For most of my life, I tried to do as little thinking as possible.
“Skychaser!” our supervisor, a burly brown earth pony by the name of Iron, shouted. Skychaser, a pegasus whose once brilliant cyan coat was now matted with the dull color of gray ash, stopped and stood still as Iron approached her. I could only watch as her pupils grew, her body cringing at only the thought of him. She leaned over, cowering and—dare I say it—perhaps even praying. If I had been the one in her situation, I would have been praying then.
“Y-yes sir?” she asked weakly.
That was a mistake.
I closed my eyes and looked away, choosing not to watch what I’ve seen countless times already; though I could still hear it. I heard the cracking of bones as a brown hoof collided with them, the rattling of teeth as they fell to the ground, and the dull thud of a body that I assume only wishes it could have been knocked lifeless. I tuned out the rest of the sound as best I could. He was shouting at her—something about her wings, something about her weakness, something about her laziness. All I have to criticize her are words that say something about her fear. Those who feared did not belong in these halls. Those who feared did not belong in this city. Pain is very real, and danger is very real, but fear is what allows both of those things to consume those who fall into its inescapable grasp. She trembled and, for that one inexcusable offense, she was reprimanded.
I refused to meet the same fate; I chose only to work. All of my energy, my vital, scarce energy, went into each crucial, deciding flap of my wings. I spared no effort, misdirected none of my attention, and thought about nothing else. Every moment I worked was measured in every thrust. Every ounce of energy went there; if it didn’t, I would have ended up like all the others. I was the lucky one. I was stoic enough to make it through the day.
“Celestia,” I heard Iron begin, his tone more neutral with me. I hadn’t noticed him walk over. I had for awhile refocused my eyes on the furnace, staring down at the burning metal at which I bellowed. I did not turn my head to look at him as he spoke, nor did I speak to him out of turn. I continued flapping my wings as he spoke through me. “Good work as usual. I trust you can handle this load by yourself; though it’s such a shame how you always end up without a partner—you must get lonely from time to time.”
I didn’t.
“Keep it up,” he said, turning to walk away from me. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”
Then he left, and that was that. Like a wave crashing upon the shore: he was loud and furious for only a moment then, before one was to blink, gone with the tides. But the thing about tides were that they never calmed—they raged on and on, indifferent to the world around them. The seas did not look upon the meek and forgive them. The seas did not show mercy. The seas crashed their waves upon the rocks, no matter who or what was between them. There was no force in the world powerful enough to command the tides; the only way to escape the seas was to walk away from the beach. There was no king or sultan with enough authority in their so-called divine blood to bind them. The sea did not acknowledge their presence, and it was for that I envied them.
It was these very thoughts I did my best to avoid; they seldom did me—or anypony, for the matter—any good. None were to trifle with the crown, for anarchy surely meant death; though I was not much concerned with my own death at the time. Ponies like me did not work for ourselves, we worked because we had to. We worked because we had something to return to. That is why I tried not to let myself think too deeply—deep thoughts, devices rooted in hatred and heresy, endanger those that we worked for; so with our wings we beat on, gusts against the iron, heads turned shamefully away from our souls. We protected those we loved so they could grow up to live the same lives we worked for them to avoid.
The windmill turned ceaselessly, starting over and over from the beginning—until someone stopped beating their wings.
I looked down at the iron block which had taken a brilliant red hue. I slowed my flapping, extending my hooves toward the ground as I landed. I brought a hoof to my forehead, wiping off my beads of sweat with a swift flick of my hoof before leaning down and grasping the wooden handle of my hammer with my mouth. With both hooves I pulled on the outside of the iron bar’s smelting sheet, arching my back as I brought it out of the furnace with all of the might I could muster.
But just as I lay the bar on the anvil, my right hoof slipped. I hadn’t even the time to wince in anticipation as the edge of the sheet grazed my left cheek below the eye, its smoldering steel taking with it whatever part of my skin and coat it touched. The sheet hit the cobblestone floor with a reverberating clang; though its excruciating sound quickly became the only thing that could dull the wretched, consuming fire whose pain immediately shot from my face to my entire body. I bit my lip with enough force to immediately draw cool, crisp, metallic blood that soon mixed and pooled with the tears rushing down my face as it ran. I shut my eyes hard, using any and all remaining energy I had to prevent myself from making a sound. Those who show pain do not last. Those who wail do not belong.
With my reserves of energy quickly drying up and my iron cooling, I had no choice but to rear my head above the anvil and, with a powerful jerk of my neck, bring my hammer down upon the bar. Every spark it shot into the air felt like it had penetrated me, burning my now sensitive skin with jolts of hot electricity; however, I turned a blind eye to my senses, hitting the bar over and over again with increased ferocity as I worked through the pain.
Eventually I stopped. I opened my bloodshot eyes, I stopped, and I stared. In front of me lay a blade of iron like any other blade I had crafted since I had begun my work many years before; though something was missing: my mark. If I was to be cursed for my entire life, destined endlessly to roll this rock up a mountain and watch it fall, I was going to let it be known that it was I who brought it to its peak. Dropping the blood stained hilt of my hammer, I reached down and, with a piercing clamp of my teeth, brought my chisel to the left side of the naked blade. I then reared my head back, bringing the point of the chisel down upon the blade, creating a simple little chip in its surface. But that chip, that seemingly insignificant imperfection, was what I lived to see. That chip was not the tell of a careless soldier; no, it was my signature—it was me. It was what made me different. It was what made me matter.
I looked up to see that everyone was staring at me.
I simply met their eyes and nodded.
I walked to the right side of the smelting hall, grabbing my ragged brown coat off of the hanger with a hoof as I made my way out of the open arches to the outside world. I breathed in deeply, flaring my nostrils as I felt the cool, calming air rush through my veins like flowing water on sun-beaten streets. I turned down to reach into my jacket pocket, leaning up against a nearby signpost as I brought out a hit of rolled tobacco in my mouth. With a hoof I opened one of the lanterns on the sign post, inching my muzzle closer to the candle to light my smoke before taking in a large, soothing puff and closing the lantern door again.
For a moment I just stood there, admiring the filth-ridden city slums that I called home as I took in my makeshift cigarette. I watched a bum as he banged his hoof against an empty bottle, creating a rhythm of his clanging glass upon brick. I watched a sewer rat climb from the vent in the street, scurrying about in terror for a tick before returning to his home in the unseen world. I watched the smoke rise above me, slowly creeping over the tops of the two-story cobblestone buildings that sat side by side, row by row, endlessly stretching on and branching off into roads and alleys that I could have never seen the half of had I spent my entire life walking.
It was only then that I heard another pony’s breathing. I spit out my joint, stomping on it with my right hoof before turning to face my accuser. Before me was none other than Sunny Skies, a bright yellow and orange pegasus with a cloud-and-sun cutie mark that had no business always wearing her heart on her sleeve as she did in a place like this. I looked on at her as she walked—in what seemed to me like slow motion—out of the archways and toward me, carrying a concerned expression that only made me pity her weakness. She expected me to feel grateful for her “kindness”—but that isn’t how it worked here. Here it was every pegasus for his or herself, and those who didn’t play by that rule were quickly done away with. I would have thought that someone who had been here as long as Skies had would understand that. I suppose that wasn’t the way things actually worked.
“Oh, Celestia…” she said, extending a hoof toward my left cheek. I raised my own foreleg, bringing hers to the ground. “You’re the most incredible blacksmith anyone in there has ever seen, but you're going to run yourself right into the grave if you keep this up, do you know that?”
“Ain’t no grave,” I began, averting my eyes from hers as I continued, “can hold my body down.”
“You’re your father’s daughter,” she said. I could hear—I could feel—her sigh deeply behind me. She knew better than to make that comment. She knew better than to test me like that. But she kept on going. “How is Luna?” she asked.
“Dead,” I answered, still refusing to look in her direction. “She died in the raids like my mother did.”
“You and I both know that isn’t true,” she said, the arrogant fool. “I’m not going to rat on you to the army. I just want to know if I can help.”
“The army doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I said. “I do my work. I pay my taxes. That’s all they need to care about. The day I start trouble with the army is the day I grow a horn on my head.”
“They will if they find out you’re harboring a unicorn from the draft.” She said with more force than I had heard Iron ever speak with.
I turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Draft? Last time I checked, the war was over, Skies. Our savior, his majesty Lord Discord, brought all three races together in peace, love, and harmony.”
She shook her head in thought. “Something about a conflict in one of the Griffin nations,” she said, bringing a hoof to her mouth as she coughed. “But the point of the matter is that the army is drafting unicorns—all unicorns. Even the foals.”
I kept my face expressionless, a statue standing still in no mare’s land.
Then, without another word, I ran.
After a few hour-long minutes, I made it to my “home”—a beaten down, wood and stone row house with a straw roof in the west end of the capital city. If the middle of the city was a diamond, the west and east ends were definitely the rough. My sister and I did not even have running water, but perhaps that was a good thing; rumor had it that the upper sewers dumped out into the water supplies of the west and east. What we drank I bought from the company store myself. We didn’t starve, freeze, or go thirsty. We made due.
I raised my hoof to push the door open, but before I touched it, I stopped. I stopped there, in that moment of time, and lay my forehead upon the door quietly enough that Luna wouldn’t have heard it and come looking for me. I lay my head upon the door quietly enough that I could, for once in my life, allow myself to think. I don’t remember how long I was there, only that I was there. I don’t remember what I was thinking about, only that I was thinking. I don’t remember what I was feeling, only that I was feeling. I only remember it getting colder. That I remember vividly.
Eventually I opened the door.
She spoke immediately as she heard it creak. “Sister!” Luna shouted, getting up from the splinter-ridden death trap she called a desk to run up and attach herself to my leg. I sighed deeply. “I was able to concentrate on two things with my levitation today! I drew two pictures at once: one was of the candle on my desk, and the other one was of last night’s moon.”
I let out a light, half-hearted chuckle and rustled her mane. “Another moon? Aren’t we running out of charcoal for you to draw with?” I asked, closing the door with my hind leg as I walked inside. “Nine years old already a master of levitation. They need a special school for such a gifted unicorn like you.”
Instead of throwing my jacket on the hanger like I usually did when I returned home, I kept it on, grabbing one of my grey flat caps off of the rack and pulling it down over my forehead. “Tell you what, Lu: how would you like to spend all night sketching the moon? I think it’s long past time we took a little family vacation.”
“Really?” Luna asked, detaching from me and levitating a couple of her charcoal-stained scrolls into her tattered brown saddlebag. “Where are we going on vacation?”
“Out west, but we have to leave right now if we want to make the boat,” I said, leaning down to pick up her bag with my mouth before putting it down beside the door and continuing, “so go upstairs and get your jacket on. Don’t forget your hat—the one that covers your horn.”
“But that one looks weird!” Luna protested.
“No buts,” I said, ushering her upstairs with a hoof to the flank. “You need it to keep your horn warm. Go on now, get dressed.”
With a few mumbles she was off, running up the stairs with what I assumed to be a mix of faux frustration and childlike excitement. I shook my head, sighing again as I walked into the kitchen. I made my way to the cabinet just above our range—the ‘off limits’ cabinet. I bring a hoof to the bottom of it, slowly creeping the door open to look around inside. I sifted through the shelves, feeling up and down for a small wooden box that I had always told Luna I kept my quills in. Once I got ahold of it, I picked it up in my mouth and lay it down on the counter, popping off the box’s lid and taking a look inside.
Two small sheets of paper and a few crumb-sized dark green remnants of what I had actually been looking for. It was a shame to see that I had bled my entire stock dry just when I really needed some of it; though, I suppose it was a good enough time as any to kick the habit. My mother never wanted me to end up smoking like my father had; however, things don’t always work out the way parents plan. Children don’t always end up the way they’re supposed to. If I could apologize to her then for who I had become, I would, but I could not turn back time. All I could do was stop the windmill from turning. That was my only option. That was my only drive.
I opened an adjacent cabinet and pulled out a small golden flask with two special raised insignias on it: a lightning bolt on the front, and a pegasus’ head with a swirl tattoo and wings on the back. The trinket was all I had left of our family’s home in old Pegasopolis from before Unicornia won the war and “united” the three races; that said, I found the old trinket ironic: somewhere in time it had stopped being something I looked at to remember and became something I needed when I wanted to forget.
With my mouth I unscrewed the cap of the flask, taking in a whiff of the crude liquid before returning its cap and stowing it away in the left pocket of my jacket. I then turned around to see Luna staring at me with her head cocked sideways. I noted that she had dressed accordingly—a thick black coat and the hat I had requested her to wear. That was good. That was all we needed.
But unfortunately that wasn't all Luna had in mind—she had apparently taken notice of me. “You have a scar,” she pointed out. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“I'm fine. Are you ready to leave?” I asked.
“Yes, sis’,” she said, walking to the door and picking up her saddlebags. She levitated them onto her back, securing the fastener before unlocking the door and returning her gaze to me.
I walked to her, catching up behind her as she opened the door with her blue aura before speaking again. “Is Dad coming with us on vacation?” she asked.
I grit my teeth, shutting my eyes as I followed her out the door and closed it behind us. “No, Lu, you know he has to work,” I said, walking in front of Luna so I could lead the way. “The army is very busy at this time of year. People without homes like us get cold and crowd in the streets together to keep warm—they even bring torches to make sure everyone's comfortable. The army knows about this, so they meet up with the crowds and try to help them.”
“I’ve seen those people outside our window before,” Luna said thoughtfully. I eyed her incredulously before she elaborated: “they’re very loud. They’re always screaming together about something right before the army comes and helps them. Why do they always scream?”
“They scream because using your voice box helps keep you warm,” I explained, rustling Luna’s under her neck. “That’s why we need to be very quiet tonight: we don’t want to take away any of the warmth when other ponies need it.”
“Oo-kay,” Luna whispered, scooting over to brush up against my side as we walked. I looked at her smile: innocent to the world, Luna thought there was nothing better than what she had. She had only love to give and joy to spread. She knew nothing and asked not for answers. For every ounce of wisdom she lacked she was wiser than I. She cantered merrily on, but I simply stared at her.
Out of nowhere, she spoke again: “Celestia, even if you have that scar on your face,” she began, running a hoof down her own cheek below her left eye, “I still think you're really pretty.”
Then I started walking faster.
For me, getting out of the city was like walking out of a bar: I knew that I should have been leaving for good, and I knew that it killed me a little bit more every time I came back; however, on some level, I needed it. I needed to work to feel like I was useful. I needed to work to feel like I had a place. I needed to work because, despite resenting my wastefulness inside, I loved it. I could claim to live for freedom all I wanted to, but it was of no use—I enjoyed the routine. In some sort of twisted way, living that life made me feel safe. It made me feel like I could just get by, provide for my family, and live a happy life at home. It didn’t cross my mind that, no matter how good I was at my job, I could have been thrown out onto the streets at any given moment. I could have been discarded like a cracked hammer or a chipped blade.
It didn’t matter how great I presumed myself to be; I was lucky and nothing more.
Then there I was: up and out with nowhere to go and only the stars to guide me, all in no more than a few hours. Until then I had never defined myself as “impulsive,” but perhaps that wasn’t so much of an insult as I had once presumed it to be; if impulsivity means to act with ones heart and live instead of thinking about living then I fail to see how that name is a curse. It was only then, walking through the tall grass and smelling the unmistakable scent of sulfur and ocean water in the air, that I allowed myself a second moment to breathe. Whether I knew it or not, I had allowed myself freedom. Whether I believed it or not, I had relinquished my need for work. Whether I could see it or not, I had found my way home. I would like to lie and say that I came to all of these realizations at that moment, but I did not. I did not realize the significance of what I had done.
It wasn’t until much, much later that I realized industry, and society itself, was a game. It was a game that nobody could play, not because nobody tried, but because the rules were written by the winners. They chose who turned the windmill and who watched over them. But by leaving the city, I had defied that choice. I had broken their cycle. I had stopped turning the windmill. I hadn’t won the game; no, I had simply chosen not to be a player. I had given myself—and all those who would come to follow me—the option to withdraw. I had rejected the authority. I had changed the rules.
And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
But that didn’t change the fact that, at the time, I was still just a filly running away from her strict parents. I had not acted for—or even acknowledged—any greater purpose. The only thing I knew in front of me was the road, and the only place I looked to was my right. All I saw was Luna, and all I did was walk. It was all I could do; for all I talked about despising those who feared, I was terrified. I had never been afraid of anything because for the majority of my life I had learned the hard way that fear breaks people. In a matter of hours, the curved, warped mirror I had used to look at myself had been shattered, and all I had been left with was the reflecting pool of the sea.
I looked out onto the shore, watching thoughtlessly as the waves crashed upon the rocks, edging away their resistance little by little. Surely the sea would consume them. Surely the boulders would crumble. Surely the shore would wither. Surely I would one day stand upon the rocks and allow the sea to take me itself without a thought, without a prayer, and without a bargain. That was how I was to die. That was all I chose to consider. That was all I would have accepted.
Soon enough the once-great Port of Gildedale came into view. My father had told me stories passed down to him of the port before the war—the link between the earth pony kingdom of Gildedale and the outside world, the port had once been a trading hub of exotic wares and the fruit of life itself. He told me stories of gold and mares a plenty, all the corn one could eat, and all the crew one could hire. He had never seen it himself, but he believed in the old port. He believed in its grandeur and power. He believed in its life and adventure. He believed in its mystery. But he was wrong.
I scrunched my snout in disgust as I trudged through the slimy, mud-ridden, boarded streets of old Gildedale Port. I could hear the faint sound of rambling—or very drunk singing, I couldn’t tell—in the body of an ancient, beaten-down ship hangar that I assumed had been turned into some sort of pub; though, the drinking wasn’t what surprised me as much as the lack of a population whatsoever. In front of Luna and I stood maybe five rotting wooden buildings, accidents-waiting-to-happen that supported their frames only by the graces of the sun and moon themselves. It was, admittedly, a bit of a shame: I had hoped to see the grand ocean city my father had always told me about.
But before I could give myself the time to sulk on the matter, I caught sight of what I had been looking for: a lantern on the distant mast of one of the cargo ships in the distance. For all the times my father had exaggerated and glorified Gildedale Port, he was at least right about the one thing that mattered: cargo ships took in refugees, and those cargo ships hung a single lantern from their mast.
In my excitement of having found what I hoped had not been lost in time, I almost wanted to run; however, as I grew closer to the ship in question, I silently thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t drawn any attention to myself—the ship was being inspected. Two Unicornian soldiers, grey unicorns with deep violet chest plates and helmets, walked about the deck of the ship, looking under tarps and lighting their way with their horns as they went. For a moment I watched them silently as they worked, following them with my eyes as they finished with and made their way off of the deck of the ship. Knowing that they would soon come our way, I put my hoof over Luna’s mouth, guiding her as quietly as I could from the boardwalk toward one of the broken-down buildings. They hadn’t seemed to notice us, and we were only a few feet away from being out of sight.
Then Luna tripped. As she fell, her hat tumbled away from her on the ground.
I held my breath as I looked up to see both soldiers staring at us from about twenty feet away.
The soldier on the right examined Luna as he approached us. “Ma’am,” he began, turning to look me in the eyes. I returned his glare. “Are you aware that all unicorns are to be drafted in the army under rule of His Highness the King?”
The other soldier soon caught up with him. “We don’t want any problems tonight,” he explained, slowly drawing his blade from its holster with a bright violet aura. “But we are under direct orders to seize any unicorn we see for enlistment. Don’t worry: your friend will be in very safe hooves.”
Luna stared up at me. “C-celestia?” she asked. I looked down to see her terrified expression: her mouth hung half-opened, her legs shivered uncontrollably, and her eyes shot in different direction after direction. I could almost feel her heart beating in my own chest. I could feel her mind working, cogs turning, silently decoding every lie I had told her up until this point. I had been exposed, but more devastatingly, so had she. There was no denying it now: she knew everything, I was sure of that. She knew the fate that was to befall her. She knew that she was to have no choice in the matter. She knew that from this point on she was to become smileless. Heartless. Violent. Devoid of all childish ways. She was to become another foal with a blade in their mouth. Muggers thought they were gangsters because they slit a few veins? Those kids came through and murdered whole towns. Then they’d sit back, smoke, and watch the rubble burn. And Luna was to become one of them.
Wordlessly, I put my right foreleg in front of her.
The first soldier raised his blade to me. “Are you actually going to defy His Highness?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as he walked directly in front of me. I narrowed my eyes as well. “You’re not thinking right, kid. I’ll give you another few seconds to make a wiser decision.”
It was right then that I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: a small, deliberate chip on the top of the blade he carried in his aura. In one fluid motion, I pushed Luna behind me, turning around on my right hind leg and delivering a swift kick to the broad side of his sword. I felt the top of his blade give way to my leg and, before I gave him any time to respond, reached into my left jacket pocket with my mouth to pull out a small utility knife I had made in the shop. As I came face to face with the dumbstruck soldier again, I grabbed his throat with my right foreleg, bringing his neck to mine as I positioned the blade of my knife right above his carotid artery.
I looked up to see the other soldier staring at me with wide eyes. As I met his gaze, he too pointed his blade at me, narrowing his eyes as he spoke. “Look, filly, I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’re in a lot of trouble,” he said, raising his foreleg to walk closer to me. As he did, I pressed my knife down further onto his partner’s throat, eliciting what seemed to be a terrified gasp from the unicorn. He set his hoof back down without gaining any ground on me. “Let him go now and I won’t have to hurt you or your little friend.”
I lowered my gaze, flaring my wings out as I pressed my knife deep enough to draw a small trickle of blood from his partner’s skin just next to his artery. I could feel him trembling in my hooves. I could feel his heart beat just like I could Luna’s. I could feel his mind turn the same cogs that hers did. I could feel it all. In that moment, in the corner of my eye, I saw the soldier in my grasp look at me with eyes I could only perceive as sorrowful—he knew. I presumed that, in that very moment, he knew. He knew what those on the other side felt. He knew why ponies rioted in the streets. He knew who he truly fought for. Above all, he knew something that soldiers believed themselves incapable of knowing. In that one, single moment, he had experienced true, precise, merciless fear. He feared his death. He feared the docks. He even feared himself.
But most importantly, he feared me.
The soldier before me spat out a few curses before throwing his blade on the ground below my hooves. I released my grip on his partner, withdrawing my knife as I kicked him to the ground with my right hind leg. I returned my knife to my jacket pocket, slowly reaching down to pick up the blade that had been thrown at me. I walked toward the standing soldier, beckoning Luna to follow me as I went. As I calmly met his eyes, he stared at me with what I saw to be absolute hatred and anger; yet somewhere deep down, I knew he didn’t hate me. As I looked into his eyes for time unmeasured, I stopped feeling his passion and rage. As I stared into the back of his soul and he did mine, I could see no hostility or grudge. All I saw was admiration.
I opened my mouth, dropping the soldier's blade at his feet. “Keep it,” I said.
Then I walked away.
Once upon a time, there was a mare named Gaia and a stallion named Brass Hooves. Gaia, a graceful and beautiful green earth pony with a flowing brown mane, had reeled Brass Hooves in an innocent smile and a simple flutter of her eyelashes. Brass Hooves, a burly, light brown stallion with a yellow mane, made it his life’s goal to somehow court this incredible mare. He planned and plotted, wrote and recorded, paced and ran as he tried to think up ways to get her attention. But being a simple metalworker from Pegasopolis, young Brass Hooves hadn’t a clue how to win over the dame from the golden fields of Gildedale. So he did the only thing he knew how to do: he made her a gift—a simple brass flute.
When Brass Hooves brought Gaia the gift he had made her, Gaia’s friends had laughed from behind her. He had all but turned away in defeat before he felt a hoof on his shoulder. From behind her brunette locks, Gaia asked Brass Hooves to teach her how to play the flute. So he did. He played marching tunes and he played movements. He played lullabies and he played melodies. He played Gaia’s heart and he won it. Not long after he had won the mare that never knew he existed, Brass Hooves married Gaia and set up shop in Cloudsdale, the ancient capital of Pegasopolis. It was the only place that Brass Hooves knew the war would never reach. No unicorn nor earth pony could climb their way to a city in the sky without a pegasus lifting them up.
Nine months later, their first foal was born—a pearl white pegasus filly with a pastel pink mane. Gaia gave the filly the care that any mother should; however, that filly was truly her father’s. Brass Hooves treated the filly like she was his son, not his daughter. He told her everything he knew about metalworking, fighting, and drinking all before she could spell her own name. Gaia had only laughed at his excitement and naivety—Brass Hooves didn’t understand that a filly who couldn’t talk wouldn’t pick up on the correct techniques for downing shots while strengthening steel and socking someone in the face. Eventually, he calmed down, but as the filly aged, the bond between her and her father strengthened like the steel he spoke of.
When the filly was ten years old, Brass Hooves and Gaia had another foal, another filly. A blue unicorn with a light, silvery mane, they found it most appropriate to name her Luna. Brass Hooves, Gaia, their first born filly, and Luna were to live happily ever after in the impenetrable city of Cloudsdale.
But Cloudsdale wasn’t as invincible as Brass Hooves had once thought: one year after Luna’s birth, pegasi who had been bought over by the platinum crown raised unicorn after unicorn onto the darkening, storming clouds. From the outside in, they burned the city down, raiding every home they could find for loot and supplies. When the raids began, Brass Hooves had been in his shop, unaware of the terror that loomed on the horizon. When the army came into his home and took from him his wife, neither he nor his two children were to be found.
That very night, the four hundred year war ended. Pegasopolis had fallen to the ground.
It wasn’t until weeks later that Brass Hooves was finally reunited with his children by pure luck. They all had the same goal in mind: make it to Unicornia and find refuge in the country that now stood unopposed. A shattered family reunited, they eventually found their way to what they would soon call home. They didn’t live in luxury, but they didn’t starve. They made due.
Everything changed when Brass Hooves enlisted in the Unicornian Army, the very force that had taken from him his source of life and joy. He left without a word or note. He was there, then he was gone, shipped out to patrol the lands, protecting a superpower that needed more soldiers like an alley needed another whore. It was then up to his oldest filly to find work. It was then up to his oldest filly to serve as both a mother and father to her sister. It was then up to his oldest filly to protect her family.
It was then up to me to protect Luna, because I was the only pony that was going to do it.
And I was never going to fail her.
“Luna,” I said groggily, nudging her with my hoof. She made a sound that seemed to be a mixture of a yawn and groan before unconsciously swatting away my hoof and turning from me. I rolled my eyes. “Luna, it’s time to get up. We have a long day at sea ahead of us and we don’t want to miss the boat.”
Luna grumbled something incoherently, turning to stare at me like a bear woken up from hibernation. “The sun barely woke up, sis’,” she argued, looking out of the window. “The sky is all orange and grey, can’t we wait until it’s blue or something?”
“No,” I said, lightly knocking her in the back of the head. “Get up and get dressed. We’re shipping out of here in five minutes.”
“Fine,” she groaned, rising to her hooves and walking over to the other side of the building where she had kept her clothes. I took that minute I was given to sit back and stare at the inside of the dimly-lit ship hangar Luna and I had found refuge in for the night. Mold covered the inside of the wet, rotting structure that felt almost clammy to walk on. The building was humid to the point where I had to cough every other breath just to keep water from accumulating in the back of my cracking, charred lungs. I allowed my eyelids to fall slightly as I gazed in at the place my decisions had brought me.
Then, for the first time in a very long time, I smiled.
“Ready,” Luna said. I did a once-over on her figure before nodding. I stretched my legs and yawned before standing up on my hooves. I blinked my eyes and clicked my tongue a few times, getting a feel for wet, salty morning air.
As Luna and I walked out of the hangar, I once again cast my gaze upon the cargo ship from the night previous. Now crawling with lively, boisterous griffins, the ship seemed both more and less intimidating than it was when there were two Unicornian soldiers on it. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as two griffins on the bow hit their wooden mugs together, laughing as they attempted to out drink each other despite spilling most of their beer off of the side of the boat. On the stern, I saw maybe four or five griffins huddled over, one of them rolling a pair of dice while the others responded to the results with a chorus of both cheers and moans. But despite all the activity around me, my eyes locked with those of a silent grey griffin who was perched on the starboard side of the ship where the gangplank met the docks. I breathed in deeply as I approached him from below.
“Good morning,” I said, nodding to the griffin. He returned the gesture wordlessly. “I saw the lantern on your mast last night. Are you taking refugees on your ship?”
He shook his head and laughed a deep, throaty laugh. When he spoke, he spoke with a thick, coarse accent. “What are you going to do if I’m not?” he asked, looking back and forth between Luna and I. Luna backed up, hiding herself behind my forelegs. “Pull a knife on me?”
My stomach sank to the ground. “You saw that?” I asked.
“Don’t worry child, I was the only one,” he said, lifting up one of his arms to display his razor-sharp talons. “But I assure you that I’m much less afraid of you than those army rats were.”
I blew a bout of air out of my nostrils as I took a quick glance at his impressive claws. “So are you taking passengers or not?”
“I’m taking passengers, yes,” he said as he rose from his perch to stretch his wings, “but not stowaways—you’ll need to make it worth my while.”
“I can fight. That should be good enough for you.” I said.
“Pony, the way you fight will do my crew no good,” the griffin said, gliding down to my side and landing next to me. As he caught glimpse of my backside, he stopped to stare at me. “But you’re not much of a pony at all, now are you? Where’s that tattoo your species gives themselves when they get older? The one that represents their jobs. I’ve seen much younger ponies have theirs, yet you wear nothing.”
“I don’t have one,” I said as I turned my body away from him so he could only meet my face, “and I don’t need one. I don’t need any mark on my ass telling me what to do with my life. I’m free of that.”
The griffin chuckled. “And what is it that I may call you, pony with the free ass?”
“That’s not what”—I stopped to breathe and roll my eyes—“nevermind. My name is Celestia of Pegasopolis. And to whom do I owe the pleasure?”
“Vladimir of Avania,” he said, extending his claw to me. I reached out my hoof and met his. “And it is a pleasure indeed. How old are you, pony?”
“Nineteen,” I replied. I caught Vladimir’s gaze following a blue ball of fluff that had, for the past few minutes, been clutching my leg for dear life. “And my sister, Luna, is nine. I do apologize: she has a terrible, irrational fear of griffins.”
“I d-do not,” Luna said, shivering as she tightened her grip. “I’m just cold.”
“Come here, child,” Vladimir said in a soft, soothing voice. To my surprise and disbelief, Luna obeyed, slowly and cautiously detaching from my leg to make her way over to Vladimir. Vladimir simply ran his talon across her back, stroking Luna’s mane and coat. “You haven’t a thing to be afraid of.”
“Okay, Mister Griffin,” she said, resting her head against his leg.
“Here,” I said as I reached into my right pocket with my mouth, pulling out the golden flask I had stowed away in it the day before. I tossed the flask over to Vladimir, who caught it in his claws. “Will that pay for our tickets?”
Vladimir unscrewed the cap of the flask, leaning down to take a whiff of the liquid inside. His eyes shot wide open as the scent reached his nostrils. “Avanian vodka?” he asked, sniffing the bottle again to be sure. “Where did you get your pretty little hooves on this?”
“Gleeringas gave it to me,” I said. His mouth opened slightly before I continued: “I spent some time in Avania when I was learning how to fly. I knew the King for a few years.”
Vladimir brought the bottle to his beak, tipping his head back as he tested the contents of the flask. “Authentic,” he concluded, screwing the top back on. “Flask and juice together? One ride.”
“Only one?” I asked, slack jawed. “Do you have any idea how much that gold is worth? It was hoof-made by Commander Thunderhooves and passed down through the generations of my family!” I protested. “That flask is irreplaceable!”
“Definitely an irreplaceable reminder of why pegasi should quit drinkin’,” he said, holding the flask up to the light of the rising sun. “What an heirloom.”
“Why can’t we both go?” I asked.
“Look, Celestia,” Vladimir said, leaning in and bringing his voice to a whisper. “These boys have a long journey, and they need a lot of convincing to let some pony gobble up any of their food. With this,” he held up the flask, “I can do it once. But not twice. You’re going to have to choose who goes and who stays.”
There wasn’t much of a choice.
In fact, there wasn’t a choice at all.
“Luna will go,” I said, lowering my gaze to the ground before returning it to Vladimir. “To where do you sail?”
“Valtameri,” he said, standing up and pointing out northwest. “A city of traders and fisher ponies where this bay meets the western ocean. If there’s any place to house a refugee, it’s there: according to the locals, no military force has ever reached the shores.”
“So it’s on the bay?” I asked. “That must mean that I can walk there and meet back up with you. How do I get there?”
“Lass,” Vladimir began, taking a darker tone. “You don’t want to do that. There’s only one way to walk from this here port to Valtameri, and that’s through the sands of Athanasia.”
“So I have to walk a few miles in the desert?” I asked. “I don’t see the big deal.”
“The only way to go is through the scorpion’s pass,” Vladimir explained, letting out a sigh as his gaze drifted toward the horizon. “Athanasia doesn’t take kindly to visitors. There are legends about that desert, filly. Legends a little girl such as yourself don’t want to test. The sun will beat you, break you down, rip you of your life, then leave you for dead. It’ll take everything you have and wash it away in the sandstorms, never to be seen again. That trek is one you ain’t comin’ back from if you depart. There’s no makin’ it to the other side.”
“Looks like I don’t have much of a choice, now do I? I’m not staying here, and I’m not going back to the city.” I said. I made my way over to Vladimir, extending my hoof to shake with him one last time. “Take good care of Luna. If something happens to her, you’ll be wishing that you were right about me not making it out of the desert in one piece.”
Vladimir sighed and looked down to Luna before meeting me with sorrowful eyes. “Aye, I would hope for nothing less,” he said, nodding to me as he stroked my mane. “May the winds fuel your life,” he began.
“And may the skies break your chains.” I finished, returning his nod as I walked away. It was in his trust that I left the sister I had sworn to protect. It was in the arms of someone I had known for no longer than five minutes I had left her. It was in a ship that might easily topple over that I had put her on. That crucial choice, that defining moment, that painful sacrifice was the greatest testament to who I had become. It was because of that choice that, if only for a moment, I knew that I would do everything I could to make it to Valtameri alive. That was something I needed to believe right then. It was because of that choice that I had given myself strength unparalleled.
But it was also because of that choice that, as I walked away from the only family I had left, I couldn’t look my sister in the eyes.
The desert was full of sand. That’s the only way I could describe it—it was full of sand and nothing else. Although the foot of Athanasia was mere minutes from Gildedale Port, all life immediately died the moment I stepped in. I don’t remember looking back when I had first made it here. I probably didn’t. I probably didn’t look back because I was afraid that if I did, everything behind me would be gone. I’m sure that by the time I had been walking as long as I had been, everything was long gone. If I were to look behind me, I would see nothing but a golden sea. If I were to look ahead, I would see nothing but the same. I refused to turn because, if I ever did make that crucial error, I would not be able to figure out which way I had been walking.
I was lost in a world where time and direction meant nothing. There were no markers in Athanasia. No plants, no rocks, no nothing. The sun itself never set nor even moved in the sky. There was no such thing as night in the desert. I could have been walking for five hours or five weeks for all I knew. I was only one hundred percent positive of two things: I had been walking, and I had been walking in a straight line. That was all I knew. That was all I needed to know.
I was absolutely dehydrated.
I looked up briefly in the direction of the sun—which had been hanging at the top of the sky for as long as I could remember—and growled. There was nothing in this world that gave a giant ball of gas the right to demoralize me like this. It sickened me, even, how pure equine will could be trampled by something as simple as daylight. What kind of a joke was this? That no matter how far I walked, I would always feel exhausted just because I was under the sun? I held the sun in contempt; in fact, I despised the sun. It was arrogant and foolish. It abused its power. It was nothing.
Yet, despite my anger, as my thoughts drifted in and out of absurdities, I allowed myself to look inward. I could vividly picture my father in the desert, standing in front of me and staring as I walked on. I watched his image peer into my soul, ripping away at my insides without no care nor mercy. My veins tingled with electricity, my blood ran hot with fire, and my mind turned black. I remember charging at his figure. I remember my hooves meeting nothing but thin air. I remember collapsing upon the sands, exhausted.
I remember looking up and not knowing which way I had been walking.
For the first time in my life since my mother was killed, I cried. I screamed, I cried, and I pounded relentlessly at the sand. I watched as my tears fell onto the sand, staining it for no more than a second before disappearing under the scorching heat of the sun. I writhed and convulsed as my anger, my frustration, and my strife bled its way out of me. I shouted curses at all I could name. I cursed my father, I cursed the King, I cursed the army, I cursed Athanasia, and I cursed the sun. But most importantly, I cursed myself. I cursed myself for not being strong enough. I cursed myself for not being the pony I was meant to be. I cursed myself for failing the one person who relied on me. I cursed myself for my own life. I cursed myself because I felt guilt for everything that had ever happened to me and my sister, because it was my fault, I had done it. Everything that was happening to me in that desert I had earned. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it—and I deserved it.
I breathed in deeply and held that breath in my chest. In that breath, I held my fear. I held my fear of failure, my fear of the crown, and my fear of myself. In that breath, I held my anger. I held my anger toward my father, my anger toward the army, and my anger toward my fate. In that breath, I held my memories. I held my memories of Cloudsdale, my memories of my mother, and my memories of my work. In that breath, I held my love. I held my love for Luna, I held my love for craft, and I held my love for the road. In that breath, I held my entire life.
For a long while, I held that breath.
Then I let it go.
In the days after that, I just began to wander. I began to wander aimlessly in all directions and no direction at all. But I remember smiling. I remember finding the life I had somehow missed: a small scorpion, only one, scurrying about in a circle atop a small dune. I had extended my hoof down to it, allowing it to crawl around on my foreleg. I brought it to my eyes and stared. I stared at this life, this tiny, beautiful life that I would have missed had I simply blinked. I looked into the eyes of the scorpion and he looked into mine. I don’t know what his name was—or even if he had a name—but I would have liked to think his name was Brass. That is what I was to call him, but I never did. I never spoke. I simply stared, I smiled, and then I returned him to the sands from whence he came.
As my body became dry and thin, I began to take more notice to things I wouldn’t have looked at prior. I began to take notice of the different hues of sand, how they mixed with the horizon as a curved line, a blended enigma, an element of harmony. It was in this harmony that I became calm. It was in this harmony that I walked. It was in this harmony, this peace and serenity, that I truly began to open my eyes to the world around me. My entire life I had been blind, but right then, I began to see. I looked up at the sun one more time, but now, instead of contempt, I gave it my thanks. I gave the sun my adoration. In that moment, I understood: even though the sun could take away my life, I would not have lived without it. It did not hate me. It did not judge me and damn me. It simply warmed me. It warmed me and it lit my way. I thanked the sun not because I felt an obligation to, but because I now understood.
I have no concept of how much time had passed when my body became weak. My walks turned into limps, and eventually, I stopped. I simply stopped, sat, and stared into the distance. In some ironic way, I had found peace in the nothingness. I had found peace despite not knowing. I had found peace in my helplessness. I had found peace in my life, and I had found peace in this world.
With the last of my vital, scarce energy, I raised my hoof and began carving in the sand:
Life is not the product of decisions. Life is not the product of those around you. Life is not the product of society. Life is a product only of life itself. All that I know, all that I have done, has led me to here. In this breath, I forgive myself. I forgive myself for my sins and my mistakes. I forgive myself for not living up to my expectations. Under this warming sun, I am now content, because one thing remains true: with my sacrifice I have earned the crown of thorns I now wear. With my heart I have given my blood to those I love without condition. With my body I have returned to the earth what was never rightfully mine. And now, as I lay here in the hour of my life, I know of one thing only: as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
“… I fear no evil.”
I had not expected to open my eyes after I closed them last.
But when I awoke, I did not wake lightly: I awoke with a jolt and a gasp. Immediately I stood, but as I looked down, fear consumed me—there was nothing to stand on. I stared downward at an endless stretch of black, penetrated only by infinitely small, brilliant white dots. I opened my wings to try and fly, but as soon as I pushed down on them to flap, I realized that there was no resistance—there was no air for me to push. My heart pounded as trickles of sweat began to run down my face. My eyes shot back and forth as I tried to make sense of what was below me. Only then did I finally look up. Only then did I finally look in front of me.
Before me was the sun. In all of its size and glory, before me was the sun. I was standing in the presence of the sun himself. My mouth hung open, and I stopped breathing. I quickly realized that in this place, I no longer needed air.
I tried to back up, but my hooves failed me. “W-what’s this?” I asked, trembling. “Why have you brought me here?”
The sun did not answer.
“I’ve done everything I was supposed to do!” I shouted. My hooves began to twitch. “I lived and I died, that’s it. What more do you want from me? I’m finished here.”
All of a sudden, I felt the world around me collapse, yet nothing actually happened. It was only a feeling. It was only my imagination. But it felt as if I was falling, as if the proverbial ground had been ripped from beneath me, but that couldn’t be possible, because there was no ground to begin with. My mind jumping in all different directions, I could do nothing but hyperventilate. I could do nothing but hyperventilate and watch as the sun stood, never moving save for when a giant geyser of gas and energy would spit from its body. I became mesmerized by the scene, entranced by power that could annihilate entire planets without even considering it. In the world I had found myself in, I became hypnotized.
When the sun finally spoke, I did not hear his voice. I felt his voice. It was not a sound, it simply existed. It was a presence, there and then gone, booming throughout my entire mind and body. It became me. It entrapped me.
As the shrouds of darkness cover the earth beyond my reach, your world and mine converge. It is for this purpose I have called you here.
“Shrouds of darkness? Converging worlds? What are you talking about?” I asked, rising to my hooves again. “What part do I play in all of this?”
In the dark, chaos spreads where I cannot cast upon it my light. The world you know has ceased to turn, and it is now that I require a force to guide the earth into the light where I have failed to do so. You are the force I speak of.
“M-me?” I asked. “I… I can’t protect my own sister from harm, how am I to guide the world out of chaos? I don’t even know what I’m fighting against…”
You are the force that will bring light to the earth.
“You’re wrong,” I protested, casting my gaze off to the side. “I have failed more times than I have succeeded. I don’t know what darkness or chaos you speak of, but there’s nothing I can do to help you about it. I’m not the mare you’re looking for. I’m not worthy of this task. I am not strong enough for you. How would someone like me protect the entire world?”
Then, in that moment, I felt a warmth I had never experienced. I opened my eyes wide, staring into the sun with no thought or control. As he spoke into me, I could do nothing but listen.
The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. The true soul can walk the line of death without being damned. Since beginning-less time, darkness has thrived in the void, but always yields to purifying light. In the era before the unicorns, we bent not the magic around us, but the energy and light within ourselves. To bend another’s energy, your own must be devoid of all anger and shame, or you will be corrupted and destroyed. In the times where the shadows may all but consume us, we must remember that it is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.
I closed my eyes and I felt a second wave of the sun’s warmth wash over me as the world around me began to fade.
We are now bonded forever.
I gasped as I opened my eyes, staring out into the world around me. No longer was I lost in the sands of Athanasia; instead, I found myself atop the mountain peaks that looked over the Unicornian capital. I watched the city below as ponies went on with their lives, working and running, bustling and fighting, living and dying. I watched over the city from my perch upon a snowy hilltop. I watched over the the city and, for the first time since I had left Luna, I watched the sun set in the distance.
I raised my hoof to my forehead, letting out a small yelp as I felt something that wasn’t supposed to be there: a horn. In my hoof, I brought my mane in front of my eyes, gaping as I realized that my once pastel pink mane had become a multi color hue of green, pink, blue, and colors I couldn’t even name. I turned around, gazing slack jawed at my back side as I came face to face with the cutie mark I had waited nineteen years to get: the sun. I breathed out and I looked over the city once again. After a moment, I closed my eyes, reflecting on everything that I had been told. Reflecting on my life so far. Reflecting on who I was. If only for a moment, I allowed myself to think. I allowed myself to think about the pony I was going to become.
Then, without anything left to do or say, I waited.
