Chaos Redacted

Higher! Higher! Higher!

This freedom. These open skies. It was all Abigail Windsock had wanted.

Back in her home amongst the cliffs of Wails, she’d looked out at the highest point by the sea, closed her eyes, and imagined what it would feel like to fly through clouds and endless blue. Now, she no longer needed to imagine it.

Away from her boorish family and their expectations. Away from marriage proposals and men who saw her as just a pretty doll to put on a shelf. Away from the heartbreak of watching her childhood friends lose their childish whimsy and turn into cold, uncaring adults.

All of it was the fault of the accursed matching ordinance. Run by people who believed the ‘right’ people should be matched together. Who dictated that she must take the most boring person imaginable as husband and be forced into a life of unending tedium. It was wrong to think about her lovely childhood friend Maggie as something more than a friend or to yearn for the touch of the quick-witted Damien who had too dark a skin for him to be a ‘proper’ match.

But none of that mattered anymore. The strange magician had been right. A new world! Somewhere she could fly as high and as far as she wanted to.

Of course, the changes to her body were… non-ideal. Her reflection in the clear ocean had shown that she had been transformed into some kind of elongated, translucent fish with long, sail-like tendrils serving as her wings. She would have preferred a more feathery form if she had to change, but this still gave her the freedom of flight she yearned for. Even if she could do without the constant feeling of being bloated like a circus balloon.

Higher! Higher! High—!

“—er! Go higher Yearny!”

The childish giggles of the two foals she carried on her back startled her out of her revelry. The two rapscallions had happened upon her during her initial coastal flight along the white cliffs that were so similar to her home and begged her for a ride through the skies. She was loath to deny them the opportunity so agreed to take them.

Now, eager as well to ascend through further toward the clouds, she consented with a huff of air-like chimes from her throat and climbed ever-upward.

Ocean and sky stretched toward the horizon as the sun dipped, bathing everything in its orange hue. The water shimmered in the light as if in welcome to her arrival to this new world that was apparently inhabited by small horses. It was beautiful. She was… happy.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

She ignored the voice in her head. A strange neutral tone fuzzy with static. It had started right after she’d arrived. An annoying cacophony that demanded her attention at all times.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

Abigail denied the voice. She didn’t trust it. Furthermore, there were foals on her back. Any higher and they would struggle to breathe.

No, better to stay where she was.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

Humming. That would drown out. She whistled a tune from her childhood. A jaunty shanty from the harbour. It came out as different toned wind chimes from her fish mouth. The children joined in with ‘la la las’ and ‘do do dos’.

It served to keep the voice at bay.

Drop them.

She startled, nearly doing as the voice commanded by accident, but righted herself before that could happen.

“Yearny?” One of the foals asked, a tremor of concern in their voice.

Using her sail-like tendrils, she patted the foal on the head. They were soon back to smiling and singing as they glided through the air. That was… too close for her comfort.

Remove all ties. Drop them. Higher.

It was so loud in her mind. Screaming and shrieking at her to do as it compelled her. It was wrong. But what was worse… was that a part of her agreed with it.

These foals kept her from going higher. They kept her from ascending further into the sky. She was Bound, forced to stay low so as not to bring harm to them. She wanted to fly freely, not with arbitrary restrictions like safety and sense.

Drop them. Freedom. Higher.

Yes. That was the correct course of action. Fish or no, no one would tell Abigail what to do or where to go. She was a free woman. Free of the shackles of her world. Free of those awful people who tried to bind her. Free—

She glided gently down toward the area she had first encountered the foals. She didn’t know where these thoughts were coming from, but it had become clear to her that they had an amount of influence on her that could endanger the younglings. That was unacceptable to her.

Besides, their families were probably wondering where they’d gone off to.

“Awww, but I don’t wanna stop,” One of the foals complained.

“Yearny!” The other begged.

Abigail gently rolled them off of herself and dropped them on top of the cliffs. There were tearful goodbyes, promises to visit again, then they were off. Back to their families and warm homes.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

“M A Y I S P E A K W I T H Y O U?”

She felt her attention immediately focused on the source of the voice. She hadn’t seen nor heard her approach. She looked like those high-class aristocrats from her home, but horse. All poofy blue hair and heavy makeup. She was dressed in a black suit and purple tie with a matching little dapper hat on her head that seemed odd compared to the lack of clothing on the foals.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

The voice was urgent, panicked. There was something off about the mare, but her amber eyes drew Abigail’s attention. It kept her rooted in place despite her desperate desire to fly far, far away from the stranger.

“Thank you. So glad you decided to not run away.” The mare put a hoof to her chest, a big gleaming smile on her face. “I am Sapphire Shores, pop sensation. What’s yours?”

Abigail Windsock, she tried to tell Sapphire. Instead, her name came out as wind chime tones.

“Ah, you can’t speak Equish. Unfortunate. Well, no matter. For whatever reason, a name usually comes to mind after a few moments.” Sapphire tilted her head to one side. She smiled. “Yearning For Flight. How lovely. A poetic name for a Wallowing.”

Wallowing? What was that? Also, that name. The foals had called her a shortened version of that. Was it a quirk of this world? A side effect of coming here?

Well, it was rather poetic and pretty. Abigail didn’t mind it too much.

“Now, I saw you playing with the foals earlier. How delightful!” Sapphire clapped her hooves together lightly in celebration. “Most Malformants of your kind usually display problematic behaviours right away, but you appear a bit different from the usual rabble.”

Malformant. Abigail wasn’t sure what that word meant, but she hazarded to guess that was what she had been transformed into by the portal.

Higher! Higher! Higher!

She ignored the voice. There was an undercurrent of fear that originated from the mare, but she seemed to know more about what was happening with her body and, well, she was a visitor. It would do well to be courteous.

Abigail let herself lower to the ground, resting upon her sails that acted as a sort of stand for her. Sapphire looked surprised.

“Well, you are quite different for a Malformant. Perhaps, you are curious as to what I have to say? Well, who wouldn’t be about someone as fabulous as moi.” Sapphire tossed her mane back with a wide grin. “Who am I to deny my adoring audience? I’ll do it! Now, settle down and L I S T E N.”

Her attention narrowed to just Sapphire. Her voice, her eyes. The voice screaming in her mind quieted. A frankly welcome thing after a day of that annoying static. She happily allowed herself to focus on the mare before her, to watch the subtle movements of her face and cadence of her voice.

Sapphire began to speak.

“My parents were not fond of me. I know. That seems unbelievable, but, well, they wanted a colt and, as you can see, I’m not. Très Tragique, but that is the pain of being born as a pony as stunning as myself. I craved their attention, did everything I could to garner what little affection I could muster, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t the foal they wanted, and never would be. What was one to do?”

It was tragic. Horribly unfair. To be denied a parent’s love for being born different from expectations was unnecessary cruelty. She felt for Sapphire, and emphasized with her plight that was not so dissimilar to her own.

“Around the end of primary school, I made a new friend who lived in my closet. A single hand and a disembodied voice. It was strange, I knew it was, but it offered me something I couldn’t refuse. Familial affection. She was named Childless Mother and offered me everything I had wanted from my own parents. Small gifts, doting affection, comfort when I needed it. It meant the world to me. Alas, despite my efforts to coax her out, she could not leave my closet, for she needed to S T A Y I N P L A C E.”

Abigail felt something tighten around her, holding her place. She could hear the voice shriek in the back of her mind, but paid it no mind. She was bound in place, drawn to the eyes of Sapphire.

More eyes appeared along her body. Beady little things that bore into her soul. They saw everything, demanded that she not stop paying attention.

She obliged them.

“One day, I happened to notice that my parents had not moved much in a little over a week. When I checked on them, they had become haggard with sunken eyes. I instinctively knew it was due to Childless Mother. When I saw her, she had uncovered some more of her body from the closet. It was equine, and vaguely like that of both my parents. She told me that she was going to save me from neglect. That she would become my parent and love me in lieu of them. I admit, it appealed to me. To have the one that cared about me instead of the ones that had hated me from my own birth. But they were still my parents. I had to act.”

Sapphire drew close. Abigail’s world shrunk to that of only Sapphire’s eyes. The beady eyes spread, crawling along Abigail’s body. A horrid slithering sensation under her scales.

“That was when I manifested my Trauma Attention. I demanded the scrutiny of Childless Mother and made it focus upon me. The pain was excruciating as the withering effect took hold. Mother begged me to stop, genuine tears in their eyes forming as her shape began to coalesce into an older version of myself. She had truly cared about me. What a twist in the narrative! She hadn’t been pretending at all.”

Silence. Dread filled it, a build up to a horror that Abigail knew was coming, but feared all the same.

“Then Redacted appeared. They quickly contained the Malformant, then saved both me and my parents. Of course, what little affection my parents had for me was immediately gone. They never met Mother, but decided it was my fault for what happened to them. I would never tell them how true that accusation was. Thankfully, Redacted offered me a place to live and trained me as an Agent, granting me my career as a popstar in the process. A happy ending to this little fairytale. But, now I ask, what do you believe is the lesson we can glean from this tale?”

Abigail didn’t know. She was genuinely lost, unsure of where Sapphire was going with this. This Malformant sounded bad, but at the same time… it had genuinely cared for Sapphire. Did the mare hate the Malformant? Love it?

She couldn’t tell.

“...I have been tasked to contain you,” Sapphire announced. “As per regulations as a Wallowing Sin Malformant, you will be brought to the Mires, tied up and drowned.”

Her blood froze. She was to be imprisoned for merely how she looked? For not being content with her prior world and moving to this one?

What sense did that make? She’d done nothing wrong!

“You are probably confused,” Sapphire continued. “It is a burden most foul to be upon you, but you need to hear it. You need to L I S T E N T O Y O U R S E L F.”

KILL THEM! BIND THEM! THROW THEM TO SEA!

The voice screamed, rattling her very being. It shrieked and growled and cussed as it climbed to a painful pitch. It consumed her mind. The static cleared. It sounded more feminine. Familiar.

NO ONE CAN HAVE US! WE WILL NOT BE BOUND! WE WILL NOT BE CAUGHT!

It was distinct now. All consuming. The familiarity grew until she realized where she’d heard it from. Her own mouth. It was her voice. She was the one telling her to do this, to fly higher and away from this. To remove all the obstacles between her and her freedom.

IT'S MY LIFE! I WILL DO WHAT I PLEASE! YOU CAN’T BIND ME! NOT AGAIN! NEVER AGAIN!

“All Malformants harbour ugly feelings that manifest as these new forms you take,” Sapphire explained. “It bubbles to the surface and consumes you. Driving you to do things that you may not normally do unless pushed. Show me, Yearn. Show me who you are.”

It was grief. It was pain. It was misery. It was a swamp that threatened to clog her throat. It was the undercurrent that wanted to drown her beneath its waves. It was… it was freedom.

Freedom to not care. Freedom to take what she wanted. Freedom away from the restrictions of her life.

All that bottled up desperate need for her to be released from her chains.

NO MORE! NO MORE! NO MORE!

It would be so easy to embrace it. To take this new power and use it to ensure that she would never hurt, never feel bound in place. But that wasn’t the kind of freedom she wanted. She wanted freedom to have her own life, to fly in the sky, to be able to just… live. To make connections she wanted to make, not dictated by a heartless system.

Those connections she would make would be their own kind of chains.

But she would willingly put them on for the sake of more than just ‘freedom’.

Sapphire scrutinized her with intensity. The eyes drilled through flesh and bone to her very essence. They poked and prodded at her soul, judging its substance. The invisible ropes tied around her tightened.

Then it all went away.

FLY! FLY TO FREEDOM!

Abigail stayed in place. She had made her choice. What her grief wanted for her wasn’t the kind of freedom she sought.

“...I will be back,” Sapphire declared. “I will need Director assistance to support me in this endeavor before Grim can realize what has happened. Fly into the sky Yearn, and stay there. If another Agent comes, don’t approach them. They will not be as kind as I. In the meantime, I desperately hope for you to do one thing.

“Don’t be like the others.”

She walked away with a flick of her mane.

Abigail watched until Sapphire Shores had disappeared. When she was in the clear, she flew into the sky, a weight she hadn’t known she carried lifted from her heart.

The voices were easier to ignore this time.