Hope and the Horizon
A My Little Pony fanfic by LysanderasD
Zipp Storm was finally out of the castle.
It was getting dark. The sun was mostly set and she figured her sister was probably pacing on her balcony or something, caught up in her own head like normal. And since there was no talking to Pipp once she got into one of her moods, that left the list of entertainment options that didn’t involve pulling something up on her phone pretty limited. And besides, she’d been inside all day, and by the heavens, she needed to stretch her wings.
The castle at the peak of Zephyr Heights was ancient, and like the castles in the old stories it was full of secret passages and hidden doors. Zipp had learned where most of them were; they made for convenient getaways when she got caught trying to fly in the hallways. Even better, like now, they made for excellent escape tools. A way out of the castle when, as far as anyone else was concerned, she’d already turned in for the night, and there was a lump under her covers just in case anypony thought to sneak a peek into the little princess’ room.
The streets of Zephyr Heights were awash in the glow of the streetlamps and the half-moon overhead. But the city never really slept, even though it was dark outside. Such was the energy of Equestria’s capital. She wasn’t alone on the streets, but she hadn’t expected to be. Pegasi trotted this way and that, still chatting, some prodding their phones with their wings. Here and there there were guards stationed, but Zipp knew their patterns and their routes and slipped around them and between them by using the traffic, and soon she was outside the city proper and nopony was the wiser.
Probably.
She’d been doing this for a long time. It was irresponsible, and part of her felt guilty for that. But from a young age she’d felt that there was something deep inside her that didn’t want to be contained, that hated the whitewashed walls of the castle, that felt so much more at home on the bright streets of the city itself… and beyond.
In the old days, it was said, when there was still magic in Equestria, Zephyr Heights had been swathed in powerful spells that kept the city temperate despite its elevation, and suppressed much of the noise of the wind from the outside, and the noise of the city from disrupting the tranquility of the mountain. Well, Zipp didn’t know much about magic; most of the ponies who did said that it was gone now, if it had ever existed in the first place, but there was definitely something about leaving the city that felt like crossing a threshold. You could round a small bend in one of the well-traveled mountain paths and the city would disappear behind the rock, and it was like it was never there; with the thinner atmosphere up here, there wasn’t enough air for the light from the city to get caught on, and so it was a matter of a few steps until all was quiet and calm and the only light came from the moon.
Zipp trotted off of the path and out toward the edge of the mountain, a sheer cliff for hundreds of feet before the shallower slope resumed. A long time ago, this had been the original railway up the mountain from the lowlands below, but that rail line had been shifted for safety reasons. There was a monument to the so-called Friendship Express somewhere along the trail, but that wasn’t what she was interested in. She came to the edge, sat, and closed her eyes. Then she spread her wings and felt.
Pegasi couldn’t fly. That was a fact. It had been true for as long as Zipp had been alive. There were some older ponies who remembered being able to lift off, once upon a time, but Zipp had never been able to really catch the wind beneath her wings for much more than a momentary glide, if that. The fact was that they were simply too heavy. Magic had been a big part of pegasus flight, but there was no magic any more. As far as Zipp was concerned, there never had been.
But when she felt the wind like this, she believed. This was it. This was what she lived for. There was something deep, primal, about the way the wind felt in her wings. She could see it, feel it, the way she’d dip and dive and slice through the air, making the very sky her plaything. She wanted it—desire for the sky burned deep inside her, had burned as long as she could remember. That great expanse, so huge, so impossibly vast—and yet there was a part of her that knew, that knew, she was destined to see it all.
To spread her wings here and leap off… well, as much as Zipp wanted to, it would have to be her last flight as well as her first. She could glide for a bit, sure. But gaining height? Out of the question. And there was no way she could last, gliding all the way to the ground.
But it didn’t stop her from wanting it.
Flurry Heart paced.
She was a pacer. She thought best while she was on her hooves. Back when the Crystal Empire was still something worth talking about, there was a rumor that she’d worn a groove in her personal chambers, a rumor she’d never done anything to quash.
She’d always been fidgety. Her parents had told her as much. Even when she was a baby she had a hard time sitting still. It had caused no small amount of trouble for Sunburst, himself something of a sedentary pony who would much rather Flurry have been a good student than a good athlete. But she couldn’t think when she was sitting still.
Mom had told her once that she, Cadance, had been born a pegasus. Flurry believed it, though that was mostly because she believed that Aunt Twilight had once been a unicorn. That much was obvious, with how she kept her head in the clouds and her nose in some book. That was a very unicorn thing. But her mother never struck her as particularly pegasus-ish, and, her father had told her once, that was because a lot of it seemed to have hopped a generation.
Pegasi were fidgety. Flighty. They were naturally competitive because they had so much energy built up that finding a way to let it out without causing thunderstorms had been a problem all the way back to ancient Pegasopolis. And Flurry definitely felt that way.
It had made her a poor princess. Both when she was a young, lowercase-p princess, more known as Princess Cadance’s daughter than her own pony; and when she was older, capital-P Princess, and had taken the throne. There was a certain gravitas expected of the role, a certain dignity. But Flurry didn’t care much for dignity. Her parents had thought it might have been a phase, but when she came into her own and took the throne of the Crystal Empire after her mother’s early retirement, well, let’s just say the Empire had a bit of a shakeup.
The Empire was not the seat of power for Equestria, true enough. But the Empire reflected, like the polished gems that composed it, the very fabric of Equestrian society, the values it embodied, the things it cherished. So when Equestria changed, the Empire reflected it; this in turn strengthened Equestria’s self-image, feeding into itself. Between Flurry in the Empire and Twilight in Canterlot, the later years of the Equestrian monarchy were tumultuous indeed.
And this was what it had all led to.
Around Flurry, there was a sea of stars, though they were not really stars; nor was the path she walked on really a path; nor was she, herself, even here, in the way that normal ponies might consider being. The others had taken to calling this place Elsewhere, because wherever and whenever it was, it wasn’t Equestria, and that was good enough for Flurry. It was an abstract thing, a place and time outside of place and time where alicorns gathered… or did not gather, as the case may be. For the moment, at least, it was merely her.
Beside her, like a projector screen, there was an image of the side of Mount Canter, darkened as the Sun set, and on the edge of the mountain sat a wistful pegasus filly.
As Flurry came to the end of the path, or at least the end of the part she was walking, she pivoted, and the image pivoted with her. She stared at it as her hooves automatically began taking her back along the same path she’d been traveling for…
Well. Time didn’t mean too much in a place like this. But for a while.
Flurry had found in Zipp something of a kindred soul. She was, after all, also something of a poor princess, maladjusted to the rigidity of the throne. Zipp, too, was a pony who found she had her best thoughts, her clearest head, with open sky above and the wind on her face, rather than in some room with no windows and too many suits. The only kind of looking down Zipp Storm wanted to do was from cloudtop, and Flurry Heart could relate to that all too well.
So she’d… arranged things. Retroactively she’d arranged things for quite awhile, helping Zipp get out of the castle when she needed to clear her head. That was the nice thing about Elsewhere; looking back was as easy as finding the right window back into the real world, where here and now still meant something. Or there and then, as the case may be.
Twilight inspiring Sunny had been, by all accounts, a fluke (though, as Luna was so often fond of reminding her, Harmony does not play dice). Aunt Luna had cheated a bit by using the Dreaming, and her mother had gone so far as to arrange for a letter to be sent from a pony that didn’t really exist. But as Luna had said—if doing what they were doing was cheating, then Harmony would have put a stop to it by now, especially with Flurry stepping back from the real now as much as she had.
There were limitations, of course. If there weren’t, none of them would need to have gone Elsewhere. But when you’re given a chance to play a part in saving the world, then Flurry didn’t see the sense in not stacking the deck as much as she could.
Not much was happening with Zipp, so Flurry pulled up a few other images—an orange earth pony, a lilac unicorn, and a pink pegasus. These three—the ones her mother and the others had already made a connection with.
Sunny Starscout. Now that pony was a believer. Flurry had earned her wings for her optimism—her Hope—and even she felt that Sunny had more room in her heart to hope for a better future than Flurry did. She was kind of sad that Twilight had gotten to her first.
Izzy Moonbow. What a dreamer. What a unicorn. She reminded Flurry of her mother, though—and Flurry meant no disrespect to her mother—Izzy at least had a tendency to get up and act on all the ideas she had rather than simply think about them forever. Of course Luna would find someone who could act on her dreams. An engineer—with both the will to create and the means to do it.
And Pipp Petals. Flurry stuck her tongue out a bit. If there was a pony she cared for the least out of this little cadre, it was the preening princess. She was everything Flurry didn’t like about being heir to the throne—up to and including her fair share of vanity. But she wasn’t wanting for confidence, sure enough.
Acceptable, all three of them. But shortsighted. These three were brave, sure, but were they brave enough?
She swept the other images aside and focused again on Zipp. Hope and confidence had their places, and Flurry knew more than a little about hope. But there was something to be said for courage as well.
Zipp opened her eyes again. The sun was all the way set and the moon was casting long shadows, almost passed over the far side of the mountain. She’d been out here later than she’d meant to. Carefully, she pulled herself away from the edge, folding her wings back up and starting to trot back toward the path back up to the city.
She wished she could come out here in the daytime. She never had time to herself when the sun was up. Something about the responsibility of royalty and the ways they were and were not allowed to interact with the common pony. Zipp didn’t really understand it; as far as she knew, the only thing separating her from the common pony was the fact that her mother was a queen, and being a queen was just a title.
Either way, there was only so much she could see out here even by the light of the moon. What she wouldn’t give to see it at dawn or midday. Looking down from the castle wasn’t the same. She wanted to see… how to put it? She wanted to see the world as it was, from within it, not separated by marble walls.
She hesitated as she stepped back onto the path. This part of the mountain had been green once, but not too many years ago there’d been a landslide and the whole area had turned rocky and unsteady. Zephyr Heights had rebuilt the path and opened it back up to the public, but this wasn’t the same pristine green that dominated the path below and above. Moss hadn’t even bothered to regrow over these stony spires.
It wasn’t a huge span of space. But it struck her as so wild—untamed and uncontrolled, unlike so much of her life. She would never be dumb enough to try to hop around it at night, though her heart burned with a desire to try it nonetheless. But… well, her mother had told her often enough. The line between courage and recklessness was as thin as the line of the horizon, one that pegasi of the past had often strode along with impossible swagger. But that was for the past. Now pegasi must strive for dignity and…
...and Zipp usually tuned out around that point.
Most of the mountain was dark now. She took a few steps further, into one of the remaining patches of moonlight, then stopped to look at herself, unfolding a wing and carefully examining it, stretching it, flexing it. The colored primaries caught her eye, standing out against the pale color of her coat.
Her jaw tightened and she grit her teeth. Wings weren’t fashion statements. And yet that was all pegasi used them for these days. Vanity. Preening. And all the while, the muscles that had once guided pegasi through the skies atrophied and faded, and the bravery and courage they were famed for in all the stories faded too.
We could be so much more, she thought. We should be so much more. And yet we just sit up here on our mountain and preen. What a waste, when there was so much world out there to see, so much sky to claim.
Zipp huffed, folding her wings back up and stepping into the shadow of the mountain as she trotted back up the path. Hopefully it would be easy to sneak back in, so she could get some sleep and prepare for another day of mediocrity.
Excellent. Flurry pumped a hoof in satisfaction. She’d planted the idea, and now all she needed to do was give Zipp time to think on it. She spun about, preparing to step off the path and leave Elsewhere, and ran snout-first into an impossibly soft, warm off-white coat.
She squeaked in surprise, wings spreading slightly, before she felt herself wrapped in the inexorable but gentle golden corona and carefully pushed back a short distance until she could look the much taller alicorn in the eye.
One of Celestia’s eyes was hidden behind her aurora mane, and the look on her face was one of stern, firm, but gentle disappointment. The one visible eyebrow arched, and Flurry flushed, looking down at the stars beneath her, wings shuffling nervously.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” said Celestia, in her Princess Voice, which was much quieter than the Royal Canterlot Voice but no less frightening in its intensity.
Flurry bit her lip.
“The astral plane,” Celestia continued, “is a place of observation and reflection. It is where we go to observe ourselves objectively and reflect on everything that has happened to Equestria in our absence.”
Flurry flicked her eyes up enough to look at Celestia, but still said nothing.
“It is not a tool to interfere with the passage of events.” Celestia’s voice never rose, but even here, in this place where temperature was more suggestion than fact, Flurry could feel the air begin to approach uncomfortably hot. “We, all of us, have left our thrones. Equestria is not ours to rule or direct any more. Our little ponies have chosen their own path, and it is not our right to interfere with wherever that path leads.” The visible eyebrow lowered, leaving her looking slightly angry. “Don’t you give me that sullen look, young mare. You know the rules as well as I do.”
Flurry started to laugh.
Celestia was clearly thrown off by this, taking a step back and opening her mouth slightly.
Flurry’s laughter intensified, and soon she raised a hoof to rub the tears from her eyes. “Rules!” she hooted. “You always were about your rules, weren’t you, Celestia? And how far did your rules take you?”
The Sun Princess opened her mouth, but Flurry was still speaking.
“A millennium of stagnation. Waiting for change to come to you rather than instigating that change yourself.” Flurry shook her head. “Your little ponies might have loved you for it, but I got to read the history books only after you and Aunt Luna abdicated, so my view of the Celestial Period is—let’s say—slightly more objective. Twilight did more in ten years than you did in a thousand!”
Flurry spread her wings and leaned forward in a pegasus-style threat display, calling up an entire plethora of images. The statue of the villainous triad, and the statue of the Elements ensconced at the heart of Canterlot. Griffons and changelings standing side by side and smiling. Luster Dawn and Sunset Shimmer, Starlight and Trixie—so many others, so many images, surrounding the two alicorns in a sphere of memory incarnate.
“See this? All of this?” Flurry spat. “Twilight did this. Twilight did all of this. You might have set her on the path, but she was the one who walked it, not you. So stop being a high horse about rules—your rules accomplished nothing compared to what Twilight and I did in a fraction of the time.”
Celestia’s horn glowed golden and she spread her own wings. The images faded as she seemed to loom over the smaller Princess. There was a look of imperious anger on her face for a moment—and then she let out a long breath through her nose, sitting back and folding her wings gently at her sides.
“While I do not appreciate your tone,” Celestia said with careful, brittle dispassion, “I understand the sentiment of what you are trying to say. Nevertheless, we all agreed that this was for the best and that we would let events play out as they would…”
“And it doesn’t take a prophet to figure out how that would all end,” said Flurry, not bothering to hide the coldness in her voice. “Ponies might have revered you once, but none of them ever thought to call you out on your greatest vice. You’re so apathetic. So willing to maintain stability that you aren’t willing to take risks. And if we’d all abided by the rules, Equestria would waste away to nothing.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed.
“Twilight wrote a book, and sure, it’s a great book, full of happy memories.” Flurry tried to calm down, flicking her wings irritably as she stood and began to pace across the path, never letting her gaze leave Celestia’s. “And sure, it’s survived this long, and it’s found its way to a pony that could really use it. But this isn’t the thousandth year any more, Celestia. There’s no happy small town waiting for Sunny to drop in on; there’s no festival that’ll bring ponies together for one big dramatic event. Everything that worked last time won’t work again, and trying to manage Equestria like it’s a chess game from all the way out here is just asking for the board to go awry. Don’t you see?”
The Sun Princess rolled her shoulders, looking somewhere past Flurry rather than directly at her. “I do see.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Flurry said slowly, with a huff, and sat. The outburst had drained her, and her ears flicked in quiet irritation while she tried to think of what to say next.
There was a brief silence.
“You’ve wanted to say that for a while, haven’t you?” Celestia asked eventually. There was no anger in her voice. Actually, it was hard for Flurry to place exactly what Celestia was feeling.
The younger princess eventually gave a nod.
Celestia’s tone was thoughtful, and when she spoke again, it was slow, deliberate, carefully choosing her words. “I am… a pony of habit, true enough. And I am not used to change, certainly not change at so rapid a pace. Rather than continue to chase after a world that was outpacing me, I chose to accept that it would no longer need me. When we first went Elsewhere, I resolved only to look, and never to touch.”
“You do deserve some credit,” Flurry said, though she was still pouting slightly. “Twilight owes most of who she is to you. I don’t think either of you would admit it, but it’s true.”
“Perhaps,” said Celestia, dodging the admission. “Please, Flurry, understand. Neither Luna nor I wanted to be gods. Yet the circumstances of our rule, and our preternatural lifespans, led ponies to believe we were. I had to become what they saw I was. Do you see? I was dragged along by pony society more than I shaped it, though none of the history books will see it that way—but that does not absolve me of my desire to cling so tightly to stagnancy. I will take that blame.”
Flurry watched as Celestia’s gaze drifted again. The Sun Princess raised a hoof, pulling up an image of Canterlot from the oldest days, before Zephyr heights. “Discord had… scarred me. Scared me. Left me afraid of what I might do were I to really exercise the power they gave me. So I resolved to be gentle, to guide Equestria by the merest touch of my will rather than the raw strength preferred by my sister. This was… the first divide, and certainly not the last.” She took a deep breath. “And yet—to interfere as you have…”
“Not just me,” said Flurry. “Luna and Mama too.”
“I should have guessed as much,” Celestia admitted, and for the first time there was something like a smile on her face. “Neither Luna nor Cadance would be content to let things continue down this path. Nor would you. Only I was content to let Equestria slowly rot.” She clicked her tongue, then continued more quietly, as though to herself. “Stupid nag. What were all the friendship lessons for, then?”
Celestia stood, and Flurry stood with her. “I am sorry for… my attitude,” Celestia said gently.
“And I’m sorry for yelling at you,” Flurry replied, suddenly feeling sheepish.
The elder alicorn laughed. “It is certainly not a feeling I am used to. And it was an act that required no small amount of courage.” She nodded, and finally met Flurry’s eyes. “So. Since I seem to have arrived late to the plan, would you be so kind as to fill me in, Flurry Heart?”
Flurry grinned. “First I need to manage a little more mischief. And since it’s to be in broad daylight, maybe you’d like to get involved? Sun Princess?”
“Perhaps I would,” Celestia murmured. “Yes—I think I rather would like to get involved in some mischief.”
Zipp jerked awake when the sun brushed against her face. She groaned and rubbed at her eyes, sitting up in her too-large bed. “Thought I closed the window last night…”
She rolled out of bed and trotted over to the window. As she raised a hoof to adjust the blinds, something caught her eye, and she leaned a touch closer.
She’d never noticed, but she could see the path she took out of town from here. Was it really that close to the castle? Zipp was always so busy sneaking that she’d never considered how long it might take.
It was sunrise. Normally she slept in a little later than this, but…
Something danced at the edge of her consciousness. An idea. Her ear flicked as she pondered. Sunrise and sunset involved changing of the guard. That meant there was a small gap of time where nopony was looking.
She was a little shocked to even be considering something so mischievous.
But the line between courage and recklessness was as thin as the line of the horizon, and what kind of pegasus would she be if she didn’t strive to walk it?
She trotted to her door and carefully opened it. The hallway was empty. Zipp grinned a cocky sort of grin. Yes, she thought. Maybe today she’d go for a bit of rock climbing after all.
Author's Note
I wanted to spend slightly more time with Zipp, but Flurry’s conversation with Celestia was important and I didn’t want to bloat the story or cause it to drag too much on the way to that particular emotional climax.
While Flurry’s thoughts on Celestia do reflect, to some extent, my own opinions, I do not by any means intend this to convey that Celestia was a bad princess for ruling in the way she did, and I hope the mutual apology did something to address this. I’ve always seen Celestia as a character with flaws and a deeply difficult time admitting to them, an opinion doubtless shaped by device heretic’s Eternal. I think that she did the best with what she had, and that times change--as they change from Twilight’s time into G5.
Next time: Celestia and Hitch contemplate what it means to live up to a legacy.
