Solaria ~ Book 1: The Runaways

If there was one problem with the government, then it was that the temperatures issued through the Standard Weather Act of the year 1 of the Dictatorship were far too hot. At least, that was what a pink maned pegasus filly named Celestia thought. Not that that was a problem, under normal circumstances at least. But it had to be just today that the ventilation system was out of order. It was, like, a million degrees hotter than outside. And of course the teacher wouldn't let anypony open the windows.

School was stupid!

Miss Numbers, or Squarejaw as she was called behind her back, stood in front of the class, reading out loud from a book, her eyes on some beach far, far away, happy that she hadn't at some point decided to teach the younger generation about history and instead had enjoyed a long and illustrious carreer in teaching chemistry at the Canterlot University. Celestia could just hear it in the voice of the teacher. The disdain, the boredom over the subject matter. She felt a grumbling escape her, small, but considering how silent it was it must've reached somepony.

Yet, they all just stared to the front, some bored, some somehow still interested at the subject at hoof. Some tried to not listen but just like the teacher herself, they failed to remain in their fantasy worlds. The history of the Dictatorship was just so captivating, despite being teached at least once a year. Or because? She didn't really know, but it came to her own attention that she really wasn't getting into the lesson. It came harder with every day and the more she tried to concentrate, the more the things outside the classroom bewitched her.

As a jetcar flew by she asked herself who sat in it and came up with a story on her own. A spy, like in one of the movies that she was still 'too young' for, fleeing for his life, having stolen the car from another pony. With him was a suitcase in which the core data to the Dictatorship's defenses was stored and following him were the ponies of MAGIC, the special forces of the state. She was thinking how they'd chase through the streets, past the towers and using every trick possible with the anti-gravity magic and boosting spells that had been embedded in their machines. She imagined the spy turning around one wrong corner and suddenly his car was hit with a rocket. She heard the explosion in her head and followed the parts that flew around with her eyes. Fire was everywhere, but the agent was unharmed, falling through the burning remnants of his vehicle, a cocksure smile on his face as he spread his own wings and started soaring through the sky, Tia following him.

"WHOOSH," she exclaimed a bit too loud and after a second, her eyes were widening, as she looked around. Ponies stared at her, some started to giggle, others whispered something. She couldn't hear, instead tried to make herself as small as possible in her chair as Miss Numbers was closing in, the world's darkest frown above her eyes.

The teacher then asked: "Is there something you want to tell us, Celestia?"

With that all the attention was on her and she needed to save face as quickly as possible. "I just thought the story of how Pansy reunited the pegasi could use some sound effects, Miss Numbers. It's kinda boring without," she said, adorning the same smile the agent of her daydream had worn. Surely it would help getting her through this situation and Squarejaw would surely get the joke. She would start to laugh and everypony would tell her how funny and witty she was.

"Celestia, office, now," the frown disagreed.

And that's the story of how Celestia got kicked out of the classroom for letting her fantasy get out of hoof yet again. At least it had been established by the second time that had happened that she had to go to the nurse office and take medication. She hadn't really bothered asking why for the first few times, the school nurse had gotten his job for a reason. Although she had overheard that he couldn't actually just prescribe medication when he wanted to.

This time, after she entered and he had affirmed who she was, Tia immediately went to ask the question: "What do I have to take the pills for?"

"It's a rare condition, Tia," the school nurse, a creme colored stallion with a green mane named Meadow Heart, told her after evaluating her for a second more. As she sat down on a chair in his office he took out the pills she had to take. "The collar normally allows us to focus on important things, but the bodies of little fillies sometimes have a problem responding correctly to the signals it sends-"

Celestia frowned. "I'm a mare," she insisted, interrupting him. She already was in 8th grade, almost a fully functioning adult pony. The nurse looked at her from his own seat, a smile on his face that indicated that he could've made a jab at her. Bein the gentlecolt that he was, however, he did not do that.

"Yes, of course, forgive me," Meadow instead said, "however, you're still growing and somehow that affects the collar, too. The pills serve to help your body grow more accustomed to the signals. It is necessary to keep everything under control, because if your body doesn't respond to the collar, you might stop function properly."

She sighed, touching the metal ring around her neck, before looking at the cup with the pills he was handing over to her. Celestia took it, like all the times before and chugged it down.

"They don't really work, though, do they?"

"Well," he answered, thinking about what to say next, "As said, it's a rare condition and..." He was biting his lip, clearly not knowing what to say next. "Well, Celestia... Uhm, it'll take a few months, yes, a few months before the effects will be truly noticeable. Until then you just have to keep trying to stay focus in class, would you do that for me?"

She nodded, "Yeah, sure. Do I need to go back to class?"

He looked at her for another moment, "Well... Yes,"

"But I don't feel well," she lied, "What if I suddenly fall on the ground and can't stand up again? What if my heart starts beating so hard that it'll feel like it's going to explode and my dinner will come up again?"

"Well... First off, Tia: Equines can't do the last thing you just said and the rest is just as unlikely." He always did this, crushing all her hopes like nothing. "But since I'm generous today and I know you're not going to be productive until you get yelled at by the proper person... Yeah, you can go for today."

Celestia cheered, thanked him and left the room.

She was free of school once again and, having her saddlebags already packed up, was free to leave it as quickly as possible, getting into the main corridor, with doors on her sides and some elevators here and there helping non-pegasi get from one corridor the the other. There were six-hundred-seventy-three total in this tower, she knew and it was something she always liked to reflect on, because Celestia had no idea who had told her that.

Canterlot was organized in 63 towers, surrounding the biggest of them all, the Tower of Dreams. That was the first one they had built after the Founding and it still was the most advanced structure in the world. Each tower was its own little community, the ponies in it knowing each other, well, not just ponies of course. Celestia knew that 3 Gorgon-sisters lived on groundlevel, a griffon family had made their home on the 665th floor and there was some minotaur writing about 'The Manliness of Manhood for MEN!' as he would loudly proclaim upon questioning. There were probably more, but these had been here forever. They were kind of like the old guard of the tower.

The towers were all made from the same material: Cookielum, which was named after the pony who had created it, Smart Cookie and their architecture was simple, although only the corridors with their plain white coloration were something to look at. Age had refined at least Celestia's taste in colors and for some strange reasons ponies seemed intent on doing many things without much care, like painting their homes. That and the fact that she was wearing the same kind of clothing her mother had worn her age, was something that bugged her like nothing else.

Fashion had always been the thing that distanced city ponies from the ones on the country. She didn't know the exact history of that, only that the clothes worn during the Founding were the fasion of today. That was why this morning she had put the same aquamarine bows into her mane for a little diversity, even though the same had been worn by her grandmother. The clothing she wore was a blue jumpsuit with green lines on the legs. Standard fashion for everypony, indicating both your standing in society, your current job and was also able to hide the kind of belly you got after eating too much cake, not that she needed to hide the last thing. Nope, not Celestia.

She'd rather worn a dress though, but these kinds of things were for events and going outside the tower. She didn't question it. Instead she simply walked through the corridor, past one door and then another, over a crossing, finding hardly any pony on her way. They were all working, she knew, or resting. The corridors were only filled during specific times. Here and there some other pony walked along, or flew, in case of some pegasi .

Even though she had managed to end school early, Celestia's route still didn't lead her home. Her mother never took kindly to her coming home early due to whatever condition she had, probably because her daughter was failing at studies hard enough as it was. Tia had obviously no intent on getting yelled at and therefore she decided to go to another school first, the elementary one her sister attended. Then she could wait there and bring the little one home. That would get her bonus points.

She giggled, congratulating herself for such a magnificent scheme. First she could quit school early and then she might even get some praise out of the whole deal. Sometimes she was just too smart for her own good.

With wide a smile she trotted on, farther through the corridors. She went on to the edges of the westside, where windows showed the rest of the city. Cars flew around there, leaving trails of blue light behind them. It wasn't just normal cars for, it ranged from bikes to busses and many times Tia had asked herself why those were so popular even amongst pegasi who could just fly from tower to tower. Canterlot was built upon a mountain range and between the towers, on the ground level, there dwelled citizens, too, in the shadows they had built there own small homes, much like the so called bridge-dwellers who resided on the bridges that connected the middle levels of the towers. There was only one word to describe Canterlot with its many layers and its quantity of denizens. That word was huge.

Celestia liked the windows on the westside, because from this specific tower, the sun could always be seen and it made the city look so wonderful with how the shadows were cast and how life seemed to brim outside. There was a bit of pride there, not only that she could live in such a beautiful place, but the ponies had built it. Who else in the world could boast such a thing?

Then she trotted on.

Constructionwise she had never understood the towers themselves. There were two main corridors on each floor, one with the windows and then, connected through side alleys, it led directly to the smaller inner corridor. Between those stood houses ponies lived in, hundreds of them, too. The floors themselves were built very high. She had heard that the kinds of buildings ponies used on the country could easily be fitted on a floor, maybe even two, atop of each other. That was, as her mother had told her once, because in the middle of each tower was the center of each floor's life. Most ponies worked there, the schools stood there, the market was there and the Dictatorship's broadcast screen was there, too. In case one felt like listening to what the leadership had to tell them.

Unlike most ponies, Celestia never got particularly interested in what they had to say, especially since they never saw the face of their own glorious leader. That one was more like a ghost, a god-like figure hovering above them all, a myth, a legend or at least something like it. They only knew something like a 'glorious leader' existed because somepony had at one point told them in school or at home. Celestia couldn't remember.

Her own way lead alongside the windows and after a few minutes she found a small, darkblue filly blocking her way, her lightblue mane well combed, the way Celestia's had been back then she had still been the age where her mother did the manecare for her.

She looked at Luna. "Why are you not in school?", she asked.

The little filly frowned, "We've been done for a while and didn't mom tell you that you'd be in huge trouble if you got home before your club-meeting."

Celestia stared for a moment before she realized that she had completely forgotten that they had a tournament in the chess club today. Even worse, she had told her mother that she would have to stay there and wouldn't come home with Luna today.

"Well, I..." she began, "I was wrong it was tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow." Celestia tried to repair the situation.

Her little sister sighed, seeing right through the deception. "It doesn't matter, I've got some special homework again and I think I need your help today, so... I'm glad we can spend the rest fo the day together."

Luna was a 3rd grader and the smartest pony her age, still Celestia just found it plain adorable how she would always come to her big sis for help. And even though her own mother said that she was probably just humoring her big sister, there was a sense of pride to it and despite, Celestia wasn't that dumb.

The teachers were, because they were the ones giving her bad marks.

Plus, Celestia loved spending time with her little sister. The moment you had a younger sibling you could get away with a lot of stuff, like building sandcastles or utilizing the playground. Ever since she had reached middle school ponies had started to expect being more 'mature' and 'adult' than she wanted to and was glad to have an excuse to sometimes be just herself. Since Luna was still a kid, she enjoyed their time together just as much.

Her thoughts about games to play were cut short, however by Luna stating: "I mean it, this is probably the best kind of homework I could've probably been given and I want to finish it as quickly as possible!"

Sometimes she did that, too. Celestia would go off into thoughts and then, as if she could read them Luna answered. Sisterly insight, the elder one figured. Also, Luna seemed to adore homework. Yeah, the filly was kind of a nerd.

Celestia resigned herself, "Okay, okay. Let's get ourselves home."

That was how their walk home began almost every other day, the older one wanting to enjoy her free time, the younger one wanting to do more work, both thinking that the other would think the same as they did. Celestia, like always came up with ways to not do homework.

"You know, you could simply wait for a diamond dog to come by, bet him five bucks that he couldn't eat the paper and then the next day you could tell the teacher that your dog ate it. The dog gets five bucks, you don't have your homework and your teacher therefore doesn't have to correct it. Everypony and a dog win!"

Luna looked at her, while she said this, nodding. She, like always, took it as a challenge and not as a hint. There were millions of ways to not do your work properly but doing it right, that's the most rewarding. To her Celestia was full of wisdoms. At least that's what her elder sister liked to think.

Otherwise they walked through the empty corridors, then into an alley and through the main corridor again. There was nothing happening, at all and they remained somewhat quiet. So it remained until somepony walked up to them.

A mintgreen mare with a white streak in her mane and eyes of gold. She wore bluish grey armor plating over her body, on the left side of the breast something stood written in red letters. "M.A.G.I.C."

"Yo," said the pony as she spotted the two, smiling slightly.

"Hello, Miss Heartstrings," they greeted her in unison.

"I hope you two're being good. Especially you, Tia," she gave Celestia a look and the filly found the ground suddenly much more interesting, giving only mumbling as an answer.

"Yes, Miss, we are just heading home to do our homework," Luna answered dutifully.

Lyra laughed. "Very good. Very, very good. We've got to crack down on a burglary down in the undercity, so I hope you youths don't set the floor on fire while I'm gone. See ya," she ruffled Celestia's mane as she passed by and the filly followed her with her eyes.

Luna seemed intrigued. "What was she talking abou-"

Tia wouldn't let her end THAT question. "Anyway, what kind of history problems were you having."

"Math..."

"Right, yeah, 'math'," Celestia said, laughing awkwardly while cursing herself and her memory.

But at least she had averted the question, although she looked one more time over her shoulder to see the green mare halt before an elevator. The name of that one was Lyra Heartstrings and she was a member of a special operations team called MAGIC, although Celestia had no idea what the title exactly meant. On most days, she also did normal police duty and had caught Celestia in her attempts to live out any kind of rebellious phase. That had resulted first in blackmail, then meeting Lyra once a month for coffee and now they were friends. Because Lyra liked being friends, especially with those who were really unlikely to be friendly with her.

Lyra was also very weird.

She heard Luna talking but didn't really spend any attention to it as her thoughts drifted around what had just happened and she imagined the burglary going on. How the burglar had studied the building he wanted to do intently for months and fitting montage music played in the background as she pictured him laying out his plan, bit by bit. Then one day he claimed the moment right and sneaked in, wearing a black spy-suit, as bodyfitting as a ponily possible – because that's what you wore when you broke in somewhere. She thought how the thief, a black pony, scarred from the war, his red eyes always fixed on the target. Before he went in through the window, his mind drifted towards his wife May Flower, a beautiful mare with a pearl white coat and dark blue mane. He thought about how their everyday lives had been shattered before and how nothing was the same as before. They had fought the EAO, the Evil Alicorn Organization, which was a group of evil alicorns and had lost everything. Now he was alone, fighting the system in a race against time to get his wife and children back.

She felt a nudge at her leg and turned towards Luna who gave her a weirded out look, "You were off again, sis. You sure the medication is working?"

"The doctor said it's gonna take some time. Despite, it's not so bad. Just means my mind works perfectly fine," she answered.

And with that they reached the red door. It was the only door with that kind of color on this floor and all the indication they needed to know that they were home. Celestia felt pretty heavy-hearted during that moment, as they stood on the floor. She reflected on how pure the coloration of it all was and how ominous the red seemed. Seriously, who would choose red as their door color out of free will?

Then however, she spotted something else before said door, both she and Luna. Something that seemed particularly interesting to the sisters. A suitcase parked in front of their home, with a letter attached.

That was how post was handled, it was delivered to the doorstep and left there. Mistakes were never made so the system was pretty lax on everything. Thing was, they didn't transport suitcases. Especially not some with such charming letters attached as:

For Dream World, and thanks for letting me get charred you stupid-

"What does the last word mean, Tia?", the filly asked, the question piercing right through Celestia.

"It's one of of those words you say when you want mom to wash your mouth out, Loonie. Just try to forget it."

"Kay."

And that was that but Celestia decided to be a good daughter and bring the suitcase in. That would surely get her some bonus points. Anything to keep her mom from getting angry.

Her mom was scary when angered.