardon, but of not leaving a legacy behind. The tree of the Firstborn, strong as it might be, was going to wither and die – and Mizar had somehow accepted this after it had been the reality that had met him every night for the past twenty years, thirty years. Alas, how painful was to have hope again!
“You are asking me much, Alcyone, lady. You are asking me maybe too much,” he mumbled. Still... hadn't Alcyone said that there were others? Many of them? Maybe they could meet somewhere beyond the borders of Equestria, even in a far country, even in the grip of ice or the sear of the desert... but together. Together, his heart reminded him, and free.
But that mean leaving Alcor's grave without flowers.
Not that, in a few years, there would have been anypony disposed to put white lilies on a forgotten slab of stone among thousands of others...
The memories that had kept him alive, that had given him a reason to be until that moment, were at the same time the rope that kept him tied to this city...
For all his life, he and Alcor had sang their own will of freedom, only to be caged by the very same thing that kept them together! It seemed that this truly was a Night fond of irony.
Mizar shook his head, looked down at his zither on the bench, and then a thought crossed his mind. What was the thing he – they – had done during these days? What was the true legacy of their love?
He took the zither in his hoofs, looking at its wooden carvings, at the silvery chords – at the place where a small symbol, two couples of curved lines surrounded by two more, up and down, was. They formed the outline of a six-petal flower. The white lily, that Alcor had carved, in memory of them.
What was the true legacy? Surely it wasn't a piece of rock covered by dead plants.
Fear and hope battled again in his heart as Mizar raised his eyes and met lady Alcyone's gaze.
“Will... will there be room for songs, lady Alcyone? Will there be room for stories, and sweet memories shared at the light of a bonfire under the Stars?”
And lady Alcyone smiled.
“If you shall want to, there shall be. For what is the dominion of the Lady, if not that of tales and songs and memories?”
Mizar felt the knot in his chest finally dissolve in a blinding light that run through his tired bones, shaking them with a tremor that wasn't made by fear, but by the awe of having still hope.
“Then,” he laughed, “then, lady, I will come wherever you want me to go! Because Alcor, my dear Alcor, would have wanted nothing but!”
Alcyone smiled again, and put her other wing on Mizar, embracing him; they stood there for a long moment; such a sight, of a tall, leathery-winged, dark-coloured Pegasus-like creature embracing another of its kind could have left any bystanders filled with fear more than awe, but for the two of them it was a moment of communion and joy. Of things lost, and of things found again.
“I'll only take this with me, lady,” said then Mizar, rising his zither high, “because I need nothing else. The songs are in my heart, and there's nothing else I have, other than my own body, on which Alcor had left a more lasting trace.” He began to take his clothes off, and the hood fell to the ground like the old rag it was; yet, Mizar took it, and put it on the bench, next to the empty bag of candies.
He stood under the sky with only his dark coat and mane, and he spread his wings once again; Mizar felt like he could jump high... no, he felt like, for the first time in years, he could actually fly...
“Mizar,” called the voice of Alcyone behind him, and he stepped next to her, obedient.
“Where are we going, lady?”
She smiled, and then she folded her wings on her chest, hiding for a moment the charm of power that adorned it. Then, she opened them again, and the amulet glowed purple, casting a ray of shimmering blue light on the ground. The ray expanded and heaved to form a large step, that looked like a window made of stained glass, standing at a hoof's height from the ground.
“Here, Mizar. Put your hoof on this step.”
Mizar, holding the zither with his wings, did as he was told; the step had the consistence of hard glass, and it felt cold, but it wasn't a harsh cold.
“Go on. Another one.”
Mizar advanced, and, as soon his step touched on the air above, another step formed under it; he stood with his mouth agape, and looked back at Alcyone.
“This is the Lost Road, made by the Lady for Firstborn's hooves only, and that the Seven Sister can open and close at any time and in any place. We must take it.”
Mizar looked down at the steps he was standing on.
“Well, then I guess it's pretty obvious from now on.”
He jumped on the step, and another one appeared before him.
“I think I'm getting good at this, lady Alcyone.”
Behind him, she chuckled.
“And I think this is the first ironic comment I hear you make, brother Mizar.”
“It's easy once you feel your heart soar with the promise of beauty and freedom, lady.”
She took the first step behind him.
“I guess it is. Now, go on, Mizar, and be quick, because this Road I can open only by Night, and too much time has already passed.”
Mizar looked down at the solid-looking step beneath him. He was already as high in the air as the bench.
“Does this mean we could fall down?”
“It means you will use up my patience, minstrel! Be quick, and leave the questions to another time!”
Mizar nodded, and began running; the steps appeared before him, forming a translucent arc in the sky.
The first steps had disappeared, leaving maybe six or seven of them behind him, and two before him. He kept running, even if his breath was becoming heavier and heavier. He wasn't used to running anymore. In fact, he hadn't run since the wartimes, and by then he was mostly used to fly, and when that had been taken away from him...
He saw the city become smaller and smaller; at first he saw the roads, now devoid of any activity, both foals and parents safely sleeping soundly – missing such a Night of portents, by the Lady! He had a fleeting sight of the grave, and he let one last thought go to Alcor's resting place. But then again, what use was to say goodbye to a stone when the most precious item of their legacy was held between his wings? He savoured the wood's texture and felt a smile crept up on his lips.
Mizar run, and beneath him, the roads, lamps, houses, gardens and tall and proud towers of the City of the Sun became less and less important, and by the time he was running as high as the Tower of the Sun, the resting place of the Princess, he had for it but a fleeting thought.
More important was the majesty of the sky over him, with its mantle of blackness, and the pinpricks of the stars, now free of the lingering airs of the ground, so that they shone with an intensity that he hadn't seen for decades. Someone laughed, and only after a few more steps, he realized it had been him.
Behind him, Alcyone smiled, but then she stopped for a moment, and looked down at the city of Canterlot, and directly at the Tower of the Sun. Her eyes hardened and her mouth curved in a frown, and under her breath she mumbled:
“We haven't forgot about you. I shall find the rest of my brothers, and I shall find where you have hidden the charms of my Sisters, and I shall free them. Electra, Celaeno, Sterope: I shall come for you!” She then looked at the chambers of the Princess, and hissed: “And one Night, at last, we shall come for you, Celestia.”
Then she galloped behind Mizar, who, forgetful of everything but his newfound freedom, was feeling that, the more he run, the more his hold bones felt younger, and his wings felt lighter, like if the thinner and thinner air of the world was weighing him down no more.
He hadn't felt so good since the last time he had held Alcor in his legs.
So ecstatic he was of the sensation, that he took a pause only after a very long time; it wasn't due to tiredness – he felt in fact thirty years younger – but due to the incredible sight beyond him.
“It steals your breath, doesn't it,” said lady Alcyone's from behind him, amusement in her voice.
'Yes', mouthed Mizar, because he had lost his breath.
The Lost Road shimmered in the middle of an empty, dark space that was dozens – no, hundreds? How much had he run? - of miles above the small globe of earth and sea and clouds that held Equestria. Looking down, he saw rivers and coasts, forests and... was that small form a dragon? But it must have been colossal...
And yet, what was beyond the small ball was even more breathtaking.
The ball full of clouds and forests and life was in the centre, and above it there was a blazing sphere of golden light, of which Mizar felt the heat even so far away. It somehow managed to burn in a place where – now he understood the words of lady Alcyone – there was clearly no room for air. He had to shield his eyes, though.
“So far away it's almost beautiful,” said Alcyone's voice from beside him. She shrugged. “To each its own, I guess.”
Mizar smiled, then he took his eyes away from the Sun, an-
It's full of Stars!
That was the only thought that could creep its way beyond Mizar's awe at the sight before him – it wasn't a bad description, after all. It only lacked the different shining of all of them – and the slow motion like that of one final, primary clock to measure the cosmos' breath, and the colours and the clusters, and the shades, like clouds moved by cosmic winds, that covered some of those clusters, some dark, some of the most amazing forms and shades. How much of that spectacle was lost from below... in that moment, Mizar mouthed a short thanksgiving prayer to the Lady.
The things he would have missed, haven't he took the Lost Road.
Sure, whatever place lady Alcyone was leading him couldn't compare to this.
The lady gently laid a wing over his body, and pointed at the one celestial body they had missed; Mizar frowned at the scarred surface of the Moon. Even if the craters represented the profile of the Lady, it was still a wretched etching on an otherwise peerless surface.
This, he decided while looking all over it, this was a light he could bash in.
It still wasn't the silver-blue glowing of the Moonfire, like he remembered, but the next closest thing.
“The Moon, lady Alcyone?”
“Of course, brother Mizar. It's always the Moon, for the kind of us.”
He nodded, even if he didn't understood what she meant; but then again, who could peer in the mind of the Bearer of Purple, the most mysterious of the Seven Sisters, high lady of the Stars and of the Moon, Weaver of Time, lady Alcyo-
“Mizar. I'm glad you think so highly of me, but please keep it down.”
Oh.
“Sure.”
“Now, let's go. We have little time left, and the dawn rides swiftly behind us.”
They run, and even running, Mizar had the time to bathe in the sight of the small pearly sphere, that was becoming larger and larger, closer and closer, until he thought he could discern the single borders of the craters on its surface, their crevasses and long shades that perturbed and corrupted its beauty.
But there was no escaping it. The Lady was gone, and as painful as it was, he had to accept it. And accept her last gift, wherever lady Alcyone was conducting him.
The Lost Road now had been curving down for a while, and they were coming closer and closer to the surface of the Moon; a few more minutes – or how the time could be measured in this timeless space – and they would have touched it.
That was the moment when the steps ended.
Mizar frowned, and had time to stop only because there were five or four before him when they finished.
He looked behind him to lady Alcyone, who smiled down at him, and opened her wings.
“Now we fly, brother.”
He slowly moved his wings, feeling old pain in them.
“I can't, lady. My wings had lost their ability to carry me.”
“There's something more reliable than air, brother. There's the will of the Lady, down there. Remember where they cast Her, in their foolishness: banished on her very throne, stranded on the shore of the only country where she would never be lost!”
“So?”
Said Mizar, looking down. It was a bit high... and he was old, after all, even if he had felt a bit light-headed as of late... and even gliding down was beyond him.
“So, leap of faith,” said lady Alcyon behind him.
And he felt the gentle push of her foreleg on his hide over the last step, and then there was no step to sustain his step an-
He screamed.
“Open your wings, brother!”
Came from above the laughing voice of lady Alcyone The Deceiver – then he decided that if he had time to think of a new honorific for the lady, he had time to think about this, and took the zither in his forelegs, and spread his wings, wincing in the pain.
Nothing happened.
He kept falling like a sack of apples at Canterlot's market day, towards the edge of the part where the Moon shone and-
Wait.
There was a dark side of the Moon?
He frowned at the sight, only to be remembered that he was falling at terminal speed towards a surface that, as much peerless and beautiful and sacred as it was, he would have surely stained with the bloody heap that would have become his body. How unbecoming of a Firstborn.
Then, he felt it.
Looking at the tips of his wings, he saw thin strings of silver-blue light, dancing on its edges like a flame danced on the edges of a piece of wood in a bonfire.
Of all things he had seen and heard, of everything he had been spectator until then, nothing felt to him like what he saw on the edges of his wings.
He hadn't seen it in ages. And it felt like coming back home, and finding a lost parent you thought to never see again. And at the same time reuniting with a daughter stranded on far away places, believed dead, and instead came back home as a queen of that country she had been lost in.
It felt like opening his door and finding Alcor looking at him.
The Moonfire.
Mizar curved his neck back and let out a long throaty laugh, that resonated in his chest like the echoes of trumpets and strings. The Moonfire! The Moonfire that flew through his wings and knotted ligaments back together, and healed muscles and tendons... and when he tried to move his wing, he felt no pain!
He turned his head to see lady Alcyone flying next to him, wings spread wide and slowly moving, with the very same tips of flames dancing at their edges. She was smiling, too.
“Look down, brother. Look down at the Kingdom in Exile.”
And so he did, keeping the zither between his legs, he looked down, and he saw thin streams of Moonfire coming from all over the surface of the dark side – so that they shone like flames in a sea of darkness – carving one glowing arabesque that became more and more intricate as they came near to the cent-
The centre.
The centre was a feast of blue, white and silver, with a tower of some sort whithin seven thin concentric circles of Moonfire, rings of flame and light on a surface that wasn't dark anymore, but shone with a perlaceous white that Mizar recognized immediately, and yet, even in the light of all the portents he had seen tonight, he dared not give form to those thoughts.
“Is this Heaven?” he asked to no one, but lady Alcyone's voice was there to answer him.
“No, this is very much real, brother.”
“It seems like a good place where to spend my final days, then. I will sing between the Moonfire, and look at the stars above. I will be glad to enjoy your company, lady Alcyone, and those of the other Sisters who are there.”
Then Alcyone gave in a throathy laugh.
“Do you think you will be alone, Mizar?”
A frown crossed his forehead.
“In a way, I had always been alone since Alcor's departure, lady. But it will be easier to bear.”
Alcyone grinned. Mizar blinked.
“Is there anything wrong, lady?”
She shook her head.
“Let's say we have saved the best for last.”
Mizar wondered once again what she meant – maybe this was about the orchards of moon-flowers he had seen – or he thought he had seen – from above? Just to keep one again between his wings one of those flower's corolla would have been enough, and they had what looked like entire fields full of them.
Maybe it was that.
But, no, it turned out that Mizar was wrong.
As they came down, they glided around the great tower where, as Alcyone explained, the Moonfire peered out, dancing and shimmering, and came in rivulets down the tower and into the circles and rivers that from it run through the entire dark side of the Moon.
“That is the place where Maia rekindled the Moonfire once again.” She looked down at him. “After all, the greatest gift of the Lady will never die, as long as one of the Firstborn lives.”
Then they turned, and lady Alcyone took him away from the tower, to glide a bit lower on the ground, and Mizar saw light coming up from the soil. It was pearl-white and came from the orchards of small, cup-like flowers, their petals as white as the light they provided. Moon-flowers. Magnolia Vesperi. Katsura.
Mizar felt a burning sensation on the side of his eyes and realized he had been crying; he moved his wings quickly and came a little bit lower, basking in the sight of the flowers, that lit up the air like lamps coming from the ground; their light was strong, and went a long way, but it didn't harm his eyes, much like the own moonlight did.
So great was his rapture due to the presence of the flowers, that it was only lady Alcyone's voice that brought him back.
“Come up with me, brother,” she said, and he complied, if reluctantly. But he said to himself that he would have had time to bask in the presence of the flowers, and flew to the side of the lady, still looking down.
“I'd only wish for Alcor to be here with me, lady Alcyone. For her to see this.”
Alcyone nodded, and then pointed with a hoof ahead; Mizar followed with his eyes her limb and...
“Oh, Lady,” was all he was able to comment.
Because they were now flying above houses, and parks, and roads, filled to the brim with moving shapes, dark, leathery-winged shapes... who moved their chin up and greeted them with smiles and cheers.
Lady Alcyone flew down, and they landed in the middle of a square – a square lit up by lamps with little katsura flowers in them, and stands filled with pearldrop glasses and strange pale fruits the kind of which he had never seen. The houses were tall and white, with ample windows and elaborate carvings on the stone. All in all, save for the lack of gold and the abundance of silver, black and blue, he could have been in a square in Canterlot.
But this time, only happy gazes and welcoming eyes surrounded him.
Mizar felt once more that prickling sensation at the sides of his eyes. Great thing, tears, Lady, he though. They refill up pretty quickly.
“Pay attention, everypony!” Said the voice of lady Alcyone, and fillies and colts, stallions and mares... batponies... came closer to look at him, poor, frail, old minstrel. He felt all of a sudden smaller and part of something much, much greater than himself.
“This is Mizar, who was a companion of Alcor, and they were storytellers and singers in their golden cage in the City of the Sun, where the Lady is far and the Stars dwindle. He has just come back. Why don't we celebrate by listening to him?”
And soon Mizar found himself surrounded by foals, who were all covered in costumes – he batted his eyelids and, with shaking hooves, he asked:
“Can... can somepony tell me what this masquerade is about?”
One of the foal, a small batpony dressed with a white dress that covered her back, legs and neck leaving her wings free, with a small replica of a small jewel fashioned after that lady Alcyone had on her chest, but with a great blue sphere on it, step on and, smiling, said:
“It's Dreamtime Night, sir. Tonight we re-enact the kindling of the Moonfire and our parents allows us to stay up all the time and play!”
A chorus of cheers from the other foals followed her words, and Mizar fell down on his rump, overwhelmed, just looking up at the starry sky.
A hoof passed him a handkerchief, and he used it, grateful. The he looked up to lady Alcyone, puzzled and wonder in his eyes.
“How? Only the Lady can give our seed fruit. As long as she was down there, she still allowed us to bring new life into being, but as soon as she was cast on the Moon, this ceased to be. You and Alcor, and many many others, were not sterile. You were just too far away.”
“So. This. Is why. You. We. Built this. On the Moon. The dark side. Of. The Moon,” he said, each word roll out of his trembling mouth.
Then he just embraced the foals before him, and they, though at first a bit started, responded in kind.
He wasn't alone anymore.
Among the throng, all fascinated by this old Firstborn coming back from his prison, no one looked at the silent form of Alcyone, who briefly looked behind her back, at the edge of the dark side, where the light of the Moonfire met the white of the Moon' surface, and frowned slightly.
“We will free you, Lady. It's written that the stars will aid you in your escape, and this is what it will come to pass,” she mouthed, and then she let her worries fade and she just looked at the form of an old pony who had began to play on his old zither, surrounded by awestruck foals and smiling parents, by Firstborn.
Firstborn that, as Mizar would later come to know, were each named after a star.
Like it was supposed to be.
