“Mr. Wind, someone’s here to see you,” the voice of High Wind’s secretary called out over the intercom, snapping the dazed stallion out of his nerve-induced stupor as he slumped back into his office chair from a late afternoon daydream. His heart lurched and surged back and forth and undulated within his chest like a sickening sea, but within moments he was at attention, ready to welcome whoever it was that had come upstairs to management and tend to whatever needs they might have.
“W-who is it?” he inquired with a gentle stutter, his stance trembling slightly as he recoiled back into the comfort of his chair.
“Your wife,” the mare responded over the PA.
He drew in a steady breath and then exhaled. “...call her in.”
It was an esteemed and enviable position High Wind held at the weather factory, that of transfer manager, and it was one that he had strived towards for years in his quest to make it up the rungs of the company ladder, ever since he began working there after graduating high school all those years ago. He was content enough where he was at the moment, and it came with all the perks and benefits he’d come to experience throughout his years and years of service to the company but with a heftier pay package than what he was used to and more bargaining power in the boardroom. On good days at the office, High Wind likened it to a game of chess even though he had no idea how to play the game at all—the only thing he knew it involved was that it involved strategy and strategic he was—or at least tried to be—when making decisions regarding his staff and the ponies he brought over from far and wide. High Wind was the face of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory for new arrivals, and took immense pride in everypony he welcomed from other factories all across Equestria; it was also his job to provide on-the-job training for new recruits in order to get them up to scratch with Cloudsdale standards.
Sometimes, he’d also send ponies away for varying reasons, in most cases benign. He hadn’t a clue about the exact number but a rough estimate for the number of cases in which a transfer decision was made out of the employee’s own volition was eight out of ten.
Eight out of ten cases involved an employee making that decision for themselves, perhaps lured away out of Cloudsdale to more desirable and maybe even more productive locations across the country by the promise of higher wages or improved working hours, not that Cloudsdale was doing too bad in either department but it was their choice and maybe even their loss.
At the end of the day, it was up to them whether or not they wanted to go, and High Wind was happy to oblige either way, as long as they were satisfied with the choice they had made.
Two out of ten cases, however, were involuntary, but High knew fully that in most situations they were not the result of an employee being fired or anything similar, being sent back to face the music at their home factory. Most such transfers were temporary measures put into place to alleviate staff shortages at cooperating factories across the country, ones that would normally come to an end after a period of two-three, maybe four months.
Stormfire, however, was different.
In High Wind’s eyes he was an outlier and in the eyes of management at large, and the mere thought of what happened at the graduation ceremony all those weeks prior haunted him at every turn.
That was in late June. It was now August, going into September.
Could it really have been so long ago already?
High only offered a dejected smirk as the room darkened from the shelf cloud rolling over the city outside, listening in to his wife’s anxious hoof-steps marching towards his office from the elevator lobby and priming himself to face the music once more for the umpteenth time these past few weeks.
He had good intentions in mind for his stepson, he still stood by that opinion, but the more the thought occurred to him the more he began to realize that his way of going about them wasn’t right.
It was too late to do anything now. Much too late.
It started to rain moments later, an initially gentle, soft downpour that with each passing moment grew more and more intense. The gentle pitter-patter gave way to torrents of rain, surging ceaselessly outside the office windows like a waterfall.
This was a naturally-occurring thunderstorm that hours ago had developed from a low pressure area moving down from the mountains north of the city, nothing that the factory had specifically planned for that day.
High had fond memories of being out cloud-busting in his youth, facing storms such as this one head-on and in person with fellow weather ponies, many of whom were now his colleagues in management. He knew that there was a certain balance to maintain with the natural world in regards to controlling the weather—Pegasi couldn’t control everything in all cases—but he also knew that sometimes nature didn’t play so nice, which is where the team would come in.
If the storm were to continue for too long or stop in its tracks and become stationary the cloud-busting team would be deployed, some of the most physically capable mares and stallions that he knew.
A team he was once part of when he was first starting out all those years ago, his first and most beloved position in the factory.
Those days were now gone. Thunder rumbled, once more snapping him out of his daydreams. The wind picked up and started rattling his windows, shards of rain lashing against the glass.
The skies had finally opened, but somehow he couldn’t find it in himself to care even the slightest bit.
The door then opened and there she was, locking eyes with him for the first time in several weeks.
“Equinox,” High uttered her name in the still of the moment, seeing her form standing in the doorway. “...what a nice surprise, what can I do for you?”
“Hey,” she responded in a cool, neutral tone but with an underlayer of concern. Concern for their marriage, concern for their family. Concern for him. “Just came up to check on you, wanted to see how you’re doing right now before I head home for the day.”
“I’m fine,” High blurted out a moment later as he tried to put up a similarly-neutral facade. “Doing better than I was yesterday, that’s for sure…”
“Are you sure?” Equinox raised a slight eyebrow. “You weren’t at marriage counseling yesterday and I wasn’t able to get through to you.”
“I’m fine, honestly.”
“That’s good,” Equinox offered a hint of an uneasy smile in response, High Wind taking note of it immediately and instinctively offering her a smirk of his own, before she wiped it off her face as soon as she saw. “Yeah...that’s good.”
“...how’s Mist?” High’s ears perked up after an awkward pause. “How’s she been doing? She hasn’t spoken to me in a while so I was just wondering, if you can get her to reach out to me one of these days I’d be really glad.”
“She’s been alright,” Equinox responded cordially, her voice however marred with a deep-seated anguish. “Coping with all this as best as a 16-year-old filly can, I guess. She misses you...she misses us…and I miss ‘us’ too but we both know that it just isn’t possible at the moment…and yeah, I’ll get her to call.”
“Equinox,” High began, issuing a sigh. “I...don’t know what to say.”
“I know,” she responded in an almost lifeless and near-monotone tone, a single tear beading in the corner of her eye. “...does Storm know?”
“I spoke to Blue a few days ago about this,” he responded stoically. “She’s...shocked but she told me that she’ll pass it onto him, so I guess it’s on her now.”
“You know...back when I said that he can’t stay with us forever this wasn’t what I meant,” she chuckled sardonically, High Wind’s heart and stomach both sinking into a pit of emptiness as the rain continued to beat down mercilessly on the complex outside. “Storm made it very clear to you on many occasions that this isn’t for him...”
“I know, he has.”
“...but you still went through with a transfer for him, a transfer that neither of us knows how long will take.”
“Yes, I did,” High responded in an emotionless tone. “...Equi, I just wanted what was best for our son.”
“Was this really the best way of going about it, do you think?” Equinox inquired tersely, her voice rising slightly as the pain she concealed only became more apparent to him. He only shook his head in response, indicating a ‘no.’ “I mean, I myself am not the best mother in the world, I don’t claim to be, but I try my damndest for these kids because I love them all to death and I will support them all no matter what it is they choose to do...you, on the other hand, you just keep pushing them all into...this because of what?”
“Because this job is safe and secure, and because I know that if they choose to have families of their own they can then support them on a weather pony salary,” High responded firmly but vacantly as the overbearing sorrow deep within him continued to grow. “And you know that yourself Equi, it’s what we built our family and our life upon, you and me. We’re both living proof that this is the right way of going about things here in this country, we’ve never had any financial issues or anything like that because of this job, we’re living a comfortable middle-class suburban existence like the one we dreamed of when we were kids...aw hell, we can even afford to get...divorced if that really is where this whole thing is heading.”
“...and you think I want that?” she seethed bitterly. “Do you?”
“No,” High responded, mentally slapping himself for his decidedly uncalled-for bluntness. “Of course not...and I don’t want this myself.”
“This...just hurts so much,” Equinox responded, her eyes welling with tears as her face turned pale. “This whole thing, you know...we both know that it wasn’t just what happened at the graduation but that really pushed us over the edge.”
“...I know,” High Wind responded with only a nod as he took note of the tears forming in her eyes. “If...I could go back in time and prevent this from ever happening I’d do it a million times over, just do whatever it takes to stop him from going, shred all the paperwork, cancel it all...not even have it signed in the first place.”
“I...just want my son back,” Equinox stared daggers at him gloomily, her voice strained. “That’s all. I want him home.”
“I want him back too,” High stared down at his desk in shame. The emptiness he felt inside his core was nothing but pure, unadulterated shame. Immediately he cast his mind back to earlier during the week, to the point where he received contact from his Vanhoover counterpart Clear Skies about an incident of some sort involving Stormfire and he felt sickened even more.
He was at fault for it.
No matter what happened he knew that he was entirely at fault for having sent him there in the first place, and Equinox so far remained blissfully unaware.
Nobody else knew but him, and the time was fast approaching to open that can of worms.
Better quicker than later.
“I really...messed up badly,” High Wind stammered as his heart began to race. “I…I’ll figure out a way of getting him back...somehow.” Equinox only nodded tearfully.
“Was there more to it than just fueling your pride and your ego?” she inquired after an awkward silence, posing a question that High didn’t want brought up.
His pupils shrunk as he looked down upon his desk in shame and guilt, abruptly breaking eye contact with her and instead scanning the paperwork that was scattered across it.
Pending transfers. Inbound, outbound. About eight new ponies were due to join from Clearview in the coming week, six from Minneighapolis.
Three from Alderneigh as far as he knew. One from Seaddle, another from Hoofston.
For the first time in this position he felt overwhelmed.
His performance had slumped and he felt completely overwhelmed by everything that was facing him down.
Everything suddenly towered over him and he felt as if he could scream, everything he was once able to keep on top of was now weighing him down.
“No, of course not.”
“You’re not a good liar High…I’ve been married to you for eight years now and I know you better than most ponies,” Equinox approached the desk all of a sudden and High reestablished eye contact with her, his heart skipping a beat in shock as she stared at him with burning fury in her eyes. “What are you keeping from me exactly?”
“…nothing,” he blurted. “I’m not keeping any secrets from you, you know I’m not that kind of husband.”
“Oh really now?” Equinox scoffed angrily. He only let out a dejected, defeated sigh in response. “Like you didn’t keep the transfer involving my son a secret from me?”
“…I had to meet my transfer quota for the month, Equinox,” High suddenly uttered out loud after a pause, his shame-ridden expression not letting up at all. “I was three ponies short initially but I got the period extended over by a couple of weeks and I was able to send two of them over to Dodge City…but there was one slot left to fill over in Vanhoover, and I picked Storm for it because I thought it would do him good.”
She stared daggers at him, closed her eyes momentarily and nodded. “I see…so, you sent him away because you thought you’d be able to get a promotion if you did.”
“I was aiming for one, yes, in addition to just wanting him to follow in my tracks,” High responded stoically. “No excuses, Equi. I really screwed up a lot of things.”
“Yes, you did,” Equinox responded, trying to maintain a hold over her emotions before they overwhelmed her. “What you did is unethical and quite honestly probably illegal, do you even understand that?! You forged his signature! You didn’t even get his consent or anything like that! Nothing!”
All of a sudden High felt a suffocating weight in his chest, one that only grew more and more apparent as he pondered over the weight of what he did.
A chill rushed down his spine. He wanted this to be just a bad dream from which he could wake up but he knew that it wasn’t.
He could not.
This was a waking nightmare that he’d been experiencing for days and weeks, and there was no end in sight for it. His performance at work had noticeably slumped, his family had all but fallen apart—the family whom he only wanted to be happy.
High’s mind harkened back to the conversation he had with Tornado weeks prior after what happened and the realization that he was on his last legs at the factory promptly set in with a vengeance. A career he’d been building for years was on the verge of collapsing right before his own eyes and at this point he knew it was only a matter of time.
“I know I didn’t,” High responded, lowering his head in shame and humiliation. “And I don’t know how I can fix this…it’s too late to do anything.”
“I just don’t understand…what were you even thinking?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” High stated as calmly as he possibly could while taking in her tearful anger. “All I know is that he’s not alone over there…and he won’t be. Vanhoover is a big city and I figured since I already have family over there he could settle in quickly. The apartment he stays in at the moment is my sister’s but she gave me the keys to it before she left for Mareurope so he can stay over there rent-free. Only thing he’ll be paying for out of pocket while he’s there is utilities.”
“…how long until she returns?”
“I don’t know, it might be a year or so,” High shrugged. “Who knows? I know her modeling contract in Itaily runs out in a few months but she’s got something booked over in Trottingham as well and then in Avion.”
“Avion?” Equinox gasped. “All the way over there?”
“Yeah,” High nodded. “She’s got gigs lined up in the Griffon lands…you kind of inspired her to visit.”
“I…haven’t seen her in so long,” Equinox sighed, her anger subsiding somewhat as an empty sensation of her own began to take hold. “I wonder how she’s doing now.”
“Last we spoke they were both doing fine,” High coolly remarked as the atmosphere in the office wound down. “Her and her guy, forgot what his name was.”
“How about her kids?” Equinox raised a slight eyebrow. “They settling in okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I think they are,” High heaved a slight smile as he briefly thought about his twin nephews and what they might be up to in their new home in Itaily. “Azure and Sky, they’re both little shits but they’re the kind of nephews you’d kill to have.”
“Feels like they’re completely in sync with each other sometimes,” Equinox mused. “It’s been even longer since we’ve seen them.”
“Yeah, exactly,” High nodded. “They must be like nine or ten by now, and Vanhoover’s…quite a distance.”
“So, Blossom…”
“Blossom’s perfectly fine with him staying there so you don’t have to worry,” he began, inhaling sharply. “And believe me Equi, there’s no chance in hell I’d let him just stay there and fend for himself. I’ve said some horrible things to him and done things that will haunt me till my dying day but Storm is still my son as well and I love him just like you do…I just didn’t show it very well. My dad was exactly the same…and I guess I just took after him.”
“…then why couldn’t you just listen to him?”
“I don’t know,” High sighed, again glancing down at the papers on his desk before locking eyes with his wife again just as lightning crackled outside, that same pair of eyes he fell in love with all those years ago but were now open windows into an anguished soul. “But it’s a mistake that I’m not willing to make again, and that’s a promise. I’ll do whatever it takes to get Storm back, I swear…do you trust me?”
“…I trust you,” Equinox uttered after a beat. “But I can’t say that I’m ready to forgive you…not just yet.”
“I understand,” High nodded dejectedly but fully knowing that he made at least some progress just there. She trusted him again, and he knew that he must deliver on that trust. “At least you trust me again.”
The question remained, however: how?
As she turned away from him towards the door, High called out her name. “Equi?”
“Yes?” her ears perked up as she turned back towards him.
“Before you go…I just wanted to say that I've been having a lot of health issues recently,” High began. “Doctor put it down to work-related stress and advised me to take some time off, or at the very least just take it slow, but I honestly don't know what's been going on with me as of late. I eat more, sleep way less than I should, and I'm just...always on edge…I just don’t know.”
“Go ask for time off in that case,” Equinox insisted, more of her concern for him showing through. “They’ll give it to you, they have to.”
“I don’t think they will, I’m on thin ice with them already because of what happened but it’s not something that anyone’s gonna say out loud,” High explained. “No one wants to lose a transfer manager but that will happen with the way things have been going for me.”
“They have to,” she urged him. “For as long as you still work here. And they’ll pay you for it as well. High…you can’t live like this.”
“I know I can’t but this stress is overwhelming…,” High groaned. “I just can’t help but feel that this is karma for what I did to our family…for what I did to Storm.”
“It isn’t, you have every right not to feel okay,” Equinox responded. “Storm doesn’t hate you if that’s what you think, or at least I hope he doesn’t; and as for us I know we both have our issues but I’m still your wife and I know that the workload you have is just insane…tell me, how many hours have you done this week?”
“36 so far,” he replied matter-of-factly. 12 hours on Monday, another 12 hours on Tuesday, 12 hours on Wednesday. It was now Thursday. “I’ll hit 60 this week.”
“And how much did you do last week?”
“78 hours,” High yawned, exhaustion evident in the tone of his voice. “…and the previous week I did about 80.”
“What are you doing to yourself?” she asked, shocked and exasperated. “You’re going to kill yourself, High. Why are you working so much?”
“Because I need to keep this job, Equi. This is my lifeline and I can’t let them fire me,” High answered firmly as he tried to mask the tiredness evident in his cadence. “I need to be here but I know that I can’t live like this, I’m just too ashamed to speak to anyone about it.”
“No, you’re a ticking time bomb,” Equinox responded, her concern turning to worry. It was only a matter of time before he’d explode and she knew she had to act fast—at that moment their marital issues were a mere blip and there were much bigger things at stake. “You need to speak up and take time off, I know we’re in two different departments but I’ll easily cover you if I can get the clearance for it. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that you’ll be okay.”
“No, you don’t have to,” High shut her down. “I’m not letting you throw your life away for me…not after what I put you and the rest of our family through.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Equinox suddenly marched up to his desk, slamming her hooves down on it and staring him down sternly. He was her husband and he needed to listen, and she was going to make him listen one way or the other. “You will fucking DIE if you keep going on like this, what are you not getting?!”
“Equi, keep it down please…,” High responded, his heart racing.
“No, I won’t ‘keep it down’,” she maintained her stance, her tone of voice markedly lower now but an almost murderous expression of tough love adorning her face. “Don’t you dare tell me to keep it down when it’s your life that’s at stake.”
“What if I want to do this to myself?” High countered despite knowing full well that he was on the losing side of this argument, throwing in a brisk “huh?” at the end for good measure.
“Here’s the thing though,” Equinox smirked in response, shutting him down again just like he expected. “You don’t, and I know that you don’t. You go in there right now and tell Tornado you have health issues and that you’ll need to go on leave. He has to give you it, tell him that you’ve got it covered. I’ll go now and speak to my superiors about getting moved to your department. Does that sound like a plan?”
“Well…”
“DOES IT?”
“Yes,” High heaved another breath, raising and dropping his hooves in frustrated defeat as Equinox pulled back from the desk. “…I’ll go and ask for time off.”
“Perfect,” Equinox stepped back and turned towards the door, a gentle smile now shining across her face that left High dumbfounded. He knew she was right though—as resilient as he was he understood that he himself was rapidly nearing his breaking point, edging towards a steep precipice in his life. “Please promise me that you’ll get help.”
She wouldn’t let him get there though, the mare he still loved deeply but had hurt profoundly in recent months, and he was eternally grateful for her concern.
“I will. Thanks for doing this, Equi,” High sighed in response, a slight smile forming on his face as well. “It’ll only be a week or two, it won’t take up any more of your time than that, and once I’m back I’ll try and figure out a way of getting Storm back.”
“I don’t care for how long it is,” Equinox answered, now calm and collected but that undercurrent of concern was still there. “You just need to step back…that’s all.”
“I know I do,” High began, seeing as her hoof reached for the door handle. “and I’m sorry for what I put you all through…if it even means anything at this point.”
Equinox only nodded in response as she opened the door, her smile disappearing.
“I’ll speak to you later,” she said after a beat. “Need to head off.”
“…alright,” High nodded himself, his ears pinned down as he shut his open laptop lid, watching as she stepped through the door and looked at him one last time before it closed behind her.
Her hoofsteps began to fade away as she made for the elevator lobby, and High became engrossed in thought in his chamber of self-reflection now that he was finally free to do so.
The office began to lighten somewhat as the storm outside began to pass over, hazy shafts of sunlight seeping through breaks in the cloud and rain beginning to ease off even as thunder rumbled on into the distance. It wasn’t over yet but the room lit up in an instant even as the rain continued to pour.
Cloudsdale must’ve gotten caught in the storm’s periphery since it passed so soon, its core located presumably miles away over the countryside.
For the first time in weeks High felt happy, or rather a strange mix of happiness and despair that he couldn’t quite compute. There was a lot to take care of, a lot of issues to deal with, but the conversation he had with Equinox just there felt invigorating for some reason despite their less-than-perfect relationship as of late.
While he knew full well that there were still a lot of things to work through with her he knew he at least was able to make some progress in returning to what once was.
She still clearly loved him as well even after all they went through, and more importantly she was right. He needed to be able to step back and take some time to himself, and that was exactly what he was planning on doing.
It had gone on for long enough, the self-isolation, him constantly running away from his problems instead of facing them head-on. He’d sequestered himself at work to escape what had become of his life in recent months, but it came at a profound cost to his health and wellbeing.
His office had become his second home but there was also a gaping hole in the house he had once shared with his wife and children.
He most definitely was a ticking time bomb and there was no denying that at all.
He’d dug a hole for himself in his life but he knew that he couldn’t keep on digging any deeper.
Sooner or later, the world above would just pass him by.
So why was it so hard to stop?
High had no answer to that question but set about getting to work, just like he promised, getting up out of his seat behind his desk and making his way towards the door. He’d go see Tornado about being put on leave, and once he was in a better state both physically and mentally he’d return to the usual proceedings.
It all loomed before him but all that mattered was taking things slowly. Taking small steps forward, he knew he still had a chance to set things right.
At this point he had nothing to lose.