Broken Wings, Scattered Dust

Stand Up, My Maker

Luna produced a set of overly squishy cushions from seemingly nowhere and politely seated us all.  All except for Blackout, who’d faded into shadows at her instruction, only to return minutes later with a tray visibly sagging under a mound of cookies.  In a disarmingly motherly display, Luna refused to proceed until we’d all had at least one—chocolate chip, naturally.  To be fussed over by a goddess, though...I found myself taken by a strangely warm, relaxing feeling, and it wasn’t because of the cookie.

Comfort.

I looked around in a daze.  Comfort was something else I’d neglected, a luxury I couldn’t afford.  To have it would mean my guard was down.  Vulnerable.  And if I was, then Whimsy was, too...

But not now.  She was in Deluge’s care, and if not hers, then Descant’s.  I doubted the former couldn’t perform, but even if she couldn’t, the dragon would be more than happy to take excellent care of Whimsy.  He seemed to have little else to do besides sit around, these days, and his grandstanding was definitely not all bark.

And me...I may not have the guards on my side, but the few that posed a threat were certainly not against me.  Even here, in the company of Luna and her able assistant, in a place I could not escape from, I was safe.  Neither one of them would touch me—Luna wouldn’t unless I became a serious risk, and Blackout wouldn’t on her orders.  And with that came another realization...

...it was only me.

For once I didn’t have to worry about Whimsy.  Not directly.

It was a sort of release I’d never expected to feel.  Some invisible burden lifted, and it was...just me.  But after so long, just who exactly is me?  A stone-cold killer?  A familial protector?  A liability?

A warm fuzz pressed into my side, and I looked down to find Violet shivering against me.  Again.  No, it wasn’t just me.  It was her, and through her, Descant, and through him, Lucifa and the entire race of dragons.  What are you waiting for, Calamus?  Have I not ‘met’ Violet?  What other demands must I fulfill before I can take the next stride to finding Lucifa?

For the second time in as many hours, a slow trickle of music inched its way into the air.  A seamless melody flowed from the open end of a flute, Luna ushering through her many centuries of meditative thoughts and distilled emotions.  The overwhelming tone was that of crushing guilt, suppressing, the air turning thick with an eternity of torment that only Luna could know, accompanied by muted pangs of a hollow sadness and spirited trills that only sounded happy.

As Luna played on, white lightning curled around her horn, a magic whose rarity outstripped that of even Eve’s.  Bolts began to lash out at the curved glass overhead—and from their sharp, stinging smell and thundering backing, it was actually lightning—but they had no apparent effect.

It wasn’t until Luna’s song faded to a quiet end that, with the sound of space being stretched to its limits, the glass ceiling began to glow.  Then it flexed, and the universe grew large.

Violet gasped as a distant star rocketed towards us, making clear details as fine as individual flares, curling off into space only to return again.  It didn’t stop until it seemed but moments away from smashing into the observatory, blinding us with starlight regardless.  And at Luna’s beckoning, the view swept slowly aside until we were staring into the blackness of space.

“Humm,” Luna murmured.  “I knew it was around here somewhere...”

It wasn’t black for long.  The glass’s magic skin took on the slightest hue of red, and from the darkness of space emerged even more stars, little pinpricks of light, light that...that we couldn’t see before?

“What—?”

“Stars from those long gone,” Luna said absentmindedly.  “They have grown so far, so fast, that their light has stretched out of the visible spectrum.”

I could almost hear the swoosh as her words went right over my head; the only thing I could extract from that was that there were millions, if not billions of stars we could not even see.  “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Aha,” Luna said, as though she hadn’t heard me.  “Here we are.”

A number of stars grew bright, and a blue line stretched from one to the next, then the next.  It took but a moment for them to complete a rough outline of a flower.

“Your family has been in our service for too many generations to count,” Luna told Violet.  “Not forced, mind you, but it is hard to deny that your family’s...flavor of talents have a considerable number of applications.”

Violet shifted beside me, and I heard the quiet thrum of magic.  “Truth."

“A virtue as much as a vice,” Luna said quietly.  “And your bloodline’s specialty.”

I frowned, ignoring the chunk of ice that had lodged itself in my gut.  “Can’t be that many talents.”

“The truth is a many-layered thing, and never simple.  Construction, distortion, revelation, selection, manipulation, illumination, to name but a few.  All things you can do with or to the truth.  There is no shortage of related talents, I assure you.”

“Most agreed to continue the tradition,” Blackout added.  “We offered them a choice every time, but those that accepted, understood that the power they wielded could make or break the greater good.”

I said nothing.  It was Violet’s choice to make.

“So...” Violet began, but she trailed off as the starry flower suddenly coalesced, gaining a solidity that seemed all too real.  Or rather, half of it did.  The other half remained insubstantial, retaining the velvet black of Luna’s sky.  Slowly, carefully, the flower spun, until we were looking straight down at it from the top, a view distinctly more poignant than Violet’s cutie mark.  Wait a minute...

“Ebony and Ivory,” Luna said, pointing to each half of the flower in turn.

Uh oh.

“Obfuscation and illumination of the truth.  Your parents.  More than adept within their separate areas, but in tandem they were nearly unstoppable in the political arena.”  I caught starlight glinting off of Luna’s teeth.  “I doubt any mortal besides them could reliably tell who was lying and who was not.”

Blackout took up the narrative.  “Their official title was Celestial Envoy.  They were in Draconia trying to rally support to unify the Equestrian government and the Draconian council when they were ambushed by a number of dragons.  They didn’t want anything to do with ponykind.”

I have to tell her.

“Morons,” he added casually.  “We offered them an escort.  I offered to escort them.  ‘No,’ they told me.  ‘Every pony who knows how we work is one more liability.’”

I have to.

“We can but wonder what they might have achieved otherwise,” Luna said sadly.  “Perhaps, if they had been successful, we could play a larger role in the dragons’ recovery, but no other Envoys were willing to go after your parents were killed.”

I can’t.

“To persuade a dragon is task enough by itself; they do not think as quickly as ponies do.  They do not have to, which makes it all the harder to influence them.  But to fight them is a task as difficult as it is legendary.”

I need to get out.

Luna pointed up at the flower.  “They left their mark before they embarked on their last mission.  Sometimes I wonder if they knew...”

No.  No portal, no window.  No gaps, no cracks in the glass, no weak points.  Nothing.

“They might’ve,” Blackout said darkly, rising from his seat and cantering over to the open book.  “Here...they didn’t leave a name for their constellation, just a dedication.  ‘To Celeste,Selene, and Mirari.  May our faith forever be your power.’”

I can’t get out.

“An astral epitaph,” Luna murmured.

I have to tell her.

Violet shifted again.  “So were they prophets.”  It wasn’t a question.  As quietly as I could, I swallowed the blood I’d again drawn from biting my tongue.

I put her in a boat twice as leaky as mine.

She needs to know.

“More like clairvoyants.”  Blackout sat up, too, watching Violet.  “They weren’t, not really, but they had a sense that anypony’d mistake for the real thing.”

Violet reached a hoof to the stars, tracing the flower as though she could feel it.  “I wish I’d known them.  They sound amazing.”

“They were,” said Luna.  “But if a dragon wishes you dead, you would have to be able to thwart nature herself to survive, and even then you would suffer wounds that do not heal.  Miss Zephyr knows.”

“I do.”  My voice came out evenly, steady, betraying the storm tearing away at my insides, the truth desperately trying to make its escape borne on wings of honor, justice.  The scar underneath my wing tingled with phantom pain.  The truth...

        ...beautiful...

                        ...terrible...

...but not fast enough to escape Violet.  Something in my voice that perhaps only she could hear tipped her off.  She turned to me without sitting up.

“What is it?” she blurted.  “What is it?”

I ignored her and instead brought a question to bear, hoping, praying that my answer was wrong.  “Luna...that flower.  Please tell me it’s not a lotus.”

If Luna’d made any connections, had any revelations, it did not show.

“It is.”

On Violet’s other side I could hear Blackout breathing heavily, his mind undoubtedly racing.  Neither him nor Luna said a thing.  Violet stood up, towering over me, the silver ring dangling over my face like a hypnotist’s watch, eyes and horn ablaze.  I had occupied her spot more times than I could remember.  But her parents...oh, the irony.  The cruel, cruel irony.

“Violet,” I croaked, horror leaking, terrified of what retribution I was subjecting myself to.  They must have hidden her, abandoned her for her own protection, sheltering her from the danger of treading in their footsteps and repeating their mistakes.  And sheltering her from another, more imminent threat...

You smell like dragons...

And still the unicorn’s gaze kept on sharpening itself, innocent eyes shooting daggers, trying to read the truth I had yet to think.  The Calamus knew.  It had to.  My stomach had turned inside out, my mind slowly diminishing, frost creeping through my veins like a lethal poison.  I couldn’t budge even if I wanted to.

“Violet,” I repeated.  “Violet Lotus...”

She shuddered at her full name, but did not back down.  Revelation sparkled briefly in Luna’s eyes, and moments later Blackout’s, but both remained mute.  And just as well...

“...dragons didn’t kill your parents.”

Justice.  We meet at last.

“I did.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed.  She leaned in closer, her horn still on fire, searching, probing, pitting hope against all odds for a lie.  She found none.

I had to tell her, or she would spend her whole life silently suffering a delusion I’d wrought.  A fate I’d written for her.  The same fate Whimsy and I had spent most of our lives coming to terms with, the same empty future that left us blind and stumbling in the dark, hoping against hope we might find some shred of meaning to chase.  A fate robbed of guidance, of compassion, of sanctuary.  An unfeeling fate that had ripped the capacity to love right out of me.  And the one family member she had left, she didn’t even know about...

I closed my eyes as she regained control of herself.  I tried not to think about her chosen method of execution.  A swift death.  Prolonged torture.  I had taken so much more than life from her.  As long as she let Whimsy be, It didn’t matter what she did.  What I did in a week caused more hollowing pain than Violet could cause in a lifetime, and that pain never goes away.  The scars it etches in your flesh, your heart, your mind.  They never heal.  I was living embodiment of that...but not for long.

Shouting broke out above me, a storm I could not touch in a sky I could not see.  Scuffling.  The sound of magic.  Paper flying.  Cushions falling.  Words that meant nothing.  And that warm embrace of darkness...all is said and done.

Violet, if you can hear me, do me one favor.  Make it quick.  Whimsy doesn’t need to know I suffered on my way out.

Nothing touched me.

                Nothing.

                                        Nothing.

                                                                        And...

Nothing.

“Blackout.”

Luna’s voice sliced through the din and forced my eyes open.

Blackout was struggling to break free of two things.  Violet had pinned most of him with her behind, a feat made possible by a ring of Luna’s magic binding his hooves together.  The unicorn’s eyes were slightly puffy, red, and they shone with tear-refracted moonlight.  The look she was giving me was a lot less vindictive than I was expecting, but it was several far cries from forgiving.  Blackout wore the expression I was expecting instead.

“No,” he grunted, trying to throw Violet off, and not having much success without the use of his legs.  “She killed Ebony and Ivory.  In cold blood.  She deserves it.  Get off me.”  He finally heaved Violet off of him, but still couldn’t move.  “I swear to Celestia, Zephyr, I will stuff a knife in your skull if it’s the last thing I do.”

“No, you won’t,” Luna said sharply.  “‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’  Death is not the answer.”

“No, but it’s a reliable cure-all,” he spat.  “Violet!  She took your parents from you.  She forced you to live in that orphanage, alone and exposed.  She—”

“Shut up.”  Violet slapped him, leaking tears.  “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

And when he had fallen silent, beaten into silence by a clumsy unicorn barely out of fillyhood, Violet turned to me.  She was too young, bereft of the discipline that masked Luna and Blackout’s thoughts and emotions.  Vengeful wildfires burned in her eyes.  She wanted to do it, and she didn’t want to.  How much could she see...?

“That’s enough.” Luna stood.  The motion was accompanied with a startingly loud wolf’s howl, and a maelstrom of shadows and lightning welled to life around her, stirring the observatory into motion.  The room itself breathed as she did, instruments played melodies of their own accord, the ceiling bowed and flexed, rippling with the raw volume of Luna’s voice.  Black vines of smoke escaped through Blackout’s fur, twisting through the air, returning to Luna.  “You may have it back when you stop letting emotions run you down a path with no redemption.”

She released him, and he fell limp, staring forlornly at his still-bound hooves with a weighty, profound sadness.  “Yes, Princess.”

It was clear from his tone that he still wanted to kill me, but—presumably—without his shadowwalking, he’d have a much harder time of it.  Violet had all the rights in the world to kill me, but if Blackout wanted me dead, he’d have to win the fight of his life first.  Bring all the blades you like, ponyboy.  All the more lightning rods for me.

“Zeph...”

Violet was at my side now, no longer standing over me, but she managed to be scarier this way than when she was staring me down.  There were so many emotions written in her face that I couldn’t pick one from another.  Sadness, fury, peace?  No righteous fury could be scarier than the terror of not knowing how she would react.

“How could you?  How...?”

“You already know,” I said miserably.  “Money.”

“I know it’s more than that.  I know you’re more than that.  But how...?”  She drew a shuddering breath.  “I mean, who?”

“Descant,” I said.  “Timid Thunder.  No, I don’t know why.  I don’t ask.  But if you see him again, he has your parents’ necklaces.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.  “And I know you need the money for Whimsy, but...honestly, there are a bajillion other ways to make money.  Or get it.  No,” she said suddenly, before I could respond.  “You enjoy it...”

“It’s a challenge,” I muttered.  “Believe me, I didn’t have a whole lot of options.”

“Bull,” Blackout said; Luna silenced him with a sharp glare.

“She’s not lying,” Violet said.  “I can see that much.  But what could happen that would make you—?”

I sighed.  “Long story short.  Whimsy is blind because of me.  But she has so much to live for.”  Deep breaths.  “I couldn’t let anything happen to her again.  Her wings are too strong to pinion.”  Deep breaths.  “She relies on illusions to keep her out of trouble now, but she didn’t always have that skill, and one time, I...one time, I got carried away.  I didn’t know they had a foal,” I added.  “Your parents...Ebony and Ivory.  They knew I was coming.  They abandoned you to protect you.”

Violet paused, tears glistening, shining with a mixture of moonlight and the purple glow of her magic.  She spent several moments hmming, and the same moments saying nothing.  Blackout and Luna hadn’t moved.

“So that’s why you have those goggles?”  Luna asked curiously.  “A vaccine for your sister’s venom.”

I nodded.  “Hoofmade by Dad once we knew.  He took to calling themmoongoggles.  You know—”

 “—because sunglasses are for when there’s too much light, and moongoggles are for when there’s not enough.  To reveal what is real and what is not.”  She smiled thinly.  “I like it.”

Silence.

Silence.

Crickets, far below.

Silence.

Hoots of an owl.

And...

...silence.

“Zephyr....”  Violet looked as forlorn as she looked pleading.

“I’m sorry.  I—”

“Just...just don’t stay near me.”  Her voice cracked.  “I don’t know what I might do to you...”

Something tugged at me.  The Calamus.  Already?

“What?”  Blackout smirked at me.  “Not going to pull the I’m just a tool card?”

I glared at him.  “No.  I had a choice.  I always have.  A bow or a blade does not.”

“Oooh, you do have honor—ow!”

“I’d shut up if I were you.”  I leaned close; Luna still had him bound.  “Violet can kill me if she decides to.  You are going to have to fight me first if you want me dead.  I wonder how brave you are without your powers?”

For the first time I saw fear flicker behind his eyes, and it was no mystery why.  He’d had his mastery of shadows for so long, he’d taken them for granted.  He’d forgotten what it was like to fight without that gift.  I couldn’t resist a smile as I watched his facade of strength wither and vanish, the shriveled horror of vulnerability taking its place.

He knew.  It’s why he was so scared.  Manual combat skills don’t help you against a tornado.  Bring a blade, and I have an easy conduit to electrocute you.  Bring a bow, and none of the arrows will ever touch me.  Good luck, kid.  Good luck.  The only way it could be more decisive is if I could control lightning like Holly could.

Even if Blackout had his powers, he was the one who wanted me dead, not the other way around, so he had to chase me.  And there are no shadows in the sky.

He started thrashing again.  “You—”

A swift punch to the face ensured he stopped just as promptly.  Luna released him once she had checked to see if he wasn’t faking unconsciousness; I hadn’t hit him hard enough to break anything.  Luna gave me this look.

“Er,” I said.  “Sorry.  I—”

Luna waved me off.  “No apologies.  He is a pony like any other, and he will lose control like any other.  If he has to be beaten to remind him of his shortcomings, so be it.”

Weightlessness started to take hold, and of Violet, too; she drifted ever so slightly off the floor.  Luna glanced at the sky, then back at us.

“Go,” she said.  “I will ensure he leaves you alone.  He forgets just how much damage the disrupted divine can cause, and Lucifa forged the rest of us.”  She brushed a hoof against the prone Blackout.  “I know his pain, but she does not wish you dead, and he would be a fool to oppose that.”

Luna rose and met my eyes.

“Are you not upset because you didn’t like them, or—?”

“I told you, the Calamus and I have deep connections that are not of this world.  I did not know, but I had my suspicions.”  She bared her teeth in a half-smile, half-grimace.  “The bloodshed of vengeance is a cycle that takes far too much time to end.  And there is nothing to be gained by imprisoning nor torturing you but the bitter taste of illusory revenge.  I know you do not kill for greed or personal gain, Zephyr, and to enact revenge for that is to punish an attempt at survival, and a noble attempt, at that.”

She took a breath.

“But what you must understand is that Lucifa made all of us.  She made me, my sister, the Shaman, dragons, Equestria, the Everfree, Cloudsdale, Canterlot, even Discord—she is not called the Mother for nothing.  And look at where we have been led by her guidance.  Equestria has become a utopia that has endured, unscathed, for hundreds of years.  Our prosperity is so abundant it has quite literally bled into Draconia, Saddle Arabia, Italony, Haven, Atlantis.”

“So you do as it wills.”

“In short, yes.”

I pursed my lips.  Following the wordless orders of some giant rock had seemed crazy enough, but to learn now that the same rock guides both princesses?  They didn’t seem insane...

But then, that rock had reunited me with Dad.  And he loved him some plans...but to what end did this plan lead?  Lucifa’s fate?  The revitalizition of dragons?  Everything that had happened since the  dance of the stars had to have connections outside of Lucifa’s will.

Deluge had been an odd sort of connection.  Violet’s connection hit all too close to home...the Calamus was pairing me with every participant in the last dance, but for what?  My connections to Descant, Whimsy—those were obvious.  What about Sterling?  And why did Dust keep popping up?  What was so special about her?

“Violet.”

Luna had trotted over to Violet’s other side.  The unicorn had laid back down, facing away from me, but she wasn’t crying.  Not audibly.

“I hope you find it in yourself to forgive Zephyr.  She meant you no harm.”

“Means,” Violet corrected.  “She means me no harm.  She—she almost strangled me earlier, but that was because she couldn’t let me tattle.  She’s had all day and all night to hurt me if she wanted to, but she doesn’t.”  She sniffled.  “But...”

I almost apologized again, but she already knew; knew I was sorry that I’d stripped her of the same comforts that I had been denied.  Sorry that I’d dumped her in the same bleak pit that I’d found myself in.  Sorry that I might have just turned her into me...what else could I say?  Nothing I could say or do would bring Ebony and Ivory back.  Just like Holly...

“No,” said Violet, without turning around and with more than a touch of defiance.  “I will not become you.”

“I—Let’s hope not.”  As vain as hope is, no one...sigh.  No one should have to suffer like I did.

The observatory again seemed to take on a life of its own; paper fluttered, instruments played, and there was spiraling wind in an enclosed room.  Luna spread her wings and rose to stay level with us.  She was emitting an aura of raw power, and at the same time I was vaguely aware of the Calamus’ tentative tugs.

All of it happened through a dull haze; I had robbed Violet.  An innocent filly.  And for what?  To keep Whimsy alive?

The vice on my stomach tightened further.  Whimsy, you’d better make your life count, because I’ve taken too many just to keep you from an early grave.  And Violet...

“Violet.  Your...you have a relative.  Crimson.  He’s a Warden now.  Princess Celestia could tell you where he is, and—and—tell him I’m sorry.”  There was a chance Violet wouldn’t tell him, but I couldn’t see her keeping it secret.  Why would she?  Problem was, he was exactly the kind of hotheaded, emotionally-dominated pony that wouldn’t rest until he enacted his vengeance.

Violet turned to face me for the first time in as many minutes.  Her eyes were still puffy, pink, and glossy with tears, but her voice was even, neutral.  Please, no...

“I will.”

She turned back; already I could feel her growing cold, banishing emotion, exiling the very thing that fueled the soul...becoming me.

Luna floated towards her and lifted the silver ring.  “Violet, if you want to learn exactly what this is, the pony you met in my sister’s throne room knows better than anypony.  I would expect she also knows where Descant resides, if you wish to retrieve your parents’ necklaces.  And if you would ask, I cannot imagine he would withhold his reasons for arranging your parents’ deaths.  Least of all from you.”

“Thank you.”

Luna turned to me.  “And Zephyr...after tonight I think you know what has yet to transpire.  Lucifa’s truth will continue to evade you until you have accepted yourself for who you are; it is a belief she held most dear, and as long as you shelter that storm, you will never find her.  The method you need to quell said storm is something only you can discover.”

I bristled.  “I’m fine with who I am, thank you very much.  I don’t need to be anything else.”

“I daresay you’ll find yourself wrong.”  Luna closed in, eyes alight with a strange fervor that was neither anger nor compassion, neither “There is a problem your sister needs your help to solve, and it cannot be solved if you remain in your current state.  I know no more than that.”

“Hmph.”

Luna rose into the air.  “Farewell, Zephyr, Violet Lotus.  Moon’s blessings be upon you.”

And before either of us could answer, we were once again whisked away to the distant stars, leaving Luna to her duties and Blackout to his little snooze on the floor.