Cloudbound

Chapters

Mid-day Mugging
Warm Cranny
Come Fly With Me
Dawnyard
Parts of a Feather
Dining on an Incline
Polaroid Trail
White-wash Bureaucracy

Mid-day Mugging

Cloudsdale was a wondrous place.

The streets of the city were cloud highways, encompassing the heavy traffic of Manehattan and the eastern cities, and highlighting the bright lights of Las Pegasus and the west. Equestria’s capital of Canterlot also had its fair share of influence on Cloudsdale; the city was established in districts, a cumulus cake separated layer-by-layer. Every now and then, a flock of pegasi would go soaring up—provided access by one of the many crossroads strategically placed to allow transitions between the various levels—on their way to one of the many family-owned establishments, be it a quiet tavern for a mid-day drink or a grocer for the evening’s meal.

Either way, the crossroads provided Brandished Plumes ample opportunities for ponywatching.

To those that noticed the peeping pastel-periwinkle pegasus pony, they paid mind to the light articles he wore over himself: a tan vest—which was more pockets than vest—that had weathered a great deal of storms, and a wide-brimmed straw hat that appeared to be trying desperately to pull a style more refined than the sum of its parts. Brandish noted that incoming gazes were always passing, never lingering long enough to gather the same degree of detail he drew for himself. That was fine enough for the stallion, because the appeal of ponywatching was that he lived his life through others.

With a sigh, Brandish adjusted the straw stetson atop his plum mane. With the sun beating down hard on him, the need for a cool drink was forthcoming.

“Hi!”

Brandish’s gaze shot to the filly that had popped into existence beside him. “Make it a stiff one,” he muttered.

Gravity pulled the light-rose filly’s head into a tilt. “Huh?”

“Eh, nothing.” A winning smile lit his face. “Do you need something?”

“Yep; all of your bits, please!”

“I’m afraid you’ve run into a bitless pony, filly. Better luck next time.” Brandish spoke easily, holding his smile as he tilted his hat.

She made a noisy display of spittle. “Dang it, that almost always works.” Plopping herself down beside him, she rolled over onto her back to watch the crossroads alongside Brandish.

“Maybe for your father, sweetcake, but that’s because he knows how to use his brawn.”

The filly sighed. “He got caught again.”

That got the stallion’s attention. Feather Felt’s father had a truly terrible habit of approaching ponies in a less-than clandestine manner, and it often led to a great deal of time spent behind bars. His habit also had the nasty effect of turning a good stallion into a monster, and while Brandish—who had never met the pony, thankfully—knew that the pony was no foal-beater, his foal was not in a healthy environment to grow up in. Like breakfast, a pony's foalhood was the most important time of their life. Brandish had thought a long while back that Feather Felt would start to see her father more as a bad pony rather than the guardian she needed, but ever since her mother had passed, her view seemed solidified.

“And why aren’t you with him then?”

Feather Felt went silent.

Brandish leaned towards her, his mouth abruptly drier than he thought.

“Felt, sweetie? Where’s your daddy?”

“I couldn’t find him.” Felt rolled over to face Brandish with her soft emerald eyes. “I went to the station and asked to see him, but the officers looked at me like I said something funny. I sat there and waited, but then they just kept coming over to ask if I wanted to fill out a missing pony report, or if I had lost my parents.” Felt took a moment to pull herself together before continuing on through stinging tears. “Brandish, I’m scared. I don’t know where they took my daddy…”

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay.” Brandish’s hooves wrapped taut around the filly. “Listen, how about we go together to the station? I’ll make sure the adults listen to you this time.”

“Okay…”

Brandish carefully pulled his hooves through the filly’s light-yellow mane.

“Felt, trust me, no matter what happens, I’ll be here for you. Now come on, let’s go find your daddy.”

“Excuse me?”

The policemare sighed and set her clipboard down. She kept her tone towards Brandish neutral.

“Yes, how may I help you?”

“This brave little filly right here has a question to ask you, ma’am.”

With encouragement, Feather Felt managed her way onto Brandish’s back with a few swift flaps.

“We’re looking for my daddy, a grey pegasus with a dark red mane. He was supposed to be here… do you know where he is?” Felt’s voice was tentative and wracked with nervousness.

“Oh, him.” The mare paused, stuck in contemplation for a moment. “I’m sorry to say it, but they took him to Canterlot.”

“Why would they do that?” Brandish asked.

“That pony has been around the cell-block more times than I can count. He certainly isn’t the worst we’ve seen here, but considering the amount of… well, incidents he’s had… Anyways, I can’t tell you exactly why they took him there, but odds are they’re taking him to get verification that he’s actually a citizen; we had his crimes down, but no documentation he could provide. No stated residence, either.” The mare’s stern demeanor softened. “I really shouldn’t be telling you all this, or what I'm going to say next, but I think it’s going to be very hard to see your father right now, hun.”

Brandish allowed the filly some time to think to herself, but no words came to his friend. Felt’s expression showed a great internal conflict bouncing around her head; it was a pained and bitter look.

“Are you okay, Feltie?” Brandish tried desperately to hide his worry, but it was clear, and she noticed.

“What can I do?” Feather Felt pulled herself up by Brandish’s withers. “Can’t we just go to Canterlot and talk to him?”

“You could try, but it’s still likely they won’t let anypony see him. That’s all I can say, sorry.”

Acknowledging that the conversation was said and done, Brandish gave the policemare their thanks and carried Feather Felt out of the police station.

Once more on the streets, it was hard for Brandish to not let his frustrations loose on the world. He focused hard on refraining from cursing in public, especially in front of his little friend, instead processing what would come next for the duo. Brandish pondered the options he had concerning how he could help Felt; she sat quivering upon him, miserable and seemingly on the verge of tearing up once more. He hated to see the little filly cry, and her aching motions reinvigorated his urge to vent his anger. Suppressing his emotions once more, Brandish took a deep breath and readjusted his hat from where it had previously sat on the scruff of his neck.

“Feltie? Do you want me to fly us to Canterlot? I can get us there in under a day. We just have to do a little bit of packing and then—”

“No! I don’t want to go see him!”

Brandish nearly jumped in surprise. Her tone was sharp and biting, and it became obvious that she was shaking out of rage rather than sadness.

“Sweetie, are you—?”

“I want to go see my mom,” Felt whispered breathily.

His options were quickly waning; Brandish wasn’t the pony readily prepared to face the mental onslaught that Felt had given him to overcome.

“Your mother… is… she’s… ”

Feather Felt blossomed forth with purpose.

“Alive. She’s alive. Daddy told me. Daddy told me that I couldn’t tell anypony that she was alive, and that if anypony asked about her that I tell them that she was dead. He wouldn’t tell me where she is, and not even what her name was. I don’t remember what she looked like, but I remember feeling her holding me when I was born. I don’t know where she went, or where we lived. I always thought I was born in Cloudsdale, but daddy told me yesterday that we used to live in a better place. A smaller place. A quieter place. A place where we didn’t have to worry about money, just about enjoying our lives. He told me that it was her fault that we couldn’t be a proper and happy family, because she wanted us to move to Cloudsdale and he wanted to stay where we were. Daddy told me that he was going to ‘fix things' today.”

Shuddering, Feather Felt slipped from Brandish’s back and stood before him.

“Daddy always tells me that ‘if you want a job done right, you do it yourself.’” Felt blinked, sniffled, and took a resolute step forward as she stood on the tips of her hooves to look up. “Can we go find my mom?”

Staring at the filly, Brandish’s chest swelled with pride. He sat on his haunches and opened his hooves up; Felt slammed into his chest, and he took her sobbing body in with quiet and warm affection.

“You never had to ask.”

Author's Note

With writing heavily inspired by kudzuhaiku's style and associated works, I present to you my own kind of weed. Not really sure how this one is going to play out, but either way, I hope you will stick around!

Warm Cranny

“You did great, Felt!”

Feather Felt alighted huffing and puffing. Quick on the uptake, she rose to her hooves and let loose a weak, yet booming, whoop of joy.

“Take pride in it, Feltie, threading the Cloudsdale highways on your own like that is nothing to scoff at. You’ll get better at that in practice.” He couldn’t help but smile, and soon enough Brandish’s infectious grin wove its way onto Felt’s visage.

“Aw, come on! You were in front of me the whole time!”

“I really mean that, so don’t downplay it, or else!” he replied with a throaty laugh.

Brandish continued to lead the filly to his home. The alley was a cramped, but well-lit space, though there was much less to be said about the dampness emanating from the cloudwall of a neighboring restaurant. When he had been a wee colt, Brandish had struck out on his own in Cloudsdale to find himself a place to live, and while his homes—be it alleys like this one or quiet avenues by the weather factory—were always a bit of a stuffy place to live, he tried his hardest to make them as comfortable as possible. He took a corner and stopped before the entrance to his home.

Passing the fortress of scavenged tarpaulin—which he strategically employed to keep the heat in on the cooler Equestrian nights—the duo entered the alley-nook home of a vagrant. A glance behind him told Brandish that he’d made an impression, judging by the look of awe adorning Felt’s face.

“You live here?” she squeaked.

“Sure do.” Brandish sighed. “It isn’t much, but it’s home.”

“Are you kidding?” Felt rushed over to his cot and jumped up onto the worn mattress, her hooves gesturing all around. “It’s so much more roomy than the place that me and… and my dad have.”

“Alright Feltie, that’s enough. Buck up and stay with me, we have a mission to do, after all.”

Felt was back to her normal self at Brandish’s command. She puffed up and held a mock salute from her position by the ‘head’ of his ‘bed.’

“Aye aye, cap’n!” Her mimicry dropped with her hoof. “How can I help?”

“Grab my savings, if you would. They’re in my saddlebags over there. There are some other things too, actually… You know what? Forget what I said, just take the whole bag with you.”

His message got through, though he suspected most of his rambling had been ignored in favor a more exciting prospect.

“Oh my gosh, you do have saddlebags!”

“Ha, you know I’m not one to boast lightly, Feltie.”

Knowing that she would struggle to lift the bag—a few personal amenities were stashed away in their depths, just like he'd said—Brandish plodded over to a locker that he’d spent a long time hauling in his life.

After years of towing it around from cranny-to-nook, the battered antique had lost the red sheen it held from the time it had been his school locker, now adopting an existence as a dull grey box marred with scratches and weathering. He cracked it open, heart aching as he realized this would likely be the last time he saw it; he knew a few ‘friends’ that would be dropping by someday soon, and once they knew that he had left the city they would no doubt take claim to everything there. Just as quickly as the ache had come however, Brandish smirked; he realized he had no use for anything left behind, but others would. At least he would have some way to give back to the city he'd been born in… even if it was giving to ponies who shared his lifestyle.

“Hngh! Brandish, it’s too heavy!”

He risked losing concentration by peeling away to prod her onward.

“You can do it, Felt! I believe in you!”

“And I believe that this thing is too! Darn! Heavy!”

Once Felt had redoubled her attempts to pry the bags from the ground—her wings cutting viciously through the air—Brandish sped up his collection. A vast array of trinkets were retrieved and pocketed: a pocketknife he’d swindled from a bully at the orphanage, his lucky bit—incidentally the first bit he’d ever earned on his own—a dwindling pack of gum that a kind mare had given to him a month ago, and of course, the photos and the camera. Brandish swiftly distributed them among the six pockets on his vest, allowing the camera to rest around his neck.

A loud ‘woosh’ caused his ears to twitch.

“Pwah! Haha… pft… I did it!”

Brandish whirled around, eyes wide.

“You did!” he cried out just as enthusiastically. “Now quick, zip over here and plop those on my back. Don’t hurt yourself, now!”

The two met halfway, and with a pleasant laugh of relief, Felt added to the weight on Brandish’s back.

“I’m pooped,” she groaned.

Her moment was fleeting; in contrast to her previous display of exasperation, Felt popped up.

“Brandish, I have a question.”

He set her down on the ground with his wings. “Shoot!”

“Why do you have a book about the ‘Ana… tomy of Bird Wings?’ And this book about… mane styles? I think? I don’t know, it says ‘Manes, Tails, and You,’ so I guess it’s about all of them.”

Brandish raised a brow at the filly; he hadn’t expected her to go through his bags, but he couldn’t say he was too nonplussed… she was a filly, after all. The fact that she was eleven-years-old didn’t really matter. The subject matter had him brighten up in an instant.

“It has to do with my cutie mark, see?” He shifted to the side so she could see his cutie mark—a green violetear zipping through an open pair of cutting-shears. “I ended up getting my mark from doing the orphanage headmaster’s mane; she looked awful pretty with red ribbons, I’ll say that. I used to do the manes of the fillies when I went to school, and it was at that point I decided I really wanted to learn how to be a better mane stylist. Though, I never did get to do their tails… I don’t know why, they just never let me get close.”

Felt let out a giggle at Brandish’s ‘naivety.’ Brandish was all too glad to play the part.

“What about the bird wings book?”

“Well… you see, I was a pioneer.”

Felt made an ‘ooh’ and snuck closer.

“Not a lot of pegasi dress up their wings, we always slip ‘em through our clothes—” he flexed his wings from the vest “—and the like, but I felt it in myself that there was a need to 'get privy with wings!' So I went to studying, figuring out how I could optimally sparkle up a pony’s wings without getting in the way of flight. A few years later, I’d found a lot of ponies willing to try it, and for the opportunities I was given, I gathered myself a pretty little pile of experience on how best to work on wings.” A breathy sigh ended his tirade. “But ever since I dropped out of school and left the orphanage, I haven’t really had much of a chance to work with my cutie mark.”

Amused, Brandish’s audience-of-one clapped her hooves together cheerfully. “Wow! That’s so cool!” Felt dropped her forelegs as she diverted. “But I still say that dropping out was wrong. I don’t get to go to school… because of daddy. You always make it sound great.”

Brandish's stomach dropped; he hadn't intended to demotivate her, he just felt that inflating the school's ego was the best way to get the point across that going to school was more fun than loitering in the orphanage.

“When we find your mom, we can fix that right up.”

Felt returned Brandish’s beam with a much more diluted one.

Suddenly, inspiration was at hoof.

“Say, hold my thought for a second. Open up the right bag.”

Felt nodded and trot up to Brandish to fulfill the order.

“Check that bag-in-the-bag for me. And open it, too.”

A moment passed as she fumbled with the zipped velvet pouch. Undoing the seal, Felt’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she could shake herself from her trance. Sneaking a hoof into the bag, she fiddled out a selection from one of many choices; in her hooves, a tight spool of turquoise ribbon appeared. To her, it was a mystical artifact of immense value, but to Brandish, a sight for sore eyes.

“Can you… do me?”

Smiling, Brandish slid his bags from his back. “Of course, Feltie.”

Taking the spool from Felt, he had her sit down with her back to him. The pocketknife flicked open with a faint click as Brandish expertly cut a precise proportion for the filly. As he reached for her mane, she too reached, but with a hoof meant to stop him.

“Can you do my wings, Brandish?”

His heart pounded in his chest. “R-really? I haven’t done it in ages, Feltie. I might... not be so good…”

“You said it yourself,” she began with a broad smile. “You’re a pioneer. You’re the master of your field… I trust you.”

It was hard to focus with tear-filled eyes.

Wiping his face dry, Brandish shook the shakes from his hooves and reached for the spool once more.

“This blue is the perfect color for you, Feltie… You might as well be a master your own self.”

And the flash from her flanks told Brandish that somepony out there thought so, too.

Come Fly With Me

Call him blind, but Brandished had never seen somepony as excited as the pink bundle of energy known as Feather Felt. He took it in stride however, making sure to flaunt the newly marked filly to every pedestrian they passed. Not that her excited blabbering couldn't be heard for miles a around, but more of the fact that Brandish wanted to feel involved.

In truth, if that were his sole line of reasoning, Brandish would be a dirty liar; the trailing blue ribbons on both of Felt's wings were evidence enough that he had been there. Whirling and twirling the filly went, mouth endlessly in motion and wings constantly fluttering.

“Seriously though, what do you think it means?!”

Where many fillies had pulled their rumps away from him in the past, Brandish was subject to the invasion of the flank kind under Felt's will. Of course, like the gentlestallion he was, he leaned closer to scan the mark again; after all, she had asked, and it was rude to keep a filly waiting.

Brandish's initial remark at the time of the mark's conception had been an eloquent ‘Yep,’ but with time to think and a better view of the mark, his conclusions were slowly yet surely surmounting. Felt's cutie mark had the first piece of turquoise ribbon that Brandish had cut for her, but it was simply the top of a stack of an identical rainbow of ribbons, all of which were neatly centered below a simplified color wheel. It didn’t take too much for Brandish to convince himself that it was most certainly the mark of a true artisan pony; bordering the implication that Brandish had made moments before the mark's arrival, he decided that the mark's meaning was a pretty clear cut case.

“I meant what I said, Felt. You're great with colors,” he reasserted.

“But it's gotta be more than that!”

Brandish gave Felt a chaste little pat on the plot—she was fast to pull away from invasive transgression—and put on another trademark smile. He even decided to throw in a light shrug for emphasis.

“I would take solace in the simple things, Feltie. For instance, me being here with you for this. It's a very special moment in a pony's life.”

“Getting my cutie mark isn't 'simple,’” Felt pouted.

“But being there was. All I had to do was pull you on over to my little nook, get you to open my bags, and then bam! Cutie mark!” Brandish waggled his eyebrows at her. “You better remember that when you're big; don't forget the small ponies who helped get you to where you are now.”

Felt tittered for a moment, the sound fading as quickly as it had come. She wordlessly turned to completely face Brandish—who had already come to a confused stop—then latched onto his foreleg with as big a wing-hug she could muster. Slightly flabbergasted, but not wishing to ruin the tender moment for the filly, Brandish wrapped his wings around her.

“Thank you,” Felt hushed softer than a breezie. “For everything.”

Brandish squeezed Felt and brought her closer, blissfully ignorant of the crowd of ponies that swerved around them. A breath filled his lungs—a desire to crack a joke—but in a fierce display of will, he swallowed his words; for as long as she wanted to be held, Brandish would provide her fulfillment, and he would do so quietly. Of its own volition, his free foreleg found itself providing a halcyonic touch as it guided itself along Felt's withers.

“We should go,” Felt started after an indeterminate amount of time.

As they pulled back, Brandish eyed Celestia's dropping sun; orange and red beams crossed the threshold of the horizon, no doubt ready to blast any soaring pegasus with the reminder that visibility would begin fading as day became night. It was as sign that the evening hour was almost upon the city of Cloudsdale, and just enough light was left in the sky for one last soaring flight. The thought of teaching Felt about the various updrafts that wound around the city’s edge brought mirth to Brandish’s face. Before that could happen though, the bright filly had to get home; Brandish gave Felt a feathery salute.

“Lead the way, cap'n.”

Feather Felt's home was more fractured fissure than comfortable cranny. Refuse was strewn about every which way, and the closest that the shared quarters had to a bed was the pile of sprawled out papers that had tarred and grown sticky from laying on the sweltering skycrete ground for so long. Brandish could tell the filly and the father's sides apart from each other with incredible distinction despite the atrocious conditions; Felt at least had some personal belongings in the form of a greasy oak dresser that looked as if it had lived several lifetimes in the same decrepit body. The whole environment made Brandish feel very lucky for what he had found… and been given.

“Yeah, I know it’s… bad.”

An acrid stench found its way into Brandish’s nose. “Ooo yeah, very much so.”

Feather Felt snorted. “I’m going to grab my things, m’kay? So you stay right where you are, mister!”

Brandished Plumes gave her an absent minded nod as he was still preoccupied; ever since her hug in the middle of the street, he'd had the sense that something more colored the filly’s family history than what she had let him in on. Then again, she had seemed out of the loop herself; she had said her father had only told him her mother was still alive a day prior. What other secrets had the stallion kept from her? And more importantly, what was Felt hiding her own self?

Over the past few years, Felt and Brandish had increasingly come to know one another as friends. When she had been a simple acquaintance—another ‘rat’ in the clouds—Brandish had done his proper best to ensure that she wasn’t uncomfortable around him. They met briefly on the daily to talk, but never more than an hour at most; Felt’s father was a demanding sort, and it took all hooves on deck to get food put on the proverbial table. Every now and then, Brandish would pull a sliver of information from a crack on the surface of the filly’s furry shell, and most of the time he would find himself displeased with his discovery. A long time back, far before even Felt’s life, Brandish had given up on his habitual curiosities in the world; he had always felt a twinge of guilt in his bones whenever he dug too deep into a stranger’s life. The orphanage taught him some lessons that school could not provide, and keeping to yourself was an unforgettable one.

She’s your friend, a voice in his head said. You need to talk to her; both of you need to let the past out. It was the healthiest solution, but medicine was almost always a bitter pill to swallow.

“I’ll give her a night,” Brandish said quietly to himself.

No, no! a new voice piped up with vigor. Get this done here and now! You go make it up to her right after this. See about getting her a good night’s rest. Or… you could do both. Both is good.

His lip twitched. An idea had been brewed, and it was just about ready to pour.

“Feltie, how would you like to sleep in a real bed?”

She zipped up to him and planted her muzzle on his face. “Yes! Yes a million!” Felt’s enthusiasm faltered. “But where are you going to find one?”

“I know a nice little motel I used to stay in. I’m sure the owner will set us up real pretty.” Brandish ruffled Felt’s mane. “Anyway, that’ll be your parting treat before we leave Cloudsdale… but you’re going to need to answer a question for me, okay Feltie?”

“Mhm, easy!” Felt plopped herself down on the bed of newspapers. “Okay, what’s your question?”

Brandish took a breath and a passing second to adjust himself. Settling down on the ground where he stood, he reached for his hat and pulled it completely off. Brandish sized Felt up before slipping the straw stetson over her mane.

“Why do you really want to go find your mom, Feather?” he asked as they slid apart.

She hesitated. Brandish saw through her faintly veiled facade, but he kept up his piercing gaze.

“I really need to know this before I do anything else, Feather Felt. I can help you find your mom, but I need to know what really is going on between you and your dad before I take you any further, because I don’t believe what you said about yesterday was the whole truth.”

Felt’s ears flattened against the sides of her head. “I’m sorry, Brandished… I didn’t want you… to know.” She sniffled. “I thought that you wouldn’t help me if I didn’t say the things I said.”

“Feather,” Brandish croaked, “it’s okay. I'm still going to help you. What did he tell you?”

Silence answered him. He allowed the quiet to sift through the memories in Felt’s mind for the most vivid images. Simmering, his own thoughts bubbled in broth.

“He said that he wasn’t my dad.”

With her words, it was as if a coiled spring had finally let its tension loose.

“He told me that I would have been worse off without my mom’s second marriage. He said that the reason me and him are here in Cloudsdale and mom isn’t is because he ran away with me, because ‘life would be better off with a single dad than with her.’” Another pause formed briefly. “I didn’t want to tell him that I thought he was a bad dad, but he said it himself. He told me that our savings had run out faster than he could find a job, and that he had ‘no choice but to start doing bad things.’ Then he told me about my mom, and said that… he said that no matter what had happened or what would happen, he would still be better than her.”

“And do you believe him?”

“I… I don’t know.” Felt frowned deeply. “I still don’t know who she is, and if he’s right then I don’t know what would happen. But…” Suddenly, she stood with a hearty stomp on the ground. “But I want to find out! Because… because even if my mom’s badder than my dad, it’ll be the same fresh start he always told me about when I was a foal! And I just want to have somepony… some… somepony to love! To hug me and read me bedtime stories like dad used to! To make me breakfast and let me go to school! T-to let me go see the Wonderbolts and Canterlot! To… to… to… to love me.”

“Feltie?”

The quivering feather sniffled. “Y-yeah?”

“You are a very, very, incredibly brave filly…”

“Mm… mhm…”

“Thank you for your honesty, Feather Felt.” Brandish gently wiped one of her tears away. “Do you feel better now that you’ve told me the truth?”

“A-a lot.”

“Good.” A swift squeeze of his wings fluffed up Felt’s feathers. “Would you like to know what my flight instructor always told us was the best way to relax?”

She nodded. “P-please.”

It took a little bit of time to find what he was looking for, but Brandish managed to retrieve what he needed. “What do you see here, Feltie?”

A twinkling glow of bliss split across her face. “Cloudsdale.”

The film of polaroid had been carefully maintained despite the signs of age on its fringes. Brandish remembered the conditions that the photo had been taken in by heart; it had been a cool spring evening, the cold brought on by the scheduled rains. The weather teams had just begun to clear away the final storms as Brandish emerged from the store with the camera clasped tightly in his hooves. Fluttering up to rest on the awning, he had rested the camera on one of the metal poles and centered his frame on the cityscape of the districts below him. Multiple rainbows spat over the cloud city, and with a sharp click, the colt had let go of the breath he’d been holding.

“This is the first photograph I ever took. The place I took it from isn’t too far from here.”

Somehow, Brandish could tell that Felt was listening far more intently than before.

“My flight instructor used to tell us that riding thermals was the greatest way for a pegasus to relax, and I can tell you right now that it is one of the best things you will ever experience in the sky. Down by the place I took that photo, the strongest thermals always show up a little higher in the sky; I know those thermals by heart, and I’d love for you to fly with me through some genuine Brandished Plumes history.”

Brandish’s heart was pounding in his chest as he tried his hardest to gauge Felt’s expression.

Much to his relief, she put on a lithe smile. “That sounds nice... Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. Now, we’d better hurry on; I don’t want us to be flying out and about in the dark…”

Dawnyard

The motel was located in a conglomerated cloud district that was strictly off the books. It was just far enough within the city limits to be designated as part of Cloudsdale, but city services were lacking in the outer-zone that the locals called Dawnyard. Suffice to say, the distance from Cloudsdale authorities was enough to dissuade tourists from approaching while allowing the more rugged of pegasi to ferment and fester; a place for the scum of the sky to make their deals and lay down low.

Nonetheless, it was a place surrounded in natural beauty.

Felt munched quietly on the breakfast that the motel-owner had brought out to them, but her heart remained pounding from the early morning flight that she’d taken; an urge had overtaken her when she’d awoken. Felt had slipped from the room that she and Brandish shared with nary a sound to take to the skies. The perky pegasus had been all too right about the thermals, and she realized with some trepidation that she was a thermal pegasus now, and flying would never be the same; that idea made her all the more excited about the prospect of traveling Equestria, seeking out the thermal passages to carry her with ease across the miles of land below.

Brandish slathered a hefty slab of butter onto his toast. “Feltie, I’m gonna say it again because it’s on my mind… but I’m not sure you should be having coffee.”

“Dad let me drink it all the time,” Felt pouted.

“Well, it’s not that I have a problem with you drinking coffee, it’s just that your body might decide to... have you take an impromptu nap.”

Felt blinked.

“Mid-flight.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, very much ‘oh.’ An ‘oh no,’ in fact.” He raised his mug. “That’s why I’ve got myself a good cup of orange juice; I’ll still end up needing to take a potty break, but that’s a whole lot better than dropping thousands of hooves up in the sky and breaking more than I want to. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover together, and I’d rather not have you face a near-death experience before noon.”

With a playful sigh, Felt set her forlorn drink to the side. “Okay, dad.”

Brandish fussed over her back with a wing before focusing on his own meal.

It had been a long time since she’d thought about him in that way, but Felt really could see herself calling Brandish ‘dad.’ She knew that he would always view her as a little sister, but after years of absorbing the world alongside him—no matter how miniscule the information she brought back from Brandish was—Felt was compelled to show her appreciation for the pegasus at every turn. Sitting there on the edge of the clouds that provided one of the legendary Dawnyard overlooks had been something she’d expected to be calming, but all Felt could think about was the fact that Brandish was going to take her to home. Words of thanks and affection for the pegasus breached her mind once more, but the filly chastised herself; she was an adventurer now, and there would be no time for reprieve once they left the Cloudsdale limits.

“Brandish, where are we going first?”

“Canterlot.”

Felt’s heart rate spiked in worry. “Wait, but my dad is—”

“We’ll only go try to see your dad if you want to. My thinking here is that your mom had to have put you down on the books at some point. That’s what I’m taking from what you’ve told me, assuming that your parents weren’t homeless before. So what we really to go to Canterlot for is to check some records out for you. ”

“But Cloudsdale has its own offices… and stuff.”

There was a rancorous laugh that shook Felt pretty. “Feltie, Cloudsdale bureaucrats can do a lot of things, but let me be the first to tell you that keeping track of their ponies is not their priority in the slightest. Now on the other hoof, keeping the Equestrian Weather Bureau’s coffers overflowing with bits? You bet your tail feathers they can do that.”

She couldn’t see much humor in the fact that the government couldn’t take care of their own ponies, but Felt smiled all the same.

“Do you think we could maybe… do a tour?”

“Anywhere. No matter where, no matter when, we can go around and explore. In fact, I’ll let you choose our flight plans when we leave Canterlot. How about that?”

Felt’s eyes widened. “Anywhere?”

“As long as we’re getting closer and closer to your mom, Feltie.” Brandish’s eyes softened. “I want to go see how the world’s been faring my own self, but I need you to keep your eyes on the prize. You’re still the bravest filly I know, but sometimes brave fillies have to make hard decisions.”

Felt mulled over the thought a moment. Brandish could visibly see the gears churning; the concentration on her features brought some sun to his heart.

“But… after we find my mom, you’ll go explore with me more, right?”

This was a conversation that Brandish had been dreading the appearance of. He swallowed his pride and toned up his optimism; there was a nagging feeling that he was going to need it.

“That… depends. I have a good feeling that your mom is going to be a nice mare, Feltie… you’d be better off with her than wandering with me.”

“So you’re just going to leave?”

“It’s… there’s more to it than that.”

“But we’ve lived in Cloudsdale all our life, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“So the moment you get to leave, you want to go right back?”

He froze; Felt had him there.

“I… I won’t lie to you, Felt.” A shuddering breath entered and left Brandish’s chest in one fluid motion. “That’s exactly what I’d do. I was born here and I know everything about this place. I’m comfortable here, and there’s no place... I’d rather... be.”

She crossed her hooves. “That sounds an awful lot more like you don’t know where else to go. You told me that, you know? That sometimes we’re where we are not because of what we’ve done, but because of how things turned out. I think you’re stuck in Cloudsdale because you want to be stuck here.”

“Feather…” Another sound left him, a whinny of sorts, but he couldn’t place his hoof on why he was unable to keep talking. His emotions told him that he was becoming irritated, but his body betrayed a more meek disposition.

“Dad said the same thing all the time; the thing about there ‘being more.’ Because you used to tell me about how much you wanted to leave Cloudsdale, and now you won’t tell me why you want to stay.” Felt sighed and uncrossed her hooves. “Please, Brandish… can’t you just tell me why?”

His mouth cracked open.

“And don’t tell me about how hard it is to talk about. Just… say it.”

A glob of hesitation slipped down Brandish’s throat. Once more he eyed up the filly, wondering just how much he’d underestimated her development over the years. Here she was before him, prodding at his defenses and seeing just how far she could go before he buckled under the pressure. It was a strange and nauseating feeling; usually, he was the one to convince ponies to open up, but all it had taken to bare his soul to the world was one Feather Felt and a basket full of truth.

With their breakfast long forgotten, Brandished Plumes spoke.

“I wasn’t too much older than you when I got my first job.” He shuffled from his awkward position on the cloud to a more comfortable posture. “I wanted to get better at styling, and I figured that if classes weren’t within reach, then the next best thing was getting some books to read. My first paycheck went towards those books… not the ones I have now, because I had to start selling most of the ones I’d read; I used to live in a small apartment with a few others from the orphanage, and while it was certainly better than living in an alley, rent was expensive. Those ponies I lived with… they weren’t very nice. I figured that I would be able to hold out, and eventually I’d get a better job over delivering baked goods and get a place of my own to live. A few months after living with them, they decided I’d worked my flank off enough, and decided to… do it.”

Memories came flooding back to Brandish, incandescently vivid, and unfortunately clear.

“Those ponies robbed me blind, Feather. Took everything I owned and just disappeared. I sat outside in the dark for hours until the sun rose, and when it finally did, the police had me hobble off with them. I thought they would help me, I really did. They put me in the holding cell, locked up for the night, and left me waiting. And I did. I spent two weeks in there—eventually they moved me to a cell—and told me they were still working things out; the place I had been working at had been robbed that night, and the owner had told the police that I was a primary suspect. It was a degrading month, and by the time they released me, I was a pony free of any charges, but everything wasn’t the same. Nopony would take my hooves after that, because every shop-pony had heard about the ‘colt who got away with the perfect crime.’ Nopony reached a hoof out to help me, so I turned my own back on them.”

He straightened himself, and peered down at Feather Felt.

“So if you wanted to know why I haven’t left Cloudsdale… it’s because I know what to expect from this place. I already know where to eat, drink, breathe, sleep. Life is routine, and I enjoy the routine. Even then, everypony’s forgotten about me and my past, and I could start over at any moment. I’ve had years to perfect life out here, and I’ve got it down to an art. I’m free in Cloudsdale.”

The filly’s eyes lit with a hot and unquenchable fire. “But… you’re not. You said it yourself; they put you in jail, and you stuck around your jailers even after they let you free. You’re not free, Brandished… you’re scared.” Felt licked her lips. “Scared that things might be worse out there. Remember when you told me about the griffons? Or the minotaurs? About the cows and the Saddle Arabians? You know so much about the world, but you don’t want to go see it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go see it, it’s that I refuse to live in it,” he strained.

“But you’re still here. We’re still on the same world, and we always have and will be. Can I just ask you to stay with me, please? We can live together: you, me, and mom.” Feather Felt gave Brandish a lingering smile and pressed her hoof gently to his chest. “You gave your trust to my mom, and I’m keeping my trust with you, okay?”

It had been an unfathomable amount of time, but Brandish once more found himself accepting the hoof of another pony.

“Okay,” he whispered. He wrapped his hoof tight around Felt’s own. “Okay…”

Felt squeezed his hoof in reply. “My dad taught me a trick to make a coffee that makes you ‘stronger, and lighter.’ Do you think maybe if I showed you how to make it, that I could persuade you to let me drink some coffee before we go?”

At this point, Brandish could only feel like Felt had just strong-armed him into letting her drink a mug of caffeine beyond a normal filly’s capacity. He let out a weak, yet guttural laugh.

“S-sure, Feltie. And you know what? Maybe I’ll have some, too.”

Author's Note

Time to hit the road.

Parts of a Feather

Cloudsdale was Equestria’s floating city, and unsurprisingly, there was more to the place than the clouds that formed its highways. The monument towered over the horizon in the distance, a small speck among the marbles of mountains and valleys. Brandish returned his focus to the clouds ahead and considered the reality of just how much he had overestimated; it had now been over a full day cycle since they’d left Cloudsdale. Yeah... I messed up. Woops.

Brandish was too sheepish to admit to the filly that he had never really considered the fact the cloud city was always on the move. He flexed his wings and sighed wistfully, trapped in a daydream of cramped cubbies and warm summer days. The princess’ sun was hot on their tails, and all they could do was keep flapping; he willed desperately for the crest of Canterlot to inch closer to them, but the stubborn mountain-horn refused to budge. It was so far off, yet it was close enough to risk his annoyed ire.

“Brandish? My wings are starting to hurt again.”

Slowing himself, Brandish matched speed with Feather. “You sure? We just took a break about half an hour ago.” As much as he wanted to help the filly by all means, Brandish acknowledged that their supplies would not last if they took too long to get to the capital; he had hooked himself and Feather up with a couple of days worth of food and water, but with the rate that they were flying, the lifetime of their caravan was dwindling.

“Yes!” she moaned. “Please please please, can we go down? It's really starting to hurt!”

Something felt off about her cry. Brandish wasn’t about to take any chances, because a fragile filly was a fretful filly, and that wasn’t going to get them to Canterlot any faster. Before Feather could say much else, Brandish slipped underneath her and begun their descent with care.

But their glide was short-lived; there was a meaty ‘thwump’ against the stallion’s back accompanied by a sudden loss of altitude.

“You okay, Feltie?” Brandish called back to the new package adorning his back.

“Mm… no...”

Brows furrowed, Brandished Plumes tried to focus on getting out of the air as quickly and as safely as possible, but his mind strayed. We’ve still got a good tailwind and we’re on easy thermals, how can she be hurting this bad?

“Alrighty, just hang tight…”

Feather Felt watched the stallion as he carefully prickled over her wings. She felt a blush creeping on her cheeks as the silence continued; Brandished had been looming over her for the past five minutes, and the embarrassment of being fawned over was getting to her. She shuffled her wings uncomfortably.

“They hurt still?” Brandish asked as he took a closer look at one of her primaries.

A soft mumble emerged. “Y-yeah."

“Hmph. Well, in that case…” Brandish stepped away and readjusted his vest. “You’ve been working those wings way too hard, lil’ filly. If I could see your father right now, we’d have a solid talk on our hooves about getting you some proper practice. I thought it was a bit odd that you were flapping so hard to stay up, but I can see now that it isn’t your fault... entirely.” He spoke with the tone one would use to chastise a foal, and it made Feather Felt’s rosy blush deepen.

“You make it look easy, though!”

Ah, I get it now. "Feltie, you don’t need to impress me. I can tell you right now that you definitely don’t need to be flapping that hard to glide on intervals, just enough at the correct intervals to keep you up; in other words, I can tell that you were just trying to go fast. Now, like I said, it isn’t entirely your fault that you’re flying the way you are, but there’s no need to try and keep up with my speed; if you want to slow down, all you have to do was ask.”

She deflated at his remarks. “But… we have to get to Canterlot fast, right?”

“We’re not in that big of a rush, and I'm sure the record-keepers aren't going anywhere. My worry is getting a tender filly named Feather to town before we run out of snacks, and hurting yourself trying to stick with me is just going to slow us down. Now with that behind us, let’s talk about stretching.”

“Stretching?”

“Celestia, no… ’ope, sorry, kinda let that one slip.” Brandish cleared his throat. “Your daddy never taught you about stretching your wings?”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that?” Feather cringed as she saw a frown materialize before her. “Whenever I try, it always hurts. So I… just… never did?” She stared.

A loud pop cracked off and Brandished stood. “Wooph, that was a good one!”

Brandish smiled at the stunned filly, relishing in the fact that he was being sized up. She stood there with a blatant awed look on her face, ever-so slowly drifting into a contorted grimace that rebounded in the painful sound that Brandish had just made with his pony-parts. Despite how amusing it was to watch Feather squirm over such a monotonous and everyday ordeal, Brandish did have to reaffirm his stance so that she understood that stretching was a very nice thing.

“Whaddya think? That was good, right?”

“That was wrong.” Feather Felt made a face and thwacked Brandish lightly. “Bad Brandish.”

“Aw, don’t be like that now. Trust me, it feels absolutely great! And it’s very important.”

“Why is it important?”

“So you don’t end up hurting yourself by being silly, filly of silly!” Brandished crouched down into another stance. “I’m sure you at least stretch your hooves, right?”

Feather nodded. “Yeah, but with wings it’s—”

“It’s no different, that’s what!” If Feather was upset about being interrupted, she didn’t show it, so Brandish continued. “You gotta treat all your pony-parts with respect, because most of them you’ll only have one life to spend with, and you have to make that lifetime count!”

“Um, I’m not sure I’m okay with calling my wings and hooves ‘pony-parts.’”

“That’s what they are, right? So what’s there to worry about?”

“Losing my parts?”

A silence swiftly came forward.

“Right…” Brandish laughed awkwardly. “Well uh… we probably shouldn’t be thinking about losing our pony-parts, should we?”

The filly’s head thrashed from side to side.

“So you’ll take up some lessons on proper pony-part maintenance?”

“If it helps me fly better!”

“That’s the spirit! Now, let’s start simple; tell me, Felt, how much do you know about your wings?”

"Well... I know you have to preen them, and I can do that."

Brandish smiled.

"And... um... that's it?"

The smile died before it could live.

Dining on an Incline

Brandished Plumes and Feather Felt were both in the midst of varying degrees of culture shock. While they both had not experienced life outside of Cloudsdale for very long, Brandish hadn’t expected Canterlot to be too terribly different from his home, and Feather had thought the same way.

But they had been wrong. Incredibly wrong, in fact.

Every which way there was a new sight to see, and Brandish found himself overwhelmed. Felt took much of the sights in easily, but she was easily distracted at every turn. There was an assortment of venues no matter what street they marched on, and there was very little room for flight with the litany of signs and lamp-posts that hung down and over the cramped cobblestone streets. The ponies around were just as serious as their business, and it was hard to spot a single pony taking the time to interact with another in the motley of hooves and disarray.

Brandish felt wrong about having to stow his wings away, and he briefly considered Felt’s own urges, but a quick glance told him that the filly had much more significant thoughts on her mind than those of the winged variety.

“What’s the difference between Prench ice cream and Equestrian ice cream?”

“Price,” Brandish replied after taking a peek at the eye-catching storefront. “Definitely.”

If there was one thing that stuck out most in Canterlot, it was the price of all manner of goods; Brandish was decidedly appalled at the price of produce at the market stalls, and made a point of telling Feather Felt to not get too interested in anything as they passed through the ‘luxury’ district. There were still a great deal of shops to pass by, and the castle district was quite a ways ahead. Moving on from the ice cream shop, Brandish felt his stomach rumble; he grit his teeth in reply.

“Brandish? Are you okay?”

He winced. “Ah, just a little hungry. I’m fine, Feltie.”

“We should take a break, then! It feels like we’ve been walking for forever.”

The frown that Felt fixed upon Brandish was a difficult one to ignore. While they had been walking for the better part of an hour, Brandish didn’t want to stop now amid the crowd because of the unspoken fear that the traffic might worsen. As they continued, the bubbling flock of businessponies, families, and clustered friends, threatened to overwhelm the two. Brandish drew a squeak from Felt as he pulled her back with a wing.

“Yeah, but stick close, Felt. Just gotta find a good place to pull in… How about the Seabiscuit Cafe? That sounds pretty good.”

Brandish was extremely thankful that the enterprise had reasonable prices on the menu board at the front of the pavilion; there were a few more expensive wine options, but that was what he had expected from Canterlot by that point. A greater stroke of luck was the fact that the place wasn’t filled to the brim with ponies like many others, and after securing a table and a few cheap orders for themselves, the two ponies relished in the comfort of civilization.

Brandish pulled out his bit pouch and reached for his glass of water. “What do you think about Canterlot so far, Felt?”

“It’s big. Really big.”

“Makes you feel pretty small, huh?”

Felt nodded rapidly. “And it makes Cloudsdale feel tiny!”

“Just wait till we get closer to the castle. I’ve only seen pictures of it myself, so one pony can only imagine how much bigger it is when you’re standing right in front of it.”

Seabiscuit Cafe was a quiet alcove. It wasn’t entirely shielded from the street, but the wrought-iron fencing that wrapped around the dining area was an all too welcome barrier against the rambunctious crowd. The dozen or so tables had been mostly filled by the time they had ordered, but the ponies there were a withheld and solemn bunch; their voices were low and their conversations drowned out by the droning ambience of city life. The inside of the cafe was a compact spot, as the entire business operated out of a few select rooms while dining remained outside, but the viewing window into the kitchen gave a perfectly unhindered view into the fine craft and skill of the employees inside; they maneuvered with great speed and grace, and soon enough a waitress wielding one large dish in her magic came forth.

“One order of Alfalfa and Rye with maple butter spread for the lord and lady!” The beaming smile and energy of the mare was infectious.

Brandish thanked the mare by the name attached to her uniform. He turned back to Felt and picked up a knife. “There are few things that can compare to a good dose of maple butter.” With a few clean swipes, the rye bread had been converted into the prime ‘honeyed’ state. Brandish offered the slice to Feather Felt. “Grass and bread; classic combo.”

Giggling, Felt accepted the offering and began to work on her own portion of the plate. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Feltie.”

It was a strange state to be in, Brandish decided, to be trapped at the top of the mountain with a new squanderous spending-habit and an anxious filly in desperate need of compassion. He had never considered himself to be much of a traveler, but he did love to explore. Is this too far? His eyes swayed to the sky, filled to the brim with cloud-carts and airships, but lacking any true fliers; all pegasi were attached to one thing or another, forced to work their wings for others over themselves.

Brandish returned his gaze to Felt. There was something more to the filly, but he couldn’t place his hoof on it. She was a remarkably soft-spoken pony when left alone, but they had shared a plethora of tender moments despite it all. Something unspoken laid between him and her.

Felt swallowed a bite. “Are you going to eat any of this? It’s really good!”

“Yes, I just want to make sure you eat before I do. You’re a growing filly, after all.” Brandish’s jovial tone failed to do what he had intended it for.

“Are you okay, Brandish?”

It’s time for some honesty, he told himself. “I… I want to know, Feltie. You really do want to find your mother, right?”

Her ears flopped down across her head. “Of course I do!”

“Well… I think we need to talk about your father first.”

Felt’s mood suddenly shifted. Brandish couldn’t tell what direction the shift had been in, save for the fact that the new mood was a strange hybrid; a deep frown took hold, supported by a crease in Felt’s brows that promoted a visage of suspicion but also conflicting confusion.

“Your father had to resort to… less-than-kind means to support you and him, Feltie. But I don’t think that him getting arrested and taken away means that you should completely give up on him. You’ve been giving me the idea that that’s what you want, but—”

“That is what I want,” Felt said hotly. Brandish was taken aback, and the filly’s face quickly morphed into one of worry.

“It’s okay, Felt; you’re not in any trouble. I just want to understand how you’re feeling right now.” After a dead moment of quiet, he gave a soft laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” Felt asked.

“Ah, well… I have this silly idea in my head that no pony is irredeemable, and that we can all get along. Your father… I think he had good intentions. Maybe what he needs right now is a little friendship of his own. We can still go visit him. I know you said you don’t want to, but maybe, just maybe, you and him are experiencing a little misunderstanding.”

Yet again, the strange hybrid of conflict occupied Felt’s face. “I don’t know… He’s definitely not going to be happy about us doing this.”

“Hey, listen,” Brandish began as he locked Felt with a fierce yet stern gaze. “If your father doesn’t support our quest to go find your mom, then that’s fine. Obviously, there’s a bit of history between them, but between you and her, there’s fresh fallow to carve your path in. I say if we’re going to go kicking and screaming our way across Equestria to find your mother, we’re going to go kicking and screaming at the right things, for the right reasons; we can go talk to your dad, ask him about your mom, and tell him about us flying off for her. If he can’t accept that a filly wants to know who her mom is, then that’s just on him; what’s he going to do about it? The guards’ll have him under lock and key. All I’m asking is that we go talk to him, because if anything, he’s still technically your father, and as an honest pony I really can’t let the idea of taking you around Equestria without your parent’s permission sit in my mind without at least seeing your dad once.”

“... We’ll just be there for a little bit, right?”

“Of course, just a few minutes.”

“Then okay. I’ll do it. For mom.” Felt’s prerogative was set forward in a blistering tone.

“I’m sorry sweetie, I really am.”

Felt fluffed her feathers slowly. “S’okay,” she mumbled.

Brandish resisted the urge to reach across the table and hug the mopey filly. “Alright that’s enough talk to last the afternoon! Let’s see about finishing up this great meal and getting back to our little climb up Canterlot hill...”

And it was a great meal, summed up with a sweet conclusion; the mare who had served them politely pushed Brandish’s tip back to him when the time came to pay for their lunch.

“I can see that you two need it more than I.” She gave another proud smile. “Have a wonderful day!”

Trudging up to the administrative buildings not too far from the Seabiscuit Cafe threatened to bring the prospect of a wonderful day crashing down. Brandish prayed that they would find the answers they needed from the bureaucracy within, and if not, then hopefully from the pony festering in the jail just beyond the castle district’s walls.

Taking a breath, Brandish and Felt stepped through the whitewash double doors.

Polaroid Trail

“Thank you so much, ma’am. Really, I’m so sorry to have held you up this whole time.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about it. I understand what you two are going through, and not to put any words in the princess’ mouth, but I should think that Princess Celestia would agree with letting you stay.”

“I… I suppose. You’ve done so much for us, ma’am. I can’t tell you how much this means to Feather.”

She sighed. “Good night, sir. The night clerk will be up front to let you out whenever you two are ready.”

“Thank you.” Brandish shuffled nervously. “I still hope you won’t get in trouble for this.”

“Bah, they’ve got nopony else they can convince to stand posted all year-long at the front-desk. I’ll be fine. Good night, Mister Plumes. I sincerely hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Brandish sat there for a moment as the pony’s hooves click clacked down the hall. A thud reverberated shortly after the steps had faded, the heavy lobby door’s mechanism firing off as the bolt fell into place. He was alone now in the break room, left to isolation with a small stash of foodstuffs. There was no question of what he had left do now; his eyes landed on a particular container. The corner of Brandish’s mouth twitched ever upward.

He returned to their room once his work was accomplished; the bowl of oatmeal, delicately balanced on the back of Brandish, shifted slightly under the temptation of gravity. The door’s hinges squeaked in protest as the droopy-eyed stallion made way. Felt Feather was lain across the chair muzzle-deep in her files. The sight of the unconscious filly made Brandish smile, and for the briefest moment, he felt himself lost in forever.

Unfortunately, the food would get cold if he stayed in forever.

“Feltie.” When the filly refused to stir, Brandish set the bowl down in his chair and shook her gently. “Wakey wakey, grits and gravy.”

“Mmrn...” Felt closed the folder and set it off to the side as she struggled to wake herself up. Stretching, she continued mid-yawn. “What time is it?”

“Definitely past a filly’s bedtime… it’s a little past seven, Feltie.”

“A-and we’re still here?!”

“It’s fine, Feltie. We can take all the time we need.”

Felt gave Brandish an incredulous glance. “Are you sure? Did she—?”

“Feather. We’ll be fine, calm down.” The soft clink of ceramic filled the stuffy room. “Just eat your oats, and let’s get back to business.”

Still sulking, but compliant nonetheless, Felt dug into her meal.

Brandish lifted the folder from his friend’s chair and carefully creased it open. The contents of the folder—of the life of one Feather Felt—stared back up at the stallion. A majority of the documents were all very official and full of logistical nonsense pertaining to the filly’s social identification, but there had been several breakthroughs in the recent few hours, specifically in where Felt had been born; Vanhoover General Hospital.

Despite the important hint as to Feather’s mother’s location, there were also a great deal of conflicting documents in the folder. Feather Felt was said to have held residency in no more than four cities: Manehattan, Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Haybinger, and Vanhoover. Cloudsdale was not on the list, but that made a lot of sense to Brandish; Feather Felt and her father had likely never been documented as residents of Cloudsdale.

Brandished had stretched his mind thin in the nigh impossible task to understand how a filly born on one side of Equestria could end up all the way on the other. The situation was only worsened because Feather’s mother could be in any of those cities, not to mention that she could be anywhere in between. At the current time, he would take a name if he could; how could the Equestrian polity have failed to record even a mother’s name?

Maybe we missed it. “Feather?”

Felt looked up from her bowl. “Mhm?”

“Did you happen to skip any papers while you were going through this?”

“Mm…” She swallowed her bite. “Maybe? I… I think I might have missed a page because a lot of them were stuck together.”

“How far through?” Brandish asked. “When did they start sticking?”

“The um, twentieth one?”

He flipped to the respective area; most of the archived logistical forms were located there, and true to her word, the pages were stuck quite well to one another. As Brandish leaned in to get a closer look at the mess of garbled ‘nonsense’ workforms, he noted that there were in fact several key notations that the two of them had missed out on during their initial investigation of the pages. All of the information presented had already been gleaned from papers further in the folder, but it sent a clear signal to Brandish.

“Feltie, we’re not skipping papers anymore. When you’re done with your oats, we’re going to go through all the bureaucrats’ work together.” He spoke in a vibrant yet lamenting tone. Feather Felt quickened in eating her meal.

Brandished and Feather were swiftly cleaving their way through the folder; pages were neatly stacked as to keep the archive in order, and the stack steadily grew as time passed. Their eyes glazed over each page rapidly but tersely—they often doubled-back to scan their paper once more.

At the dawn of the first hour into their revival, an excited babble erupted from Felt.

Brandish shot up. “What is it?”

“I’ve got a name! My mom’s name!” Feather had leapt from her chair to parade the paper held deftly in her hooves. “Yes!”

“Come here, Feltie. Let’s take a look.”

She squeezed into the chair with Brandish and held it up for them to read. “See, right there!” She pointed at the name hidden deep in the crevices of the boxes. “That’s gotta be her!”

“Cloud Rifter…” Brandish repeated the name and furrowed his brows. “Huh. Definitely her, and—” he reached for the clipping attached to the packet “—here she is.”

The cyan mare stared out from the picture, her bright cherry-red mane spilling across her head. Her feathers on her outstretched wings were fluffed out in all directions , but a shining grin still lit her visage. The background—filled with crowds of ponies streaming under a sign labelled ‘Manehattan Ironpony Competition,’ and a whirling ferris wheel anchored beside the beachfront—reeked of frivolity and gallantry. But it lacked a family.

“Do you think she might be in Manehattan?” Feather Felt squealed.

“She could be.” Brandish said warily. “But she looks pretty young here; this is probably an older picture, and she might have already moved on. I don’t see you or your father here, and even if your father shot the picture, you’re not there and you were born in Vanhoover.”

Feather’s face drooped. “But… she might still be there.”

“It’s possible, but we need more to go on. So we have two options: we can keep going through your folder—” Felt visibly shuddered, “—or we can go talk to your father.”

“... Let’s do both.”

“Both, eh? Go through this and then—”

“Yes, exactly!” Huffing, Feather snatched photograph away and slid from the chair. “I want to hear what he has to say!”

Brandish blinked owlishly. “Are you going to be alright, Feather?” he asked gently.

“Yeah… I'm sorry.” Felt sniffled and rubbed her nose. “I’m going to ask if I can keep this picture.”

“That sounds good, sweetie.” Brandish quietly watched her go to the door; she paused in the doorway and peered out into the hall, before slipping away in a flash.

Click.

Brandished turned back to the packet. He ran a hoof across the box next to Cloud Rifter’s name and frowned; the name of the Rifter’s partner—of Feather’s father—dawdled before him.

“What other secrets have you been keeping?”

Author's Note

Take a picture, it'll last longer than family.

White-wash Bureaucracy

Scattered across Equestria were the looming facilities of the Equestrian Archives and Records Centers. Few and far between as they were, each followed a strict codex said to have been written by Princess Celestia herself, but the secrets of the bureaucracy were still hidden from the public. This was the line of thought that Brandished was left to consider; as he stood now in the Canterlot Records Center, he felt the warm yet calculating press of the diarchy’s hooves upon him.

There was little the Princesses left secret from their ponies, but that did not necessarily mean that they were willing to provide information at the drop of a hat; the sterile foyer that Brandished and Felt entered emphasized this. In the archives, there was little room for mistakes, no room for a name to be struck from the margins, or a previous slight to see erasure, and the bureaucracy had used every resource available to them to ensure that they did their job once, and that it was done right.

A pair of doors that led deeper into the facility were sealed shut behind the receptionists’ desk ahead, both flanked by two alabaster guardsponies gleaming in gilded garb. Very few things littered the room: a spiky potted plant—of a species that Brandished could not himself identify—sat next to him, a short hallway leading to a pair of restrooms, the tan earth pony receptionist fussing over her ashen mane, and a framed portrait of Princess Celestia captioned by the words ‘Luceo non uro.’ Brandish’s eyes glazed over the words for a moment, and with a shiver, redoubled his efforts on approaching the mare at the counter. The receptionist sat up and pushed her circular lenses up.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” Brandish began with a broad smile.

“Afternoon.” She returned the smile. “What can I do for you two today?”

“We need to see some records for my little friend here… just need to find out what family she has left.”

The receptionist cocked her head. “Are you family?”

“Ah, no.” Brandish’s brows creased in worry. “I hope that won’t be too much of a problem?”

She dismissed the question with a hoof. “We’ll go through a few questions, sir. Just need to figure out how best we can approach this.” She cleared her throat. “So, are you a guardian?”

“No.”

“A legal expert for a client?”

“Nope.”

“An associate from a pediatric institution?”

Brandish blinked. “You mean like a uh, orphanage or...?”

“That’s a no, then.” The mare clicked her tongue and looked down at an assortment of documents on her desk. “...one of those ones.” she said quietly to herself. “You’re going to be a tough cookie, aren’t you Mister…?”

“Brandished Plumes. And this is Feather Felt.”

“Hi.” Felt gave a little wave to the mare.

“Mister Plumes…” she murmured. “Alright then, let’s try this: do you have permission from the parents or guardian to bring Miss Felt here?”

“They are... indisposed at the moment.”

“Could you elaborate, please?”

“Her father is in the Canterlot jail… extradited from Cloudsdale for some checks or some such. We’re looking for her mother… s’why we came here, ma’am.”

“Mhm... You’re just a good Samaritan, then?”

Brandish shared a look with Feather Felt. “I would like to think that I’m more than that.”

The mare behind the counter watched carefully. “Gotcha…” She leaned back in her chair to scramble in a drawer for a moment. “Now, normally we don’t do this, but I can tell that this is a special case. You’re going to have to go through some things for me, just so we can make sure you’re all truth and no lies—not that I doubt you, but because it’s my job to doubt you.”

“I understand, thank you ma’am.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she laughed as she rose up with a packet in her hands. She slid a paperclip across the packet and hoofed it over with a pen. “Gonna need you to fill this out for me. Try to do it as quickly and as accurately as possible, because this process is going to take us a while, and I don’t want you two to end up sleeping in here overnight.”

“Would that be so bad?” Brandish quipped.

“Yes, yes it would be. Please though, try to be timely; it’s been a quiet week here, but I don’t want you to end up waiting any longer to get you and your filly back out…” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “You’re a stallion on a mission, I can see it.”

“Just doing what feels right, ma’am.”

“Thank you. We need more ponies like you.”

Brandished tried, he really did, but he ended up moving through the packet a lot slower than he wanted to. A few ponies came by while he and Feather went through the required documents together, but all of them were in and out before the two of them could finish. Feather noted that none of them had ever gone through the back doors of the building. Supposing that the archives were back there, Brandish wondered if after all of their work if the receptionist would take them back there. Shortly after that thought, Feather prodded him.

“Brandish, we’re done.”

“We… we are?” Brandished shook himself from his daydream. “Oh, we are.”

The pair strode back to the counter swiftly; she had resumed fiddling with her mane in their interim, and it was now done up in a tight bun.

“Your mane is so pretty!” Feather squee'd.

“Why, thank you!” The receptionist giggled. “Now then, let’s see how you two did.”

By the time she had finished reviewing their work, an hour had passed since Brandish and Feather had entered the building. The receptionist set the packet down with a thankful sigh, stamped it once, and slid it into one of the filing cabinets under the desk.

“Come with me,” she stood and said.

“Seems I was right,” Brandish whispered to Felt as they followed.

“What do you mean?” Felt whispered back.

“We’re going back there.”

“I wouldn’t say that we’re going all the way back, but we are definitely going back, yes.”

Smiling sheepishly at the mare’s comment, Brandish sank into a steady silence.

The guard at the left door levitated a dangling key—which had been sitting around their neck on a chain—from within their armor and unlocked the door for the receptionist. The trio slipped in as the door was locked behind them. White marble was exchanged for a plethora of grey bricks and onyx stone as they trudged down the dimly lit corridor. Every now and then they would pass a hallway or a set of doors, no doubt containing the mysteries of countless other ponies’ lives and histories. Brandish had been half-tempted to ask a question—and he felt that there was no doubt that Felt wanted to speak up as well—but the foreboding darkness of the place drove them deeper into silence. At first the halls seemed ominous to Brandished, but he realized that it was not meant to be intimidating, but to be succinct; they had their own business to attend to, and so did the many lives that they passed. In a way, the halls were a purgatory of sorts as they stalked their way into a personal destiny.

Destiny was a quarter of the way across the building, it seemed.

“You are the Felt Feather, right?”

“Yeah! The one and only!”

“Alrighty, here we are then!” The receptionist pulled the plain-looking door open; it led into a well-lit room crowded with cushioned-chairs and metal cabinets that had been built into the walls. “I know you two won’t try to go snooping, but do know that if you go looking into places you shouldn’t, we’ll know.”

“Yes ma’am,” Felt and Brandish chorused.

The mare tittered behind a hoof. “Cute.” She led them over to a cabinet labelled ‘3:FD-FF,’ and with practiced precision, plucked out a folder titled ‘FELT, FEATHER’ from within. The receptionist gave the folder to Felt. “Here you go, hun. I hope you find what you’re looking for! Just come back when you’re done.”

Brandish stopped her as she turned to leave. “Question, ma’am. What if we need to look up somepony else? Like her mother?”

The mare frowned. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible. You’d need written consent from the pony themself, or somepony capable of representing them.”

“Somepony capable of representing them?” Brandish prodded.

“Well…” she licked her lips. “In your case, I would say a ‘partner’ would be your best bet.”

“Ah… I see. In any case, thank you ma’am, we really appreciate it.”

“Thank you for your time!” Felt supported.

“You’re very welcome!”

And with that, the two ponies found themselves locked in a room full of information and the time to digest it. Brandish remained where he stood as Felt plopped herself in a chair. “A partner, hm…”

“Come on, Brandish! I wanna get reading up on me! This is so cool!”

Laughing softly, he shook his head and trotted over to her. “Very cool, Feltie.” He pushed a chair over to her and peered into the folder before he sat. “That’s a lot of things to go through… why don’t we start from the beginning?”

“Okay!”

Author's Note

Equestrian Bureaucracy: Working hard to pull your life apart and put it back together, one packet at a time.