Chapter One

Better Days

“I watch the metal rusting, I watch the time go by.”

-17 years

The door slid open, and a small colt wrapped in a large blanket took several hesitant steps forward.

“…Dad?”

A dark lump shifted on the shadowed bed. “Windfall?” his mother asked, yawning as she sat up. “What’s wrong?”

Windfall rushed to the bedside, dragging his blanket behind him. He placed his forehooves on the side of the mattress and looked up, seeking his mother’s familiar outline, familiar scent in the darkness. “I had a dream,” his wavering voice confessed.

“Sh, dear, it’s all right,” his mother cooed. She swung her legs out over the side of the bed.

The other lump rolled over. “Mmpgh’ny?” it asked. “Soupçonne?”

“It’s okay, dear,” Soupçonne replied. “Go back to sleep.” She lowered her forehooves gently to the floor, then bent down to nuzzle her son. “It’s okay,” she encouraged. “I’m here. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Windfall stuck to her side, and she lead him back to his own bedroom. Soupçonne turned on a small lamp on his bed stand and lifted him back up onto his own mattress, his over-large blanket trailing off onto the floor. The soft light glistened off the streaks where his tears had flowed, and she lifted a hoof to wipe them away. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked gently.

He pressed in close and was silent. “I was falling,” he said after a few minutes. “An’ it wouldn’t stop, an’ I’d fall past the other ponies and they all laughed...”

“Sh,” his mom hushed him as his words began to run together. “It’s okay. It’s okay. There’s nowhere to fall. Just a dream, love. It’s just a dream.” She rocked him, bundling his blanket around him.

Windfall’s eyelids grew heavy again, and his terrors faded to the back of his foggy mind. His mom set his head on the pillow and pulled the sheets up to his chin.

She clicked off the lamp, returning the room to complete darkness. “Sweet dreams, love,” she murmured, before picking her way around toys toward the door by memory.

“Mom?” Windfall called. “…would you stay?”

She stopped. She had a double shift booked the next day, and would need every bit of rest she could get. She returned to his bedside.

“I’m here,” she said. “For as long as you need me, love.”

His bed was far too big for him, the one-size-fits-all Stable-Tec furnishing. It provided ample room for Soupçonne to sit beside Windfall. Only his head and forehooves peeked out. To Soupçonne he looked ever so small, adrift in a sea of Stable-Tec-blue bedsheets.

She only ever sang to select audiences: the pots and pans in the Stable galley, which passed no judgment, and Windfall, to whom she could deny nothing. And so her soft, breathy voice repeated a song her mother used to sing for her.

Ma chérie, les nuit-temps passées

Ma cherie, le matin est près

Ma chérie, les nuit-temps passées

Ma cherie, le matin est près

Papa n'est plus là, il marche à la guerre

Je promets vraiment, il reviendra

Ma chérie, les nuit-temps passées

Ma cherie, le matin est près

She sang on, even after he’d slipped to sleep, in case it brought him sweeter dreams. Once it was finished, all was silent save the gurgle of water sloshing through the pipes which ran across the steel ceiling. She stayed a while longer, watching the sheets rise and fall with each little breath.

-15 years

Windfall sat next to his father, holding his leg very still. His eyes watered as he fought against every sniffle.

“Yep,” Doctor Amitié said, tapping a hoof against the x-ray pinned to the backlit screen. “It’s broken. What were you doing?”

“We were playing,” his father answered for him. “Things just got a little rough.”

“Uh-huh. Well, Gallivant, you two need try a board game instead. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of his wings,” she said, turning away to face him. “I can fix this up, and we’ll have you out of here in a few minutes.” She crouched down to the pegasus’ level. “You’ve been very brave.”

Gallivant ruffled Windfall’s hair. “That’s my little stallion.”

Windfall just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Any weight on his right foreleg brought sharp pain.

“Hold very still,” the doctor instructed as light swirled around her horn and coalesced about his injured leg. “...and there we go! Not so bad, was it?”

“Nope!” Windfall stood and gingerly tested his limb. Already the pain was a memory, a ghost trapped in the past. He hopped up and down, first on three, then all four, and finally on just the one mended leg.

“Thank you.” Gallivant nodded to the doctor. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s what you said last time, Gall.”

Stable 94’s steel corridors were lined by framed paintings and sculptures on pedestals. Outside the Clinic hung portraits of smiling doctors, stallions and mares in immaculate labcoats. Gallivant looked down at his son. “Don’t tell Mom, okay?”

Windfall shook his head. “No way!” He remembered the lecture he got, and the lecture his dad got, and the lecture they both got.

Gallivant smiled down. An idea struck. “So long as we’re not telling Mom…”

“Don’t tell Mom what?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t.”

“What is it?”

“We could get in a lot of trouble…”

“Daaaaaad!”

He looked left, then right with comic caution. “Follow me,” he whispered into his son’s ear.

Windfall scurried on little legs to match his father’s long stride. Every colt boasted that his father could beat up all the others’; Windfall had his dad’s promise that he was right. And Gallivant looked it, made tall by heredity and strong by years spent dragging a plow across the Stable’s underground fields. But no matter how long a day it’d been, he always found it in him to chase (or be chased by) his seven-year-old son.

After a few turns and a flight of stairs, Gallivant stopped and Windfall almost crashed into his hind leg. Gallivant checked the corridor again, like a colt dared to break into the Overmare’s office. He drew a deep breath and pushed against a plain-looking wall panel, nestled between the portrait of a long-dead Overmare and an abstract piece of terrible, swirling colors. The panel swung aside on well-greased hinges to reveal a simple, unlit passage behind it. Not a single piece of art was hung on its walls, leaving it disconcertingly empty. “C’mon,” he urged Windfall. “In we go!”

Windfall’s eyes were wide. He wasn’t scared of the dark, no, not even this new, forbidding dark which could be hiding anything. Spurred by his father’s urgings, and a sudden push, he stumbled into the passageway. The door closed a second later. This new place had the musty air of a neglected service tunnel.

“Stick close,” Gallivant instructed.

Windfall pressed himself up against his dad’s side and stayed there. Gallivant moved steadily in the darkness, making turns where, for all Windfall could see, there was only more wall. After what seemed to him an eternity of blindness, the corridor ended, and Gallivant put his shoulder to the wall. It, too, swung open, and dim light lit up the world again. He stepped out into the room beyond, and beckoned Windfall to join him.

The toothed door to an ancient tomb sat indifferent before them. Windfall looked around and glimpsed control panels, massive machinery, and a proper exit into some corridor, but no ponies. “Dad?” he whispered.

“This is it,” Gallivant breathed, in the tones the old folk used to speak of the Goddesses, tones Windfall had never heard in his father’s voice. “This,” his father said, gaining strength, “is the rest of the world.”

He trotted along his dad’s side towards the massive cog. His only response was, “Huh?”

“Touch it,” Gallivant urged. He raised a forehoof to the metal, and, hesitantly, Windfall did the same. “Feel anything?”

“It’s cold,” Windfall said. It ran up his foreleg and down his spine, and he shivered.

“It’s winter out there,” Gallivant said. “There’s snow, like in the movies, and it’s thick and cold, and it clumps on the trees, and we could throw it at each other until we’re both worn out.”

Windfall thought for a moment. “It’s like the freezer where Mom works,” he said.

“It’ll be warmer if we come back on your birthday,” Gallivant told him. There was only the sound of their breathing as they held their hooves to the door, looking up at the ‘94’ emblazoned on the door’s center. “They can’t keep us in for good,” Gallivant muttered after a minute.

“Who?”

Gallivant pulled his hoof away and shrugged. “The Stable’s full of fillies and colts. Nopony really, really wants to leave, or they would. I could.”

“You could?”

He grinned. “Damn straight I could. Security? The Overmare? Psh.” He stuck out his lower lip to blow a strand of hair out of his eyes.

Windfall chuckled, and the sound scattered through the empty room. “No way.”

“Oh yeah. We got this far, didn’t we? If you’re lucky, one day I’ll take you out with me.”

“What’s out there? ‘Sides the snow?”

Gallivant looked to the door. “Everything,” he said. “You’ll see—we’ll go together. Everything in every movie, every song, every book. It’s all out there, waiting for one brave stallion to kick this door down. Sky, mountains, dirt, clouds. How long has it been closed?”

“One hundred and forty-two years,” Windfall replied immediately. Everypony knew that.

“No matter what happened,” Gallivant proclaimed, “things are better now. Outside is waiting for us. Do you want to go?” he asked, craning his neck down to be eye-to-eye with his son.

“Yeah.”

“Do you, really?” he asked again, with great intensity. “This is serious, Windfall.”

Windfall paused to truly consider it, lowering his head and narrowing his eyes. But what could be better than everything? “Yeah!”

“Then you will. We will, I promise. Just wait. Our time will come. Now c’mon,” he said as he straightened up. “Let’s get outta here before some guard checks in.”

Memory of the frigid door lingered in Windfall’s mind and hoof for some time. Soon they returned to their family’s quarters, and, warnings forgotten, Gallivant tossed Windfall up in the air. He spread his little wings at the apex of every arc, each higher than the last. And when his mane brushed the ceiling it seemed like he might finally break free of gravity and soar upwards, through the steel to the world beyond.

-10 years

Windfall kept his head low and his wings wide. His eyes swept the space behind a dusty statue and he stalked forward. His quarry was somewhere in the area, he was sure of it. Every bit of his attention was focused on the mission at hoof, every nerve, every hair, every feath—

A sharp tug from behind sent him twice his height into the air. When he drifted back down he turned to see the tip of his tail in a green filly’s mouth.

“Gmtcha!” She spat it out. “Gotcha! No magic this time!”

“Damn it!” Windfall swore, and felt dangerous for doing so. “Best five outta seven?”

“Hey, Windfall! Windfall, Windfall, Windfall!”

He turned to see Silver Screen bounding at them down the corridor. Silver was his age, and recently gotten his—

“Windfall!”

“What?” he asked as Silver skidded to a stop in front of him.

“I was going through the—hey, Lifelines!—archives!” Lifelines waved and Silver Screen panted. “Y’know, since I’m working a Theater shift now. ‘Cause of my—”

“Yeah, I know,” Windfall cut him off. He didn’t like to think about his own blank flank.

Silver’s near-manic grin didn’t even flicker. “I found an old film canister waaaaay in the back! It’s—,” He almost choked when his eyes flicked back to Lifelines. The light gray colt’s face flushed red.

“What is it?” she asked, bright and curious.

“N-nothing,” Silver stammered. “I mean, nothing you’d like. Nothing!”

She squinted at him. “It’s something cool, huh?”

Windfall felt the same way, but instinct told him to play it cool. “Probably something lame,” he said. “I’ll tell ya later, okay?”

“Okay…” Her look of mistrust remained. “I don’t care! Lemme know when your little Colt’s Club meeting is done.”

“I hate it when she gets mad,” Silver sighed once she’d gone.

“I think it’s kinda cute. What’s the thing?”

Silver brightened up again. “So I was going through the cans, and there was this one, I think it was hidden, ‘cause, er, they wouldn’t want me to find it! It’s from,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “Prance.”

Windfall’s eyes flew open wide. “A movie from Prance, like—?”

“Yes!” Silver nodded rapidly. “I looked at it a little. C’mon,” he urged. “Next show ain’t for a couple hours. You just gotta see this stuff!”

Windfall chased after him. The Theater was in the upper levels, near the Portrait Galleries. It had a box office window nopony used, and two grand double doors leading into a sweeping arc of plush, worn-out red seats. At the front was the big screen, flanked to either side by rich curtains. When the screen was raised it doubled as a stage for poorly-attended theatrical presentations, as well as the mandatory Hearthswarming Eve pageant.

Silver rushed to lock both sets of doors and scurried up to the projection booth. Windfall picked a seat right up front; he wanted to be close up for this. In a few seconds the projector rattled to life, and garish saxophone poured through the speakers. Silver scurried back down and plopped into the red velvet seat next to Windfall. The first few minutes were boring, but then! They sat, eyes locked on the screen, mouths agape as sights they’d only feverishly imagined played out in front of them.

“Oh, wow,” Windfall breathed. He couldn’t tell Lifelines.

-6 years

“What do you think we’re gonna get?” Lifelines asked, eyes bright. She was Windfall’s age, and just as overdue for her cutie mark as he was. “I just don’t know! Well, I guess if we knew we wouldn’t be here, right?”

“I’m not worried.” Windfall smirked, leaning back in the cramped desk. They sat alone in the Stable’s classroom, awaiting Mr. Blackboard’s arrival. “I bet I’ll get Security, or something like that. Something cool.”

“I hope you get it!” Lifelines levitated her pencil, twirling it around in a green aura. “Just no arresting me, okay?”

“Officer Windfall doesn’t play favorites, Ma’am.”

“My mom’s patched you up enough I think it’s worth something,” she teased. “You’re really not nervous?”

“Not a bit,” he lied. “You?”

“Oh, yes.”

Mr. Blackboard chose that moment to appear with the tests, his dark flanks smeared, as always, with streaks of white chalk. “Good morning, Lifelines, Windfall. Are we ready?”

“I think so,” she replied, offering a smile.

“Oh yeah.” Windfall grinned. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Good.” He spoke on as he set a battered test booklet on each desk. “Each question has multiple answers, none of which are correct, per se. Mark the answer that fits you best and you'll do just fine. Any questions?"

The two shook their heads.

“Then you may begin. Good luck!”

Windfall stared down at the booklet. A cartoon cat stared back up at him, mouth open in a ridiculous grin. He took a deep breath and opened his Cutie mark Aptitude Test to read the first problem.

Question One: Your Butler-Bot, Mr. Friendly, is broken down, and the party is tonight! How do you get it working in time?

A. Locate and repair the fault in his Friendship Cogitator.

B. Cannibalize him for parts to build a Party Uninvitation Robot.

C. Whine until somepony else takes care of it.

D. Give him a good bucking.

Windfall squinted, chewed the end of his pencil, and marked D on the answer sheet.

Question Two: This stubborn apple sapling just refuses to grow! What’s the best way to coax the little guy up?

A. Talk to it. Plants are ponies, too!

B. Water it, with love and affection.

C. Ensure it receives 8.62 hours of direct artificial sunlight per day.

D. Give it a good bucking.

He shrugged and marked D again. Next question.

Question Three: Old Granny Honeycrisp feels useless and neglected in her old age. How do you make her feel young and spry again?

A. Listen to all her stories. Again.

B. On her next birthday, ‘forget’ a few dozen candles on her cake.

C. Prescribe a healthy dose of antidepressants. Better living through alchemy!

D. Give her a good bucking.

The test continued on in that fashion. Windfall was halfway through when a faint flash of white light drew his attention, and Lifelines’ piercing squeal demanded it.

“Look!” she exclaimed, staring at her flank in open-mouthed amazement. Where there had been nothing but green now was home to the image of a quill pen just completing the black outline of a pony.

She held up her booklet to show Blackboard and Windfall. “I couldn’t focus on the test,” she gushed, “So I did this!” The cartoon cat now lived in a small penciled village, complete with homes, a cartoon wife and kitten, and grouchy-looking cartoon dogs for neighbors. “It just felt so, so right!”

“You’re dismissed,” Blackboard said. “It looks like your parents have a party to plan! How’s it coming, Windfall?”

Windfall replied with a noncommittal grunt and buried himself in his test. He could congratulate Lifelines later; his own destiny awaited. He plowed through the rest of the questions and thrust it into Mr. Blackboard’s hooves, eager for his own results.

On the bright side, he got to see his dad a lot more.

* * *

-4 years

The tremors struck again, stronger than before. Hundreds of ponies were stuffed in the Atrium, a designated shelter. The bulletproof glass window overlooking the crowd from the Overmare’s office shattered, and jagged shards, twinkling in the emergency lighting, rained down on the crowd below. Statues crumbled, busts toppled from carved columns, and framed paintings dashed themselves on the steel floor. Some ponies screamed, others prayed. Doctor Amitié’s horn never dimmed as she rushed from pony to pony, sealing cuts and soothing nerves.

Windfall, midair in the vaulted room, dodged the shower of glass. Though the air surged with the earth, he was cushioned from the worst of it. He dove from side to side at each groaning bulkhead or swell of terror from his friends and family below. Worst were the metallic shrieks. The noise shot straight up Windfall’s spine. It felt like the walls would twist apart around them at any moment.

The world settled and the crowd’s panic quieted to a dull buzz of relief and worry. Within ten minutes a mechanical door slid open, mercifully still functional despite the shaking. The Stable ponies tried to press out but were instead shoved in by a pair of armored Security ponies.

“Windfall!” one bellowed, and the crowd hushed.

“What did he do?” a pony asked, and the question rippled out.

He swooped down to hover in front of the guards, the crush of the crowd contracting to open barely enough room for him to land. “What?” he asked, with every last bit of shaky teenage defiance he could muster.

“Come with us,” the lead mare ordered. “The Stable needs your help.”

“Doctor? Doctor, he’s moving!”

Everything hurt. Windfall’s limbs felt unbearably heavy. A strange breeze on the top of his head did nothing to abate the horrendous headache. He cracked open his leaden eyelids and the fluorescent light stabbed him to consciousness.

Dr. Amitié’s warm face cast a welcome shadow across Windfall’s own. Nurse Curette stood back from the bed a few paces, offering a smile. Windfall knew this room; he’d spent a few weeks in here before. It was the Clinic’s Intensive Care Ward. A suite of boxy medical equipment, bleeping and blinking in arcane patterns, was clustered around the head of his bed.

“Easy,” the doctor cautioned. “You soaked up a lot of radiation. Curette,” she tossed over her shoulder, “Run and tell Soupy and Gallivant.”

“It worked?” Windfall croaked. He blinked and tried to sit up and look around, but a burst of nausea dropped his head back to the pillow. He could feel bandages binding his wings to his back, and layered atop his burnt and blistered flanks. The top of his head felt cold.

“It worked. Everything’s still settling down, and severe rad poisoning will get you at least another week off work.” Her words were the usual repeat customer banter, but her tone was gentler than usual.

He fell silent. The last thing he remembered was being soaking wet, heaving Scram out of the steaming reactor pit and onto the catwalk…

“You weren’t wearing a PipBuck, so I’ve had to estimate the dosage,” she continued as she checked the level of orange fluid dripping down the IV line hooked up to the crook of his foreleg. “Still, I think you’ll pull through just fine.” She smiled at him. “And don’t worry, the mutation seems benign. I’ll need a biopsy, but that can wait. There are other, ah, side effects, but they should be temporary.”

Windfall brought his free forehoof to his forehead. His eyes widened and he pushed it back slowly across his bare scalp.

“Bald at both ends,” Amitié confirmed. “It’s a common symptom, according to the literature. Of course, we haven’t had cases like you and Scram in decades. Most ponies are smart enough to wear suits before opening the reactor.”

“None with wing holes,” Windfall mumbled, still running his hoof across his head.

“About those…” Amitié floated a bucket up into Windfall’s view.

He lunged when he saw its contents and immediately regretted it for the pain. A hundred blue feathers fluttered down around him. “The hell happened?” he gasped.

“You moulted. If it’s at all like hair—and I think it is—they’ll grow back eventually. Until then, you can try to go a month without smashing into a wall and breaking something. Your hair fell out first, and I’m afraid the Musicians requisitioned it.”

He scooped as many as he could reach into a pile on his stomach and stared in open-mouthed horror. “No,” he said, first as a statement of fact, and then denial. “No, no, no! No.”

“Easy there,” Amitié cautioned. “You might find you’ve gained more than you’ve lo—”

The door to Windfall’s room hissed open, and Dr. Amitié’s response was lost as a half-dozen ponies stormed in. They took up tactical positions around his bed. An easel went up with a clatter and sketchpads and notepads fluttered open to blank pages. The Painter, Bristlebrush, bit down on a tube, squeezing some fresh blue out onto a color-encrusted palette. His head poked out from behind the canvas. “This light is terrible,” he complained. “Washed-out trash.”

“Shut up,” snapped Sympony, her head bent down next to the chirping medical equipment. Her hoof tapped along with the pace of its beeps and bleeps, finding a pattern in a matter of seconds. “I can work this,” she muttered, bobbing her head and wild mane. The rest furrowed their brows at Windfall and scribbled and sketched and paid Amitié’s protestations no mind at all. One just squinted at him.

Windfall’s eyes darted from pony to pony. Artists. They weren’t all bad. Hell, Lifelines was headed for the higher castes, and maybe Silver Screen, too. But his parents, and Windfall himself, had to work for a living.

Another pony entered, a violet-coated unicorn clad in an immaculate Stable 94 jumpsuit. Overmare Cavalcade. Outside the room stood her omnipresent bodyguards, the biggest, toughest ponies Security had to offer. The Artists parted for her, pressing Amitié further up against the wall.

“I am here,” the Overmare announced loudly in the enclosed space, “to acknowledge the extraordinary service the pegasus pony known as Windfall has rendered my Stable. For his service in enabling the repair of the Stable’s main reactor, and our continued lives in peace and safety, I hereby declare Windfall to be this month’s Inspiration and Judge of Honor. Well done, young stallion. You’ve made me proud.”

The expected applause broke out in the room, an enthusiastic, yet short-lived display before they turned their hooves, mouths, and horns back to the tasks at hoof, mouth, and horn.

“Thank you, thank you,” the Overmare said, bowing her head.

“Scram did the work,” Windfall objected, though his heart wasn’t in it. The glow of attention felt warmer than the radiation. Maybe, Windfall thought, setting his head back down, maybe they aren’t so bad after all…

“But without you, our intrepid technician could never have reached the problem!” The Overmare smiled and patted his shoulder. “I say you’ve earned it, Windfall. Enjoy.” She turned back to the rest of the room. “And now I must leave to oversee vital repairs to our home, the Last Bastion of All Ponykind. I look forward to your inspired creations, and this brave new chapter in our Stable’s triumphant culture!”

Rote applause followed her out, but as soon as the door closed all eyes were intent on Windfall again.

An earth pony stallion with sketchpad spoke around his pen. “Scrunch your face up again,” he said to Windfall’s sloppy grin. “You’re supposed to be in pain.”

“Happy portraits are so last decade,” Bristlebrush tossed in.

“Goddesses, you Visuals never shut up,” the Musician shot over at them. “Do you need this?” she called out to Amitié, indicating a small cart full of the bleeping boxes.

“Yes, damn it!” she shouted as she finally found the leverage to shove against the Writer who’d squeezed her against the wall. There was a snapping sound.

“Son of a bitch,” Luxuriant Composition, a purple stallion, muttered down at his ruined quill. His eyes slid up to the pile of long, blue feathers on Windfall’s lap, up to Windfall’s eyes, and then back to the feathers before his horn lit to float a dozen over to himself. “It’ll be meta,” he declared. “You wouldn’t understand.” A quick dip of one’s tip into his inkwell and he was scribbling again.

“Out!” Amitié shouted. “I will not have my clinic invaded, and I will not have you upsetting my patient!” She planted her forelegs on the Writer’s flank and shoved. Another snap, another curse, and another feather lifted off Windfall’s pile to bob in the air with the others.

“The Brave Doctor pours her soul into renewing Our Wounded Hero,” the Writer muttered to himself, scratching away with the new quill. “Blinded by her passion for medical science, she lashes out, quite irrationally. But! Lay no blame at her hooves, Gentle Reader, for an over-zealous nature is a fault all ought aspire t—”

“Out! Now!” she repeated. “Before I call Security.”

Bristlebrush snorted. “What, so we can have you removed?”

At that moment the door slid open again to reveal an anxious-looking Gallivant and Soupçonne, Nurse Curette eclipsed by the stallion’s bulk. Windfall’s father took one look in the room and issued one very simple instruction: “Get out.”

They objected, but two decades’ pulling a plow had well-prepared him for pulling ponies. Most of the others got the message once the first two were thrown clear of the room.

“The Overmare will hear of this!” Bristlebrush warned as he and his easel were shoved out.

“Fine,” Gallivant said with a shrug. “Don’t let the door crush you on the way out.”

Dr. Amitié took the chance to check Windfall over for torn bandages or dislodged tubing, while Soupçonne watched closely over her shoulder.

“Next one of them gets a hoof up his ass.” Gallivant grinned as he trotted back to the bed. Amitié stepped back, satisfied, and Soupçonne sat at her son’s side, caressing the colt’s smooth head. She looked up at Gallivant and disapproval crossed her features.

“You can’t keep provoking the Overmare,” she said quietly. “You know she hasn’t forgotten about last year.”

The door slid open and closed again as Dr. Amitié made her exit.

Gallivant scoffed. “With our little hero, here? She wouldn’t dare.”

Soupçonne shushed him. “How’re you doing?” she murmured to her son. “Does it hurt? Can I get you anything?”

“Really, Mom, I’m okay,” Windfall insisted.

“Are you sure?” she asked, eyes tracing from bandage to bandage. “You poor thing…”

“I’m kinda thirsty,” he admitted, and immediately she was at the room’s sink, filling a glass with water.

“Damn good work,” Gallivant said, taking Soupçonne’s place at his side. “We’re proud of you.”

“Yes,” she said, proffering the water to Windfall from the other side of his bed. He took it and sipped, then gulped. As soon as the edge left his lips his mom had it under the tap again.

Gallivant gave Windfall’s shoulder a little shake. “Don’t worry,” he grinned. “You’ll be back out in the Fields with me in no time.”

Windfall snorted, groaned, and rolled his eyes. “I think I feel really, really bad…”

“See?” Gallivant asked Soupçonne. “He’s gonna be just fine.”

She ignored him, and when Windfall was done drinking she softly kissed his forehead. “Are you still thirsty?”

“Nah.”

She placed her cheek in front of Windfall’s mouth, and he kissed it diligently.

“We won’t keep you up,” she said. “You need your rest. I love you.” She shot a significant look at Gallivant and pulled herself from Windfall’s side.

“Don’t slack off too long,” Gallivant said with a wink and a jab at the door. “That’s their job.”

Soupçonne left another full glass on the small end table next to the bed.

Windfall lifted a hoof and waved goodbye before letting his head sink back down onto the pillow.

“I don’t think we should tell him.” Silver Screen and Lifelines were headed to the Clinic, Lifelines trailing a sheet of paper in her green magic, while Silver balanced a small stack of books on his back. “He kinda liked you for a while.”

She chuckled. “Did he? He never did anything about it.”

“I’m glad.” Silver trotted faster to hide his blush. The middle of a quake… He wished he’d had to guts to say it the day before, the week before, hell, the year before. But better then than never. He looked back and smiled at her. “He can find out later.”

They rounded the last bend and whatever Lifelines was going to reply died on her tongue. Just outside Windfall’s door, Gallivant and Soupçonne stood spitting words at each other.

“…and you will not… use him for that! You and Luna know I hate that you’re still involved. If I hear one word about you dragging him in, I swear to the Goddesses I will—”

Both heads turned in unison to stare at Silver and Lifelines. “Uh, hi,” Lifelines offered, with an awkward wave.

“Excuse me,” Gallivant snapped. He turned and stomped away.

Soupçonne’s eyes pleaded with the two of them. “Don’t say anything about this, please,” she urged. “He needs his rest.”

They both nodded, and Soupçonne walked away with careful neutrality forced on her face.

Silver and Lifelines turned to each other. Neither spoke for a moment, then Silver stepped forward to wrap his forelegs around her neck. “Never,” he murmured.

“Never,” she whispered.

They separated, glanced at each other again, and entered Windfall’s room.

“Hey, hey!” Lifelines exclaimed. “You’re still alive!”

Windfall grinned at the sight of his friends and pushed himself up in bed. “I told you I’m never gonna die!”

“Hey,” Silver said with less enthusiasm. “You didn’t hear anything outside, did you?”

“…no?”

“Great!” Lifelines butted in. “We brought you stuff!”

“Oh, right!” Silver set the four hardcovers on the little end table, next to the water. “Brought you Daring Dos Eleven through Fifteen.”

Windfall reached over and snatched the top one off the pile. “Awesome, The Crystal Crusade arc!”

“And I brought you something, too,” Lifelines added. “I’m surprised you haven’t torn your bandages off. ‘Course, my mom would probably tie your legs to the bed.”

“My what to the what?” Windfall asked, the book falling to his lap.

“He doesn’t know!” Silver sat on his butt, laughing.

“Mom didn’t tell you, huh?” Lifelines chuckled. “Figures. Take a good look at this!”

Windfall stared as Lifelines’ paper glided over. He snatched it out of the air and stared for a good five seconds. “This is— it isn’t— Aw, yeah!” On the paper was a stylized storm cloud being torn asunder by a white meteor plummeting downwards. He felt like leaping out of bed and into the air. His bare wings strained against their confines, and he twitched at the pain. “I’m okay!” he declared, as soon as he caught his breath. “You drew this? You saw it?” he demanded of Lifelines.

“Easy!” she said, raising a hoof. “It’s there, I swear!”

Windfall stared down his body, a blanket and bandages between himself and the object of his decade-long desire. He plastered the paper against his flank and his thoughts raced. He was the bolt, right? And what were the clouds? The hot, roiling steam that had billowed from the reactor? Actual clouds, somewhere… outside?

Lifelines and Silver Screen flashed back to their own moments of transcendental understanding, and gazed into each other with similar clarity. A moment of silence followed.

A light cough from behind Silver and Lifelines caught their attention.

“I’m sorry, but you guys gotta go,” Curette said. She, too, was young, and had in fact been all three’s classmate until the cross and butterflies which adorned her nurse’s cap appeared on her flank. “Doctor’s orders—he needs his rest. And she wants you home, Lifey.”

Lifelines rolled her eyes. “You can’t escape your parents, Windfall,” she told him. “Mark or no mark. C’mon, Silver, we can tell her, at least. Later, Windfall!”

Silver echoed the farewell, though he looked nervous as he followed her out.

“Tell her what?” Windfall asked, but Lifelines’ swishing tail didn’t answer.

“No idea,” said Curette, pulling up a rolling stool. She sat, and leaned forward toward Windfall. “Nopony’s told me anything. What happened down there?” Her eyes were bright.

He looked up at her. His eyes traced the loop of hair which escaped her cap, up past the curve of her ear toward the corner of her mouth. “What about my rest?”

“I’m to keep a close eye on you,” she said. “This counts. ‘Sides, only other thing down here is boredom.”
Windfall took a deep breath, and for the first time took a moment to untie the knot of memories. He began the story slowly, deliberately, in the theater with Silver Screen before the quake. Then the first tremors hit, and the aftershocks, and his tempo increased as they were herded into the Atrium. Curette nodded from time to time, but this she’d lived in the Clinic.

But then he spoke of the shout which called him down to the door in the red-lit gloom. Curette edged closer as he was ushered down flights of stairs to the restricted levels and beyond, and was given over to Scram, a small mare laden down with tools and sudden responsibility. Now Scram slept in another room in the ward and couldn’t contradict a word of his story.

His wings strained against their casts when he told of plunging them both into the steam-shrouded abyss to the core below. He described the fallen maintenance elevator, and the pony crushed inside, and how the emergency staircase was mangled beyond use, leaving his wings alone to carry them safely down. Excited by both the memory and Curette’s rapt attention, what had been a plunge into sheer terror became a bold expedition in the retelling.

Curette found herself fascinated by both the tale and the pony telling it. In the days to come he told it again and again, and each time it improved, just a little, until it became so inspiring even Luxuriant Composition could not improve on it further. So, when the bandages and casts came off, and the Stable assembled in the Atrium once again, everypony received the very best version of the story there could possibly be. Curette stood in the first row at Windfall’s insistence, as his first, best, and, as he had come to believe, prettiest audience.

Scram woke too, eventually, but she did not take to the spotlight as Windfall did. She attended the funeral for Stable Isotope, her former supervisor, and retreated below to assume his duties. She had rarely been seen before the quake, and few missed her after.

It wasn’t long before Windfall’s luster began to tarnish. After the Atrium ceremony, after his cutie mark party, after he got his PipBuck, after all of that, life inexorably regressed to normal. First he had to wait in lines again, then the smiles and waves from passing ponies faded. The dramatic re-enactment, the abstract paintings, the statue, and eventually even the epic poem were finished, unveiled, and then stuffed back among all the others. He preened at every exhibition, but fewer and fewer ponies turned out for each.

There were two constants. One was the Fields, and the plow. He couldn’t shake that yoke, despite his endless appeals to Overmare Cavalcade. There was just nopony to take over, she explained, and, of all ponies, he ought to understand the importance of pitching in. Besides, he could set a fine example of civic virtue and other worthless platitudes.

The other constant was Curette. They moved into couples’ quarters together, and each had the other to weather the weeks with. Each month passed a little quicker than the last, while each working day seemed to drag on into eternity.

Every morning, while Windfall dragged himself to work, he offered a silent, unanswered prayer: Please, Celestia, Luna: Let something happen again.

-3 months

“Look,” the tan stallion said, his hide gleaming with sweat. “All I’m sayin’ is it would be a hell of a lot more fair if they put their pillowy asses in front of a plow sometimes, too.”

Windfall snorted back at Furrow. “Never gonna happen. And then we’d go soft.”

“Hey, buddy, my ass is granite.”

“Quotas, ponies! Quotas!” Golden Sheafs, their supervisor, shouted over. “More pulling, less talking!”

Both pushed forward in unison, straining until the heavy plow began once again to churn the ground. Above, a dozen lamps shone hot, yellow light down on their backs. Above the lamps was the sky, bright blue, cracked, and fading. Painted on the horizon were happy ponies, pleased with nothing so much as pulling a plow in resplendent Stable 94 garb. Gallivant and Sun-Kissed were kicking up a cloud of dirt on the other side of the underground wheat field, and Windfall and Furrow were falling behind schedule.

A Stable must eat.

“Don’t make me do all the work,” Furrow ground out.

Windfall slackened a second then lunged forward, ramming the plow up against Furrow’s hindquarters. Furrow laughed, a grunting chuckle.

Celestia damn it, Windfall thought, already suffering for that little show. His legs burned, his sides ached, and his lungs could hardly fill themselves fast enough. It was with some satisfaction that he noticed Furrow was in the same state.

A half-hour later they stood in the showers, washing the thin mud of sweat and dust from their coats. Furrow was first to finish, and waited just outside for Windfall to catch up.

“I’ve got a secret for ya,” he said, leaning up against the wall in his rumpled Stable jumpsuit.

“You know she’ll never date you,” Windfall called out. He raised his wings and turned to let the spray wash over them. His legs trembled, and he could not wait to become a leaden lump for an hour or two.

Furrow shrugged. “Yeah, well, she’s a bitch. This is something else, Water Wings.”

The water shut off and Windfall stuck his dripping head out. “Yeah?”

“Meet me down in Sewage Reclamation. At midnight.”

“Goddesses, why?”

“You’ll see,” was all Furrow would say. “You’ll see.”

After a Cafeteria dinner (where Soupçonne may have ladled out more than the prescribed portion) and thirty-seven pages of Daring Do, Windfall trotted through the corridors alone. His wingtips dragged against each wall, save for a moment now and then when he pulled the left in to let another pony pass. His legs weren’t stiff yet, and he still stepped lively. After some twists, turns, and a short elevator ride, he opened the doors to the theater and marched right up to the projection booth to fling the door open.

“This is a raid!” he declared as he strode in.

Two heads looked up. “Hey, Windfall,” Lifelines said before returning to the papers spread out across the table.

“I need to borrow your colt,” he said, beckoning Silver Screen outside.

“You can borrow my stallion,” she replied, not looking up from her work.

Silver was already on his hooves and headed for the door. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said, hustling past Windfall into the theater.

“It’s ready, right? You’ve got it?”

“Not on me.” Windfall laughed. “Yeah, it’s all ready. Every bit of it.”

“Good,” Silver sighed. “Good good good good. When?”

“Eight.”

“Perfect! All of it?”

“Yes! I gave my mom your list. One anniversary dinner for two, from the prime stocks. Tonight you eat like the Overmare.”

“Mmm.” Silver closed his eyes a moment. “I owe you. We—she—needs this; she’s been working too hard.”

Windfall rather doubted that, but he grinned. “What can I say? I make things happen.” With that he opened the door again. “You can have him back now.”

“Thank you ever so much,” Lifelines said without lifting her eyes from the page. Her pen glided across the paper in her magic, and Windfall peered over her shoulder.

“Whazzat?”

“You’re blocking my light.”

He took a step to the side. “C’mon, what is it?”

Lifelines’ pen clattered to the table. “If I tell you, can I work?”

“Sure!”

But Silver couldn’t contain himself any longer. “It’s a movie!” he broke in. “It’s perfect. Lifelines draws twenty-seven pictures for each second, and we expose each one to film—I modified the camera so it can, well, I guess the details don’t really matter—but we can make our very own movie, just like the Stellar Spacemare shorts! I think it’s the best idea she’s ever had.”

“Twenty-seven a second?” Windfall repeated. “That would be—”

“A lot, yes,” Lifelines said. “The light?”

He stepped to the side and looked to Silver, who shot him a sympathetic look and drew nearer.

“Bad day,” he whispered. “Tonight’ll help.”

Windfall gave Silver a friendly punch to the shoulder and drew himself up to his full height. “I’d love to hang around, but I’ve got ponies to see and places to be,” he proclaimed. “Oh, Silver, what’s the matinée tomorrow?”

“Flight of the Shadowbolts. Again.”

“Awesome! Later!”

“Mm, yeah,” he sighed. “Lower, just a little— now to the le— ooh, yeah, that’s it, that’s it.”

He lay face down on a couch, Curette seated atop him, her hind legs to either side of his back. Her forehooves kneaded his stiffening muscles loose; it didn’t hurt that she’d memorized the chart on the clinic wall.

“What do you think he meant?” she asked, pressing firm.

“I dunno. Maybe he stole something again.”

“Furrow?” she said, skeptically. “Nah. He’s not dumb enough to pull that again.” She felt Windfall’s chuckle through his back.

“He might’ve,” he said. “Sewage Reclamation. No one goes down there. No one’s that stupid.”

“Except you.”

“And him. Mostly him.”

“Mmhmm.” She shifted her hooves up to his shoulders and he voiced his wordless approval. “Just don’t get arrested. That’s not too much to ask, right?”

“Eh…”

A worn copy of Daring Do and the Deathly Dragon bapped against Windfall’s head, wrapped in Curette’s magic. “No felonies.”

“No fun.”

“Yeah, right, Captain Hero.” She clambered off him. “Up. My turn.”

“Aw.”

“Up!”

The two swapped positions. His touch wasn’t so deft as hers, but she sighed regardless.

“Slow day for me,” she said. “The doc’s got me practicing my healing spells, but there’s only so much I can do without a broken leg or something to practice on.”

Windfall pressed and pulled against the clenched muscles of her upper back as she continued.

“Is it wrong for a nurse to wish ponies would hurt themselves a little more often? Ever since you stopped—”

Windfall quirked a grin at that and pressed harder.

“Hey,” she protested. “I just want to do something. Anything. Amitié got the chisel incident last week—I told you about that, right, about Graven?—I just got to mop up the blood. Woo.” The last was accompanied by a limp wave of her free forehoof. “Your job matters.”

“Wanna trade?”

“No thanks.”

After he felt the final clusters relax, Windfall lay down to nuzzle her cheek. “Tell you what,” he said. “If Furrow’s dragging me down there for nothing I’ll send him your way.”

She chuckled. “Deal.”

* * *

“Okay, what the hell?”

Windfall turned in a circle on the metal catwalk suspended between dull metal tanks which he prayed would never rupture. Pipes gurgled and sloshed, and he thought he could hear something dripping into a puddle in the distance. He breathed through his mouth, and wished he didn’t have to. This had better not be just some shitty joke.

“Furrow!” he shouted again. “Get your ass out here!”

“I’m here,” he replied, stepping out from behind a tank. “Had to make sure you weren’t followed.”

“Goddesses,” Windfall swore. “You did it again, didn’t you? Whatever it is, just put it back.”

Furrow looked puzzled, then chuckled. “Oh, no. Hell no! You thought this was about that? Didn’t believe me, huh, buddy? I told you it was a set-up. No,” he said. “This is better.”

“This is shitsville.”

“What better place?” asked a mare’s voice.

Windfall jumped and stayed there as another pony stepped out into view. One by one, nearly two dozen ponies stepped out from behind pipework and tanks, or appeared on higher catwalks. All gazed inward, upward and downward, at him. He rotated mid-air; some of these ponies he knew, but others were just half-familiar faces from other parts of the stable. “…Furrow?”

Furrow had joined the crowd. The mare spoke again in a strong and confident voice.

“You’re among friends,” she declared. “Equals. We want what you want.” Windfall did not recognize her, but there were a lot of ponies in the stable.

“Great. Let’s get out of here and never do this creepy crap again.” Windfall’s hooves rang against metal as he dropped back down to the grating.

“Hey, hey,” Furrow protested. “Hear us out!”

“Nopony’s saying anything.” Windfall shifted his weight again, taking stock of the ponies surrounding him. Insistent instincts traced escape routes through the piping. “Just staring.”

“I’m sorry,” the mare spoke again. “We’ve waited a long time for this moment, Windfall. My name is Felicity. The future begins here.”

Windfall coughed.

“Like I said,” she pressed on, fire lighting in her eyes. “What better place? The vital infrastructure: ignored, yet essential. In a word, us.”

“We do the work,” Furrow adds. “You, me, and ponies like us. There’re a hundred ponies up there,” he jabbed a hoof toward the concrete ceiling, “who don’t do shit.”

“Painting, drawing, writing, playing,” Felicity spat. “You plow the Fields. They eat the bread. I keep the lights burning. They read.”

“I buck the trees; they eat the apples!” another shouted, and the chamber filled with echoing shouts.

“I get stung by the bees; they eat the honey!”

“I raise their foals!”

“I fix this Goddesses-damned sewer!”

“And I!” Felicity roared above the rest, “Am sick of it!”

Sewage Reclamation rebounded with cheers. Windfall’s wings opened with the energy.

“Take a deep breath,” Felicity said as the noise died down. “Does it revolt you?” she asked. “’Cause it should. Let it revolt you, feel your stomach clench and heave from the stench.”

No thanks, Windfall thought. He looked to Felicity, and Furrow, and the others. The air was sharp with conviction, the promise of action. He thought of the life ahead of him, day after unending day of ripping a plow through the same box of dirt, to no praise and little thanks. And the eyes—every pair was locked on him, and he thought he could see hope, need, desperation in each. It was intoxicating, as nothing else had been in the past four years.

“You need me?” he asked.

Felicity nodded, a single, sharp gesture. “Nopony knows me. Nopony knows him,” she said, pointing at Furrow, “except for that trumped-up charge. Security’s not stupid, they know something’s going on. And somepony’s not very good at keeping his mouth closed.”

Furrow shrugged and leaned up against a tank.

“Nopony knows any of us. Nopony cares. Why should they? I didn’t. I had my conduits, my cabling, my family. Until I was shown that we’re all a bigger family than we ever thought. And you—you’re the only one of us the high artists above ever gave a damn about. You’ve got a statue.”

“On the reactor level. Nopony sees it.” The last was tinged with bitterness; he’d hoped for the Atrium.

“But it’s there! I remember you, what you did.”

Other ponies joined in, a brief chorus of “I remember.”

“We remember,” she repeated. “Even if they’ve tried their hardest to forget, to shove you away in front of a plow, to forget that they owe their precious leisure to an Inartistic, to any of us, to all of us. We will remind them.”

Windfall almost wanted to throw down now, but a tiny voice of caution held him back. He forced his wings down, waited a moment, then told Felicity, “I’m listening.”

She replied by turning herself sideways. “What do you see?” she asked, indicating her flank.

He bit his tongue. “A light bulb.”

“Yes, a light bulb,” she repeated, pacing back and forth. “Because of that, the Overmare shoved me in maintenance. Electricity, spark power, light work. So I spend twelve hours a shift on ladders changing bulbs or running wires or tracing faults. And thinking. Thinking all along that there’s something more. This is the tyranny of the cutie mark: good ponies forced into such endless drudgery that even our special talents become chains around our necks.” She tossed her head dismissively at imaginary detractors. “I’m not— we’re not lazy. Work has to be done, the Stable must run. But there are a hundred ponies—that’s twelve hundred work-hours a day—doing nothing to help the rest of us. Just because they have a paint brush instead of a light bulb, or a pen instead of a pipe wrench.”

Felicity stopped her pacing to look directly at Windfall. “Or, worse still, the plight of those whose marks have nothing to do with their lot. Mine, at least, is related to my work. Tell me those clouds have anything at all to do with plowing.”

“Aren’t any clouds down here,” he said, but he felt her point.

“It doesn’t matter. We should all have the freedom to discover ourselves. What could I do, what might I create, if only I had the time given the Artists? What could any of us, or all of us accomplish?” She raised her voice, projecting to the crowd. “More time to spend on our talent, our loved ones, our hopes, our dreams!” When she returned her gaze to Windfall the fire burned yet brighter in her eyes. “I say, make them earn it. If everypony earned their keep, we’d all work just ten hours a day! Two free hours a day, twelve a week, over six hundred a year! In a lifetime, thousands! Imagine what you, what I, what any of us could do with that time!”
Windfall imagined. Two hours less in front of the plow, two hours’ less exhaustion in the Fields. More time to share with Curette, to spend with Silver and Lifelines… A thunderbolt of doubt struck when he thought of his friends. Felicity drove on:

“And beyond!” she cried. “Ponykind was not meant to labor in eternal darkness! Recall the story of old, how the Goddess Celestia was forced to banish her very own sister, the Goddess Luna, when she brought that same fate across the land. There will be ponies who seek to maintain the status quo, those who benefit from it, or those afraid of a brighter future. Though they be our brothers and sisters, we must do what is right, and trust that, with time, they will come to see our light.” She smirked. “And that light doesn’t come from a fluorescent tube—believe me, I know.”

A few chuckles bounced around. Windfall remained silent, watching Felicity with tilted head and open ears. “Not from a bulb, but from the Holy Sun above, denied to us by a mere meter of steel. This is why we will open the great door, roll it aside to let us out, and the outside in. Those who want to leave can leave, while those who wish to remain behind will have their home. I do not judge the choice; I only fight for the right to make it. We will not be bound by the contracts of the dead!”

Her words rang through the pipework and resounded in Windfall. The heady thrill of possibility, as he had not known in years, swept him over again.

“We will rise up, together! No more hiding in the sewers, no more nervous glances the other way when Security walks by. We brothers, we sisters, we will be known, we will be respected, and we will be free.” Her wild, hungry eyes fixed back on Windfall. “Are you with us?”

There was no time for thought. “Damn straight I am!” he declared, and once more the sewer erupted. He closed his eyes and circled in place. The ragged shouts were music to him, far sweeter to his ear than any Stable composer’s work. When they died down, he thought he heard a muttered, “Thank Luna,” but he paid it no mind.

Felicity and Furrow stepped over to either side, each clapping a hoof to his back. “This is a new beginning, for all of us,” Felicity said, grinning wide.

“What if I’d said ‘no’?” Windfall muttered to Furrow.

“Nah. Never happen,” Furrow muttered back. “I know ya. And not just me.”

“Finally,” Felicity continued, more for the crowd’s benefit than Windfall’s. “After so long, it’s time for action.”

“Uh, yeah, about that,” Windfall said as it occurred to him he ought to have thought about this first. “Just what are we doing?”

“You can ask our leader,” she replied.

He blinked. “I thought that was you.”

“Not exactly,” said a deep, intimately familiar voice. Windfall stared as his father emerged from behind a holding tank. “I’m proud of you, Son,” he said, the words filled with warmth. “I knew I didn’t raise a coward. Welcome to our little revolution.” He stopped in front of Windfall, eye to eye. “Together we’ll change our world, and open another. We will shove that door aside, and we will run free.”

* * *

“Don’t tell your mother,” were Gallivant’s first words once everypony else had gone.

“She doesn’t know?”

“She knows. Oh, she knows.” Gallivant shook his head as they headed for the glowing exit sign. Their voices, like the cheers before, echoed around the sewers, though without the volume they bounced back hollow. “She thinks it’s a useless little club where I can ‘get it all out.’” He laughed. “She made me promise not to involve you, so I didn’t. ‘Course, Furrow never promised her anything.”
His tone turned dark. “Now don’t say a word to anypony, anypony who isn’t one of us already. That means Silver and Lifelines, too.”

This sent Windfall into silence. “Dad?” he asked after several seconds. “What are we gonna do?”

“Nothing violent,” he replied. “Not unless we have to. I know Furrow’s been working on you—all of us have our targets. Little truths, sprinkled now and then. We’re tilling our soil, planting our seeds.”

“When’s… harvest?”

“A month or so. That little thing back there, we rehearsed that for two weeks. That was Felicity’s idea—she’s better at these things, giving speeches, putting on shows—but this is my idea, and I call the shots.” His head was up, his chest out. “She’s putting together a demonstration. I don’t expect the Overmare’ll take it well. No way.” He laughed again, long and free. “Luna damn, it feels good. C’mon, Son. We’ve got apple carts to upset.”

Windfall felt like he stood at the edge of a precipice, but what does that matter to a pegasus? “I’ll be ready,” he promised. “We’ll kick ass.”

Gallivant reached up to ruffle Windfall’s mane. “Thatta boy.”

As Gallivant turned away, Windfall noticed, not for the first time, that he was just a shade taller than his dad. Though he followed, he felt his destiny rest fully in his own hooves. Inexpressibly deep down he was grateful that Dad hadn’t shown himself until the matter was settled. His future, every glorious bit of it, seemed to him to be solely of his own making.

They parted outside his parents’ quarters, and he continued to the couples’ quarters alone. He felt a meter above the ground, and would have been had his wingspan not been wider than the corridor. He straight-out smirked at Officer Truncheon in her barding and badge as he trotted back, a pregnant smile stuffed with hidden knowledge. Truncheon turned as he trotted past, wrinkled her nose, and continued on her beat.

“You ever feel alive?” Windfall whispered as he slid into bed next to Curette at just past midnight.

She yawned. “Most day— Oh, Luna, you reek!”

Four cold hooves planted themselves on his stomach and sent him to the floor. He picked himself up and headed for the communal showers.

“Now you’re wet,” she mumbled as he returned. She was curled on her side beneath the covers, eyes closed.

“Just a little. C’mere.”

She pushed her back up against his chest and stomach, and he wrapped his forelegs around her. Her coat was soft, warm, and smooth to his touch. A few strays strands of her mane threatened to crawl up his nose near her ear, and he blew them away with a puff of air.

“Mmm,” she said. “Not tonight.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “But I’ve got stuff to tell you.”

“’Morrow.”

“Okay.” He pushed his mouth through her mane to nuzzle her neck, and its scent filled his lungs. “G’night.”

She made a soft noise which blearily approximated speech.

Windfall lay awake for some time, feeling the slow rise and fall as she breathed. He closed his eyes and thought of Outside. He’d long had his own idea of what it looked like—green grass and trees between scorched black craters, the sites of old cities. Maybe they could reclaim an old one, or build a new one. The more he thought the sillier it seemed that they’d been cooped up inside for almost a hundred and sixty years. The bombs were gone; they’d been gone five minutes after they came. And yeah, radiation, but he’d been cleaned of that in less than a month. Nature’d had a thousand times that long to renew itself.

And the Goddesses! Princesses Celestia and Luna, who had remained behind to guide and guard the world of old, to restore it to vibrant health. With Them as divine stewards, that recovery was certain. How foolish they all were, almost a thousand ponies cowering from a dead world long ago revived. Now he could see. And soon, he thought, soon they would, too.

* * *

“So!” Curette exclaimed. “Unless there’s a disaster—and maybe I hope there is—I’m looking at another day of sitting on my ass while the doc does all,” she dragged the word out, “the physicals. I don’t know why they keep me around. I may as well be in the orchards, or the library, or—”

“Or here.”

“Cute.” She pranced up to him, one foreleg in her nurse’s outfit, the other sleeve flapping free. “I’m doing it again.”

“You’re doing it again,” Windfall confirmed with a kiss. Most mornings he listened with a varying mixture of patience, understanding, and irritation, but today her words sang new promise, and he couldn’t keep it from his face.

“What’re you so happy about?” she asked as she stuffed her other hoof through its sleeve.

“S’my day off, and I’m thinking.”

She straightened up, the uniform finally in its place. “No fun. Got it?” Her voice was stern, but her eyes smiled. On her way to the door she paused mid-step. “What did Furrow want?”

“Tell ya tonight,” he replied, fighting to keep his smile from splitting his face.

As soon as their mechanical front door slammed itself shut Windfall pranced in place. She’d go for it, he knew, go for it like a newly-marked filly and her talent. Frustration and resentment coursed through the Stable, the river which would sweep them clear. I should tell Felicity that one. He wondered what a river was like. He’d seen images, of course. Pictures in books, and the landscapes which lined Level Four. He knew the scent and feel of fresh grass from the Orchard, and when the Cafeteria served salad—though it was, of course, the same grass. Baths, showers, and gurgling pipes were the feel, sound, and movement of the water, and the heat of the Fields’ grow lamps became the sun’s warmth.

It sounded, well, kind of confusing, but nice. Just like this new movement. Freedom, equality, brother- and sisterhood. Already he felt a new kinship with those ponies who met in the sewer, that of shared secrets and dreams. These were his thoughts when his head hit the pillow again and he closed his eyes to recover the sleep lost the previous night. Hours later, full of energy, he trotted the halls and spouted an eager “Hey!” to faces that had before not merited even a first glance. With all that he and Curette shared, it was only right that they share this bond, too.

It was at the matinée that he felt the first stirrings of doubt. He found his attentions split between the screen and the projection booth. Occasionally (during the dull parts) he glanced back up at the small window to the rear of the theater. When he looked forward he found his eyes drawn to the landscape behind the action, instead of the armored pegasus fighters who usually commanded his rapt attention. Behind their swoops, dives, and spectacular strafing runs lay green hills and fields, and in the distance mountains claimed the sky. And the sky itself! Bluer than his Stable-Tec jumpsuit and impossibly, wonderfully broad. A pegasus could fly forever in a sky like that, and end the day on a white puff of cloud. They looked pillowy plush, so much softer than his ancient mattress, which was worn thin by a century and a half’s use.

Half an hour later, the Shadowbolts stood in rank on a turbulent storm cloud. Rainbow Dash strode back and forth before them as wind whipped her striking mane. Windfall’s eyes lingered—she’d been his first young crush, before reality asserted itself. She was bold, decisive, and fierce in delivering her orders, and the crack in her voice could not undercut her authority. The Shadowbolts launched themselves into the lightning-filled sky as trumpets and drums rang in Windfall’s ears.

But when the final, swirling battle with the dragon finally began, he once again looked back to the projection booth.

The screen faded to black, and the words “A Ministry of Image Production, With the gracious assistance of the Ministry of Awesome” appeared before the familiar names scrolled by. Rainbow Dash: as herself. Spitfire, Soarin’, Lightning Dust, as her-, him-, and herself. More honored names followed: Sky Flash, Tempest, Dawnbreak, and on they rolled.

“I can never get past how fake that dragon looks.”

Windfall twitched at Silver’s voice, and looked left to see him standing there, with Lifelines behind him. “Uh, hey.”

Silver smiled. “Hey. Just wanted to say ‘thanks’ for setting that up last night.”

“Yeah,” Lifelines added. “I’ve gotta run—perspective studies, they’re a pain—but I had to say ‘sorry’ for being so cranky last night.”

“S’okay,” was all Windfall could say.

She tossed him a wave and darted out of the Theater between other patrons. Silver plopped himself down in the seat next to Windfall’s.

“I’ve got a couple hours before the next show,” he said. “Want to do something?”

“No!” he replied, too quickly. “No,” he repeated in more measured tones. “Thanks. I’ve got some, uh, things to do.”

Silver shrugged. “Okay, maybe later.” The credits were almost over, so he stood to return to his booth. A rush of air through his mane pulled his eyes back around, and he caught just a glimpse of Windfall’s tail streaking out the Theater doors.

Windfall didn’t stop until he was back home. He dropped himself on the bed as the door slid shut and lay there, looking up, panting from his dash. Son of a bitch, he thought, furious at himself for fleeing. He had to act normally, play it cool, or else… Windfall simply couldn’t conceive of either Silver Screen or Lifelines as the… enemy? Oppressors? That’s what Felicity would call them, he knew, but they’d never oppressed him. They did have pretty cushy jobs, Silver in his booth, Lifelines with her pad. And yeah, he’d thought a few unkind things over the years. But it wasn’t really their fault—their marks appeared, and that was that. Just like Windfall’s own hadn’t for so long, and to the plow he went.

He huffed and rolled onto his stomach, draping his wings unfurled across his back. ‘The tyranny of the mark,’ Felicity had called it. Windfall wished it were something tangible he could buck to bits and be done with. Yeah, it was unfair, yeah, it was wrong. But did it have to be so, so… messy?

As Celestia banished Luna, maybe. But Windfall didn’t have a thousand years to trade for forgiveness, and far less the patience. And Mom… He kicked his pillow across the room. There had to be some way. He’d find it—he had a month, right? That’d be enough time. He could bring them around. He would.

Windfall called an uneasy truce with his doubts and rolled out of bed. Curette would be home in a few hours, and he had a lot of talking to plan.

Windfall brushed the crumbs from his apple fritter back onto the metal tray. Curette sat across their tiny table from him, still on the main course, apples. It was between growing cycles, and other stocks were low. Of course, ponies weren’t ordinarily allowed to eat in their quarters, but Soupçonne hadn’t said a thing when Windfall slipped out the back with a meal balanced on each wing.

“Oh,” he began, with forced nonchalance. “You wanted to know what Furrow’s up to.”

“Mmhmm,” she replied with a nod, her mouth full. Her uniform was tossed to the side, and her mane was a mess where her cap had been.

“Well…” Windfall paused, trying to remember how he’d planned to say this. “There’re a bunch of ponies in the sewers led by my dad who want to rebel.”

Curette spluttered, then choked down her mouthful. She was still laughing when her throat cleared and she asked, “No, seriously, what’d he do?”

“He joined up.”

The smile faded from her face, and she took a sip from her glass to buy time. “You’re serious.”

“Yep.”

“Your dad.”

“Yep.”

“Celestia, he would, wouldn’t he?” She gave her head a shake to clear it out. Her eyes landed back on Windfall. “And you’re going in, too.”

“It really makes a whole lotta sense if you think about it! Twelve hundred hours is, it’s, well, it’s a lot, and it’s not fair, and if everypony helps we can open—”

Curette pressed her hoof to his mouth until he stopped blathering, then placed it against her own forehead. “I— Goddesses, Windfall, you don’t do things by halves, do you?”

Windfall shook his head. “Not in my blood. But this is our chance! What else is there, just work until we’re dead? I won’t, I swear I won’t. I want, I need more, and I know you do, too.” He reached out to take her hoof in his. “C’mon, Love. This adventure’s for both of us.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she couldn’t stop the grin. “You always look so silly when you’re trying to be romantic.”

“So that’s a ‘yes’?”

“Son of a— yes, damn it, for now. Stop looking at me like that!”

“Yes!” He lunged across the table to grab her in a hug. Their trays, flatware, and the rest of Curette’s dinner clattered to the floor. “This is gonna rock the Stable!”

She hugged back tight after she realized the floor had stopped their fall. “Ow… This thing goes bad and we’re pulling out, okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean it.”

“Uh-huh.”

She poked him in the ribs with a magically-held fork. “Off me, Crushycolt. You owe me another dinner.”

He sprang up. “Oh yeah, sure! Stay right there!” And with a double-whoosh of the door he was gone.

Curette lay back on the rug and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what she’d just agreed to.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading! If you liked or loathed it, please leave a comment and tell me why.

This has been a work long in coming, and I have a lot of people to thank. In alphabetical order, thank you Athilmar, EtchPony, Muckinabout, myothercarisapony, and RollemBones for listening to what I have to say, reading what I have to write, and just generally being fantastic. And thank you to RoMS for his help with the French (it's relevant).

Cover art provided by the above-mentioned EtchPony. Check him out--he's good!

More to come...