The Continuing Adventures of Nova Spark: Voice


                                            >Surrounded by your father’s arms on one side and under the purple wings of your mother on the other, you know peace.

                                            >Well, one of your mothers. Twilight’s the one you’re closest to, who dotes on you and fixes you up. The one who spends the most time with you and your dad, excepting somewhat regular several-day stretches. But she’s not the only mother of yours in this bed; Celestia’s the fourth occupant, wrapped around Dad’s back. Your mother who teaches you and guides you and shows you the world, who is patient with you when you don’t understand so much of what she and others say, taking the time to explain everything so you can learn and grow.

                                            >You want to ask your father how that all works. He always says ‘your mother’ like there’s one. But you have three, so how are you supposed to think?

                                            >You want to ask your father a lot of things, but you haven’t found your voice yet, as he calls it, even though other foals your age have a few words already.

                                            >All the wonderful stories in your head don’t hold answers for you either. As far as you could tell, they all deal with people who only had one mother, if mothers were even ever mentioned.

                                            >Honestly, you can’t understand most of what those stories say. So many words you have yet to learn, so many ideas you can’t explain.

                                            >But the voices are soothing and pretty, so you like to listen to them at night, after climbing into bed when Dad did and waiting for him to fall asleep. Or when you’re at Luna’s side while she listens to the stories in other ponies’ heads, but only if those ponies are asleep.

                                            >You’re glad you aren’t the only one who can listen to head-stories, even if in the end there is only one other. Because that other was also your mom. And that only she could do something like you this, and that the two of you spent hours every night just playing in heads, made her very special too.

                                            >You are very happy to have the family you did.

                                            >And soon you’ll be able to tell them that.


                                            >You have a feeling your parents don’t know how much you can do, in your own head. You could do more than just listen to the voices and the music, you could play with them. Look at memories like you were still there, if you remembered to remember them that hard when they first happen. You’d only figured that one out recently. Sometimes, if you’d remembered them super super hard, the memories could even move.

                                            >Once, you spoke aloud what one of the stories said. You must have gotten something wrong, or didn’t understand something, because Dad and Mom – Twilight was the only Mom there at the time – looked at you kinda funny. Dad told you how proud he was that you learned how to speak, but using other people’s voices was wrong. Something about honesty? Or was it…

                                            >Well, you’d understood at the time. Everyone has their own voice unique to them and that’s special. Stealing other’s voices was bad. But he was happy it was one from a story in your head, and not another pony’s. That would have been worse.

                                            >That made you feel good! You hadn’t hurt anypony and it was an important step forward. You just needed to figure out your own voice.

                                            >You started listening to those voices reading those stories in your head real hard, trying to take them apart, twist them, make something of your own.

                                            >You think you have it figured out, but you won’t know until you try.

                                            >You listen to the stories for long enough that you think your family’s asleep again.

                                            >Then you lift your dad’s now-limp arm aside with your wing, and shimmy out from under Twilight’s wing.

                                            >Your quartz rear hooves hit the rug around the bed with a quiet thump, then you twist to get the rest of your body out of bed with minimal disturbance to your parents.

                                            >When finally on all fours, you look at them.’


                                            >Well, you can’t be perfect.

                                            >Your dad’s groggily groping where you’d just been. His hand settles on Twilight instead, and drags her close to him.

                                            >Twilight mumbles, but starts awake when she realizes you aren’t there.

                                            >After looking around the room briefly, she locates you standing nearby, and visibly relaxes.

                                            >It’s not like they don’t know what you do every night.

                                            >She turns herself in Anon’s arms, then, putting her back and wings to his chest and settling back in to sleep.

                                            >After watching them awhile longer – you don’t need to be between them to get that peaceful feeling – you turn for the door to the adjacent room.

                                            >Time to show Luna what you’ve been working on.


                                            * * *


                                            >Satisfied that once more all was in harmony, you back out of the little filly’s now-peaceful dream.

                                            >Out past the edges of her adorably-limited horizon, back through the moon you always used as a portal. Your sister was right to do as she did to you, year before, but turning the sentence into something of a calling card was a bit of a take-that you liked to indulge in.

                                            >Through the fuzz and haze and static of the filly’s true mind, currently asleep, as you retreated out of her head entirely. You were no telepath; that was a realm you could not access and remained indecipherable to you.

                                            >Back to your own body, in the real world. Standing in the main room of the royal suite, at a large desk with papers and a huge notebook you occasionally jotted little snippets in, for those ponies you have to make return visits to.

                                            >Palace staff could not reach you as easily here.

                                            >They could suffer the inconvenience; you had a herd to watch over through the night, now.

                                            >Anon had set up a little light at your desk connected to a button outside the suite, so your guards outside could notify you of a visitor without making any noise.

                                            >You do have a visitor, you see now. No light for this one, however. She comes from the opposite end of the suite from the entrance.


                                            >As Nova enters the room, the way she walks stuns you to speechlessness, just as it does every time you stop and pay attention to her movements.

                                            >Technically she’s a toddler, but she walks with a grace that even supermodels would envy, the image helped by the fact her body’s proportioned as an adult.

                                            >Your husband – the flatterer he is – says it is because you and Celestia set such good examples, and Nova’s nature allows her a unique talent for mimicry. Her grace is inherited from her royal mothers.

                                            >You think he is just buttering you up, but the effects on your daughter are undeniable.

                                            >You cannot help but watch her in silence, smiling like an idiot, until she sits down at your side.

                                            >That smile of yours warms, and you lower your head, muzzle in front of Nova’s face.

                                            >She brings hers up to you, touching your nose with the curving steel and bronze plates of her own.

                                            >Cold metal. No breath.

                                            >But the gesture alone, like the way she moves, means enough.

                                            >For now. Until the doubt sets in again.

                                            “Are they sleeping now?”

                                            >Nova nods.

                                            “They had their time with you?”

                                            >Another nod.

                                            “Good. A proper mare always spends time with her family when she can, and a herd sleeps better together.”

                                            >You laugh then, despite your serious delivery.

                                            “Even if we do not sleep like they do.”

                                            >Nova opens her mouth ever so slightly, a gesture you all have collectively determined was her attempt at a smile, and she nuzzles your leg.

                                            >You drop your head to nuzzle her segmented neck in return.

                                            “Thank you for coming to spend time with me, too.”

                                            >The two of you had given each other this exchange, or ones like it, for more than a year now. Almost like a ritual, complete with nearly-religious significance for you. It was time for just the two of you, even as she did most of her living with your sister and herd.

                                            >But, at the back of your mind; how much did standing here or walking around the palace really mean to her?

                                            >No, stop that. Work instead.


                                            “Let me take some notes, and I shall be with you.”

                                            >She looks up at you with her eyes of glass, the strange circles-within-circles of her pupils stock still, where other pony’s eyes would be darting between your different features.

                                            >You linger on those alien pupils for a little too long before you turn back to your work.

                                            >You lift a quill from an inkwell on your desk and put it to a notebook page already heavily marked. ‘Resolution!’ you write, humming to yourself. ‘Check in, but do not interfere further.’

                                            >You levitate the quill back to its resting place.

                                            >A short, simple line to close out a complex case. You look over other notes you had made, glancing between the many times ‘orphan’ appeared. ‘Views step-parents poorly...’ near the top, ‘idealized memories’ a few lines down. An embarrassing number of lines that started with ‘Help adjust...’ and were then struck out at a later date. Red ink alongside one; ‘Do not project own issues!!!’

                                            >You look to Nova again, with her too-still eyes in her static mask of a face, and your humming stops. Your daughter in motion thrills you, spurs you to greater adoration. Your daughter at rest haunts you, plagues you with doubt about your feelings, about Nova’s feelings.

                                            >Your husband, once in awhile, has a nightmare that you, your sister, and Twilight reject her. You are terrified what he would say if you ever told him your own thoughts on the issue. That maybe she is the one who would be rejecting you as much as the inverse, because what could you possibly offer her when you sleep through her life?

                                            >Do not dwell; get back to your notes!

                                            >‘Abandonment’ jumps out at you from the page several times in quick succession, as you scan more lines. ‘Self-doubt’ can often be found in close proximity.

                                            >That red margin note calls your attention several more times as you review the case.

                                            >So does your daughter’s totally inert form, her only sign of life a quiet whirring from her chest.


                                            >’Reconcile,’ several other lines said, as you had made your way through the filly’s dreams. That word had several friends, never far from ‘family’ or ‘friends’ or ‘self-image.’ It had a family of its own too; ‘assuage’ and ‘resolve’ were particularly close cousins. When you had begun, that was more of a family than the filly thought she had.

                                            >Bless her father, because he tried his hardest. Never gave up, that stallion. Helping her realize his love, his role as her father, had been easy.

                                            >Her mother, well…

                                            >’Distant,’ ‘alien,’ ‘absent’, all words familiar to the page. ‘Bonding issues’ makes appearances. You eventually realized her mother needed your attention too, and thankfully that process resolved much quicker, low-level enough that you had not caught it independently.

                                            >That little excursion helped you, too, if you were being honest, working out what being a mother meant in the absence of the one obvious connection. For those couple visits, your dream healing was much more a two-way conversation than you were used to.

                                            >Ah, but here we go. Out comes your quill again, hovering again over the page. You make several check-marks next to some notes. All are fixed up, now.

                                            >The filly finally accepts her adopted parents. The parents accept her. The last word you heard before you left was that wonderful cry of-

                                            >”Mom!”

                                            >You jump a good foot upward, wings out and already a third of the way through a downbeat to launch you airborne, even seated as you were.

                                            >Nova flinches, where she stands at your side, catching herself before she could fall backwards. She splays her wings out for balance, the three long blades of her right wing extending towards the middle of the room in a mockery of your own fright.

                                            >You stood still for almost a minute, wings still outstretched, your whole body frozen in place but for the thudding of your heart. The click of your quill hitting the floor a considerable distance away served as quiet punctuation to the stillness.


                                            >Nova recovers faster, walking around your side, head high and ears on you. She manages a perfect image of a nervous slink.

                                            >Seeing it, once you recognize it, makes your heart sink, and that gives you the will to move.

                                            “Did… did you say something, little one?”

                                            >You bring your face close to hers again, not out of curiosity. You know what you heard. You just wanted her to say it again.

                                            >She obliges, with a tilt of her head and a quirk of one ear.

                                            >”Mom! Hello.”

                                            >The two words did not sound like they were made to follow one after the other like that, but honestly you didn’t care.

                                            >Nothing mattered right now but what they were, those two words overtaking your mind and all awareness.

                                            >Her own first words!

                                            >She’d spoken them to you, and you alone!

                                            >She called you mom!

                                            >You did not realize you had laid down, had wrapped yourself around her, your body on one side of her and a wing against the other. She stands frozen mid-gesture, back at an awkward angle and one crystal hoof lifted in the air.

                                            “You found your voice!”

                                            >You struggle to keep your own quiet. Nova at least knew to keep her volume down.

                                            >She nods eagerly, dropping the errant hoof back to the floor with a quiet clack, straightening herself.

                                            >You push your head against her neck, nudging her, even while you pin her in place from the other side with your wing.

                                            >Eventually, she loosens a wing of her own from your embrace, hugging you with it.

                                            >That hard metal bothered you, many times before, no matter how gentle her gesture.

                                            >Now?

                                            >Now it felt like…

                                            >Vindication.

                                            >You were not going to think about against who or what, except for the fact you were too often your own worst enemy, and this moment proved it.

                                            >You were her mother, you could hear that from her own mouth now. That one word, that simple declaration, fixed that as a fundamental fact of the world itself.

                                            “You don’t know how happy you’ve made me, Nova.”


                                            >She lays herself down in the nook your body’s curve creates, nuzzling against your chest and shoulder. Again you cannot help but admire those smooth motions again, how she manages grace despite how awkward you have made the circumstances.

                                            >A grace she inherited from you as Anon said, as the traits of your child would be.

                                            >Your child.

                                            >You, her mother.

                                            >She looks at you with that frozen face.

                                            >That’s fine. She’s found another way to express herself.

                                            >You could teach her other ways of expressing herself, too, you realize. By her other motions, she’s clearly able to copy you, and she should be able to understand what you mean.

                                            >You take several steps back, looking at how her eyes lock on to you, never even twitching away, not moving one bit. Total focus on you, like you were the center of her world.

                                            >You loosen your wings, letting them drop momentarily, feeling them pull up into a new position almost automatically. It’s been awhile since you let them speak for you, but they’re eager to respond.

                                            >Did any other ponies need your attention at the moment? You cast your talent out over the land.

                                            >No, none did.

                                            >Would you have let that stop you, in this moment?

                                            >No, you would not.

                                            “Do you see my wings, how I hold them?”

                                            >Nova nods quickly.

                                            “Your wings can speak for you as much as your voice. Tonight I shall begin teaching you how. This, Nova, means joy.”

                                            >She looks you over for half a second longer, then spreads her own wings just a little, tilting so their leading edges point high, peaking with her folded claws and the tips of her feather-like blades almost touching the floor.

                                            “Good! Now, if you adjust your feathers slightly like so, can you tell me what you think this means?”


                                            * * *


                                            >Nova was smart, but if you never taught her what to look for, she wouldn’t know that you were quite good at pretending to sleep.


                                            >You almost hadn’t gotten out of bed after she left. You can’t resist snuggling Twilight like you were, and Celestia against your back is too warm and comforting to leave.

                                            >You’re fortunate she hadn’t trapped you in a cage of her legs.

                                            >It left you free to get up, when you heard what you thought you heard

                                            >Now you stand half-hidden behind a door frame, watching Luna talk to Nova about wings or something.

                                            >They’re playing some sort of matching game, with Luna explaining some intricate parts of gestures. She’s too quiet for you to really make out.

                                            >More importantly, even if just as indistinct, Nova responds with single words here and there.

                                            >For that, half-asleep as you are, you’re enjoying just watching them.

                                            >That one word before though, that you heard clearly. That wasn’t a voice from any of your audiobooks or podcasts on the memory cards Nova’s carrying inside her head that you’d left as learning material on a hunch.

                                            >When she followed it with another, she had a clipped, disjointed quality like she was copying words from different sources to stitch together, but you knew all of the sources she possibly could have done so from, and none sounded quite like that.

                                            >She has finally found her own voice.

                                            >She’s giving you the chance to hear more, even if you can’t make out the exact words. Nova’s chosen voice is high and light. Despite an adult timbre it’s pitched and lilted like a filly’s, reminding you of a voice actress portraying a child. That timbre meant she wasn’t just copying other fillies she hears, and the pitch means it can’t come from any of the reference material you’d left her.

                                            >You’ll admit you’re a smidge put out she didn’t talk to you first, but hell, she’s got three moms and only one dad.

                                            >Twilight might feel put out too that she wasn’t first, with all the time the two spent together.


                                            >But you know what? Luna’s too often left out of the family fun. Maybe Nova picked her because the night is when she’d been working on this voice of hers. But maybe she picked Luna because she recognizes that unfairness. Maybe Nova had been on the case all along.

                                            >If so, how could you ask for a better daughter?

                                            >Luna’s being so responsive to her in this moment, no matter how or why it was timed, taking it in stride and involving her in some new activity as a reward or something, coaxing more words out of Nova here and there as she did so.

                                            >So, hell, how could you ask for a better wife?

                                            >Alongside the other two, at least, with Celestia’s natural talent for teaching and Twilight’s ability to take care of her.

                                            >How did you luck out with this family? It feels so long ago that the concept of having all three was alien to you. Now you don’t know how you’d get along without them, each bringing their own perks to the family table.

                                            >You have to stifle a yawn; you don’t want to risk them noticing you and interrupting this.

                                            >Honestly, you should get back to bed.

                                            >This new development means tomorrow’s going to be an exciting day.

                                            >When you torn back to your massive bed, you see Twilight’s head lifted off the pillows, looking at you. Her head’s held in a quizzical tilt. You wave her off as you walk back.

                                            >”I hear a strange voice,” she says, once you sit on the bed’s edge. She seems barely more awake than you.

                                            >You lift her into your lap, squeezing her back against your chest with a hug. She lets out a little wheeze at the pressure, then a light laugh.

                                            “Not so strange. That’s our kid.”

                                            >You have a hand over her mouth even before she exclaims her shock; you know how loud she can get when she’s excited.

                                            “Hey, don’t ruin their moment. Let’s get back to sleep; Luna can tell us all about it. You’ll get to hear it plenty tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere.”


                                            >She fidgets in your tight grip for a few moments, before finally relaxing. You only take your hand off her snout when she does.

                                            >”I’m the head mare, I should be there for this.”

                                            “Why? It’s not like something’s going to go wrong. What you need is sleep; we had a long day today and we’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”

                                            >You could tell from her tension that she wanted to object.

                                            “Besides, Luna’s running through some game or something with her, something about wings. Whatever it is, she’s doing a very good job helping Nova with words.”

                                            >”She’s teaching her,” comes Celestia’s voice behind you, remarkably lucid.

                                            >Both you and Twilight turn towards her quickly.

                                            “You sleep like a fucking rock, how are you awake?”

                                            >”As if I’d miss this.”

                                            “How would you know you were?”

                                            >A mischievous smile is your only answer.

                                            >”If we’re all awake, we could-”

                                            “Twilight, no.”

                                            >”You can’t teach Nova what Luna is teaching her.”

                                            >”What?”

                                            >”Your wings are only a couple years old, Twilight. We’ve had a thousand with ours.”

                                            >Twilight huffs, slumping over in your arms.

                                            “Alright, if that’s settled, we can get some shuteye. We’ll run our daughter’s voice ragged tomorrow, and maybe even get the pleasure of coherent conversation. We’ve seen from the way she learned to walk that she learns differently than other foals, maybe her vocabulary works the same. Let Luna do all the hard work on that front. She looks like she’s enjoying it.”

                                            >”As long as she doesn’t start talking funny like her,” Twilight mutters.

                                            >Both you and Celestia have a chuckle at that.

                                            >Out in the next room, two happy voices continue their back and forth.