“Oh yeah, it’s easy! Just take two rights, a left, head down the long corridor, hang another right, and it’ll be the third door, you can’t miss it!”
Fleetfoot touched down on the balcony and pushed a door open, resisting the urge to shake her head. No wonder Crash easily memorized Wonderbolt choreography, if she was used to navigating this sort of maze just to see her friends.
Still, Crash’s directions proved sound; only a few minutes later Fleetfoot found herself at the door to – yes, the castle library, exactly as promised. And there was her target, bent over a table, pinkish glow from her horn shuffling through three books simultaneously.
“Just tell her it’s a friendship problem, she loves solving those,” Crash had said. “Oh, and that it involves books. Those are her favorite.”
… Both of which were true. Ish. Fleetfoot cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Princess –”
Swirling air brushed her feathers from behind and she reflexively stepped to the side as a vaguely familiar-looking lilac unicorn rushed through the door and straight up to the desk. “Twilight!”
Another head appeared from behind one of the many stacks of books – an older unicorn stallion, looking delighted. “Pumpk–Starlight! You’re back early!”
The other mare – Starlight was her name? Had Crash mentioned her before? – didn’t respond, too busy hissing and gesturing to the Princess, who was looking increasingly concerned.
“Yes, I agree, let’s go!” the Princess said, books abruptly dropping to the table as she leapt over it, wings flaring to smooth her landing. (Not bad, for an amateur. Crash must have been working with her.)
Before Fleetfoot could do more than open her mouth, the Princess had galloped out the door. Starlight (?) paused a moment more to wave to the other unicorn, said “Love you Dad be back soon I hope bye!” and rushed out after her.
Fleetfoot stared at the now-closed library doors for a moment, then back at the purple unicorn.
He stared back.
She cleared her throat. “Er. Are you … the … librarian, here?”
“Oh, er, no. Just visiting my daughter.” He gestured towards the library door. “Though I have been enjoying acquainting myself with the collection.” He peered at Fleetfoot. “Perhaps I can help anyway?”
Well, sometimes when life gave you unexpected clouds, you could make some pretty rad streaks through them.
She marched forward and held out a hoof. “The name’s Fleetfoot. I’m here with a … friendship problem.” Okay, it felt weird saying that to just another normal pony.
“A friendship problem!” The stallion’s eyes lit up. He also glanced briefly at his rump. Odd. “Well, I happen to have a bit of experience solving those.” He shook her hoof, then gestured her over to a smaller desk, orange magic quickly clearing it off. “Firelight’s the name. What’s going on?”
Fleetfoot reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a sheaf of pictures, spreading them across the desk. “My kid sister’s doing a family history project,” she explained. “She sent me all these pictures asking for my help identifying them. Most of them were easy enough to find in Academy records –” she nudged the ones she’d already fully labeled to the side “– being a Wonderbolt runs in the family, after all.”
“A Wonder-what?” He blinked at her.
Fleetfoot blinked back. “... Wonderbolt?” she said slowly. “Best fliers in Equestria?” Glanced at the book he’d set down, which had some incomprehensible title almost the length of her wing about… history? Probably? “Originally the aerial squadron of the EUP?”
“Oh. Oh! Very nice. Great fliers,” he nodded. “Hadn’t realized they were still around, but good to hear you’re preserving your historical roots.”
Unicorns were strange.
“Anyway,” Fleetfoot said. Then hesitated. All the rumors around the Princess were pretty consistent that she didn’t care who or what you were. But Firelight was just … some stallion. What if he laughed? Or judged her sis?
Then I’ll pull a Spitfire and give him a dressing-down so hard his children will hear it, and wait and ask the Princess after all.
“I could identify most of the pegasi,” she said, then pointed at three pictures in particular. “But I want to find out who that is.”
“That” was a dark-coated earth pony with a pale mane, standing towards the edge of a family photo in one of the pictures, chatting with several pegasi in another photo of an open field, and cheering from the stands at the Academy of all places, winged blurs racing past, in the last.
Firelight delicately lifted the three indicated pictures with his magic, rotating them to see the carefully scribed dates on the backs along with Fleetfoot’s more recent annotations, and his eyes widened. “These are – well, first things first, they are far too delicate to carry around loose in a saddlebag, what would you have done if they’d gotten bent? One moment, I think I have just the thing.”
He disappeared into the stacks again. After some bumping and crashing around, he re-emerged, mane slightly mussed, with a large book. A photo album, Fleetfoot realized, as the pictures shuffled and rearranged themselves in midair, slotting into place smoother than a relay handoff.
“Much better,” he declared, and flipped the album back open. All three photos were neatly arrayed on a page. Had he sorted them? “Now, the pony you mentioned –” he peered at the pictures again. “Looks like he might be a family friend, or” a pause “you said this was for a family history …?”
With effort, Fleetfoot kept her wings from ruffling. “Yes,” she said evenly. “It happens sometimes. Even among pegasi.”
“Of course,” Firelight said, clearly oblivious. “Well! While I cannot condone altering such historical artifacts in such a way, I assume you’re the one who wrote the names on these pictures? Bright Breeze and Swift appear to be the other commonalities, so let’s start there.”
And before Fleetfoot could so much as blink, he started pelting her with questions – who they were, how old they were in the photos, where they’d resided. At some point a parchment popped into the air above Firelight’s head and a quill started scribbling notes, without Firelight himself slowing his questions at all. It was almost as exhausting as her first week as a cadet, to be honest.
But she’d gotten through that; she’d make it through this.
“Right.” The parchment snapped into a roll suddenly, the quill dropping, and Firelight nodded firmly. “I haven’t been here long, but I think I recognize that field as being near here.” He tapped the second picture. “The Ponyville archives may have more information. Let’s go!”
The photo album snapped shut and dropped itself into her saddlebag as the stallion scribbled a quick note and dropped it on the Princess’ desk – “Out solving friendship problems, back soon, don’t stay up too late~” – and dashed out the door. Fleetfoot blinked and followed.
This was so boring. Worse than paperwork.
At least back at the Academy, she’d just asked the librarian for help and they’d done all the work. Here, the mayor had let them into the back room with stern admonitions not to bend or break anything, and to put back everything exactly where it came from, and then just … left them. If Fleetfoot had to stare at another newspaper article from who knew how long ago – okay, fine, around 200 years – she was going to –
Shadow like a cloud above her head and motion; Fleetfoot dodged as something dropped towards her.
A … blanket? She looked towards Firelight. “Ah …?”
He emerged from his own reading stupor. Seeing the blanket, he looked sheepish. “Oh, my apologies, old habit of mind. My daughter always used to fidget terribly when she was a filly, and being wrapped in a blanket did wonders to help her focus.”
Fleetfoot considered offense for a moment, but let it go. “I do the same thing to my sis sometimes,” she offered. “... When I’m home. Which isn’t often. The Wonderbolts keep me pretty busy.”
Firelight nodded. “Cloudsdale, I assume? If we don’t find anything here, you might want to check marriage and visitation records there –”
“Fillydelphia,” Fleetfoot interrupted, before he could bury her in words again. “I grew up in Cloudsdale, yeah, but my parents moved after my sis was born.”
“That is quite a trip,” Firelight agreed. “Oh. Is your sister – did your parents –?”
He didn’t sound like he was going to be a jerk about it. “She’s an earth pony, yeah.” Fleetfoot stared him straight in the eye. “And yeah. That’s why my parents moved.”
“Of course they did,” Firelight said, his gaze distant. He shuddered. “They must have been so terrified that she’d just – fall through the floor.”
Oh. “They were,” Fleetfoot said quietly, indignation gone. “I was already a cadet by then. Not home much. But I remember the extra protections on her bassinet, and I – my parents didn’t really talk about it, but I think there were a couple of close calls.”
Firelight nodded. Gestured towards the album. “So, the earth pony in these pictures –”
Fleetfoot shrugged. “Might just be a family friend, like you said. But if he’s part of our family too –” she gestured with a wing, careful to avoid any of the stacked-up papers they had yet to go through. “My sis has always really looked up to me. She loves hearing my stories about being a Wonderbolt, and about Uncle Silver Feather, and our grandmother, but – she doesn’t have wings. She probably won’t ever have wings. And I want her to know that not having wings doesn’t mean that she can’t be the best … whatever she wants to be, in Equestria anyway.” She stomped.
The stack of papers wobbled and fell.
Some hasty cleanup, a visit by a suspicious Mayor Mare, and several more hours of mind-numbing staring at way too many papers later, Firelight emerged triumphantly from a stack, waving a page of the Ponyville Gazette in Fleetfoot’s face.
She leaned back and squinted, then had to resist yanking the paper out of Fleetfoot’s magical hold. “Is that –?”
“Surefoot. First prize winner in the horseshoe toss, member of the winning tri-racial relay team, and honorable mention in the pie-eating contest,” Firelight recited from memory, sounding delighted. “Looks pretty similar, doesn’t he?”
“He does,” Fleetfoot agreed, still staring at the picture. In it, the dark-coated pony grinned, medals hung around his neck, as a lighter-toned pegasus mare clung to his neck from midair. A mare who looked suspiciously like Bright Breeze, her great-great-whatever grandmother.
She hadn’t been able to see it clearly in the other pictures, but his cutie mark looked like a horseshoe. Like hers.
Another paper slid in front of the photo. “Looks like your hunch was correct,” Firelight said. “Seems like they got married a couple months later. What do you think your sister will think of this?”
“I hope she’ll be thrilled,” Fleetfoot said. “Could I get a copy of this picture for her?” And, thinking of unexpected similarities, “... And a copy for myself, too?”
“Of course.” The glow around Firelight’s horn brightened, and two copies appeared, one drifting down onto the album, the other into Fleetfoot’s hoof. He frowned down at the album. “... I’m going to have to re-sort them.”
“I’m sure it’ll be –” but orange magic was already flaring, pictures shuffling and reshuffling through the air, so Fleetfoot just rolled her eyes and tucked her copy into her saddlebag.
Unicorns.
“Hey,” Fleetfoot said, as they made their way at a more sedate pace back towards the castle. “Thanks.”
The older stallion waved her off. “Oh, no need to thank me, it was nothing.”
“You just spent almost the entire day with me digging through the most mind-numbingly boring –” Fleetfoot caught herself. “– I mean. It wasn’t nothing. And I appreciate it.”
Firelight slowed. “I should be thanking you,” he said, gaze distant. “I am … very fond of history. My daughter would say, too fond. But I had lost sight of how important it can be, not to preserve things for their own sakes, but also to help others better find themselves in the present.”
He slanted her an amused glance. “Thinking of trying a pie-eating contest sometime?”
Fleetfoot made a face at him. “... Maybe.” It shouldn’t be that hard to beat an honorable mention.
He laughed. “Let me know how it goes.”
“I will,” Fleetfoot said, surprised to mean it. Well, she had to answer enough fan letters, maybe it’d be fun to write a couple letters of her own.
“I’ll send you a couple tickets to our next exhibition, too,” she said abruptly, and winked at him. “You can bring your daughter, and Cr– Rainbow Dash and the rest of us can show you how modern ponies fly.”
A quick glance back at her saddlebags to make sure they were firmly sealed, the album a comforting weight, and Fleetfoot launched into the air, flying an elaborate loop as she turned towards home.
