Away, away, away from the noise of the city and the throne, Marisol is sparring with a ghost.
The training field behind the barracks is graveyard-empty, except for her. Overhead the sky is still night-dark; the sun has only begun its rounds, turning the strip above the horizon a foamy kind of pink-and-purple, and clouds are falling away into the cold air. Like birdsong, her spear whistles through the air. Like the whistle of a flute, it’s music to her ears. With all kinds of rage, she hefts it again and again at the training dummy already slashed to bits where it stands in the sand, and with all the precision of a paring knife the spearhead hits its target again and again.
It’s the only thing she’s still sure she knows how to do. Fighting, sparring. It’s all muscle memory to her, as easy as reading or falling asleep. The thud-thud-thud of the spear into straw matches her heartbeat almost exactly. And as the sun rises higher and higher and Mari’s throws hit closer and closer to the bright center of the target, the knots that have built up in her muscles melt away. Exhilaration pushes out the stress that’s hardened deep in her chest. With sweat lacquering her skin, nostrils flared against her face, the Commander finally tosses the spear aside and, with a huff, goes sliding on her side into the sand.
It feels good, to be so exhausted she can’t worry about anything else. Like sleeping without wasting all that time. Her body buzzes with the release of adrenaline. Ribs heaving against the sand, she lets her head fall back and for a long moment just breathes, breathes, breathes. Wind rushes by and ruffles the short, dark strands of her mane; the sun bakes away the salt along her skin.
Then there is the sound of footsteps on the hard, dusty ground. Marisol whooshes a long breath out through her nostrils. One eye cracks open against the bright sun, and when it focuses, a gray filly is backlit above her. “Charlie!” she exclaims, voice warm and bright-surprised, and abruptly rolls up to sitting; after a few short, confused blinks, a smile breaks over her face. “What’re you doing here?”
Mama said, fulfill the prophecy be something greater, go make a legacy, manifest destiny, back in the days we wanted everything, wanted everything. Mama said, burn your biographies, rewrite your history, light up your wildest dreams, museum victories, every day we wanted everything, wanted everything.
The young girl has been running all over the court all morning, trying to find Commander Marisol. She looks in the castle first, skirting down hallways and sliding around corners, Indy following on silent wings just behind her. Until a very stern faced man tells her that “The Queen is not in and you must go.”
What a killjoy.
Charlie sincerely hopes that he doesn’t have kids, and is very sorry for them if he does.
So, out on the steps with the entire court before her, the 6-month old pauses—vermillion eyes serious. Indy perches upon her withers, carefully curling her talons about the willowy girl’s shoulder blades. “Well, that was a bust,” she grumbles, blowing a bit of her forelock out of the way of her face. “Where do you think we should check next, Indy?”
Her bonded is quiet for a moment, then, “It would take all day to search everywhere. And I love you but I’m not a one bird search party. Where did you usually find her, you know, before she became Queen?” Charlie scrunches up her nose and thinks. She has always admired Commander Marisol, but until more recently never talked to her. Just watched how awesome she was.
And that’s when she figures out where to look, and what a stupidly easy place it is. The training grounds! It’s always where Charlie would have seen her, whether she was training herself or practicing with the cadets. The filly has spent way more time at the barracks and the training grounds than she probably is supposed to, but when you’re like her and have free run of the world there’s nothing you don’t do.
She races down the steps, Indy leaving her perch on her shoulders with a few beats of her wings and taking off into the air. The Osprey’s shadow falls over Charlie’s, mimicing the girl’s own wings as if they were splayed open at her sides. Together the pair speed through the streets. Both know the way there by heart.
They would know it in the dark, or blindfolded. The way to the training grounds is in their blood.
It doesn’t take them long to arrive, but Charlie is an endless reserve of energy, already brushing past the barracks and straight for the open fields used for sparring and other things. Slowing, she spies Commander Marisol in the distance throwing her spear. Awed, she stops to watch. The Commander doesn’t miss.
It’s awesome.
One day Charlie wants to be as good with a weapon as her.
When the Commander stops and seems to come to a rest on the ground, Charlie remembers her excitement and begins to bound forward again. Her small hooves beat a stacatto against the hard ground, and Indy circles a few times above before landing on the remains of the dummy. Her vermillion eyes are sharp and bright with enthusiasm.
“I came to find you, Commander Marisol!” Charlie says, hopping a backwards a little bit as the older pegasus sits up. She stands straighter, puffs out her chest and dons a most serious expression. For as long as she can hold it, anyway, before the energy bubbles over again. “I needed to show you something! Look!”
The filly turns toward an open stretch of ground and stretches out her wings. The sun is high and dazzling and she can feel the wind brushing against each of her feathers. Charlie narrows her eyes, and begins to run.
And then, she begins to flap her wings. Great, fast strokes of her wings. One, two, three, and then her hooves are no longer touching the ground. She doesn’t get very high, perhaps, and although the young pegasus hasn’t testing exactly how far she can go, the fact that she can actually fly is enough to make her excited for weeks to come. She’s been dying to fly since the day she first put her hooves on the ground, and practicing almost every day since.
Charlie turns in the sky, a little wobbly, and heads back toward the Commander. And although she skids and stumbles some on the landing, she’s already rushing back toward Marisol with a beaming smile on her face. “I did it! I had to show you first.”
For a long time Marisol was nothing but a soldier. Now she is Commander, and queen besides, but more important than that she is a Terrastellan whose love for her people is stronger than bone or blood or iron. Stronger than any other pull of romance or desire, she knows that now. Her chest builds with warmth and a little smile curls her lips as she watches the filly standing over her, and, in the distance, Indy landing easily on the dummy now leaking straw.
Charlie is precious. The next generation, what will remain when Marisol and her regime have long gone into the ground. Nothing, really nothing, is more important than helping her grow up with room to fly and the support of her people. Mari sits up straighter, brushes a thin cast of dirt off her sweaty shoulder with the touch of her dark muzzle. I came to find you, Charlie exclaims, and the Commander beams.
It looks and feels strange for someone so serious, but she can’t help it. Real, perfect happiness rushes down her spine. She watches with bright gray eyes as Charlie turns, her bluish skin dazzled under the hot, striking sun—watches as her wide, nervous wings stretch unsteadily out and start to beat against the warm air, stunningly strong and new—watches and beams as her nimble little hooves drift on the ground and she catapults into the air like a bird being thrown from its nest.
Mari smiles so hard it starts to bubble in her chest, stunning, intense pride coursing like so much electricity through her body and down her spine. This is what it feels like to be young again, she thinks, and the pride is just a little bittersweet. How old is she that she has begun not to appreciate what it feels like to fly?
She shakes her head.
“Charlie, that’s amazing!” The Commander surges to her feet and rushes to wrap Charlie in a kind of hug with one big, soft wing, pulling her in to her side with a too-bright smile: she bumps her muzzle affectionately against the filly’s neck, not even thinking of how unusual it is for her. “Good job! You’ll be up high in no time. I know a good place to practice more, if you want, and I can even show you to how to throw a spear—“
With a satisfied little snort she pulls away, dancing back toward the edge of the training grounds like an invitation, sprightlier than anyone has seen her perhaps in years. And oh, the world is rough-edged but still good in the middle—the sun is shining, and there is so much to do.
Mama said, fulfill the prophecy be something greater, go make a legacy, manifest destiny, back in the days we wanted everything, wanted everything. Mama said, burn your biographies, rewrite your history, light up your wildest dreams, museum victories, every day we wanted everything, wanted everything.
When the Commander wraps Charlie in her feathered embrace, pulling the young girl against her side, a strange sort of warmth fills her. One that cannot be attributed to the beating of the sun down upon her skin.
Charlie has spent much of her life off adventuring, by herself, apart from Indy who is more of a sister to the filly than just a bonded. The affection isn’t unwelcome but unfamiliar, and Charlie finds herself leaning a little bit into the embrace and the warmth of Marisol. The mare’s praise makes her heart soar, much higher than she can ever hope to fly.
A happy laugh escapes her, her bright eyes closed as she soaks in the experience and, she finds, enjoys it. “I’ve been practicing every day, and then one da I just started to fly,” Charlie says, and it’s clear to see that she’s quite proud of her accomplishment. Oh, she cannot wait for the day she can fly higher and farther and do all kinds of things. She will fly everywhere… who needs to travel on the ground when you can do it in the air?
It takes the filly a second to register the Commander’s suggestions, coming down off her high, as it were. But as Marisol pulls away and the words seem to settle within Charlie’s thoughts her eyes widen exponentially, like she’s just stepped into the world’s largest candy store.
Only her treat of choice is personal training by the Commander of the Halcyon. “You would do that?” the filly responds, a little in disbelief, as she watches Marisol prance away. She can well and truly, hardly believe it. It’s like a dream come true. The Halcyon are real life heroes, just like in all the best stories, and Commander Marisol is the best of them.
The shock wears off quickly, and Charlie seems to make up her mind immediately. Her eyes catch in the sun like a flame, sparking bright and determinedly as she races forward to catch up with the mare. “Yes, yes! I want to learn everything!” She bounds across the training grounds, gaze never leaving Marisol’s face. “I want to be just like you.”
Charlie’s weight, leaning into her embrace, is… unfamiliar, to say the least. But somehow it manages to be singularly comforting. It is the weight of the sister Marisol has never had; the weight of a different kind of duty, much lighter than the one that usually drags her down by the shoulders; the sun beats down on them and she is warm, warm, warm, more from the strange, pleasant sensation of Charlie’s shoulder against her own than from the weather itself. “Good job,” Mari says again, as the filly explains her practice tactics, and her voice rings with amusement and pride.
They are one and the same. Their differences, what little they do have, are nothing more than surface distinctions: blue and deep bay, the scarf and the white stripes, the bird that sits on Charlie’s shoulders and the white hound that so often walks at the Sovereign’s ankles. Sisters, indeed. But Mari holds her tongue; she has said enough already, perhaps too much. Her tenure as Commander has at least managed to teach her praise is best doled out in little pieces.
One day, Marisol is sure she will be replaced by this girl with the frail wings and the fiery, orange-red eyes. For the first time, the thought of being usurped does not completely disturbed her.
Perhaps she is merely getting old.
Marisol shakes her head, a half-successful attempt to clear the smog from her thoughts. Not the time, not the time—today is a good day, will be a good day. Despite herself, Mari is only human, and she finds herself flattered into a stupid grin by the way the young warrior hangs on to her every word: if her cadets were half as invested, their training would be much, much easier. (One can only dream.) Charlie’s eyes blow comically wide as the invitation registers in her head, as if she thinks this is all a prank. Oh, cadet, thinks the queen drily. Soon enough you’ll realize I don’t make jokes. At least not like that.
“You shouldn’t want to be just like me, Charlie.” Her tone is light enough, but as she stands, paused for just a moment, her expression becomes far more somber and far more serious. The Commander’s gaze finds Charlie’s, and briefly her lips tug down into something like a frown. “Lesson number one is—you will only be successful if you continue to be like you.”
It is a hard truth. Perhaps the hardest, a truth Marisol still wrestles with more often than she’d like to admit. There are other reasons, oh so many other reasons Charlie shouldn’t want to turn out like her: the constant sense of choking duty; the silver webbing of scars marking a whole body; the stress, the exhaustion, the self-disgust. But those are far too heavy. Those are truths for another time. Mari bites back her sudden severity and forces the quick flash of a new smile.
With the sweep of a wing, she gestures toward the low, squat barracks behind them. “Now, you need a practice weapon. Spear? Bow?” Of course she has her own preferences—by now, that is obvious enough—but as Marisol, tail swishing behind her, backs up toward the weapons storage room, she still wears a look of interest and waits with seeming eagerness for Charlie’s answers.
Mama said, fulfill the prophecy be something greater, go make a legacy, manifest destiny, back in the days we wanted everything, wanted everything. Mama said, burn your biographies, rewrite your history, light up your wildest dreams, museum victories, every day we wanted everything, wanted everything.
It’s hard for Charlie to place the expression that overtakes Marisol’s face for a quiet moment after she talks. Ah, the frown is certainly something she is familiar with, but usually it is matched with eyes filled with some sort of disgruntled expression. Usually because she’s gotten herself in the way down at the docks, or into some sort of other mess that the adults don’t find quite as charming and exciting as she does.
But the look in the Commander’s eyes is different. Almost sad.
Charlie takes a quick step forward, bumping her nose gently against the older mare’s shoulder, “Okay Commander Marisol, I will,” and she glances up with bright, sincere eyes as she continues, “But you’ll always be my number one.” The filly’s faith is so simple and innocent, her trust as boundless as her energy.
She has grown a wild girl, without the kinds of boundaries or rules that most foals might have to ensure that their hooves stay firmly planted to the ground. But she has never lacked enthusiasm or determination, nor a sense of duty or loyalty. Perhaps, roaming Novus at such a young age has made these things even more deeply rooted in her, because who is a lone girl in a big world if she doesn’t know who she is, except wandering and lost?
When Marisol flashes a smile in her direction and sweeps her wing in the direction of the barracks, Charlie turns her attention toward it. A practice weapon? Her eyes sparkle like the sun at the thought, as she pictures the weapon of her (literal) dreams. Charlie pictures herself at the helm of a ship, standing proud with the sea air blowing across her skin.
Strapped behind her shoulder, with a wooden grip and brass bolsters, smooth steel blade shining in the sun. There is no doubt in her mind, nor in her voice as she turns back to the Commander and speaks, “A sword.” Her eyes are fiercely resolute, a smile curling the corners of her lips. There is nothing in the world a budding fighter, dreaming pirate, could want more.
Marisol has never thought much about children, having them or dealing with them. They are a pipe dream for other people—people who don’t have the time constraints of being Commander, much less Sovereign.
Perhaps this will be her substitution. Charlie has her real mom, and Mari has her real job. Eventually they will have to part ways. Duty and family will come calling again. But at this moment nothing seems more important than being the person that Charlie thinks she is, her number one, proving herself worthy of the totally genuine, innocent admiration that shines from the filly’s brightly orange-red eyes. When her muzzle touches Marisol’s shoulder, the Commander’s heart… melts.
What a strange feeling. Her posture slides a little, and warmth pools in her cheek and against her throat, which half-closes with a mixture of pride and self-consciousness as she wonders what luck has led her to deserve Charlie’s admiration. And Marisol decides, in that moment, that she will work just as hard as she did to become Commander to remain someone worthy of the girl’s adulation.
A sword, Charlie says. Her face is bright with fierce excitement, the kind of confident elation that Mari wishes she had had at that age. And her surety! How can someone so young know exactly what she wants?
“Come,” she replies with a faint smile, “we’ll go find one.” She bumps the joint of one wing against Charlie’s flank affectionately, a gesture that gently herds her toward the weapons room at the south end of the barracks, where the cadets keep their collection of blunt-ended spears and wooden daggers made for practice spars. The room itself is small and filled with dusty sunlight; Marisol ushers Charlie in ahead of her, and leaves the door loosely open behind them.
Mama said, fulfill the prophecy be something greater, go make a legacy, manifest destiny, back in the days we wanted everything, wanted everything. Mama said, burn your biographies, rewrite your history, light up your wildest dreams, museum victories, every day we wanted everything, wanted everything.
Marisol urges Charlie in the direction of the weapons room and the young girl needs no further convincing. She walks along eagerly, almost skipping in her excitement, almost floating. Her heart feels like it’s soaring, even though her hooves are on the ground. She thinks, there is no possible day that could ever top this one. Nothing could be better than this (except, perhaps, to become a Halcyon herself, someday).
When the Commander pushes the door to the room open, the pegasus filly moves inside at the ushering of the woman beside her. But she can’t help when she pauses in the middle of the room, a sharp intake of breath filling her lungs. If these are only the training weapons, she can’t imagine what their actual weapons room must look like. There are so many to choose from!
Charlie moves toward the wall with buckets and racks holding all types and sizes of training swords. Some are made of wood, and some appear to be made of plastic or some other hard but forgiving material. Suddenly a little unsure and a little overwhelmed, the girl glances back at the Commander, who is waiting by the partially open door.
Sunlight filters in through it, lighting up particles of dust floating through the air. The look in Marisol’s eyes encourages her to keep going, so she does. Her vermilion eyes take in each sword, until they land on one that just… feels right.
It’s black, and probably made of plastic instead of wood. Charlie carefully lifts it from the hooks on the wall, to test its weight and balance in her hand. There’s not much detail to it, but she can tell it was modeled after something real. It has a textured grip and a shallow fuller. Even though it’s not the weapon she’s always imagined, it will help her learn how to wield that one, one day.
Charlie turns toward Marisol with a smile and a delighted look in her eyes. “This one,” she says simply. The filly knows very little, but this she knows without fail. With a different kind of eagerness, she is ready to begin. And, new practice weapon in hand, Charlie makes her way back toward the Commander and the fields beyond the cracked door, waiting in the sunlight.
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