To godzillafan1: Yes, Passion Breeze is Cadence's brother. I haven't personally read the MLP comics so i'm running much of their relationship and backstory off of my own headcannon. I'll stay true to the TV series but anything that doesn't add up about Cadence with the comics is because I don't really know them other than what i've heard. That said, Cadence and Passion Breeze grew up together until Passion discovered his talent to feel others' emotions. When he discovered his talent Celestia presented him with a home in the sky so that he could live far away from the ponies of Equestria. Obviously the only ponies that can reach his home are Alicorns and so she still comes to visit him. Given that Passion Breeze grew up on land he has vague memory of many ponies from Equestria, especially in Canterlot, which was his childhood home. Expect plenty of Cameos and thanks for the review.

PassionBreeze

Chapter 2:

Moonlight Symphony

I woke in a dark room sometime in the night. A cool breeze drifted in through an open window and the moon shone lightly on my golden coat. The atmosphere of the strangely decorated room was in fact quite peaceful and inspired a drowsy haze in my mind. Despite the calming effects of this place I felt entirely unnerved. Vivid visions flickered in front of my eyes as I saw clearly the dreams of sleeping ponies.

All my life I'd lived by a single rule; never touch the ground. An odd talent like mine came with odd rules. Whenever I touched something any other pony was touching at the time, I could immediately read every thought in their hectic mind. At any given time, billions of ponies planted their hooves on the soil of Equestria, and here I was joining every last one of them.

I shuddered as a cold wind blew in from the window behind the soft bed beneath me. I couldn't see well through the flashing images before my eyes, but I could faintly make out a midnight blue pony with a flowing mane. A soft blue light radiated from her body before the visions faded, and then I beheld the true glory of the royal family. Celestia herself was an image of regal beauty and power. To see the prime ruler of Equestria was a gift to anypony. She was larger than life and held a certain dominating image that inspired awe and respect.

Her sister, however, presented a different image. She wasn't so intimidating and huge, but what she lacked in size she made up for in her regal form. The night princess was slender, yet her natural stance was that of a born hunter. The moon represented the low light of night and the fearful things within, waiting to pounce at a moment's notice. Luna herself was strung like a bow, her body taught and straight, demanding attention. Her eyes were stunningly soft, and yet they held a certain acuity to them that threw you off guard if you looked straight at them.

A single tear rolled down from one eye before she turned to a mirror in one corner of the large bedroom. "We told you to meet us tonight in the garden, not noon at the bottom of a pond… You were foolish to betray yourself like you did…" Her stern voice belied none of the pain underneath. "No matter the reason."

"You were hurting." I whispered. "I felt it so strongly… I didn't think."

I lifted myself up and climbed down to the floor beside her. As my hooves touched the ground another spike of pain attacked my brain, but only briefly.

"You're no use to this kingdom if you die." She breathed. For a moment it seemed as if her voice was wavering. As she spoke again, though, it held its usual commanding tone. "You'd let yourself die to save those you care for?"

"Of course, princess."

The princess scoffed at my quick answer. "…and then you'd be lost to them. Is that not a deeper wound?"

"Why are we having this conversation, Princess?"

At first she didn't answer, merely shuffling through a few items in the drawers below the mirror. After a few seconds of searching she lifted a simple necklace, decorated with a simple circular, white stone.

"You've been cursed to take the cares of the entire world on your own shoulders, Passion Breeze." She sighed, her eyes softening and a deep and hidden depression beginning to fill her heart. As she continued the archaic tongue that was her signing escaped her. "I would understand that you might dive from a cloud to spare yourself my pain… but to do so that I may be spared my own punishments? It baffles me the generosity you would give to one such as me."

I was utterly confused by her strange speech. She had a way of hinting at the real point of a conversation, and then beating the idea down before you could guess her true thoughts. "Punishment, princess?"

Instead of answering outright, she changed tact once again; this time holding the strange necklace before my eyes. "This is a moonstone." She said. "The prized jewel of my night holds a mysterious power. Its chiseled stone slightly saps power from one's innate talent. My sister sent me to the moon of all places to stop me from being able to control it. I was imprisoned within the very tool I'd planned to use against her."

"I don't understand." I whispered, taken aback by her sudden confessions. "What did you do?"

Another small tear escaped her eye as she spoke. This time she didn't try to hide it. "I was jealous of my sister and enraged by the fear of the ponies under my moonlight. Instead of humbling myself to my subjects I decided to strike true fear into their hearts. A proud stallion by the name of Bright Star lead a rebellion against me, ultimately allowing my sister to banish me."

"Bright Star?" I breathed. As I heard the name I realized where this story would lead. The stallions in my family passed down a story of our patron, Bright Star, who fought against Nightmare Moon herself and was cursed for his treachery to the one he loved. How had I not figured it out before?

"Before my banishment, I placed a curse on that stallion, forcing him and all the stallions in his family to suffer the pain of all those near to them."

"It's because of you." I breathed. Turning to the window again.

Silence fell over the space between us for a moment. Here was the princess I'd longed all my life to meet. I'd dreamt for so long of easing her pain only to find that she herself had been the cause of mine. I even distrusted my own sister's words out of a foolish infatuation for a mare I'd never met. The monster I'd resented all my life, Nightmare Moon, stood just before me, talking as if we were merely old friends sharing secrets. For the first time in my life I considered the possibility of leaving her to her fate.

When the princess spoke to me again, her odd diction had returned. "We understand that thou must wish the pain thou sense upon us. We more than deserve the agony of our own memories and mistakes…"

"Hmph…" I jumped to the ledge as her voice trailed off once again, betrayed by my own heart for so many years.

"Before thou should leave, we would plea you take this gift… to ease thy pain."

Before I could take off from the window, the small white stone slid down before my eyes, the chain clasping behind my neck. As soon as the moonstone touched my skin I could no longer sense the princess' agonized heart. The effect was amazing; a silence I hadn't felt since I was a small colt. I couldn't believe the empty space in my own head and the bliss she'd given me, but even still, I couldn't bring myself to forgive her… or even thank her. I wouldn't give mercy or even spare compassion for this evil creature.

Instead I leapt from the window and gave a single flap of my wings in dismissal to her cry for peace between us. I'd grown to know well the tale of nightmare moon and her evil treachery, and yet I'd been convinced all my life to feel compassion for that same monster. As soon as my wings caught the air beneath them, I sped off towards the communal district here in the city.

As a colt, before my cutie mark indicated my talent and forbade any common interaction, I'd lived here in Canterlot with Cadence and our mother. The anger I felt inside threatened to poison my mind, and the communal district was once my favorite place in the world. Hopefully it hadn't changed since I'd last seen it. Maybe it would bring back some memories that were actually pleasant.

My wings gusted against the cobblestone as I came to a rest next to the huge fountain in the giant ring of towers and white buildings. Ponies cleared out of the way of the gale conjured by my feathers, whispering and staring in my direction. I didn't feel any embarrassment or even a pegasus' pride as my hooves touched the street though. Instead I felt melancholic at the sight of the large fountain before me. It had been here…

I sat beside the giant fountain with my sister and played a simple clapping game with the violet foal she'd been watching recently. The air was cool and comforting, though I was still a bit edgy from school. My wings had grown another half a foot this month, and if the growing pain wasn't bad enough, I was constantly receiving stares and whispers from other colts and even full grown stallions and mares. The fillies in class weren't as bad, but none of them really spoke to me in the first place.

"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake!" I sang, jumping up and down with the young filly before me. "You're so much fun, Twilight, I'm glad I know a filly as smart and sweet as you…"

"I'm not sweet!" she shouted. "I'm big and tough, just like my bwudder!"

"Yea, Twilie." Shining Armor laughed, raising Cadence up onto his shoulders, "Big and Tough."

Twilight stared in awe at her brother as he lifted Cadence with ease. He'd recently started training to join the royal guard, and seemed to get bigger every day. As Twilight ran over to play with her brother, a commotion rang out from around the amphitheatre on the south end of the giant communal district. Some sort of orchestral group had been playing earlier that night and a guest cello player had been given the stage. She was just a filly, in fact one from my class who'd just earned her cutie mark; a large treble clef for being so talented with her cello.

Anyway, she'd been playing beautifully all night, but now she galloped by crying and some unicorn filly over by the stage held a broken cello in her hooves. Without thinking I flapped my wings, instantly springing up over the crowd and dove down to land next to her. Her coat was a bright sunset orange and her cutie mark was a red and orange sun.

"And who are you?" she demanded as the crowd spread out around us. "What's with the wings, huh? Mommy got you taking steroids or something?"

"Why'd you break the cello, huh?" I demanded, snatching the instrument from her hooves.

"I was getting tired of that talentless filly scraping my ears with her noise." She laughed remorselessly. "So I did something about it."

Before I could respond to the vile filly and regret it, another small pony stepped up from the crowd and stood next to me. Her coat was white and her messy mane different shades of blue. She hadn't earned her cutie mark yet but a large pare of headphones hung around her neck. She was one of the few fillies who talked to me in school, partly for her love of all things and ponies that were just… not normal I guess.

"You got a problem with Passion, Sunset?" Vinyl laughed, easily shooting down the smaller filly's arrogance.

I interrupted before the orange filly, who I now recognized as Sunset Shimmer, could respond. "She broke Octavia's new cello."

Vinyl didn't even look in Sunset's direction as she grabbed the cello from me and stomped off. "Come on, Passion." She called over her shoulder, "Filthy bullies like her aren't worth wasting time on."

She was right; all of us at school knew Sunset was just plain, evil scum. I wanted to believe it wasn't true, but she'd never really shown otherwise. I turned and followed Vinyl back to where Octavia was hiding by the music shop on the north side of the square. She was sitting there crying and hiding her face behind her charcoal hair. Vinyl was hugging her and rubbing her back when I got there.

I wasn't really thinking straight after the run in with Sunset so without considering it too much, I walked right through the door into the music shop. I'd been saving up my allowance for some new books for Twilight, but Cadence could do that. Instead I walked right up to the counter and dug two hundred bits out of my saddlebags, tossing them on the counter. Before I knew what I was doing I walked back out the door and held a brand new cello out to Octavia.

She'd barely laid eyes on it before her lips were on mine. In that moment I felt her joy as if it were my own. It was so vivid that I could automatically tell that the feeling was radiating from her body. Within seconds I was curled up on the cobblestone screaming as if my entire body had been set ablaze. I'd never felt so much gut wrenching agony in my life. Thousands of ponies' emotions had flooded their way into my mind and were overloading my senses. It was as if someone were dragging dragon claws down the side of a roughly cut diamond, ripping my senses to shreds.

I started to black out and my thoughts left me. Before I lost sight though, I saw something peculiar in the sky. The craters that drew the shape of a unicorn mare in the moon shifted to make her smile and a spark flashed across her eyes as an eerie symphony reached my ears. Then I fell into nothingness…

Once again, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I didn't get much time to proofread this so if you find anything wrong with it (anything you don't understand) please let me know and i'll fix it as best I can. I'm working on the next chapter right now, and Passion is about to be reunited with an old friend i'm sure you'll love. Stay tuned. :)

PassionBreeze