Memories, Memorials, Stars and Graces
Steel Compass and his son Roan sat in silence, while the campfire blazed before them. It had taken all day for Roan to follow his father up the mountain. His dad could have flown up in much less time without having to mind his son. But the large pegasi and the unicorn colt were here now. They’d just finished eating dinner, and roan was having a third cup of hot cocoa to keep warming himself up after the cold hike.
“Wanna see something cool?” Steel said. “It’s kinda why I brought you up here.”
Roan shivered a bit, but he knew if his father said it was cool, then it would be cool. “Sure, dad.”
Steel flung his saddlebags over his side and buckled them, flexing his wings. Roan picked his up with his magic, then followed his father away from the fire.
***
Steel unbuckled the largest pocket of his well-worn saddlebag, and took out a strange metal object – a triangle with a curved bottom, a telescope and mirrors welded to its side, and a series of numbers along the bottom, what looked like a trigger, and a chain that connected it to the bag.
Roan was already intrigued. He watched his father work this strange thing like he was an expert.
“You know what this is, Roan?” Steel asked.
Roan shook his head no.
“This is called a sextant. The name comes from old Equin, it means ‘a sixth.’ See this triangle part up at the top?”
Roan nodded. “It’s one of those triangles we learned about in school. Equi…lateral?” He struggled to remember the geometry he’d taken last year with Mrs. Remainder.
“Yep! What’s the angle of an equilateral triangle? It’s easy, you should know this.”
Roan knew he should, remembering how much he’d had to ask his dad for help studying for that crazy test.
“Um… sixty degrees on each corner?”
“Yep. And in a circle there’s…”
Roan’s mind jumped. “Three hundred sixty degrees! There’s be six of them! So that’s where the name comes from.”
Steel smiled and nodded. “Smart lad! Now let me show you how you use this to help you find where you are, anywhere you can see the stars.”
Roan looked up at the vastness of the sky. “You mean, *anywhere* anywhere?”
Steel chuckled. “Exactly what I said. Anywhere on this green earth, Equestria and beyond. Back when I was in the Flight Guard, I was a navigator. There’d be some of us with every group of Pegasi that went out flying, make sure the whole flight didn’t get lost.”
Roan looked enchanted. “How many places did you go, dad?”
“Oh, all over Equestria, to the Dragon Lands, Griffonstone, the Great Desert. Places beyond oceans. No landmarks, so you’ve gotta be able to figure out where you are while flying.”
“That sounds pretty hard.”
Steel chuckled. “It’s even harder when you’re doing it while on a steady up-glide above the highest cloudtops after you haven’t eaten for a day and a half.” Steel winked. “Now lemme show you how to do this. You have to get it set up for shooting stars…”
“You look for shooting stars?”
“Heh, not quite. What we’re going to be doing is measuring how far a few stars are above the horizon, and where they are in the sky. Three stars, three positions.” Steel made a few adjustments to the mirrors, looking through the telescope. Then he handed Roan the sextant. “Take a look through that telescope.”
Roan did. In the eyepiece, he could see the mountains and sky close up. In the center of the eyepiece was a bubble level.
“Okay, now what?” Roan asked.
“Now look up at the sky and find three bright stars. Press the trigger when you look at the sky, then release it once you have the star in sight. That’ll lock the compass and the angle above the horizon.”
“Got it,” Roan said. “Which star should I look for first?”
“Remember your constellations? Look for *Magus* the Wizard. The star that’s on the tip-top of his staff is called Tenebrae. It’s pretty bright, can’t miss it.”
Roan looked through the sky and found the collection of stars, the equine wizard with the three stars forming a staff before him. Roan found the star, sighted it, and pressed the trigger. There was a click. Roan looked at the sextant, and called out numbers for the compass heading and angle.
“Got it,” his father said. “Two more. Look for… Niama the Ancient Queen. Bellatrice is the bright star in her crown.”
Roan took another reading and read it off. “Great. Now find—“ Steel said as he scanned the sky “—Ara the Altar. Look for Luxoris, it’s the bright star on the right-hand side, where the fire would be on the pedestal. It’s to the west.”
After a few minutes of looking, Roan found the star and got its reading as well. “Fantastic! That’s how you shoot stars.”
“Pretty cool dad. So how do you use these numbers?
“Now here’s the second part.” Steel took out three more things from the pockets of his saddlebag: a book of charts, a protractor with straight edge, and a map of the Great Mountain Royal Park where they were hiking, also attached to the bag by chains.
“Why is everything chained to the bag?” Roan asked.
“So you don’t drop this stuff while flying.” Steel said, with a chuckle.
“Ah,” Roan said. “That would be bad.”
“Now here’s how you do it. The book is this year’s star almanac. You turn to the page for each star. It gives a number of lines for each star based on the time of night and the angle of the star. You draw the line on the map, facing north, like so.”
Roan watched as his father decoded three stellar lines, then made three pairs of dots on the map with a thick pencil and the curve of the protractor, connected them with the straight line, and made a perfect six-pointed star.
Centered right on top of where they were on the map.
Roan clapped his hooves together with delight. “That’s awesome, Dad!”
“And that’s how you know where you are, son!”
Roan looked over their work. In the corner of the map, he saw a note.
For tonight. I will always find you. – XOXO, DS. It was from his Mom, Daisy Star.
Roan looked up at his father. “Why did Mom give you this map?”
Steel looked downcast. “There’s something else I wanted to give you, Roan. Well, Mom wanted me to give it to you. He took a letter out of the bottom of his saddlebag and gave it to Roan. Roan instantly recognized his mother’s flowery writing on the envelope, his name the only word on it. “You know she’s been sick, right?”
Roan nodded. He hadn’t thought about his mother’s illness since he and his father had started the climb in the morning. But now the weight of her illness returned, and sagged upon him.
“Is…” Roan’s voice cracked. “Is mom going to…”
Steel hung his head. “I don’t know. She doesn’t. Neither do the doctors. But all we can do is keep on’ living.” He took a deep breath. “You know how your mom and I met?”
Roan nodded. “You met her at Canterlot. She was working at a library.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell you which library.”
Roan paused. “What?”
Steel sat down before his son. “You probably know from school that pegasi and unicorns haven’t always been at peace with each other. But all this—“Steel swept his hoof over the sextant, maps, and star charts, “—was one of the first things pegasi and unicorns worked together on. Unicorns had been tracking the stars for centuries, long before Equestria was unified, but they didn’t have the speed or skill needed to go exploring in hostile lands, and their magic often made other creatures afraid of them. Pegasi had the speed to go and explore far, but they didn’t have a way to go far without landmarks, and many of them had been lost out there in the wilds without a way home. Unicorns invented the sextant and charts, and showed us how to use them. We used that knowledge to help keep them safe, explore Equestria, even discover new stars.”
“Discover new stars?”
Steel nodded. “It’s something that pegasi don’t do very often. But if you go high enough and away from any sources of light on a moonless night, you can see thousands of stars, filling the sky. Even the best airships can’t fly as high as a trained pegasi. There’s higher-flying pegasi out there.”
"Like Wonderbolts?” Roan asked.
"Well, flying fast and flying high are two very different things. But don’t ever try to tell that to a Wonderbolt.” Steel and Roan both chuckled.
“So yes, we’ve been working with unicorns for the longest time,” Steel continued. “There’s a whole library of star charts in Canterlot kept by the Royal Navigation Corps. And your mom was one of the unicorn librarians there. That’s how we first met. We started talking at her desk one day, and… well, one thing led to another. And that’s how we fell in love, and got married. That’s how you got to be, Roan.”
Roan felt doubly sad now. “But I’m not a pegasi like you, Dad. And there’s a lot of days I don’t feel like a unicorn. Or even an earth pony like Grandma Sweetbread.” Roan shuddered, thinking about all those times in school where he didn’t feel like he fit in anywhere – his magic was too weird for unicorns, he couldn’t fly, and he certainly wasn’t the strongest or fastest pony. The other foals had all noticed his differences. They didn’t like differences. They didn’t like him.
“Read her letter, Roan,” Steel said.
Roan turned the letter over in his magic, sensing that there was something inside. He turned it over, broke the seal, and took out the letter.
Folded inside was his mom’s brooch. It had been a gift that he had given her for Hearth’s Warming Eve when he was six. It was in the shape of his Mother’s cutie Mark, a Daisy with wavy petals. He’d saved up a year’s allowance to commission it from a jeweler in Canterlot… with a contribution from his father.
The brooch was pinned to a letter. Roan read his mother’s script.
Roan – I’m sorry I can’t be with you this weekend. I know your heart – your heart lived in my heart and still does. You gave this to me as a sign of how much you love me. Keep it as a sign of how much I love you. You will always know your way. And I will guide you, no matter where I go or how far apart we are. All my love and memories – Mom
Roan felt his mother’s love, and his father’s embrace.
***
TWENTY YEARS LATER…
Roan Compass, now grown, looked up at the stars without number, little pinpricks of fire burning up in the heavens where – somewhere, somehow – his mother’s spirit was, still calling to him even after all these years.
He reached up with his hoof, tracing the lines of his mother’s brooch, now the clasp of his black cloak. Part flower, part star. He traced the lines of each of each daisy petal, each ray of starlight with his underhoof. Part small mortal flower, part vast immortal sun.
Something palpable, something physical, reminding him of the most important thing her son needed– that he could, and would, find his own way in the world, just as the mark on his sides foretold.
I love you, Mom, Roan whispered to himself. I hope you are proud of me.
He paused.
But… if you see Dad in his dreams tonight… well, maybe don’t let him know what I’m up to. It’s not exactly… legal.
Roan lifted the hood over his head, and looked down at the evening lights of Canterlot. While the ponies below dreamed their own dreams and remembered their own memories, he had work to do. For like his father, Roan Scales served the kingdom of Equestria, its ruling Princesses Celestia and Luna, its three tribes united as one. Earth ponies and unicorns as his mother Daisy Star came from, pegasi as his father Steel Compass came from. Each now part of a greater whole, each bound to the other. Each one’s blood in Roan.
He would play his part, too. A bubble of magic runes surrounded Roan. Confident he knew the way, Roan rose with his magic, and then vanished into the city below.
Author's Note
Thanks to vren55 for inspiring me to finally post this, the EFNW Store Competition Judges and critiques, all the writers I met at EFNW 2018 (especially AdmiralBiscuit and Level Dasher) and the BerryTube crew.
