Dreams

Acquiring cutie marks isn’t usually a traumatic moment; Earth and Unicorn ponies will usually have theirs manifest during otherwise safe tasks.

We fliers tend to be a little more dramatic, especially when our ability is in something related to flight.

After Princess Luna became the Mare in the Moon, Hollow Shades was always under surveillance, always watching for anycreature that might accidentally find us and tell others about the hidden race of batponies.

Commanders Pipistrelle Dawn and Obsidian Nebula of the Lunar Guard Reserve were on flight duty that night, watching over our skies.

Their official incident report said they, “saw something making ‘All-Haste-Up’, with a triple-streak wake behind. Per protocol we broke wingmate formation: senior wing to investigate the interest, wingmate to warn the ground civilians and alert the Commander on Duty to direct all available wings to Active Alert Launch.”

Just as they reported, Pipistrelle dove down, screeching her alarm to the innocents below, making all-gravity-haste to the Reserves bunker, while Obsidian opened up her power, angled upwards, and took chase.

I was still climbing, trying to push through my untrained muscles’ pain and my tear-filled eyesight. My form was all wrong, my energy reserves almost tapped out already, barely breathing right. What I was breathing felt like ice crystals in my throat, but I wasn’t going to stop.

I was fueled by pure emotion by this point.

Sadness. Anger. Shame….

Commander Obsidian said I looked like I was a foal trying to get airborne for the first time. How did she put it? “You looked like you were balanced on your tail, trying to gallop straight up a wall that wasn’t there.”

I was trying to get to Luna’s Moon.

It was what I wanted.

What I needed to do.

What she needed me to do for her.

Since I had a serious head-start on Obsidian, she was having a hard time keeping me in sight, instead following my tail streak. By the time she’d gotten directly under me, my Cutie Mark power activated, bathing me in light, making it child’s play to spot me against the night’s sky as I climbed just a little further.

Just a little bit further….

Next I knew I was in the infirmary, grunting at everything that hurt, and blue and purple blobs at the door.

Well, they weren’t blobs now. The water helped my eyes to focus I guess. With my parents and nurse Well Spring out of the room, they closed the door gently, locked it with a little “tik-clack”, and faced me.

Ok. THAT got my attention.

“Welcome back to Ground Level, Icarus. I’m Commander Pipistrelle, this is Commander Obsidian. We’re from the LGR. We’d like to talk with you a little bit about what happened the other night.”

“What do you mean, this is your fault?!”

“I can assure you both, his condition isn’t anyone’s ‘fault’.”

“I told him he shouldn’t follow his heart.”

“He’s got my temperament; he’ll do whatever his deepest desires drive him to. That’s why you loved me, isn’t it?”

“No matter how you’ve raised him, we’ll have the Cutiemark Counselling Service talk to him and see what help he’ll need adjusting to--”

“What do you think his means?”

“That he’ll wrap the moonlight? Maybe he’ll become a telescope engineer?”

“OH! That would be so specialized. How will he find fulfillment here without materials to work with?”

“Excuse me, but… That’s going to be for Icarus to decide for himself with the CCS rep.”

“Excuse me, but you’re talking about our foal!”

“--who is now legally able to make choices for himself regarding his cutiemark and his use of it.”

“......”

“......”

“...he’s right.”

“I KNOW! ...I know. I just… It’s just so sudden.”

“...I know.”

“I’ll ask if someone from the CCS can speak with you both too. This is as much an adjustment for Icarus as it will be for you both. Ok?”

“....”

“...ok.”

“.....”

“...”

“...ok.”

“Ok.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE JOINING THE RESERVE?!”

My ears slammed back on my head trying to be protected from the power of my father’s voice.

That didn’t hurt this time, so, that’s a plus, I guess.

“Dad, it’s OK. I talked it over with the commanders while you were gone. They’re offering me the chance to train with them a few hours every weekend while I’m at Post Cutie Mark School. It won’t cost anything and I’m not joining to be part of the armed force. They’re going to teach me the behind-the-scenes work; logistics and stuff. Maybe even some flight training.”

Oh, but my mom was not having this at all. Her back hoof lifted and pointed at the doorway’s guard detail, completely disrespectfully. “THEY spoke to you, did they? Those two guards spoke to you while we were out of the room and you were still waking up?”

I was mortified.

How Commander Pipistrelle kept her cool I still have no idea to this day. “The offer is just that, an offer to help him grow and learn. Nothing more. We’re not going to conscript him into the Reserve. And, respectfully, he’s of age now to make his own choices about that.”

“There’s got to be something you see in him. What’s in it for you all?” Dad was the business thinker - wondering who benefited and how. His skeptically furrowed brow became smooth as his eyebrows jumped at the answer.

“He outflew me for a few seconds. Somepony with that natural flight talent can’t possibly be given the flying form and strength training he’ll need at the PCMS. We can give that to him. No strings.”

Mom couldn’t say anything, considering her jaw was stuck open while she was trying to process what’s gone on behind her back. At least dad could. “But he won’t be in any danger, right?” Again, always the one who thought about Cost and Benefits.

Dad’s attention was on the guards, mom’s was on me, so it was up to me to make her comfortable. “Mom, it’s OK! It’s a couple hours any free weekends I have. It’s going to be fine. Really. It’s not like I’m going to….”

“...broke my wing. It was a complete fluke and no one could have predicted it. I made a too-fast turn in the air, felt it go, and I landed in the lake.

The staff physicians are healing me and it’ll take about a week to be solid again. I’ll be back home as soon as they give me the go-ahead. I know you’ll want to come to the barracks, but please don’t. I’ll be sleeping more than anything while they work me over and all you’ll do is lose sleep while I feel guiltier than I already do.

I’ll write another scroll to let you know how things are going.
Please know I love you.
Your apparently accident-prone stallion;
Icarus.”

I think this was the worst thing I could ever do, what I promised on our wedding day seven moons ago I would never do.

I lied to my mare.

I looked up from the scroll with tears just bubbling on my eyeballs. My flight instructor, Commander Pipistrel, looked back professionally. “Please promise me, this is going to be worth it?” I whispered.

She nodded slowly and answered, “Yes. --if you’re strong enough.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my cutie mark, feeling it in my heart and nodded back. “I can write the next scroll after we get back. One more test flight. Ok?”

“...Ok.”

Before the end of that week my heart’s fondest desire and worst ache happened.

After a thousand Moons, Princess Luna escaped her imprisonment and returned to the Castle of the Two Sisters. The dark force that held her was stripped away by the fabled Elements of Harmony, wielded by one of Celestia’s pupils and some common citizens from Ponyville.

My cutiemark ability, to circle the Mare in the Moon and return her to us, was now useless.

I was inconsolable, livid, empty. Pipestrelle was not helping any.

“What do you mean, ‘a gift card writer’?! What makes you think THAT’s a job I want?! I trusted you! I lied to my mare about my wing! Everything I’ve ever trained for, ever been meant for, is gone. And you want to offer me a job Writing Cards?! What the buck are you even TALKING about?!”

If there was anything I hated in her, it was her always unflappable face.

Did she even feel emotions? Could she even fathom what’s happened to me? What’s been taken away?

“I can’t explain it more now. I just need you to trust me one more time. None of this will be in vain. You can still serve the Princess in a way few others ever could.”

I graduated from the Reserve’s Academy two years later, personally congratulated by Princess Luna herself, and went to work in the Greeting Card Office in Canterlot. Part of the cover story was that the Reserves were responsible for my having been injured in training, so they owed it to me to help make sure I had a good living that wouldn’t injure me again.

It’s amazing how ponies look at you when you tell them, “Yeah, I’m helping promote trade and travel for the Crown by creating a line of Greeting Cards for the Royal Post to deliver! Oh, no. I don’t deliver them myself. Broke my wing once, you know….”

There’s a certain look others give you when you’re a lame flier. Something between sympathy and pity. The only reason I was able to handle it was that I was warned it would happen.

That and I knew they were upset at the made-up Icarus, not the real one.

Still, it was humiliating when we told my parents over dinner. I could see the surprise in their faces and heard the disappointment in their voices. But their words were never disapproving, only encouraging.

Moon Shadow dealt with it the same way she dealt with the cover story about my wing - concern that I was ok, worry that I was upset that my work prospects were limited now, and relieved that I’d have probably the safest possible job in all the military ranks.

But tonight, I was training.

--again.

“This time, we’ll be doing long-distance, high-altitude gliding. This is likely going to be the hardest part for you so far. The air is thin and cold, your wings will feel like they’re burning, and your lungs will want to inhale faster, which will chill your insides. You’ll get tired and feel like you’re going to pass out. We’re going to go over all the things you can do to keep your head awake, your wings out, and your body alive. Ready?”

“You can’t die, Moon Shadow! You’re not supposed to die before us! Foals aren’t supposed to die before their parents!”

My mother was at Shadow’s side with me in the Critical Care Ward - ironically two halls away from where I had been. Where my life had, in a way started.

Shadow’s was ending.

“Mom. Stop that!”

The doctors had found Shadow’s tumors a little over a year ago and treated her well. She fought this disease hoof and tooth the whole time, never losing her will to win. Even when her mane was falling out in patches, she kept right on doing what she could - walking, gliding, trotting, enjoying time together with me.

With both the real and fake me.

Well Spring was the Head Nurse on Duty now. He remembered me, was happy to see me again, but had told me the truth.

My Shadow wasn’t going to survive the day.

Spring turned his head so I couldn’t see his lips and whispered in my mom’s ear. She blinked, tears running down her face, and nodded quickly. “Ok”, she whispered to him. “Icarus, we’ll be outside. I love you both.”

Well Spring looked at me with sad, regretful eyes, leading my mom out of the room.

The door closed behind them with a little “tik-clack”.

That left just the two of us.

The two of us and the medical equipment around her bed.

They were all quiet.

Shadow was quiet.

I was screaming inside my head at something that could never hear me.

Threatening something that would never fight me.

Disbelieving a reality that would never obey me.

She was gone.

My “One”. The one who I trusted everything in.

The One I promised I would do anything for, fight anything for, defend against everything for….

She died, next to me. Laid on the bed, covered with a sheet to her chest.

The same place my life truly started, my life truly felt like it’d ended.

I couldn’t save Princess Luna; my cutiemark power was useless. That part of my life had been taken away.

I couldn’t save my Moon Shadow; no pony could. That part of my life was ripped away.

...and she died believing the fake me was the real me.

She trusted in me, and I had lied to her.

--lied to everyone who knew me about who I was.

Was there any worth to my life now?

My crushed heart and spirit….

My throat hurt so badly.

I could just die right now, leaning over her.

I felt it. I knew I could.

I could just give up the will to live and join her in the abyss.

Not exactly “suicide”, right?

Married ponies had been known to die of a Broken Heart before, right?

I could just….

-- just…

...let go.

“Good night, my Shadow. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. Please, dream of me.”

My heart broke.

My mind broke.

My will broke.

My spirit broke.

I'd failed her.

“...may Luna watch over you.”