Nepos Fidei. It's latin for Daughter Loyalty. Rainbow Dash named her daughter that. The offspring of the element of loyalty should have some rights to inherit a bit of meaning on that matter, should she not? Needless to say, a beautiful latin name can only befit a beautiful young mare. Fi is pure white. Not one bit her mother's colors. Her mane is even white. As the doctors explained, it's a very rare genetic disorder. An albino mare. Yet no blood-red eyes? No danger when waltzing about in the sun? Even on a hot day? Nepos astonished a lot of people. Rainbow Dash was worried at first, but this daughter of hers has a lot of things that makes Rainbow Dash proud to be the mother of a...well, a bastard child...
Who needs him anyway? I can raise her on my own...
Fi's own father left. Shortly after Rainbow Dash discovered she was pregnant. She ahdn't even told him yet, and he bolted. Ten years later, and he hadn't even shown his face. Nor sent word. Desptie all her hatred for him, Rainbow Dash still has a heartbroken hope sitting in the bottom of her heart, waiting for him to just...give some kind of reply. That he's even alive or existed...Fi should be his proof of existence, she's his little filly, and a strong one, fit...Amazingly beautiful. No matter how hard she tried, she coudl see enitehr his, nor her own features in Fi's own, though. It's like it's not even her child. Nonetheless, Rainbow Dash gave birth to this gem of nature. And it still brings a smile to her features even in the doubtable times.
"Hey mom.", Fi piped, looking out over the tranquil grass fields, rippling with fresh breezes.
"Yes Fi?", Rainbow Dash asked. She was enjoying the same sight. Tranquility is the best window into a relaxing state of mind. She pushed herself backwards, rolling into the cloud onto her back, placing her forehooves behind her head.
"Tell me about Dad again."
Rainbow Dash felt that same well of disappointment fill in her heart, but dismissed it. She still kept her smile, thinking her best to remember the stallion that's but a distant memory. For Fidei. "Cloud grey coat, storm cloud grey hooves. Mane as dark as a thundercloud, beautifully flowing, big wings. Twice as big as mine. Nearly as big as yours. Yours are pretty big..."
"Cloud Waltz. That's Cloud Waltz."
"That's your father alright."
"No matter how many times I hear it, it's just not enough.", Fi laid back next to her mother. "I wanna see him so bad..."
"I can't do anything about that. I don't know where he went, where he cam from. But he's your father alright."
"What if we asked Celestia?"
"The princess? I don't think she could help us. She's busy worrying about bigger things. Not finding dead beat fathers who bolted before his kid was born..."
"But it doesn't sound like he left. You did ask around for him, didn't you?"
"No one saw him leave. Not in the sky, not by magic trail. He must have snuck out professionally or something."
"What if he didn't leave?"
"Unlikely...He'd be here...he'd be taking care of you, he'd be with me...", Rainbow Dash turned her head to look over the rippling plains.
"I just can't believe he left you. Really. It doesn't sound like something he'd do."
"Well...", Rainbow Dash sighed, "He did."
Fi groaned sadly. "I'd give nearly anything to see him..."
"I'd give him a double decker hoof sandwich if I ever saw him again..."
Rainbow Dash rolled her head to the deep blue sky above, then closed her eyes, letting the pleasant warm sun become her blanket. Fi couldn't relax though. It's the relaxing time. One thing Her mother always taught her was to relax. Being lazy is alright if you have nothing to do. Napping is fine, no matter what time...But this may be the first time Fi just couldn't relax. She felt worked up, miffed. Uncomfortable as can be.
"Hey mom."
"Yes, Fi?"
"Does the sky look...closer to you?", Nepos asked.
"What?", Rainbow Dash opened one eye. Still the same expanse of blue wonder...She opened both eyes. It looked...not closer, but...deeper, more expansive. "Well, not closer, but bigger would be the best way to explain it. Never really paid attention to the blue of the sky."
Fi sighed sadly, then rolled onto her side, only to feel as if she'd nearly fallen off into one really long fall. Vertigo took her like never before! There was no land to be seen! Only the expanse of blue sky! Nepos sat up, looking over the edge of their cloud, and indeed, she did find land. Her vertigo fear was abated, but everything was so far down! They had literally been but three stories off the ground, now they're miles high! How could they even get this high so fast?
"M-mom, you need to see this.", Nepos Fidei said.
Rainbow Dash lifted her head, looking towards Fi, then the sky about them, as if confused to where she had been taken to. "What the...", she rolled onto her hooves. Over the edge, yeah, she could see land, but it was too far down. Cloudsdale was even but a spec to her view!! "Well, I'd take you sky bolting. Just right off the edge, but...this doesn't happen. How'd we get up here?", Rainbow Dash looked upwards into the deep blue expanse. Only to find a floating mass of land wrapped in clouds not too far above them. "Nepos!", rainbow Dash called. The young alabaster pegasus looked at her mother, then upwards at the same island.
"That...that should be impossible.", Fi said. She spread her wings then leapt off the cloud, climbing towards the island.
"Nepos Fidei, wait!", Rainbow Dash bolted after her.
They both landed on the lush blue-green grass of the sky island, finding a beautiful pebble of a landscape before them. Trees, water trickling in a small stream from one cloud down the rocks into another, even the rock was a different shade than rainbow Dash and Fi were sued to. Brighter. Almost white.
"Like it don't you?"
Rainbow dash and Fidei both gasped in shock, taking a few steps back from the pegasus as he backwinged onto the beautiful sky island.
"Waltz!", Rainbow Dash spat.
"W-what? That's...that's my dad??", Nepos asked, looking the stallion over. Ecstatic, worried, mixed emotions filled her. Indeed. Those colors, that beautiful mane. If Rainbow Dash were off by one detail, she wouldn't have seen it.
Waltz sighed, smiling. "It's been too long."
"Yeah, ten years of explaining douche bag!", Rainbow Dash leapt in between him and Nepos.
"Ten years I was basically imprisoned."
"Imprisoned? What? What did you do?", Rainbow Dash asked.
"I...Simply had a foal."
"A foal?", Rainbow Dash asked. "You're going to tell me that you've been imprisoned for ten years because you ahd a faol?", Rainbow Dash pressed.
"It is exactly that.", Waltz frowned. "See, it's more of a house arrest. I'm very lucky that they didn't actually throw me in a dungeon. Those places are dangerous. No, they didn't. As law of the Promised Lands is stated, anyone from the Promised Lands may not breed with anyone not from the Promised Lands. I mean, sleeping with someone from the ground, that's acceptable. But not with intentions to bear a foal."
"So...", Rainbow Dash began, "You've been gone for ten years because of that?"
"I should ahve been imprisoned for sixty eyars. Both of you will have passed by then. It's literally a protective measure against bringing those not from the Promised Lands, to the Promised Lands."
"Sixty years, you should be dead, too."
"Not me. I may look sixteen years old, but in reality, I'm thirty five...."
Rainbow Dash flinched, "You told me you were fifteen!!"
"No, I said I look fifteen."
"Whatever. So, if what you said is true, then you shouldn't even be here rigth now."
"Yes, yes. I did a lot of favors for some of my royal friends. It's great to have connections. At first, my punishment was changed. Instead of Sixty years in a prison, they'd instead let me freely roam my home land, the Promised Lands, and it would be shortened four times to fifteen years over the course of the first three years. My royal friends don't want me getting off the hook, but they have decided to repay me this way. So that I can't ask them for anything later."
Rainbow Dash scoffed, "That's royals for you."
"Royals of the Promised Lands are far better than any royal from Equestria, I assure you."
"And why would that be?", Rainbow Dash asked.
"Because it's the Promised Lands. No crime, no corruption. We exile people for doing things like that, and it's not happened in seven hundred and fifty years. Which was the previous time that someone from the Promise Lands had a foal with someone from Equestria."
"Alright. So, instead of leaving the Promised Lands, you brought us from Equestria to the Promise Lands.", Rainbow dash looekd at the small island they were on. "Is it anything like this place, because it's beautiful."
"I assure you it is much like this place.", Waltz smiled. "But this is but a small fleck of business. For one particular royal friend of mine, I had done something for him that wouldn't quite be paid off by shortening my sentence. So, I collected. With him helping em with all legalities, I convinced the court judge to allow me to bring to you and Nepos' attention that she has the ability to traverse between Equestria and the Promised Lands. The whole point was double sided. I'd get to tlel my daughter she can come see me whenever she wants...", he lifted his wing, pulling a small wrapped box from it's hiding place, "And I get to tell her happy birthday."
Nepos gasped. stifling a squee of glee as she leaped over her mother, embracing her father, "Thanks dad!", she nuzzled into his soft coat. She parted from him a split second, "Heh! Not used to that...", she said nervously.
"It's fine.", he held the gift to her. As she took it, eh continued explaining his current situation. "Unfortunately, I am still unable to go back to Equestria for another five years...I was sentenced on your birthday, so on your fifteenth, I'll throw you a party! Finally fifteen. A mare of your own."
Nepos looked the small golden feather hair pin she had pulled from the box, over. Simple. But it looked like real gold.
"It's not just a hair pin, Loyalty.", he mentioned. "I went to one of the best magical item shops in the Promised Lands and spent what had to be three year's worth of salary to buy this for you. one hundred and fifty thousand bits. Put it in your mane, and you'll see."
Nepos turned to her mother, "Would you help me, mom?"
Rainbow Dash smirked, "Sure, kid...", she took the small hair pin. It was...really small. to be honest, and this is fromt he times Rarity had put hair pins in Rainbow Dash's hair, they were about ten times as big...this was really small. Still, Rainbow Dash managed to get it in her hair. The pin flashed, then rigthed itself, producing a rather large golden feather to protrude from ehr mane. Not solid, but made like a real feather. Each separate thread was amde of gold. If that wasn't enough, her wings were definitely enough to drop a jaw. Each and every one of her flight feathers had a wonderful band of gold that covered the tip. Beautiful.
"Oh my Goddess...", Rainbow Dash gasped.
"Beautiful.", Waltz complimented.
Fi looked at her wings, amazed. "Who made this?"
"A mare that runs a magic items shop. Simply said. Most her wares are for fashion, but she's good at what she does. If you ever decide to pay me a visit, I could take you to see her. She's a good friend of mine."
"Thanks dad!", she wrapped her hooves around the grey stallion once more.
Waltz put one hoof around the young amre, "You're welcome, Loyalty."
"Uhm...How do I get to the Promised Lands?", Nepos asked.
Waltz sighed, "Unfortunately, the onyl way to get up here is by flight..."
"Oh. And how'd you do that cloud thing?", Fi asked.
"My friend did that for me. She's still flying overhead. Probably soaring on the updraft.", he looked to the small spec of a shadow flitting above.
"Waltz...", Rainbow Dash addressed him. "Since you've been gone, ahve you...found anyone else?"
"Hm? No. It'd be cheating. Couldn't do that to you."
"But you left without a word!"
"I was remove from Equestria via a twister of magic and thrown in a cell. Didn't even get to say goodbye, Couldn't give you warning, and I wasn't allowed contact until recently. The rulers of the Promised Lands are very uneasy about so much as bringing a non Promisian to the Promised Lands. They don't want history to repeat itself..."
"What did happen?", Fi asked.
"A massive thievery. Over seven hundred years ago, when we were once allowed to freely intermingle with Equestrians, a promisian had a foal that robbed the Promised Lands of one of it's greatest treasures. It's value as a historical piece is still incomprehensible. Celestia returned it fifty three years later, thankfully, but it threw the relationship the Promised Lands had with Equestria, all of it, into the abyss. I can see Equestria is not as bad as it once was. Maybe in a golden age now. But the Prophets, our leaders, they do not trust any news. They don't want to take a chance."
"And what about us?", Rainbow Dash asked.
"You're not allwoed in the Promised Lands. the Prophets still denied it. I could probably pull a last few strings and get that changed, maybe on visits from time to time. Loyalty, however, she can come and go. I don't know if anyone will take kindly to the fact that she is not from the promised lands. Nepos Fidei.", Waltz addressed the young mare, clearing hsi throat. "You are being allowed into the gates of the Promised Lands by word of your heritage and your mother. You are the daughter of the very embodiment of purest loyalty, and are only trusted because so. News tells that the elements of harmony are a trustable few, being heroines of Equestria multiple times over. Do not abuse this freedom.", waltz said sternly. "I'd hate to be separated from my own foal, again..."
Nepos looked at the ground, then nodded, "Yes, sir. I won't forget."
"Gold has been given to us, it'd be rude not to accept, and it'd be rude to accept it eagerly.", Waltz said. "We won't ever get an opportunity like this again. If one of us makes a mistake, we lsoe everything. We'll not be given a chance. Do you both understand this?"
Rainbow Dash nodded.
"Yes, daddy...", Fi chimed.
"I wasn't given a certain amount of time that I was allowed to keep you here, Rainbow Dash, but I'm guessing by the signal that my friend is giving me...it's time to go.", Waltz looked at the shadow above. "It was good seeing you again, and good to see you, finally, Loyalty.", Waltz looked to his daughter.
"So...five more years, huh?", Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, shouldn't really think too bad about it. I know Loyalty will fly here, probably on a daily basis. Maybe work up those flight muscles of hers. We can communicate now. The worst part is over, and it can only get better."
Rainbow dash smiled, then her features turned to the same blitz-filled determination look she wore when she were in pro acrobatics. "Good to see ya again, Waltz. You still owe me that drink, and that race!", she bounded to the edge of the island.
"Ten years, and you still expect me to pay up."
"Hey! Ten years later, not ten years losing!"
"Touche. I'll give you that race when I can. For right now, it's democracy and speech. What about you, Loyalty? Care to race your old stallion some day?"
"I'd love that!", Fi piped ecstatically. "Tomorrow? Noon?"
"Sure, why not?", Waltz spread his large wings. "Take flight at nine. You should be here in time."
"I'll see you then, dad.", Nepos smiled, hurrying to her mother at the edge of the island. They both dove off together.
