Frozen Through the Ages

"Who knew we had an artist in our ranks and one with an ego so big he had to share his work with the whole town?" Distant Point snickered, jabbing a hoof into my side with frequent intensity. I considered whether my senior officer wanted a first-hoof experience of what an artist could do. The laughs from the others, besides Glider, who seemed done with the whole event, Were not helping at all.

"Aye, and what a beauty that was. Too bad The Day Guard hate fun," Levvy added from my other side. I was boxed into a beguiling mare sandwich. The two had all but marehandled me the minute I walked into the office. I spent the rest of yesterday and most of today out cold. The pun notwithstanding.

"Ladies, please," I said with a huff. I wiggled as best I could but to no avail. I was utterly unambiguously stuck being snuggled by two of the most annoying mares I knew. Which, in hindsight, could be worse.

"I still can't believe they billed us for something that was cleaned up for free." Dossie bemoaned. While Levvy and Distant were making the most of the awkward situation. Dossy was ready to choke the next Day Guard she saw. As Glider predicted, Dirk had sent in a report, and the subsequent bill had been hoof delivered by a very grim-looking squire.

"No kidding," I said. It did not matter what world or when bureaucracy was the root of all evil. There was nothing I was more confident in than that. "You'd think they were holding that bill on standby or something."

A mighty sigh and the sloshing of a bottle signaled the unimpressed entrance of our C.O. Sergeant Foresight. Who had, as soon as he'd read the Day Guard's complaint, filled a brandy bottle to the very tip with the blackest, tarriest, cough-inducing coffee I'd ever seen, heard, felt, or smelled. Its very presence brought gravity to the room faster than any spell ever could.

The sergeant took a four-second swig of his poison and groaned again. "They probably were, Colt. They were always primed for fines long before you were even born. Before I enlisted or Her Highness ever plotted for the eternal night. The Day Guard could leech a lamprey dry," he said, taking another draft of his bottle.

"So, it's not a thestral thing?" I asked.

"Nope, just nobles and bit pinching, power-mad foals," Dossy hissed between closed teeth. I am unsure which is more irritated or irrational between her and Foresight.

"Next time, you should freeze the light lover's Dayhouse doors shut. Let's see them deliver a notice about that," Levvy said. She tittered away, the idea playing across her unfocused eyes.

A sudden room-shaking thunderclap sent everypony on edge. One might have mistaken it for an earthquake if the event horizon didn't light up with fingers of lightning grasping for the land beneath them with desperate hunger.

The storm had already reached the Moores. The whole town was shuttering up and keeping unnaturally quiet. On my way into town, the guard and the weather team were the only folks not holed up. Even the docks were on essentials only. The ships were few and far between, but only some seafarers would be in the know. That tropical storm had twisted a bog-standard downpour into something far worse. The farms would be struck within the hour, and the rest of the town not long after. Tomorrow would be the worst of it when the horrid wave of rain and wind would crush us under its wrath.

A second thunderclap flickered the chandelier's candles, leaving the room a battlefield of shadows and light. The attitude in the room had done a complete one-eighty. The levity had died, and the Sergeant's eye gleamed with a tired resolve. The others seemed equally anxious. It breathed a chilling edge to the whole of the Night House.

"So, what's the protocol for a storm like this?" I asked.

"I suppose you wouldn't have gotten to that part of your reading. An oversight. I should have moved it forward when we got that notice from Freezy Breeze," Dossy said. She idly pointed to my stack of still unread regulations.

"A crash course it is, then. Ladies, please release the cadet. Playtime is officially over," Foresight ordered. Levvy and Distant did as they were told, and I was finally free from my bat mare prison.

I stretched, back popping satisfactorily with a single hop and flutter. I made my way to my stool and drummed my hooves across the pile before me.

Foresight plotted his way before my makeshift workspace and plopped himself onto his plot. He eyed Dossy's stack of papers warily. "Normally, we leave the weather to the weather team, as I'm sure you'd guess."

"Right."

"Well, in times like these, where the storm becomes something less manageable. The guards, both Day and Night, are often drafted into helping when and where we can. The more bodies at work, the less likely somepony gets hurt by the approaching disaster."

"So why aren't we?" I asked. I pointed to the window in time to see a pair of Captain Breeze's underlings fly by.

"Too far out, hasn't even hit the farms yet. If lucky, the weather team will break the storms into more manageable but more frequent rainfall." Foresight took a gulp of his drink and idly watched the dark clouds moving ever closer through the window.

"Too bad Freezy ran you off, Glacial. Or you could just freeze the storm into submission," Distant said from her desk.

"You think he could?" Glider asked.

Distant Point shrugged, looking at me for confirmation. I shrugged back. "No idea. I did freeze that one cloud, but that's…" I pointed toward the rumbling gray wall and its slow parade into town. "…That is a lot more than one cloud."

"You froze that tree real good. I think that was more than a single cloud's worth," Levvy offered. She grinned wickedly.

"That would be quite the feat," Dossier said, not even looking up from her work to do so.

"Have you even found your limits, Colt?" Foresight leaned over the table, eying me hard. I couldn't meet his gaze, trying and failing to find anything else to deflect. "And why not?" Foresight's questions continued.

"Dirk is a pretty good reason," I mumbled back.

"Glacial." Foresight sat back. His voice had softened. He reached over and pulled my chin forward to match his gaze. "Would you, for posterity's sake, tell me how you think your talent works?"

"Things I touch and things that are touching those things freeze?" I offer.

"Hmm, I wonder if that's true."

Foresight let me go and stood up. "Well, regardless. If and when the Weather team requests our aid. Which they will. We'll be put in the positions of batting down the hatches, getting those who are in the danger zone somewhere safe, and cleaning up what is left in the storm's wake. Which we'll do with gusto. Right, Night House!?"

"Yessir," the rest of the thestral quintet agreed.

Foresight smirked and looked back down at me. I offered a polite cough, did the best sitting salute I could, and mirrored my peers. "Yessir."

"You really should find that line of yours, cadet. If you don't, you won't be prepared for what comes from crossing it. Though, maybe I'm just being a tad pessimistic. Comes with getting one of the day dwellers' complaints. They are always the same."

"Right, I'll do that."

"If it helps, Glacial. I think you give yourself too little credit. No matter what Private Dirk thinks. Your special talent is just that, special. Treat it as such."

I slowly turned to Dossy and left with no comeback, made worse by the fact she still hadn't looked up from whatever was staining her hooves tonight. I ran my tongue over my lips but chose to remain silent.

On one hoof, Dossy had a point. My talent was remarkable, sure, that I'd agree too. The issue is, is it being special a good thing? Is it worth the trouble that seems to tail me ever since I'd gotten my cutie mark? I wasn't so sure.

"So, that aside. I wonder how long until we get the next round of letters? Sure, it'll be after the storm, but I wonder if the boss wrote one?" Distant Point leaned forward, watching as I pondered it.

"I think Sire would like that. You know, if we aren't washed away beforehoof," I said, waving my hooves in mock terror.

"If you don't freeze the whole thing solid," Glider scoffed.

"After that, maybe I'll freeze the sun too. The thing is too bright anyhow."

Levvy snorted and nodded eagerly. "Oh, that'd be nice. A roundabout way of getting eternal night. Now, if only that parasite that stole our princess away thought outside of the box like that. Her Highness might be here and not," Levvy's words trailed off.

"The stars shall aid in her escape," I mumbled. If anypony heard me, none commented.

"It'll be fine. We've survived worse. Bright Whimsey leaves even the worst storm lacking. That vile nag," Glider said. She waved a hoof in mock jubilance. I couldn't help but crack a smile. If there were anything in Bogwood that could unite its citizenry, it would be the disdain all sane ponies had of Bright Whimsey and her friends.

"By the way. Since everypony seems so curious, and I can't say this is a good thing, I don't think the tree was my limit. I just sort of stopped."

"Leave it be, Glacial. We were teasing. There is no pony in the room who would expect you to really freeze a whole storm front," Glider said. She offered a gentle smile and a flippant wave of her wing.

My magic dismissed or not, something else set my coat on edge. A feeling like eyes burning in the back of my head left a sour taste in my mouth. It was as if the very room was peering down on me, judging my every move. Every direction was another vector for that feeling to amplify, evolve, move, and forecast its eerie presence. I was unsure when the feeling started, if it'd been there and neglected, or if it had been presiding there before I'd recognized it.

Reading my unholy stack of work did little to appease the feeling. I found myself scanning the room more than once. Yet, the others were busy with whatever nonessentials they had. There would be no flights tonight. Criminals are not immune to being drowned nor unseen enough to avoid the Weather team as they worked late into the night. As the minutes ticked by, the feeling only grew sharper.

"Glacial, are you okay?" Dossier had finally looked up from her work, and the ridge on her brow did not dictate that the work was done. No, she stared at me like one might a wounded pup. She seemed to jostle in her seat as she debated whatever it was she thought was going through my head.

I shook it off. "I guess."

Dossier was unimpressed. "You guess?"

I look around the room. "Just a feeling, really, like we're being watched."

Dossier frowned and scanned the room. "The Weather team?" she asked.

I hummed in dissatisfaction. "I am not sure."

"Could be nerves. We did ruffle your feathers a bit earlier. You know we meant nothing by it, right, Colt?" Distant said.

I nodded. "I know. Even if the lot of you have a good point with me knowing my limits. I know you didn't mean anything by it. But I don't think that's it. It just feels like somepony has had their eyes glued on me for a bit. Could be wrong, I guess,"

"No worries, ya little troublemaker. We'll have more than a few words for anypony daft enough to come after our favorite cadet," Levvy said, raising her voice loud enough that I heard the creaking of wood from Sergeant Foresight's office.

"That we would," Dossier agreed.

I couldn't help but giggle. I prayed for mercy to any monster lurking under my bed. These crazy mares would be waterboarding the poor thing before it knew what hit it. That was if waterboarding existed at this point in Equiss. If not, I pondered how immoral it would be to suggest it. Probably better, I didn't if I were honest and even half as sane as I pretended I was.

Security aside, the feeling remained. Perhaps it was magical or simple paranoia. I was getting used to the latter. It was almost comforting. The tinge of ice trailed from my ear tips down the back of my neck like the threading of my veins. It was a new feeling; for the most part, the ice had always gone up from my hooves. To think it could alter its behavior like some defensive symbiote was less encouraging. That said, it did at least provoke a sense of self-preservation. The look on the thief's face from last week recalled in vivid detail. A look of shock and defeat. That time had been instinct. One can only imagine what might become of someone I was attempting to freeze.

A sickening shudder ran up my spine. The threading ice lines throbbed in response. If I were fair, Freezy and Dirk had reason to be suspicious of such magic. Would they feel the same if I were a unicorn? Mayhaps, in an era of superstition and frayed loyalties, power was currency and rumors, a fool's hope.

"Or, maybe I'm wrong," I said, broadly smiling at the mares.

"Or you're overthinking it. I'd rather ya start trusting yourself a bit more. Ya might find that ice in your hooves isn't so scary when ya stop treating it like a right monster." Levvy said. She narrowed her eyes, daring my recourse.

I tapped one of those icy hooves to my chest and gasped. "Why, I never."

"Exactly the issue, I think," Glider agreed.

The storm had reached the farms some time ago. The weather team had been prepped and ready, as Foresight had been informed by one of Freezy's subordinates. The farms could be handled. They were sparse and well-rooted in the marsh. I had to stifle a laugh thinking about the apocalypse itself taking out all creation before it'd rip Forage's farm free from that mudhole. Those less stubborn would be brought back to town where shelters were already prepared and ready.

The marsh would slow the storm a bit, but it was inevitable. So, here I was, walking home for a power nap. According to my oh-so-worried corporal, I was still a foal, and even if I did borderline nothing, I'd need all the energy I could muster. I doubt Father would be all that pleased to know I'd be going out during the storm.

Speaking of. No sooner had I reached my humble home than my dearest sire stood beside the front door. I suddenly had the urge to run headlong into the approaching storm, blindfolded and with wings tied to my sides.

I did my best to avoid meeting his gaze. Though I could certainly feel it on me. As any foal could tell you, the ire of your sire was a fate most unwelcomed. My heart was racing, and he hadn't even spoken yet.

I came to a stop in front of my sire and offered a wary smile. "Good morning."

"Home early? I thought I heard somepony coming down the path," Father said.

I shrug. "Up late?" I asked.

"Early. The storm sat ill on the nerve, as did other things."

Father presented a folded piece of paper, a slip of paper with the royal seal of the Day Guard. It only took a second to put it together, a single instant between instances. The internalized roar that set my blood on fire helped a bit. Father simply waited.

"Well, buck me." That was all I could parse together, something that no parent wants to hear their foal saying. Sea dog or not, Father did not seem amused. His already dry expression darkened, the glint in his eye searching, ripping free, and consuming everything in its hunt. It was like looking at a golem of stone and fury. Beyond that, three was something worse. The tired, defeated disappointment of a loving, worried sire." Well, buck me times two.

"I take it. Do you know what this is?" Father asked.

I wilted under his gaze, reduced to a mumbling mess. "Yes, sir, I do."

"Then an explanation is due. One not from an irate guard."

Father turned and walked inside, not even looking to see if I'd follow. He knows me better than that. So, to my death, I marched. I closed the door behind me and was left in a house far too quiet to calm from the storm that bared down upon it.

Father had taken a seat at the kitchen table, and the folded report left was sitting in the middle. A lantern hung from a hook to one side, filling the cold early morning with an orange glow. A lantern very similar to the one that I'd broken days ago. A time that could have been a lifetime away. I took my seat and leaned forward on the table.

"The same mare from the other day. As I understand it, yes?"

I nodded. "Yes, the same one."

"The one to cause your sculpture to disappear. I doubt a single stallion, mare, or foal in Bogwood did not see it. It was impressive, if unhewn. That aside, a formal complaint is not something one takes lightly."

"I cleaned it up. It isn't like I damaged the town or hurt anypony. I just wanted to let go, destress, be left alone."

Father's iron gaze wavered for a fraction of a second. Then he grunted and picked up the formal complaint, eyeing the folded parchment with dissatisfaction. Then, as quickly as he'd taken it, he ripped it in two laterally. His dissatisfaction melted into a practiced mold. One that wrought down its wrath on unruly sailors and drunken mares of the docks. A rough void. That's what any other would see. As practiced as Sire was with his unwavering resolve, so too was I practiced at seeing the hurt where it all started.

"A reasonable request, if not a realistic, my son. If only it were ever so simple."

I leaned back in my seat and groaned. "I'm just so tired. It's all been chaos since I got my cutie mark. I almost wonder if Discord is at work here."

I barely caught my words before a look of shock and disgust paraded across Sire's face. It wasn't a look he wore often. Brow sullied so hard he might have burst a blood vessel. Dilated eyes, edging and shaking in their sockets. Hooves tensed hard as he forced himself to his hooves.

"You would call at that monster's name? You would assume yourself his disciple? What do you know of that creature's machinations?"

My blood ran cold, gulping at a dry throat. If I'd been afraid before, this was something far deeper. A foal my worry about being punished, but this was not a parent reprimanding a misbegotten foal. This was a matter of faith, or history taught and forged, molded to the plate of everyone's soul. I'd let the mask slip ever so slightly. Hal's thoughts now turned on me like a ballista's bolt through the chest.

Discord's reign was not fresh, but neither was it forgotten. Within a century, some ponies had parents and grandparents who, if not lived those days, passed on what they were taught—who passed on those horrors.

"I just meant. It is complicated, confusing, and frustrating. I didn't mean to—" I said. Father held up a hoof. I went silent. The room felt small and entrapping, and my wings ached. I needed to fly; I needed the sky, the night, and the storm. Anywhere but here, but here I stayed. Instinct battled instinct, and every twitch was an argument between flight and freeze.

"Such horrors are not to be taken lightly. But it is not his name that concerns me, Colt. It is the way in which you said it."

I swallowed hard, even if there was nothing to swallow. Buck me thrice. By the mercy of Faust, I'm sorry. "I don't know what you—"

"Enough." Father did not raise his voice or change his inflection. A single decisive word, a word that would not condone ignorance or disregard. "I have had a feeling for quite some time. A feeling that something has changed in you, my son. I ask only that you be honest. What ails you? Why do you hide from me?"

There, once again, the hurt, the deep-seated, all-consuming despair. Father was not an average stallion. Not by the measure of his peers. Stallions were a minority in Equestria. That I knew it was common knowledge that we were outnumbered, coddled, and protected.

In the same way, one might protect an endangered species. I couldn't say why it was that way; it was only that it was. Stallions were protected and weak. That was the stereotype every mare was taught. Stallions ran the home, mares worked the land, and such. That was not to say stallions did nothing or were forbidden from following their fate. However, stallions like Father, strong, stalwart, and commanding, were few and far between.

But the look in his eye now. The pathetic, pleading torment. That was not Father, not the one I knew. That was the stallion others expected. The poor, hurt, lonely stallion who lived on the edge of town. I hated it. It burned in me the sickening rejection of the stallion posing as my father. It would not stand, and I would not let it. Thus, I did stand on my chair, forehooves on the table. I stood, wings flared.

"Because I'm scared." I hadn't expected those words, those three simple words—the simplest, most unmistakable truth. Father hadn't expected it either. His eyes, those blazing teal eyes—mirrors to the soul, mirrors just like mine. They sat wide and tired beyond time. "I wanted to talk to you, to explain everything, but I was afraid of what you'd think, what you'd say. I didn't want you to hate me."

It was in times like these that I wished Freya was with me. She'd have something punchy to say, something uprising. She wasn't here, so here I stood, waiting for Father to say, to do anything, anything besides stand and stare.

I had not expected him to reach across the table and pull me free into his hooves. I blacked, flailing as he pulled me close. I could almost feel my cheeks redden as I sat slack in his grasp. It was in moments like this that Hal had to be discarded altogether. Glacial Zero was still a foal, a young, stupid child. Father's, Weathered Horizon's silly, little colt.

"Do you think so little of me? What father would strike such fear into the foals? A monstrous sort that is who. I only wish to understand you. To know what sits so heavy on your shoulders that it drags you into night terrors?"

He'd noticed? In hindsight, it wasn't much of a secret. He was up before me most days and now left only just after I returned from the Night House, which is late for our new schedule. I imagine that's my doing as well.

"You noticed?"

He pressed me harder into his chest. "I have."

"It's not going to make sense," I said, half muffled by his coat.

"Does it need to?" That is another point on his end. I took it to the girls: Father deserved the same. Freya had been right about that, too.

"Would you believe me when I say I'm not the same Glacial Zero I was the day before I got my cutie mark? That I got more than just a picture on my flank.

The question stood. For a minute, the room was deathly silent. Father did not release me, balk, scoff, or laugh. He simply sat thinking, reflecting on whatever happened in his big, waterlogged head. Then he hummed.

"Go on."

Well, that could have been a worse answer. Though what he'd heard so far was the easy part, the part that didn't drop one into utter whimsical fantasy and delusion.

"When I put out the fire, turned it to slush and oil, when my flank gained the mark that should have completed me, given me purpose. It came with thoughts and memories that did not belong to Glacial Zero. They didn't belong to a pony at all."

That was part two, and my heart was racing out of my chest. The girls had taken it better than I'd expected the other day, though they were also my age and perhaps a tad whimsical themselves. The young are usually more likely to accept the strange or new.

"What kind of memories?" Father asked. Again, an even-tempered response with no semblance of condescension or patronization. A simple, forward, honest question, in the way only Father could have asked.

"A lifetime, growing up, living, loving, failure, rejection, death," I said. I attempted to play it off to make it less morbid. I stalled just a second on the last part. Hal's death sat fresh even now in the back of my head.

The wait for a response was far shorter than I'd have expected. It was only a beat and a half, a mere second, before a simple question broke the renewed silence. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or terrified.

"And what and who's memories plague your mind, Colt?" Father asked. The question was more firm than he'd spoken since I came home. I felt his muscles stiffen beneath his coat, and his grip on me tightened ever so slightly. But nothing further, still no rejection.

"Human, his name was Hal. He died in the rain, alone. I've dreamed about them. But that isn't all. Hal knew things, things no pony else knows."

It was a roundabout answer, a fishhook to lure in the real prize. Hal and his people weren't the issue, the part that gripped hard to my chest. It had shocked me, even the girls, but that part was only the skin; the meat beneath was far more frightening.

"I take it these memories, these things this 'Hal' knew are important?" Father asked idly. It was almost comical how little interest he'd seemed to have in the history of Hal. A subject to be entertained but not reflected on.

Father loosened his grip a bit, and I pulled away just far enough to look up at him, and he looked down at me. Teal stare met teal stare. There was no anger or disgust; how could there be when he'd had a town of doubt and worry aimed at him for years? If there was any stallion in Bogwood, who'd readily accept the different or outcast. There were few others like Sire.

"He knows things that happen in our future. Things that will, if they happen, change Equestria forever. Things that we'll never see." The bomb was dropped, and the heaviest part of this weight that seemed ready to crush me under its force was offered in part to Father.

"Prophecy?" he asked. "Example."

"Luna's return," I offered with a dejected sigh. "In a thousand years."

"Hm."

I waited, but Father said nothing more. He stared down at me unflinchingly. His eyes twinkled with thought, but those thoughts were kept to himself. I had to get it from somewhere, after all.

"Just, hm?" I asked.

Father shrugged. "I think you dam would like that one."

"Heh." I blinked, eyes wide.

Father's head tilted ever so slightly. "Just, heh," he asked.

"You're taking this way too well," I said.

Father released me in whole. He shook his head. "To some part, it seems a bit obvious, Colt. I knew something had changed with your mark. I could not say what or why. I believe wholeheartedly when you say you are not the same Glacial Zero from before you found your talent. The explanation is strange, like that of a fairytale or frightening fable in the moonlight. However, the manner you carry yourself now does not befit a foal, at least most of the time."

"So you just believe me by default?" I asked.

Father shook his head once more. "Of creatures and prophecy. I will not lie. It sounds like nonsense if one were to hear it in town. The type of hearsay spread at the docks. But, I cannot mistake the look in those eyes of yours. The same look your Dam would have when she told me of her nights on patrol."

Father was not a talker, gossiper, or poet. He didn't have a bardic bone in his body. But it'd be a cold day in Tatarus before he was hoodwinked. His gaze was boring, the type one couldn't help but take seriously. The same look he'd give sea mares who came to port. The same kind that would look down on Father and think they could push him around. They were taught otherwise with a swiftness.

"You should be suspicious. Your son just told you what might be the strangest story ever told in Bogwood. You should have questions, arguments, something."

As I'd delved deeper off the map, the girls had come around into the unknown. Yet, here was my one sire who seemed about as concerned as he would be if I told him I spilled a bucket on the floor. It was beguiling to an extreme. Curse this stallion and his trust in his crazy foal.

"The fact you think so shows a maturity beyond your years, Colt. Whatever happened that day, I would be a fool to ignore. However, I will ask. Are there more?"

I sag and huff. "More what?"

"Insights to the future, if they are as you say." There was the beginning of a smirk on Father's muzzle. A rare dive into his thoughts. The stone shifted ever so slightly.

"The Crystal Empire, Changelings, Tirek," I said, listing the first thoughts that came to mind. Even this far in the past, relative to Hal's memories, I had no idea if the Empire or Tirek would be recent or long in the past. I could only say Luna was here for Sombra, if nothing else, which meant it happened in the last few centuries.

"I'm afraid I know nothing of the like," Sire said. The smirk remained all the same.

"Not a lot of need in Bogwood." It wasn't much of a surprise. The only possible way he could have known such things, even if recent enough. It would be if he went looking or some chatty sailors mentioned it. Even if a sailor had known, one learns to take their stories with a grain of salt.

"True enough, Colt, true enough."

"So, what now?" I asked.

Father reached out and pulled me into another hug. "Not much to be done. As I see it, you are lying through your teeth, and nothing comes of it. Or, your word is true, and it won't matter to us either way. A thousand years is a long life to lead."

"You are too trusting," I said with a chuckle.

"Or my son is far too cynical for a foal." Father tapped a hoof on my head. "Though I do have a single question."

"Oh?"

"If your tale is true, why not tell the princess?"

I groaned into Father's chest. "You sound like Azure." I realized what I'd said a second too late. Father had to.

"So, you've told the filly before me?" I could hear the smirk.

"Fillies," I corrected. "Wayward, Tender, and Tally know too."

"Should I take offense?"

"I was scared."

"Of?"

I whacked Father's chest with the meager might I could manage. "You're being coy for no reason, and you know it."

"That does not answer the question, Colt."

"Of you rejecting me, of being alone." I had, it seems, let fall some dam, and with it, a quiet, solemn trail of tears stained my cheeks. It was a cry of surrender, allowing the twisted grip on your heart to fall away—the type one gets when one stops lying to others and oneself. I cried silently, and Sire held me without a word.

"Never, you will never be alone," Father whispered. "Not so long as I draw breath."

I smiled gently, but my withers were heavy with fatigue, both physical and emotional. Father jabbed me in the side, breaking the encroaching serenity.

"You never did explain why Azure and my thoughts on telling Her Majesty was unpreferred, little seer."

I groaned. "Would you wish to give potentially false hope to a nigh immortal alicorn who controls the very Sun above us? One still grieving over losing the very sister my 'prophecy' is about?"

Father tutted. "To find hope is always with due risk. Hope itself is a fragile ideal. But to be without it, I think, is worse."

I was left with no response. Hope was always paired with the darkest parts of life. One could not exist without the other. "Not all are Alicorns who would need to wait centuries to either find relief or soul-crushing despair. While we may be gone, would it be right to have those of that time be punished for my foalish false-scrying?"

"Should she then live, not knowing that hope still survives?"

"Gah!" A headbutt my father with a weak resolve. "Unbelievable."

"Should I not have hope for Belfry?" Father asked.

Thus, it all circles back around. I gripped my father tight and couldn't help but feel like a right bastard. Celestia was not the only pony in Equestria with heartache and grief. She was not the only one who deserved hope or assurance, prophecy or not.

"I miss Dam."

"As do I, Glacial, as do I."

So there we sat as the sun rose, as the storm raged in the distance. I found myself drifting into a comforting darkness, still clasped tight to Father's chest.