Creaking. Everything creaked in her house.
The floorboards, the rocking chair, the bedsprings, the kitchen counter, her ancient, brittle bones: all creaking; all screaming for an end. Hooves cracked with age, the last great stewardess of the Royal Unicorn Families settled herself down into a semi-conscious state of repose.
Her grandson waited. At times, it seemed like waiting was all he was good for... not that waiting was necessarily a bad thing. As his grandmother, a great mare, once said:
Good things come to those who wait.
She was right, in some ways. The pristine, white unicorn colt was born sickly, and, as a child, was thinner than most fledgling pegasi. Discouraged, he was assured by peers and relatives alike that he would be handsome. So he waited, and his body grew into something noble: something eye-catching. Fillies' heads turned whenever he trot by.
Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns accepted him for his academic prowess at a rather young age, but quota had been filled, and he was put on the dreaded "VMS List." He waited. Somepony died in a tragic accident, and, suddenly, he was in: learning from the greatest mages ever to walk the plains of Equestria.
His grandmother, red fur dulled from countless years under the sun, had summoned him here, to the oldest standing home in the town of Stableton—the closest settlement to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters—and now he would wait. With over a hundred years of life weighing her down, the matriarch was to be respected, no matter the personal cost. He loved the old mare dearly, and any time spent with her was valuable; any knowledge she shared, priceless.
She shifted, facing him from her place on her slow-rocking-creaking-groaning-moaning chair. The wood was old. The house was old. All aged together, blending into one great, dying creature.
A slow blink. Two. Four. Closed.
Relaxed, the Matriarch opened her mouth and spoke.
It's been many years since I've last told this story, and my body grows weary of late. My time is coming to an end. I appreciate that fact, and take no misery in it. Looking back on my long life, I take heart in knowing that I lived it to the fullest, just as he would have wanted me to.
I bore witness to the rise and fall of a great kingdom, and played an important part in the birth of its successor.
I have loved, and been loved for longer than most, but will never take it for granted… though, never is not as prolonged as it once was for these old, frail bones.
I have felt life grow within me, birthed seven fine additions to the great chain, and watched them mature like any mother would. First steps, first words, first schools, and first loves: all are remembered and cherished.
Yes, I have lived honorably, and it is for this reason that I cannot let my final story go untold. Because without it, or, more specifically, the one who leads it, my exceptional life would never have been.
This is the tale of a man: a man named Ezra.
Like a statue, young Jade Sparkle sat, waiting. The colt smiled: this was to be one of the good things.
Only good.
Chapter One
Public transportation is a gateway to mental disorder.
"Bench's full, Fruit. Y'll have to stand."
It leads to self-pity, followed by loathing, then, oddly enough, a kind of false narcissism.
*District Seven… Please, watch your step*
"What are you looking at? I'll put yer lights out, Meat. Savvy?"
No one understood the change, but it was true. Someone—Jacobson had been his name—did a study or something on it out of IC-U. The Inner City Autocarrier Line did, indeed, have an adverse effect on people.
"Yeah, I'm savvy, ya fuckin' wino."
"What'd you say? You tryin' ta start somethin'?"
"Nothing. I didn't say a thing."
Yet, despite the hype over this discovery—and the plethora of public petitions for mag-lev engines that didn't sterilize passengers—it all came down to one thing…
*District Six… Please, watch your step*
"That's me. Have a nice day, Sablehound."
"Why you little…"
"Bye!"
… No one gives a damn about the inner city. That, and "Autocarrier's" was the cheapest form of transportation around to date.
"I'm coming for you! I've seen your face!"
Ezra Fairweather, an unemployed, educated street ruffian and all around loveable inner city lug, stumbled out of the idling mag-bus and into the stuffy, polluted, early morning streets of the grand city of St. Metropolis.
"I'll find you!" came another angry slur from the ratty vehicle dipping up and down in the air behind him.
Ezra just smiled, sucking in a lungful of soot and chems from the glue factory one district over. He didn't bother looking back.
"Aw go stim your brain to jelly ya cheap shit," barked the bus driver. The man was probably a junkie himself—Ezra noticed the telltale wrinkles about the eyes—but appearances are important for a government worker, so he kept silent. It wasn't until he heard the hiss of pneumatics signaling the bus's departure that Ezra looked over his shoulder.
A quick flick of the wrist and a rude gesture at the departing human garbage truck later, he was off down the choked, winding streets of District Six. Sooty haze wreathed his body, a flowing robe of dirty air trailing his form as he went. Today, Ezra was on a mission, and the only thing that could stop him was himself, death, or an overseer with an empty quota-book.
He was walking to New Metro, and, once there, he had an interview with the Channel.
Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his purple corduroy jacket, Ezra shuffled on, kicking the occasional carton of refuse aside with his tattered nylon shoes. The baggy, ill-fitting pants he wore had gone out of style decades ago: they were his best pair. A sad smile twitched across his face as he passed by an old Laundromat, its front window still soaped over with declarations of "Bargain Prices" and "Two-Penny Tuesdays." When he caught sight of his reflection in the window, however, his smile faltered a bit.
Ezra wasn't an ugly individual, but, seeing him now, not many people would know that. The fresh, handsome face—bearing a striking resemblance to that of his father's, relatives would often say—was haggard and sunken. His hair was disheveled; his skin, pallid and stained with dirt, and it looked like he hadn't slept in years. The young man pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. Now wasn't the time for remorse… but he gave into it anyway.
He should have listened to them: his father, his brother, his girl. Technicians. "Everyone is a technician," they said. "There are no engineering jobs left!" they warned. "What this country needs is more doctors, more agriculturalists, and, God forbid, more businessmen." Ezra sighed heavily, no longer riding high on hope for the day.
A piece of paper fluttered by, borne on the fetid breeze that filtered down among the under-streets, and Fairweather contemplated turning back. It was a long walk to New Metro, and none of the busses he could pay for went that far into the suburbs. This was a fruitless venture. There were no jobs left for a technician: he knew that. A four year graduate of the Inner City University couldn't get anywhere with an engineering degree.
Ezra was wasting his time, and he knew it.
"No. The flyer said there were plenty of openings."
"No one watches that damn station anymore! Network's where it's at these days! How could there be plenty of openings! It. Is. A. Scam."
Ezra ground to a halt, his beaten shoes scuffing the pavement. He looked up at the orange corona of dawn bleeding through the pristine skyscrapers of New Metropolis, and held his breath. The streets reverberated with the sound of an early morning tanker leaving the Outer City Shuttlestation. Grimy windows on the apartment to Ezra's left flexed inward as the behemoth of a ship crawled across the breaking dawn like a bloated, flying whale. "One day, I'll live up there," he'd told himself when he was but eight years old. "One day, I'll look down on this place and laugh, because I'll know I've made it. I'll know I'm somebody."
Yeah, well… not today.
Ezra turned, prepared to make the long, early morning journey back to the Office of Inner City Employment—hopefully early enough for a weekend community service position—in District Four, when he caught a metallic glint in the corner of his eye. He stooped down, fumbling past an old Kleenex box and a crumpled up fast-food container to find the source of the brief morning glare. Once the refuse was gone, the dismal man grinned wider that he had all day.
It was a piece of old-world currency; a quarter, they called them. A flat disk of silvery metal—about two centimeters in diameter—with a man's face embossed into the front. The title of the old world government and a few platitudes also adorned the small coin, hugging its round, ridged edges. Ezra knew that if he flipped it over he would find a picture of a noble, but unfortunately rather extinct bird, and further useless platitudes written in a dead language: one used only by the Vatican nowadays. These little guys were worthless, wholly incomparable to plastic rotobucks, but someone, a long time ago, decided they were signs of good fortune, and now, if one was blessed enough to find the rare coin face up it is said that he or she will have good luck for the rest of the day.
Picking the magnanimously placed artifact up from the street, Ezra considered it with the air of a man who didn't believe in coincidences. He turned it over in his fingers, admiring its smoothness, tracing the rare groove and imperfection with his thumb. Turning on his heel, he slipped the coin into his jacket pocket and took another look at the skyscrapers of New Metro.
The buildings were beginning to wake up. Flagpoles extended and banners unfurled in the breeze, solar panels shifted to catch the precious rays of a slowly rising sun, and the daily sponsors slowly flickered to life on the wavering magboards of Outer City.
He made a decision.
The Channel building wasn't all that far… if he ran.
Thanks for reading!