Meet me in my Office! (Cloudfall)

[crystallance]

Bringing a pegasus underneath her area of command was certainly no joke. For the entirety of the day, Crystal Lance had been busy all over HQ, arguing over the same controversial proposal. The Razorwings seemed to refuse to comply. Other groups were skeptical of her motives as well. Who knew it would take so much effort to bring a pegasi into the magic division as a simple messenger?

It was way past the middle of the night when the exhausted mare returned to her office. She shut the door tight with a powerful and furious telekinetic slam upon her entry, quickly crashing her tired hooves on the top of the comfortable sofa inside. She had spent the entire day fighting over that same proposal… She had been fighting for so long and hard, she had nearly forgotten why she had put all the effort in the first place.

Crystal Lance certainly needed somepony to bring her info on young and talented new unicorns. But there had to be something deeper to it… hadn’t there? Maybe the Razorwings were right… Perhaps it had simply been her prejudice against their race whispering to her the entire time. A single pegasus messenger today could mean an entire stealth squad under her command tomorrow, after all. Had it all just been an attempt to gain power over a group she couldn’t trust the whole time?

It was a possibility, but one Crystal Lance simply refused to believe. For some reason, she could not feel that same cynical attitude towards a pegasus like Cloudfall. As much of a spineless soldier pegasus the colt may have been, Cloudfall was actually an 'alright' pony in Crystal's eyes. Honestly, she was tired of feeling those same repressed emotions of jealousy and hate each time she crossed a random pegasus around HQ.

But it didn't matter anyway. The battle had already been lost. Crystal had no authority over pegasi to begin with. And besides, the Razorwings would certainly never allow a mare such as herself to even consider working with one.

Crystal had gone through a long and difficult day, but she was still a military general. She refused to lose control of herself. For as much as she hated the Razorwing family… For as much the situation frustrated her… And for as much as she still resented her pegasus stepfather… Rather than allowing her emotions to get the best of her, she simply left her body slouched lazily against the sofa.

[cloudfall]

Cloudfall had spent the rest of the day away from the HQ building, using the time to further familiarize himself with the city, for what little help it actually did. He still managed to get lost when walking around in the streets, and often had to take to the air to find his way. Not that he minded, he actually preferred to be up by the tower tops, and he was starting to figure out which ones belonged to mages, and which were safe to rest on.

It was starting to get later now, and for the first time in his life, Cloudfall was not looking forward to seeing the night sky. While he still loved it, it also signaled that it was time to go meet his new boss once more. Crystal Lance. She seemed alright, she just put him on edge with the way he stared at him half the time.

With a sigh, the pegasus left the roof top he was resting on and started back to the HQ, which wasn't too far off. It only took a few minutes before he was in the halls of the building and standing in front of Crystal's door. He took a breath and knocked on the door with a hoof, waiting for the unicorn within to allow him entry before stepping inside.

[crystallance]

Crystal had nearly dozed off into sleep, when suddenly a loud knock was heard from her door. The knocking sound served as somewhat of an untimely morning alarm, causing Crystal Lance to rise back up from her would-be slumber tired, defensive, and impatient. In that second, she immediately rose from the sofa as if an alarming static had been surged throughout her body.

“Who is it?!” Crystal shouted out, unsteadily and rude, towards the door.

In her present state, the mare had forgotten entirely how she had formerly instructed Cloudfall to meet her in her office around this time of night. From her perspective at that hour, it could have been anypony knocking at her door.

[cloudfall]

Cloudfall flinched behind the door at the shout. Great, she was in a bad mood. Was he late? Was that why? She did say to meet her this night, but was this too late at night? Well, he had to deal with it now...

With a deep breath, the Pegasus pushed the door open and stepped inside the office, quietly closing the door behind him. "Cloudfall, Ma'am. You asked me to meet you..." he spoke, answering her shout and stepping into the center of the room, "Sorry if I'm late, Ma'am... I, uh, I can come back in the morning, if you like."

[crystallance]

“Oh, it’s you…” Crystal Lance expressed with relief. It was just in that moment that Crystal finally began to remember the instructions she gave to Cloudfall earlier. It looked as if the day had really taken its toll on her.

“No, you don’t need to worry about it… And you can stop calling me Ma’am, already,” Crystal responded, a slight touch of disgust in her voice towards the end. It embarrassed her to no end having to inform the dark pegasus on the details of her own folly, but she had to do it anyway.

“Look: I have no real authority over pegasi, Cloudfall… And it looks as if I won’t be getting the privilege of working alongside you either…” Crystal admitted to him as she turned her head away. For once, looking the nervous pegasus straight in the eye had just been too much for her to bear.

“Things just wouldn’t work out with the whole messenger business… So you might as well go…”

[cloudfall]

"O-oh... I see. I'm sorry to hear that, Ma--uh, Miss Lance." Cloudfall sighed. He had mixed feelings about this. Sure, part of him was terrified of the Unicorn and was glad things didn't work out, but another part was actually disappointed. A part was actually looking forward to getting to go out and help without having to necessarily put his life on the line as well. He turned to leave, but, for some bizarre reason, stopped, and turned back to face the mare.

"Um, is it alright if I ask a question? I just had a... thing I was curious about... if that's alright." Cloudfall stammered and forced himself to continue before getting rejected the chance to speak. "Why did you want to bring me on? I mean... you have squads of Unicorns, surely one of them is a skilled teleporter and can make the trip to far off towns instantly. So... why hire a Pegasus and, why me out of all others? If... that's not going too far to ask, that is..."

[crystallance]

“…I’ve asked myself those exact same questions, colt,” Crystal responded to Cloudfall after a long pause. It seemed that not even the military mare could attain a complete understanding of her own motives. “All I know is that for a while now I’ve felt some… distinctly perverse emotions… Emotions that I know I should not feel towards the pegasi… but have anyway for several years past my adolescence… I guess perhaps you could say, Cloudfall, that I just wanted a chance at understanding your race…”

“You see, I was not raised as most unicorns are…” Crystal continued on, still failing to meet the dark pegasus with complete eye contact. “My mother was sickly mare who once held a deep love for a pegasus stallion. She eventually died… And I had no choice but to be taken in to a new household with a new pegasus stepfather. As stepfather and stepdaughter, we failed to share that same depth of love as we both shared for my mother. I rebelled against him… And in exchange of that, he made me feel worthless and inadequate.”

“…And I feel that it's because of that that I sometimes feel the way I do around pegasi… Sometimes, it's a child-like jealously for the pegasus’ wings and freedom of flight… Other times, it’s an irrational fear against an imaginary inferiority I hold for your race…” Crystal finally began to conclude.

“In the end though, I think that all that I really wanted was for those emotions to stop. And I believed that somehow you could help me change my terrible self, Cloudfall…”

[crystallance]

Close this.