Broken Wings, Scattered Dust

Illusions Left but Wanderlust

I was expelled into existence on a cloud overlooking a small town surrounded by trees; a slight tingling and some rapidly waning memories were all the evidence I had of my magical excursion.  That and a fresh batch of resolve to find what I was supposed to end, and end it.   I did know what needed to be done, and that was it.  That was always it.  Give the end to someone else.

My saddlebags were still on me, and a quick sweep confirmed they still held the food, Descant’s scale, and the compass.  I also still had my goggles and my bands, much to my relief.  Water could be found, food made, but those two possessions could not be replaced.  I swept the bronze frames down, but nothing changed.  This was real.

Where was I?  Was Whimsy okay?  I didn’t care what befell me as long as she was alive and unharmed—

No, she was alive and unharmed.  If Dad said it, star or not, then it was true.  Certainty was not a common trait for him.  Typically he had to double- and triple-check everything he did before he was satisfied.  If he said Whimsy was fine, then she was fine.

I banished panic and took in my surroundings.  Above me was a clear night sky lightly dotted with clouds and peppered with stars.  The town’s houses below were not lit.  I checked the compass, but if it was supposed to point north, it was broken.  It was pointing at me.

“Heeyyy,” said a voice behind me, with the faintest hint of delirium.  “What are you doing here?”

I whirled around to find a pegasus watching me with startingly blue eyes.  Familiar blue eyes.

“No idea,” I said honestly.  “Were you just in some sort of magic bubble?”

Deluge nodded.  “Saw my mother.”

I paused.  “I’m sorry.”

“...What for?”

“Your mom.  Isn’t she...y’know, dead?”

She just looked at me.  “No.  Why would—oh.”  Realization spread across her face.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.  It was a while ago.  So, uh...” I wasn’t sure how to ask; my dad, after all, had been a star.  Would her mom have literally been there?  “...what’d she tell you?”

Again, Deluge just looked confused.  “She was talking to my dad, not me, and she...she wanted me to get even.”

She didn’t sound entirely honest, and I couldn’t blame her.  It was a superbly personal thing.  I’d done what was necessary for years, but coming from my dad, doing what is necessary meant something else entirely, and I didn’t even want to think about it.

“I was told to do what must be done.”

“I assume you know what that means.”

I nodded.  “It means I’m here to help you, for starters.”  Which was the truth; I had never done work for my own agenda, only that of others.  “So you can start by explaining who you need to get even with.”

“Like I would just tell you.  I don’t even know yo—”

She stopped suddenly, squinting at me.  Dread welled up in my gut as I realized something terrible, something horrific, something that might obliterate my best protective measure, one that I’d maintained for years.  A single look from her was all it took to confirm my fear.

I’d forgotten I was supposed to be Silhouette to her.

“...you.  No.  You can’t be.  There’s no way.  She’s an urban legend.  A ghost story.”

I felt paralyzed.  I couldn’t move.  She knew.  She had to.  But then...she had to.  If I was going to work for her, it was inevitable she would find out.  And if that was true, better sooner than later.  She’d already figured it out anyways.

“Zephyr.  The Zephyr.”  She looked at me oddly, and absent was the fear that most ponies wore when they learned my identity.  “No wonder nopony knows what you look like.  Everyone and their mother knows a blue pegasus.”

I still felt paralyzed, but for a different reason.  She wasn’t afraid.  Why wouldn’t she be afraid?

“Wait!” she burst out.  “If you’re here to help—no, me getting even doesn’t involve killing anyone.”

And I added another reason to the list of why I was paralyzed.  If I wasn’t meant to work here,   what good was I going to do?

“So what does it involve?”

Her head dropped, and she starting poking at the cloud, causing tiny droplets to fall out the other side.  I was disappointed; there was no accompanying crackle of thunder.  “I...I’m not sure.  There’s somepony I need to talk to, that’s for sure.”

“Just talk to?”

“...Yes.”

She did not sound entirely honest, but I left it at that.  If all she needed was to find someone, then that was fine by me.  But something about the way she said it...

“Is he in that village?”

“Was."

And with that she shoved off, gliding downwards to the town.  I hesitated, wary.  It wasn’t her that was the issue, and neither was my purpose here.  I had to give her resolution, but not that of death.  Not yet, not until I knew her story.  It was her story I had to end, a conflict left to rot and fester that I had to resolve, because no one else would, or could.  Sometimes that meant death, sometimes not.  Hopefully it was the latter.

But the real issue was, how would this lead me to Lucifa?  The only assurance I had that it would was the Calamus’ mechanics—and that was hardly assurance at all, given that it was a large, magic block of stone in the middle of a desert.  It might have something to do with the Eyrie, but what, exactly, was that?  And who were the creatures who maintained it?

There were too many questions I couldn’t answer.  But following Deluge was the only path I could take, or Descant wouldn’t uphold the deal, and Whimsy would be left to her own devices.  Yeah, right, like she could live on those.

So I followed her down, and she landed right in front of one of the wooden houses on the outskirts.  She didn’t even bother knocking; she just pushed the door open. I waited a moment, then followed her in, my eyes darting between the doors, the windows, the hallways, the pictures on the walls, the fireplace, the potted plants, the hexagonal mirror on the mantel.  It was undoubtedly well-kept at some point—the room’s contents were neatly arranged—but dust lay on every surface and  and cobwebs infested every corner, and within moments I started feeling weary, dragged down by the passage of time.

Deluge motioned for me to stay put and wandered into the back room, leaving me to contemplate the room.  If it was a trap, it wasn’t a very good one; there were escape routes every way I turned.  No sounds came from the room Deluge was in; there was only a few things she could be doing.  Looking for something big, checking up on things, or looking for someone.  I could hear Whimsy’s voice, crudely attempting to imitate Deluge:  Aha, found Lucifa!

The pegasus returned inside of a minute, looking aloof.  “Nopony’s home.”

So she was looking for someone.  “Good thing, or a bad thing?” I asked.

“Don’t know.”  She took a folded note out of her wing, frowned at it, then held it out to me. “This was on the back door.”

I unfolded it, quietly noting that Deluge navigated the house with the ease of one who had spent more than their fair share of time here.  The note wasn’t dusty, but the paper—a stiff cardstock—was worn thin, on the verge of turning to dust.  The writing itself was practiced, clean, and precise.

Gone on vacation.

Feather Duster - Check the chest.

Fleet Hooves - Leave mail on the table.  Thank you.

Kusa Nagi - You’re free to go.

“The chest is empty,”  Deluge said, taking the note and giving the room a once-over.  “Everything  that was non-perishable is still here.  No thieves.”  She sighed, went into the back room again, then returned with a pair of saddlebag sets, one sky-blue, the other a light tan.  She gave me the tan set, then strapped on the other.  They were both empty, but my set smelled faintly of onions.  “Might as well,” she said when I looked at her.  I strapped them on and, when she left the room, slipped Descant’s scale and compass into them, one in each so they wouldn’t clank together.  She promptly returned with two bedrolls, one of which she gave to me.

There was too many unanswered questions, but the grim expression she wore was not one that would easily give answers.  I couldn’t rely on her to give me answers when they were needed, so I simply watched, observed.  Every creature on the planet—even the twin sisters—gave away subtle hints at their intentions and state of mind.  You just have to know where to look.

Deluge pocketed the note and motioned towards the front door.  “Nothing to do here.”

Her eyes were shifty, her steps tentative.  I didn’t move.  “...Where are we going?”

She didn’t reply.  My mind was racing.

“...Talk to me.”

Deluge’s mane swung forward, shielding her eyes.  “To find a friend.”

I froze, my head tilting even further down than usual until my entire face was hidden in my mane’s shadow.  The way she said it left no doubt as to what kind of friend we were talking about, and I did not care for that particular kind of friend no matter what package they came in.

Her head twisted to the side, still avoiding my gaze.  It was confirmation enough.

“How long?”

“Seven years,” she said.  “Give or take.”

I just looked at her, then kept poking around the room.  Moonlight lit the dust on a nearby coffee table; the silver light made my coat look pure white, almost like a ghost.

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” she said.

I ducked behind a sofa right before the front door opened, a yellow beam of light shone into the room, and a rough, stern voice spoke to Deluge; I wasn’t visible from the newcomer’s vantage point.

“Hooves where I can see them, please.”

She obliged, and I shrunk further behind the sofa, bands at the ready.

“Hello, Night Light,” said Deluge’s voice.  “How’ve you been?”

I stiffened.  The flashlight’s beam wasn’t quivering in the least, and the shimmering hum of magic limited my ability to intervene.  And the coffee table I’d walked around would make getting a safe angle on the guard too slow.  Yet...

“Don’t.”  Night Light stuffed her attempt at courtesy.  “Come with me, please.”

She followed him without protest.  The door swung shut behind them, leaving me conflicted and in silence.  I had no idea where we were and if my...reputation had spread this far; if it had, even just disabling the guard would raise too many alarms to escape from.  If it hadn’t, then it probably wouldn’t take long to reestablish it.  But without Deluge, I had basically nothing to go off of, no hints or leads.

I darted out from behind the sofa.  Night Light was leading her towards a central building whose sign I couldn’t make out.  He carried nothing besides a light guard uniform, and a vivid amber beam of magic lit their way forward.

If Deluge hadn’t mentioned his name I would’ve guessed she wasn’t doing anything to escape because his magic appeared more than sufficient to subdue her, but since she apparently knew him, she trusted him to some extent.  Which meant that even if I could knock him out without leaving any evidence behind, she might turn on me.

I slipped out the back door and took to the skies, circling around and gliding down towards them just as they disappeared inside.  I silently alighted on the roof, flattened myself against the roof, and turned my ear to the wood, but either the roof was too thick, or the only thing speaking was the wind.

My mouth curled itself into a frown and I sat back, flummoxed.  Intervening in any capacity seemed doomed to failure in one aspect or another, but I was slightly comforted by two facts.  First, that Night Light appeared to possess no animosity towards Deluge, and second, that Deluge had gone without protest.  Nevertheless, the wait was little more than a blind leap of faith.

A sort of prickly calm took over the night sky as I flew up to the trees, the kind of silence that pokes and prods, pricks and needles, but the anxiety that drove my uneasiness was brushed aside.  The only use I had for anxiety was its tendency to boost my state of mind into hyperfocus, but that was exactly what wasn’t needed here.

Instead I let my focus disseminate, picking up the rustle of songless crickets, the whistle of wind through leaves, the creak of weary wood.  The surrounding forest sighed under the weight of the night sky, the stars winking at me through the entangled leaves and branches.  I wondered vaguely if Dad was up there.

The door creaked open again, and Deluge emerged.  Night Light was right behind her, and they bade farewell before parting ways.  They gave me no indication of what had transpired, other than Deluge seeming perhaps a tad more downtrodden.  She made her way back to the house we’d first entered, presumably assuming I was still there.  I flew down to the back door, waiting until she was inside to enter.  She didn’t seem at all surprised to find out I’d tailed her.

“How much’d you hear?”

“Nothing,” I said, tapping a wall.  “Too thick.”

She plucked a small portrait off the mantel.  “This was me...and my fiancé.”

The picture was covered in dust and its color had long since faded to shades of their old selves, but both ponies it depicted wore smiles.  Not the broad, cheesy kind, but small, genuine ones, the ones that make everyone who looks at them want to smile right along.  One was unmistakeably a younger Deluge—her almost-transparent mane fell over her eyes in rippling sheets—while the other was a slightly-older stallion.  If I squinted hard enough, I could just make out his colors.

His coat was a pale orange, his mane an ivory white shot through with red streaks, and his eyes were a light hazel.  Tucked underneath one leg was a golden helmet with a blue-and-white crest, but my eyes were drawn to something else.  Leaning against his left flank, just visible behind his wing, was a sturdy-looking red hammer, fitted with gold insets and a set of leather straps clearly intended to brace the shaft against his back for airborne attacks.

“Meet Meridian,” Deluge said, not sounding at all like she was talking about her fiancé.  “First Lieutenant of the Solar Guard, Watcher, Caelum Division.”

I said nothing, so she continued.  “He volunteered to join a task force that was created for rapid-response to draconic threats.  Said their war was getting worse, might spill over into Equestria.”  She paused.  “Last time I saw him was a few weeks before our wedding, but he vanished before...well, before.  And that was a year ago.”  Paper crinkled as she pulled a crumpled letter from her bags.  “Night Light kept this for me.  ‘We regret to inform you,’” she read aloud.  “‘That Meridian Aubade, First Lieutenant of the Solar Guard, Watcher, Caelum Division, has gone missing in action.  Retrieval of his being, alive or dead, is underway.  We cannot in good faith guarantee his safety or well-being, but know that we will not rest until he is found.’  Sent six months ago.”

“I’m...sorry,” I said quietly, mentally running through my list and hoping desperately that he wasn’t on it.  I glanced up, expecting tears sooner or later, but Deluge’s eyes were dry.

“It was a risk.  It was always a risk.  I...”

“Get up,” I said sharply.  “We know where to look for him now.  He could still be alive.”

“I know.”  She got to her hooves and returned to the picture to the mantel.  “But if somepony hurt him...”

“Don’t.”

“Hm?”  She looked up, taken aback.

“Revenge is not what you want.  Trust me.”

“I know,” she repeated loudly.  “I’m more worried about us finding him than I’m worried about him.”

The moonlight visibly waned, bit by tiny bit, while she paced, thinking, and for the longest time, not speaking.  I didn’t move; there wasn’t any need to.  Deluge had to make first the step here, and I needed to think.

I remembered Deluge’s movement around the house; her navigation was fluid, not innate.  A house she frequented, not a house she lived in.  This was likely Meridian’s home, so Night Light’d only wanted to tell her about Meridian, I was sure of it.  Perhaps some other, more personal information, but that was need-to-know, and I didn’t need to know.

My gut squirmed as I thought of Night Light again.  Something about him was unsettlingly familiar, like something from a half-forgotten dream.  There was a connection I felt between us, something invisible, intangible, yet inexplicably powerful, wringing a corner of my mind like a wet towel.

“Caelum?” Something clicked, an old memory connecting with a new.  “Caelum Division?”

Deluge nodded.

“They were stationed in Riverside.  A town on the border of Draconia and Equestria.”  I closed my eyes, letting the memories flow.  “Emergency response force to dragon incursions.  As far as I know, they were never needed.”

“As far as you know,” she repeated doubtfully.  “Meridian never was much for doing nothing.”

“Nobody really is,” I said quietly.

She didn’t bother asking how I knew where the Caelum Division was, nor did she ask if I was lying at all.  And she hadn’t been afraid when she’d realized who I was; her first reaction had been to clarify that she didn’t need anyone killed, so there was some degree of trust between us, a product of the Calamus’ dance and the circumstances that followed.  Or perhaps she had just assumed that being in my profession practically necessitated knowing the whereabouts of any mid-tier-or-higher officials in a several kilometre radius.  If she had, she’d assumed correctly.

The guard building Night Light was in doused its lights, leaving us with only our night vision to see by.  Mine was fine, and Deluge didn’t seem hindered at all; having to pick out clouds from the night sky swiftly trains one to see in the dark, and it seemed that Deluge had had enough practice with that.

“Any place around here we can stock up?”

“Should be.”  Deluge peeked out the window; the moon was gone, and the sun was starting to shine into the house’s other half, turning the airborne dust into a field of bleary stars.  I frowned at the word should, but Deluge’s eyes were on the trees, their upper leaves still faintly aglow with moonlight.

Bidden by some unspoken pact, we spent the last vestiges of night in silence.  I kept playing should be over and over in my head, mentally wincing every time; it was a phrase rife with the potential for being wrong, and I didn’t care for it.  Deluge apparently didn’t care much to expand on it either, but she seemed no less aware of its shortcomings; she paced this way and that, feverishly checked the sun’s progress, paced some more, glanced furtively at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, then kept right on pacing.

I’d turned to the window and leaned against the wall what seemed like hours ago, and I hadn’t moved since.  Even if I hadn’t been watching the moonbeams fade, the sun at my back told me how far dawn had gotten, and I could see Deluge’s reflection anxiously pacing in the window.

As the sun cleared the horizon, the town woke, stretching and yawning like a beast out of hibernation.  The first pony to hit the streets was a white-maned, purple pegasus, who meandered around town, distributing letters and occasionally greeting the bleary-eyed townsponies with a cheery wave.

I edged behind the curtain when she neared the house, so she couldn’t see me from the window or the door, but she started fumbling with the doorknob.  A line from the note Deluge’d found flashed across my mind, and I dove behind the sofa again right as the door swung open, and Deluge almost smacked her head on the ceiling.  I lifted the sofa’s bottom flap; I could just barely make out the two sets of hooves.

“Oh,” the mailmare said, backing out.  “Sorry.”

“Wait!”  Deluge almost shouted, stepping forwards and crossing the invisible line between stranger and friend.  “Fleet!  It’s me.”

The mailmare continued to step backwards, sounding very much confused.  “Who?”

I could almost hear the realization arcing across Deluge’s face.  A stunned silence followed, and I heard a not-unfamiliar thwack.  “Wait, let me try that again.”  She steadied herself and recomposed her voice into one of pure class; for a second I thought someone else had entered the conversation.  “Hey, Flea,” she said smoothly.  “Long time, no see.”

Another stunned silence.  I inched forward; my muzzle would have a nice welt in it later.  There wasn’t many places one could acquire a voice with that level of class.  With her accent?  Not Canterlot.  Newstable, if I had to guess.

“De’?” The mailmare—Fleet Hooves, I remembered—sounded genuinely surprised, shocked, and a little put out, but after a second she threw herself forward and presumably hugged Deluge.  “De’, it’s been so long!  How’ve you been?  Where’ve you been?  Your mane’s gotten so long!  Any new rain tricks?  Just wait, I—”

One of Deluge’s hooves left the ground, and Fleet fell silent.  “In a minute.  First, there’s somepony I’d like you to meet...”

I stiffened, my mind stopped cold, every thought within frozen solid, but short of going through the window and attracting even more attention, I had no out.  Which ended up making it all that easier to act as my weakwilled alter-ego when the sofa was shunted aside.

“Hi,“ I whispered.  “Silhouette.”

“Hey,” Fleet Hooves said.  “Fleet Hooves, but you can call me Flea.  Like the bug.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that...“

She laughed at that.  An innocent, warm laughter bounced off the walls, one that might’ve once belonged to a schoolfilly.  “Hey, if De’s got no problem with you, neither do I.”

“Oh...okay.“

Most of Silhouette’s traits were my approximation of the mannerisms of one Fluttershy, an expert on animals whom I’d once consulted.  They were well-suited for misdirecting attention away from more telling details, like, for example, a curiously ambiguous cutie mark, or a mane that doesn’t quite mesh with the name Silhouette.

“Anyways, I’ve been abroad,” Deluge said.  “Not that many rain specialists in Equestria.  Just doesn’t have the same appeal as lightning or hail.”

“It’s not flashy or cool enough, yeah,” Fleet Hooves said.  Regardless of what she said, I was calling her Fleet Hooves, or just Fleet if I absolutely had to cut it short.  “You specialized at all?”  she asked me.

“Yes, wind.“  It was truth enough; I dabbled in lightning here and there, but Holly had been decidedly less than happy with my ventures in that particular direction, and had insisted on wind lessons instead.  “Nothing fancy.“

“Lucky,” Fleet Hooves said.  “I was never any good at the whole weather thing.  Too twitchy, my teacher said.”

I shrugged.  “It’s really not all that special.“

“Tell me about it,” Deluge grumbled.  “Every damn time something goes wrong with the rain...”

I neglected to mention that I hardly ever did any weatherwork.  The less I messed with the wind, the easier my job was.  There was more than enough room for lightning experiments since they stayed local.  But the wind...the wind always went beyond the horizon.

That was the one thing Holly had said that I actually wanted to remember.  Wind always goes beyond the horizon.

“Delivering mail’s good enough for me,” Fleet Hooves said.

As she spoke, I caught Deluge’s eye and shook my head.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they wanted to catch up with one another, but there were bigger things to worry about.  From her widened eyes, I knew she understood.

“Sorry, Flea,” Deluge said.  “We’ve really got to go.”

“I figured.  I gotta finish my route—apparently there’s a big load of packages marked for delivery to Riverside.”

My head snapped upwards, but luckily, Deluge beat me to speaking.  Had I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t have remembered that I was not supposed to be me.  I silently berated myself; such carelessness was deadly at best.

“Riverside?” Deluge repeated.

“Yeah, I figured you’d wanna come.”

“How’s—?”

“I don’t know.”  Fleet Hooves disappeared into a back room; the jingle of keys followed, as did the creak of an opening chest, the plunk-plunk of falling envelopes, the sound of the chest being closed, and Fleet Hooves calling back to us.  “They’ve been trying to find him for a few months now.  All I can say is, if you know what they might need four crates of swan feathers for, I’d love to know.  Don’t worry,” she added hastily, as I cringed and toppled a lamp.  “Just down feathers.  None of the swans were grounded.”  She paused.  “Or...killed.”

“Yeulgh,” Deluge said distractedly, clearly more concerned about Meridian.  “Must’ve taken forever to collect all of those.”

“Must be some pillow,” I said, causing the other two burst into laughter.  Fleet Hooves reopened the front door, and all three of us clustered by it, bound by a common destination.

Deluge said what we were all thinking.  “To Riverside?”

“Lemme finish my route,” Fleet Hooves said.  “I’ll meet you two at the post office.”

She took off, and I turned to Deluge.  “We need to stock up.”

“We will,” she said flatly.  “Once you put the sofa back and get those saddlebags on.”

I bowed my head, bit my pride, shoved the sofa back, and donned her onion-scented saddlebags, my wings half-extended in mild disgust.  “Better?“

“Better.”

We started off into the town, Deluge just one step ahead of me.  I kept my head slightly downwards so my eyes were hidden, avoiding eye contact and letting out alarmed squeaks whenever somepony walked too close.  The streets were mostly empty apart from the occasional pony; some were rolling barrels, others levitating crates, and still others immersed in chatter that ranged from rumors about Night Light’s actual mane color to the financial merit of boiling carrots.

Sunlight bounced off of wooden buildings painted every color, and I glanced up to see a steady stream of pegasi hauling packages to and fro; it seemed to be that the town’s primary function was to serve as a crossroads for various delivery services.  I belatedly noticed that the emblem buckle on Fleet Hooves’ saddlebags—a sealed and winged scroll—was emblazoned on the side of a large building, as was a number of other logos all clearly belonging to mail services of some sort.  One depicted a cannon apparently launching heavy fruits, and indeed, every few minutes there was a loud bang, and another oversized watermelon or coconut would take to the skies.

I turned to ask Deluge, but before I could, she led us to a stop in front of an unmarked building near the town’s outskirts.  Without so much as a nervous glare, she lifted the bronze knocker and knocked three times.