Solaria ~ Book 1: The Runaways

She picked up a pen with her magic, gently floating it over the piece of paper and then in one elegant move painted the number on there. She was always extra careful when it came to her calligraphy. Everypony praised her for it, how readable her writing was, how wonderful her numbers looked, how neatly she maintained the layout during tests. It was another thing a pony could either be ‘bad’ or ‘good’ at and Luna enjoyed being good at things. No, that wasn’t right, she enjoyed being the best at things. She wanted to be the smartest, most well-loved and all around bestest pony in all of Equestria. It wasn’t a humble ambition, that had already been told to her. Not being humble wasn’t good but it was there, wasn’t it? She just needn’t ponies tell about it and they would think her nice. She could maintain her way without endangering it with talking. Luna was a smart pony; everypony said so and that’s why she would surely pull it off in the end.

She looked at the number on the paper and then at the problem beforehand. “Four times ninety-six,” she mumbled. Luna was a smart pony with absolutely no weaknesses or faults and this was far too easy for her. Sometimes she didn’t even understand how other ponies could have problems with these kinds of things. Really, there was nothing as wondrous as a pony having trouble with a simple math problem. Who was the teacher taking her for, anyway?

A drop of sweat moved down her forehead as she stared at problem, her mind racing. “It should be four hundred-forty-three,” she mumbled, absolutely unsure about her answer. She was smart, she could solve this. She had faced problems far worse than this and was sure that she, the smartest pony in her class could overcome.

She couldn’t though.

Instead she just sat there for many more minutes, figuring out if something was wrong and if there was, then what exactly. Thing was, she couldn’t. Even her perfect little mind shattered at the sheer complexity of the problem. She grumbled, leaning back in her tiny chair and looking at the ceiling. Her room was painted in a dark blue but otherwise it was entirely spotless. The toys were kept in Tia’s room, so Luna would never feel too inclined to play with them during work, although it was more to sate Tia’s own desire to distract herself from work. Sometimes she wondered how her older sister could do that. Only sometimes, though. She was a perfect little pony and perfect little ponies never worried too much about the misgivings of others.

Playing was a misgiving and she should do her work for her parents, for Equestria and for herself. Everypony said that it should be so, everypony except Tia. She frowned, because that was also the reason there was nopony but Tia she could rely on. Everypony liked her perfect, everypony loved how she could be smart and do things on her own nopony else could. Everypony except her sister, Celestia. She made the decision quickly, grabbed the piece of paper with her mouth and let the pen float in a position where it was held only by her ear, leaving her concentration for the sneaking to come.

Their arrival back at home had gone about as expected, with their mother glaring at Tia until she’d spill the beans on her own. The other filly always seemed to become so small when confronted with her own faults and never managed to say anything against their parent in this kind of situation. Yet, even though they both had expected the inevitable to come, it hadn’t. The moment their mother had noticed the suitcase all the rage had seemed to fade and even when she had told Tia that the girl was grounded, her attention had already left her daughters. Whatever that suitcase meant, it had saved the day for the household.

With her sister grounded, though, that made asking her for help only easier. This way Luna wouldn’t need to go looking for her somewhere else. She hated doing things like that and so she couldn’t help but smile a bit as she opened the door. She had good practice in sneaking, although she was nowhere as good as Tia. From everything she had heard the only thing Tia was perfect at was sports. She was the fastest runner, the strongest swimmer, the highest jumper and even the most elegant flyer of her class and she had heard her mother even say that her love for physical activity was her most redeeming trait. Luna found it sad how their own mother talked about her eldest daughter.

She went through the small corridor, past the bathroom, her mother’s bedroom, the living room and only stopped by the side of the door that lead to the kitchen, the only open door. Luna took a quick peek to see her mother polishing the furniture inside, humming the Dictatorship’s hymn to herself. The collar was pressing against her sleek, creme-colored neck and her red mane was falling past her shoulders, flatter than Luna’s own mane would ever be. She wore her own jumpsuit, Luna noticed. Tia called them boring and never understood why they’d have to wear them. She once went to school in a dress, shocking everypony, the tiny unicorn remembered. She nearly giggled but instead decided to move quickly. In one swoop she rolled over the ground, past the door. A move she had learned from the movies Tia had shown her. It was how spies worked and spies knew how to be sneaky.

She pressed against the wall once more and did another check, her mother still doing the scrubbing and humming. Success, the tiny filly thought and immediately moved on, only to quickly walk back and pick up the pen that she had lost during her tumbling. With that out of the way however, she quickly made her way to the last room on this floor. Tia’s room.

Beyond the door awaited a room that was seldom cleaned. Toys littered the floor with wooden bricks creating a town around the bed, small equine figurines its denizens. A dragon stood atop it all, a rare collector’s model from their father’s collection and a treasured thing that normally rested in their mother’s bedroom. Behind the dragon was an army of griffons flying a winged cup for their sigil. She noticed that the banner of the town was held up by a tiny white pegasus, who pointed up to the bed, but was ignored by everypony.

Luna smiled at that, because to her there was one more factor that made Tia a special pony. She was so good at coming up with stories and every night she came to Luna to tuck her in and tell her some new thing she had invented, some new tale, some great adventure that needed to be spread. The stories were the most exciting thing in Luna’s life, right after school and homework and being the perfect little pony that she was.

Her eyes shifted from the scene around the bed over the many more figures, cards and board games that littered the floor to the desk, where Celestia sat, a chess set spread out before her. Was she trying to play the game all on her own?

“Tia?” the younger one asked but Celestia didn’t say anything. Sometimes, she just goes off into her own little world, Luna thought, the words once said by Tia’s teacher to the mother, If the medication does not start working soon, she may need to be hospitalized.

The tiny filly frowned and moved closer, stepping over the chaos and then sitting down besides her sister, staring at her with her big, cyan eyes.

Celestia took a bit, but as she moved her fingers towards the white tower to make her move, she noticed her sister. The two stared at each other for a moment, before Celestia opened her mouth. “What are you doing in my room?”

“I need help with homework.”

There it was; the smile of a sister that would always help her younger one. The smile that predated all circumstances where all problems would soon be solved. The smile that gave Luna a bit of hope.

“Show me what you got, pipsqueak,” she said and seemed to overflow with pride. Luna always told herself it was because her older sister was proud that Luna still understood that she needed help, that she wasn’t there yet. It was the kind of pride that soon enough would contaminate Luna, since she was proud, too, of having made the right decision. So she showed her the problem and after but a few seconds Tia said.

“You’ve got it wrong. Four times ninety-six is three-hundred-eighty-four,” Tia told her with a smile.

Luna looked at it and stared at her sister, not really understanding where she had gone wrong.

“Ninety-six plus ninety-six is?”

“One-hundred-eighty-two.”

“Plus one-hundred-eighty-two.”

Luna had to think about that for a moment, getting the numbers straight in her head. “Three-hundred-eighty-four!” She almost shouted it out, the brilliance of the whole problem seemingly falling straight into her head. Sometimes she forgot that multiplication was really simple at its core.

She hugged Celestia. “Thanks, sis. You’re really the smartest pony around.” Celestia returned that hug immediately.

“Thanks, sis.”

The tiny filly let go before it would get awkward and looked at the chessboard. “What’re you doing with that?”

Tia blinked. “Oh, that?”

Her sister nodded.

“I’m just going through the tournament in my head, how it might play out. Right now I’m at Swift Turn’s and Frost Dale’s game, Frost Dale’s turn – She likes white more than black.”

“Oh,” Luna said, “how do you think it’s going to end?”

“Well... Frost likes complicated plans and enjoys playing with the expectations of the other pony, while Swift really likes abusing the rules and exploiting other ponies’ not-knowledge of them but isn’t all that good when it comes to the actual game. Frost doesn’t like it when other players don’t challenge her and so she tries to prolong the game as much as possible when another pony isn’t as good as she is. She hardly ever goes directly for the dictator and plays around with the towers and pegasi, while using trying to sacrifice as many unicorns as possible. She doesn’t like unicorns.” Celestia pointed to the figurines while explaining, her mind somewhere else. Luna wanted to ask where exactly, but a good little filly didn’t ask stupid questions. She thought that might be a stupid question even though stupid questions were hard to figure out.

Celestia looked at her sister, “What?” she asked, apparently not being able to read the look on her face. “You want to play a game?”

Luna looked at her, “Chess?” She wondered whether or not she should be excited at the notion, since she didn’t find much of an appeal in the game, even though smart ponies seemed to enjoy it the most.

“Naah, chess’s booooooring,” Celestia whined, “I don’t even know why I joined the club. Really, I thought there’d much more romance and intrigue around it, but no, ponies just play chess there. Like it’s some kind of chess club.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Not the point.”

“Then what i-,” she didn’t finish the question, because it would’ve ended up being a stupid one. Luna wasn’t stupid. Luna was definitely not stupid. She was a smart pony and nopony could ever deny it. “What’s up with the town?” she instead asked, hoping to divert attention.

It worked.

“Oh, that’s something really awesome. You see, while I was in school, a spy flew by-”

What followed then was Celestia whooshing through the room, assigning names and histories to the figurines and talking about all that had happened to the point where the Luna sat by her side once again just for the sake of sitting by her side and listening to the story.

“-and that’s when the dragon Myxrwhullzag got involved.”

“Mirzwullzag?”

“Mxyurwuldag.”

“Oh... okay.”

“Anyway, he used some sort of evil spell to bring the griffons under his control and marched on the pony lands, destroying our capital and now the Dictatorship is entirely occupied by griffons... Well, not entirely. One small village of indomitable unicorns still holds out against the invaders. So Mynxdurldag has gathered his armies to crush them. So my little ponies are now gathering to face this great menace.”

“How will one village defeat an army of griffons?” Luna asked.

"Magic.”

“Do they have a potion to make them super strong?”

“No, they’re just going to shoot laser beams at them until they’re dead... But, the potion would work, too, I’d guess.”

“How’re they gonna use magic?”

“What do you mean,” Celestia tilted her head. “They’re unicorns, right?”

“But unicorns can’t use magic without a H.A.R.M.”

“Well, magic came back, you see. When the dragon destroyed the Tower of Dreams.”

Luna looked at her sister, “How does that work?”

Celestia opened her mouth, then looked at the figurines. For a moment Luna thought the story was over, destroyed the grenade-like question and its pieces now flew through the sky into unknown directions. However it didn’t go as intended as Celestia’s look was more quizzical, a look that asked just how she had come up with that.

“Meh, chances are the government is hiding stuff from us. The old one the griffons had did that,” she concluded and for one moment Luna thought her sister some kind of deluded conspiracy theorist.

“But the state is good to us,” she defended her home immediately. Celestia laughed at that.

“Maybe that’s what they want us to think. Who knows how much they can manipulate us with those collars?”

Luna looked at her and then started to giggle, “You’re silly.”

“Well, one of us has to be and you most certainly aren’t silly.”

The two practically glowed at each other for a few moments, before Luna remembered that she had more homework to do and turned towards the door. “I’ve gotta go, still stuff to do,” she said opening it.

“Kay, kay,” Tia said, sitting by her toys and figuring out the story behind them.

Luna wanted to exit but halted herself, there was still one thing she wanted to ask before she left. “Tia? Will you tell me a story tonight?”

“Yeah, sure.” Tia’s smile was radiant. “I still got a few up my sleeve somewhere. I should find a good one that’s boring enough for you to sleep to.” Luna hoped not, but didn’t say it. Any story from Tia would be awesome.

“Thanks, Sis.”

“No problem, my little pony.”

The red-maned earth pony was still in the kitchen, now having heaved the suitcase onto the table where they normally ate their food. She looked at it with her grey eyes, both curiosity and fear locked inside them and it made Luna wonder what was inside that box. She wasn’t going to ask, still being all stealthy and stuff. So instead, she waiting for an opening, the moment to leap back into her room and finish the rest of her homework. And that was when the doorbell rang.

Their house had two smaller floors, neither high enough for a pegasus to fly within them and nowhere a window. The upper floor was for living, the lower one for storage and entering. It wasn’t the nicest thing for guests, Luna thought, but that’s how all the living quarters were arranged. She knew that from visits to her friends, even though Tia doubted their existence. She half expected her mother to turn and move away, the first thing she did and Luna got ready from the sprint. What stopped her was the far sound of the door opening and closing and somepony slowly approaching, calling her mother’s name.

A stranger’s voice, she knew and froze up, looking past the door into the kitchen, where the stairway went down and a brown stallion moved up, his body charred and his mane burnt to a crisp. She couldn’t help but stare, not being able to make a sound or move.

“Time?” Her mother exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

The stallion collapsed on the edge of the stairs, with Luna’s mother rushing to his help, grabbing the first-aid kit from the shelf it was stored in, moving directly to treat him. He looked at her. “The egg...” he muttered.

“It’s here, it’s safe. Time, now tell me, what happened.”

“MAGIC,” he said, “They found us. I don’t know how. Applejack said that she used her contacts to let them search in all the wrong places, had convinced them that we’re nothing but some office workers who try to be a bit stealthy about our billiard games or something,” As she took his hoof to look at his hoof he groaned in pain. “A battlesuit came, shot at me with a cannon. I tripped before it hit me and the shot went over me. I ran, I survived.”

“You’ve always been the lucky one,” her mother said, a sudden smile overcoming her fearful expression. “These wounds aren’t half as bad as they look. I can treat it with what I have here,” she almost laughed. “How did you manage that with a battlesuit at your hooves?”

“I have no idea how I made it out alive. I have no idea how I did it. Really, I’m as perplexed as you are,” his voice was weak but he turned to smile at her now. “Don’t ever let them send me south again. It’s not worth the charred fur.” There was a moment of silence. “I missed you Dream World.”

“I missed you, too, Time Turner. I missed you, too.”

Luna had used the moment to sneak past the door, but had seated herself on the floor, still listening into the conversation. Who was that pony? What was he doing here? Where had he come from? What egg? Was there an egg in the suitcase?

She heard movement and her ears were perked. She didn’t know what was going on and she knew that she had still homework to finish. The thing was, she also didn’t want to go. Luna knew that something was off and she knew that if she stayed and listened, she might find out what.

Tia’s words rang through her head, the ones about the state hiding things. Was that what was bothering her? Why? Something in the back of her head was nagging.

She heard them, sitting down by the table, on the cushions.

“So,” Time asked, “want to know about the south?”

“It’s just desert, right? Nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, ‘til Old Peak.” Even Luna felt the sudden shift in the mood. “Dream, there’s something horribly wrong at the Peak. I know I was there but I can’t remember anything about it. There was a fence, there were guards, that I know. I got in, I know that, too. Next thing I know is my left forearm hurting like hell and I’ve got this egg clutched in my other. I was running like Cerberus himself was behind me and I don’t even know why.”

Luna’s first instinct was to grab her collar.

“I phoned in with Moonlight but the number was dead and now this. Bloody Suit appearing during a meeting. Lily even got some new blood.”

“Lily?”

“Yeah, Lily Valley. You know, most gorgeous mare in the entire world? She’s kinda famous.”

“Oh right,” the tone sounded to Luna like a mixture of disbelief and enlightenment, not a combination she’d thought to be possible, “that one.”

“Anyway, I got ‘ere fast as I could. Don’t think they traced me. They sent only one suit so they must’ve been pretty confident about their work.”

“Yeah,” her mother said and something started to feel very wrong. She didn’t know what.

“Anyway,” her mother said, “You’ll stay here for the night I presume?”

“Positive on that one, you think I’ll disturb the girls?”

“No, you’re an educated stallion, right? So you can help Tia with her studying, sometimes I worry for that girl and the medicine isn’t working, either. This way she’ll never be useful to anypony.”

“Well, maybe she can get hospitalized. If things go well, you’ll meet her again in ten years.”

Luna lifted her head.

“I doubt Luna would take well to her sister just leaving.”

“It’s to get her head fixed. You don’t keep broken tools around anyway.”

Luna gritted her teeth, hoping that her mother would speak up against that notion. Tia was bright, Tia loved stories, Tia could be so many things. She was cool and kind and always helpful. There was only one answer their mother could give: Nopony will take my child away.

“Sad as it is, you might be right,” was the answer given. “Come on, I think I have a bunk for outlaws downstairs.”

“You keep bunks for runaways?”

“I have a teenage daughter, better be prepared for anything.”

There was laughter but Luna couldn’t find a smile, she stared at the floor and couldn’t make a single noise. Her mother had objected, back when the doctor had said the same thing. Had she given up? How could she give up on Tia? How could she think of Luna’s sister that she would never be able to be productive and why would she send her away? Tia wasn’t dumb. Tia was bright and smart and loved stories, she was perfect, Luna found, the most perfect pony in the world and the most wonderful sister. Sure, sometimes they’d get into each other’s mane a bit too much but in the end Tia would always come to her, apologize if needed and tell her a bedtime story. That’s how things went, that’s how things should remain.

She wouldn’t let anypony touch her sister, she wouldn’t let anypony do anything against her family. Not the doctors and not some stranger who had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t matter who he was to her mother, he didn’t know Tia and he most certainly didn’t know Luna. He wanted to take something important from her, then she would make him feel exactly that way.

She stood up, hearing into the kitchen, noises were coming from below the stairs. Whatever bunk they were talking about, she hoped they would stay there long enough. So she sneaked towards the table and climbed on it, fixing the suitcase with her gaze.

“So... you’re an egg. I know about eggs. Baby birds are in eggs. So you’re a bird and that means you can understand me,” she said, her expression so angry it looked like she was pumping herself full of air. “They want to take away my sister, you know. Chances are because they have me as a perfect pony. If that is the case, then let me ask you: Do you think that’s the right thing to do?”

The suitcase gave no answer. She took that as a “No”.

“Do you believe that just because a pony has been somewhat forgetful with things, they can just go and take everything away from her and her sister?”

The suitcase gave no answer. She took that as a “No”.

“There’s a ton of things I want to do together with her. There’s a ton of things we will do together, so if they want to take her away, it’s on account of me being perfect and her not. Which brings me to my last point: Do you know what I believe in?”

The suitcase gave no answer.

"I believe that the small things can have the biggest effects on the world."

With that said, Luna grabbed the hilt of the case with her mouth and carefully got off the table and as sneakily as possible went down the stairs. She made little to no sound as she took each step on its own and at the end of the line she saw the final floor with rooms to each side and only one had a light on. The door was right in front of her and so she moved. She tiptoed without even knowing what toes were, the ground cold against her hooves and nervosity leaving sweat running along her brow.

She leant on the last important door to her side, the one with the light.

“You know, I never thought running away from somewhere would end me in a place so cozy,” the stallion said, his voice almost hazy.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” her mother said playfully but Luna thought the same with an entirely different tone of voice. He was going to regret ever coming here and ever wanting to mess with her sister. Nobody ever messed with her big sister.

She went past the door and then hurried towards the exit, not really knowing what to do once she got out but she’d figure it out. It would end up her first prank and she already knew that her mother and Tia would forgive her for it. They were family, nothing would ever tear them apart. Not now, not ever.