//------------------------------//
// Lavender (2/2) 
// Story: The Power Of Names 
// by Noclipper 
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When a trade caravan's crew is planned, many factors have to be considered and balanced. Endurance and strength of each of the prospective members, the weight of the wagons being pulled, and the terrain being covered all have to be taken into account. In simple terms, each of the small wagons, pull-able by a single adult earth pony, requires at least two members taking turns to have uninterrupted travel, while three lessens the stress on all, but that requires more supplies for the times they cannot live off the land. Additionally, the tethered rely on others to keep the wagons moving. Spotters make sure all the wheels are turning cleanly and guiding the wagon true, and a scout to survey the road ahead, digging at bad ruts and pits, and negotiating how to pass others on a narrow road.

With a caravan reducing the need for support ponies, a pony who wasn't on their shift under the yoke would spend most of their time alternately gathering or grazing in a line paralleling the road, and catching up with the front of the group. A pony who hadn't yet fully grown often took breaks in one of the wagons, helping keep the wagoner's mind occupied with conversation. Few pegasi and unicorns can connect with the deep magic of the world's heart for endurance at the level nearly every earth pony naturally had, so the few that did join in the long journeys of the Wander tribe's trade caravan were relied on in other ways. A neat paradox plagued many caravans, a winged or horned pony was a unique asset, but the sheer amount of supplemental tasks one could do could easily burn one out.

==~~*~~==

The quiet creaking of the wagon wheels only drove Lavender crazy for the first few hours, but eventually her mind adapted, and it became another one of the background noises, blending in with the footsteps and the wind. When the twins were in the wagon, they shared simple games, either ones of words, or placing stones into small depressions dug into one of the removable floorboards. Games which had winning conditions were played ruthlessly, with the minds of the twins evenly matched from years of constantly matched wits, resulting in a depressingly long losing streak for the newcomer.

Discouraged by failing to instantly grasp the deeper strategies, Lavender started to become less interested in the games, and when Spearmint tried to help by trying to play poorly, and explain how the pegasus made a strategic mistake, her mood darkened further. To salvage the situation, the twins played a light game, and at a complicated point, Spearmint asked Lavender for her new eye, letting them discuss the layout, and how effective each possible move would make. When all three were discussing the best move for the side side of the abstract conflict, a tension was broken, separating the emotional sides of the players from the tactical sides on the board. All three were able to find closer to equal footing, focusing on sharing ideas rather than hiding them for their own abstract victory.

They found the games beneath, setting up a situation and playing it several times, happily discussing how one apparently stupid early move could come back to ruin the opponent's attack, or a strong position could be hit at just the right spot to cripple it. When the wagon groaned to a halt at noon, the trio were trying to expand that kind of event to a grotesque; a situation that would be unlikely or even impossible to see in a normal game, with the goal to allow an apparently doomed side take over the board in a few smart moves.

After the noon meal which for most was merely a few mugs of refreshing water, her companions were ushered out to help gather on the final stretch into the city, and she was still struggling to walk at a normal pace. Standing without being able to properly straighten and lock her legs was a constant exercise, but a pegasus who hadn't needed to rely on strong legs as much as she had would have likely been in an even weaker position.

Once she figured out how the wagon cover was held down, she was able to undo one fastener and pull up a section to see out the front. When she tired of the struggles to stand and move her wings, she spoke with the pony who pulled the wagon, or whoever was walking alongside.

Back in her city home, school had been a mix of stuff she already knew, things she couldn't even use, and plain old boring facts. Just a day with these ponies had opened up new areas of interest that nopony in Istormbul ever considered teaching her. To them, plants were either trees, bushes, or flowers, and the cacti that grew in the natural deserts. Short over the shoulder lessons from Heather expanded her mind to just how many wildflowers and herbs grew in Equestria. And not just different flavors, the plants could affect a pony in so many ways, making their feelings change to happier or sadder, calm an upset stomach, or soothe a sore head. Rarer plants that grew in lands of wild magic could do even stranger things, such as heal a broken bone in minutes rather than months, open a mind to the speeches of the earth, or even permanently change a pony's palette.

The earth couldn't be completely generous, for each potential cure or salve the earth gave to ponies, balance had to be kept with a plant with the potential for malice. Many plants could make a healthy pony sick in some way if they were eaten, and some could afflict suffering with a mere touch. Laws of balance were tipped in a pony's favor, as the earth taught the first pony how to tell the difference with taste and smell, so now every pony knew a bad taste from a good one, even if they had never learned exactly how a certain plant could help or harm her.

When questioned further, the more accomplished storytellers taught Lavender about their oldest stories, when color was new and all ponies were one herd. Because of all the potential malice that was left growing in the soil after the first generation lived, the imbalance took to the air, twisting creatures into monsters. Some monsters were as big as mountains, rivaling the dragon's power, while others were so small they could sneak inside a pony and torture them from the inside. The earth saw her mistake, and to fix it, gave the plants which nopony wanted to gather vivid colors, which were then happily gathered to make into dyes and paints, and no land was again imbalanced by gathering.

***

"Heather, you talk about the Earth like it, um, she's another pony, but with special magic. Are you talking about another Princess who controls the plants and stuff?" she asked after poking her head out after a long thinking and stretching session.

"Another Princess? Oh no, not at all! The Earth is who we all walk upon, and she is just as alive as you or I. When the earth was young, she taught the first pony how to think, feel, and see. She helped each of her children know themselves and each other. Now though, her lessons are mostly spent, and she rests, trusting us to take care of her. She's not completely asleep though, she still quietly watches each of our stories.

"Earth ponies, and some of our cousins, if they have the desire, can find the place between being awake and dreaming, and listen to her memories and dreams. That's what many Wanderers do while they travel, our bodies travel while our mind listens to the stories of the Earth. But everypony, even unicorns and pegasi has the honor of being spoken to directly. When anypony, even those who grew into a different magic than her own, finds their place in the herds of Equestria, she gives them a name in her language."

Lavender blinked in confusion. "Her language? What language does a planet talk with?"
Heather looked over her shoulder with a knowing smirk. "Look around you. She's singing it right now."

When the foal looked around, she saw how the sparse plains were slowly being taken over. Lone trees grew with branches in full bloom, while birds built nests in the forks of the branches. A cool breeze blew from the west, containing a hint of the sea. Clouds were being arranged by pegasi to shade a field where teams of ponies prepared to compete. For a while, she just looked around in confusion, trying to pick up some detail that would hint at the way the Earth named ponies. When she thought of one way that might fit, she offered the guess nervously, feeling rather silly. "You mean, cutie marks?"

Heather laughed at how nervous her impromptu pupil was acting. "That's what many ponies call them, yes. The Earth doesn't use words, she talks far too slow to use them, and she doesn't think in the same shape we do. She communicates with images and symbols. So do we, of course. Symbols are how most signs are written, telling what can be found at a place, or how to get somewhere. Her symbols are usually far more complicated, especially when it comes to the names she gives.

"Many ponies get a symbol that relates to their spoken name, like me. Named Heather, no one was surprised when that's what mark I got. But think about how many different ways "heather" could be depicted. A single bloom, a pair, three, or more. In the ground, or a vase, or pressed flat. Budding, blooming, spreading seeds, or dying. To the Earth, each detail is just another layer of meaning, and a detail can mean far more than one thing. I'm three heather plants in full bloom, tied together with a white ribbon. I like to keep the similar together, like you see inside. Sometimes I am the ribbon, holding together others." She took a breath, and in a quieter tone, like she was confessing a horrible failing. "Sometimes I'm the bundle, falling apart without someone there to hold me together."

***

As the caravan made the final approach into the trade district, full of stalls selling goods, most of the Wanderers left the group to run their own private errands. Collecting gossip, hunting down acquaintances from past visits to Gallopoli, seeking out a purchase, or just seeing the long docks where ships came and left for far off lands. Those who stayed with the wagons helped park them on a favorable corner of a large open square filled with ponies buying and selling goods and raw materials, and with surprising speed, they converted three of the wagons into shaded market stalls.

Bolts of the finest linen were displayed in one, and a customer could either take the purchase immediately, or have the cloth delivered directly to a commissioned tailor. The second displayed hundreds of tiny glass vials, each labeled with the picture of one or two flowers, the oils usable as either a scent to wear, or for the medicinal qualities concentrated from the plant. The last stall sold a much more mundane item, bottles of flaxseed oil. A common cooking oil, it was also desired by woodworkers as a finish for instruments and other fine work.

Around them, the market had been slowly winding down as evening approach, but the market savvy ponies of the more permanent stalls stayed open. City ponies would see the cloaked ponies in the city, and seek out the traveling tradesponies early to have the best selection. While they were there, many ponies hungry for dinner would see all the wonderful food for sale, from plain apples to rice buns wrapped in freshly harvested seaweed, and give into temptation.

Lavender saw all this from shyly peeking out through the lifted wagon cover. She would have loved to walk about to look at every meal for sale, and look in all the store windows. As the market crowd grew, fear of being noticed as the pegasus filly who couldn't even walk crushed her desires. Eventually she retreated within, giving in completely to the fear. Another whole day of stretching her legs' tendons had made progress, her forelegs needed just a few more precious degrees of motion to be able to stand straight, but the speed of her progress came at a cost.

Energy spent on the exercise left her with little now, and besides the leftover soup and small wild salads she had been served, she felt like her stomach was emptier than ever, and her legs ached from the workout she had given them. With nopony familiar around, and afraid to leave the confines of the wagon, she laid down on the bed, sore legs wrapping over her ears to try and block out the clamor of hundreds of strangers a stone's kick away.

A knock on the side of the wagon startled her, and when she looked up, a blue mare she didn't recognize poked her head in, her multicolored mane scattered around like she had been in a storm for hours, or had just taken off a hat.

After looking for the Wander cloak and not finding one, Lavender said, "Sorry, nothing in here, it's all over in the stalls." She put her head down, but the nosy unicorn actually started to climb in. "Um, you did hear me, right?"

"That's an odd way to say hello! We've met before, but we didn't get to make introductions." She walked up to the foal and sat. "This is a checkup visit for my special patient. I'm Bubble, the doctor who helped fix you up." As she talked, small shimmering spheres grew from the tip of her horn, wandering the small gap to rest on Lavender's coat, popping when she shook or brushed at the tickling things.

"Hey, stop that, it tickles!" She tried to back away from the bubbles after one landed on her nose.

"Oh, please, I'm sorry, they're just little spells, reflex habit. They help me learn about the patient, and I'm eager to see how you've recovered." She held her hooves up in supplication, the small bubbles gathering together above their heads, waiting for the patient's consent to continue.

"You're the pony that stopped The Rigors?" After realizing how slow she sounded, Lavender tried to cover up how she had made it a question. "Um, thanks. I still feel kind of weird though, I can't stand properly, and my wings, are, well, stuck." She fluttered her wings about uselessly to demonstrate.

Bubble closed her eyes, mentally reviewing the incomplete set of information she had gathered. "Yes, I see what you mean. From what I see, you're putting a lot of strain on your legs' tendons, but you've barely stretched the shortened ones holding your wings up. I'd think a filly like you wouldn't be happy until you're off the ground again."

Lavender nervously laughed, and got to her feet briefly, demonstrating how much her legs could straighten. "It makes sense to figure out walking again first." She said to avoid blurting out that her wings hadn't been much use before the accident, only to realize that the variation of the annoying truism was actually a good guideline in this case.

Bubble looked up at the foal, smiling with a mixture of amusement and admiration. When the foal stood, she had covered her mane in the little cloud of bubbles floating over her, which were now quietly collecting everything medically relevant as the light cloud of foam slowly dissolved; Heart rate, the fact that no colonies of The Rigors infection had resurfaced, her recent sleep cycles, and so on. "Suddenly, I'm a lot less worried about you." Seeing the confused look the foal wore, Bubble elaborated. "Many ponies who suffer a major setback, like a broken leg, try and rush things, forcing their body to behave like it's already healed, and can make the damage worse. You're rushing a bit with your legs, but those tendons didn't get as much lasting damage as the ones in your wings, so I don't think rushing the physical therapy will do any real lasting damage. Unfortunately, it will take a lot longer to recover use of your wings."

Lavender dropped to the mattress again with a sigh. "Can't you fix me with a zap of magic?" After a pause, she meekly asked, "How... much longer?"

Bubble gave a slow shake of her head. "I could, but the price isn't one I'd be willing to let you pay. Tendons naturally grow rather slowly, and disturbing natural growth in a foal can have dramatic unforeseen consequences. It could possibly completely disrupt the area's growth or worse. If you broke your leg, and then had it healed with the wrong spell, it's very possible you'd grow up, but the leg would stay short, which is so much harder to fix than taking things slowly and letting the body heal itself. Magic is best as an assisting force, rather than forcing your body to do something it's not willing to do." She stood, and walked around to the foal's side. She rested her hoof between the upraised pegasus wings, feeling at the unnaturally thickened rigid tendons. "As for your wings' tendons, they were seriously affected by the poison of The Rigors, since they were the closest to the injury, they soaked up more of the poison than the rest of you. Tendons heal slower than muscles or bones, they're not meant to stretch normally, and they usually grow only as fast as they need to. To make them better, you'll need to stretch them slowly, let them get used to being slightly longer, and then repeat."

Lavender squirmed under the unicorn's hoof, more from the humiliation of a pony on her back than actual discomfort. "But how long will that take? How many times will I need to repeat it to fix my wings?" She asked, pushing the question as Bubble seemed to skirt around the details.

Bubble sighed, looking down at the foal who had been through so much, and still had a long road to climb to become normal again. "Best case scenario, four times, maybe five. Probably closer to eight for the full range of motion. At your age, a full physiotherapy cycle would be about a season long, give or take half a month."

A long time. A month was a long time. A season was a long time. "Two... Years?" She squeaked, blinking back tears, seeing the span as closer to "forever" than "a long time". Two years to regain full use of useless wings. "How could anything take that long to heal?"

Bubble screwed up her face, wincing at the empathy she felt for the foal. "It's not that bad, I promise... It could have been so much worse. I did everything I could to help you. You're one of the ponies I could and did save, and in no time, nopony will even notice how close you were to a horrible end. Considering how many foals older than you that have wings that relax fanned rather than folded, I don't think any good pony will treat you any differently. You're a strong, smart, lucky pony, but if you try and find shortcuts, you'll regret it later." She connected with the foal's eyes, sharing the pain in them for her, while leaving unsaid how she had seen dozens of ponies who would see a two year recovery as a personal blessing from Celestia or a risky cutting edge procedure.

When another pony showed up in the entrance, he knocked at the wood to get their attention. "That filly of the big guy's is a real chatterpony!" the pale yellow stallion said. "Hey little chick, I got a little get well present for you, I wasn't sure if you prefer oil or wax for your feathers, so I got a little of each of my favorites." He pushed a paper bag forward that had been place on the wagon's floor before he redirected his gaze to talk to his mate. "She mentioned somewhere in her babbling that they were going to the baths to deliver an order soon. If you're not going to be much longer, it would be great to go with them, your treat."

Bubble blinked as her mental gears briefly jammed when she shifted from doctor to young mare. "Wait, what? You want to go to the baths, even though I had to drag you there just the other day?" She asked in a confused huff.

"Sure! They do discounts for members and friends of the Wanderers, so you'll save a few bits." He gave a brief half-lidded smile, and then thinking better of it in the mixed company, he twisted his face into a silly parody of a pony about to cry. "You owe me, especially after somepony nibbled at my wings in the on-call room!" He shook out his margarine wings, showing how the impressive span couldn't be properly displayed in the confines of the covered wagon, and that a majority of the large feathers had ragged tips.

Lavender barely registered the imperfection of the stallion's wings. In a city where everypony had them, an adult who showed them off would have been considered a little silly, or a braggart. When Lavender looked at the unicorn who had been moving to intercept him, Bubble had bright purple cheeks, blushing through her blue coat. "H-hey, that's not fair!" She stammered as she futilely tried to both hide from the pegasi while blocking one's view from the other. "Fine fine, I'll pay, just put those away before somepony gets hurt."

He bowed gracefully, wings folding up as he sank his head to the floor. "As you wish." He stepped backward out of the wagon, leaving a flustered doctor alone again with her slightly confused patient.

Bubble rolled her eyes in a long dramatic circle, silently expressing her exasperation with him. A large bubble materialized around the bag Cloudberry had dropped within, and bounced up off the floor as it rounded into a sphere, the contents floating free within. Somehow free of weight while within the bubble, a box and a bottle freed themselves from the bag, and the three items bounced about against the membrane as the bubble floated over to in front of Lavender. Curious, the pegasus filly raised a hoof, and a touch popped the magic, letting the items drop to the floor. The little absurdity was enough to briefly push away the depression of being landlocked. "Do you ever use normal magic, or do you just like bubbles that much?" She asked with a giggle.

The light blue doctor gave a small shrug, her head hunching up before relaxing. "I never managed to get the hang of... fancy word that basically means magic grabbing. Instead, I make bubbles. So I figured out how to use the bubbles to carry things for me instead." She looked down at the items, no longer in a neat bag, but in a haphazard pile. "It's not a perfect solution."

The admission of her own shortcomings more than made up for the fact that her mate had brought wing care products. At least neither of the items had a picture of a flight suited wonderbolt. Instead, the box showed an overhead shot of a pegasus mare who was obviously dyed up, with yellow and black stripes all over, even her feathers had the unconvincing stripes. Sprawled out on her side upon hexagonal tiles, she showed the predictable bee on her flank, maybe it was even real. The jar had simply a picture of a flower she didn't recognize overlapping a pair of outspread wing.

She hadn't been given a choice before, the extent of her experience with proofing her wings had been was being given was a few brushes of a faintly bitter oil after each bath. "So which is better?" She asked, rolling the bottle around between her hooves.
Bubble shrugged again. "I'm not the pegasus, so I don't have a proper opinion on the matter. The basic thing is, wax takes longer to apply, but lasts longer in wet conditions. Oil makes the feathers look shinier. Wax is softer and easier to apply when it's warm, while oil gets thicker and easier to put on when it's cooler. It's the great pegasus debate, and if you want to switch, you need to get all the old stuff off, so many tend to blindly argue for what they're already using. Wax does remind me of honey though, so I'm glad he uses that, he's sweet."

From outside the thin walls, Cloudberry replied like he had never left the wagon. "Should I get you some candles to munch on then, to save my wings? Honey and wax are as different as apples and wood, you crazy dame!"

The fillies both giggled at his exasperation. Lavender looked up at her small wings. "Seems kind of pointless to put anything on them, I'm not going to be flying any time soon."

"I can't force you to use them, I'm a doctor, not a parent. For what it's worth, I'll tell you that building good habits now means it'll be easier to take care of them yourself later, and many ponies do make judgments on how you look. Many see untended wings as a sign of laziness, or a lack of self-respect." She looked out the opening at the dimming sunlight. "It's up to you. You could ask the advice of everypony in the city and get thousands of bits of advice, but the choice is going to be yours. Same with every other hard decision, advice doesn't make growing up any easier." She stood up to walk to the exit, and turned to beckon to the small pegasus. "It's still worth getting and listening to though. Advice and information can help you see the possible roads open to you, so you're not stumbling along in the dark. Come on, give your legs a stretch and see the market, there's nothing to be afraid of."

After she put the small gifts back into the bag to put in the corner by some low-hanging bundles, Lavender followed the physician out into the evening market. Long shadows stretched from the setting ocean sun, where other sources of light didn't burn away the shadows. With the uncommon Wander Tribe stalls as a catalyst, a market that would normally be empty except for ponies packing up for the night happily bustled in the outdoor picnic as smells of food and sounds of music filled the air. Just looking around the side of the wagon, she felt like a spotlight was shining on her defectiveness and her state as a fugitive was obvious to anypony who looked at her from the milling crowd, even though the few who even met her eyes quickly drifted past.

When an earth pony colt headed toward her with a smile on his face, she almost turned to hide inside the wagon again before she recognized the gray face with the green mane that framed his face. "Feel able to walk a while?" he asked, briefly looking at her awkwardly bent legs, not quite able to stand still as she shifted her weight back and forth on the bent supports. "The bathhouse isn't far, a bunch of us are planning to go over there now that the crowd has slowed down, to deliver their order and get clean while we're there."

A teasing voice cut him off from behind. "Maybe you'll get all the dirt off your coat this time! Oh yeah, you're always like that." His sister said as she caught up. "Mother has all the things for the bathhouse spa ready, are you coming or not?"

Spearmint looked at Lavender with eyes dulled to the jibe that Watermint had coldly tossed at his gray coat, and turned to follow his sister. "I said I was going to see if Lavender wanted to come. The doctor unicorn is still with her, so your new crush is probably still around."

"Ooh! I hope he'll come with us!" she turned to look for the daisy yellow stallion, and then scowled at her brother, jabbing at his side. "I don't have a crush on him!" She exclaimed in embarrassment as her brother yelped and sidestepped away, balancing on three legs to rub at the attacked spot.

Lavender scowled at Watermint, unsure how to come to his defense without triggering more outbursts of her casual cruelty. Butting in with something other than the current subject would hopefully refocus attention from the small spat. "How about we start walking there now, and the adults can catch up? I'd rather not hold the rest of you up if I'm too slow, I don't want to be carried or something."

Spearmint nodded, and moved around to flank the small pegasus with his sister, mainly to use the young filly as a buffer between them until the perceived insult wore off. Looking past her, he gave a wave to the unicorn mare who was a paler blue than his sister's coat, and sported a variable mane with a variety of purples unlike Watermint's plain blond secondary coloring. "We're heading over there now, tell mother and father to catch up with you please!" After confirmation from Bubble, Watermint took charge, leading them through the market while Lavender walked alongside the colt, using his closeness as an emotional anchor against the crowd around them.

***

The bath house and spa occupied a long span of one side of a road that led down to a boardwalk which stretched out into the distance over the water, docked boats with publicly accessible bridges down to them acting as a floating city block. A little disappointed they weren't walking all the way down to the water, both of the young fillies paused to look out to the shining horizon. Watermint's mind filled with imagined adventures on faraway coasts which nopony had visited before, while the small pegasus saw the calm sight as more of a barrier, traveling across the ocean was impossible for her for at least a few years, unless she tried to stow away on an outbound ship.

"Are you coming inside or not?" the cloaked colt asked as he leaned against the door, keeping it open while they stared down the straight road to the ocean view. After they shook their heads to clear similar images of sailing away from their minds, they walked in. Lavender made sure to thank him for holding the door for them.

The lobby into which they entered held upon the walls pictures of happy ponies of all types, ages, and palettes enjoying the wide variety of services. The atmosphere was slightly more humid than the lightly salted air outside, and contained a blend of ever-shifting aromas, each faintly pleasant, but none were able to pin down and identify any of the scents in the air.

Following one wall, a small stream trickled along, barely enough to cover one's hooves, and an experimental touch proved the water to be pleasantly warm, trickling over a riverbed of a thick, brush-like carpet, perfect for scrubbing hooves clean upon. At the deep end, a courteously happy mare managed the entry and exit of patrons. The opposite wall was blocked off by a short bench with an attendant unicorn expertly accepting, filing, and retrieving garments and bags as well as managing the tokens which corresponded with each item. Watermint watched the glowing chaotic movement for a few moments before turning away with a wince, mumbling about how just trying to watch that tornado made her horn ache.

The three waited in the corner where water sprung up to stream down towards the entrance to the baths proper, as they waited for the rest of their group to arrive, each of them getting a feel for the water. Eventually, the grown quartet entered the lobby in two pairs, the mares followed by their mates, and came over to join the younger members of their party. After a quick maternal examination of them, Heather took her foals' cloaks to check in, while Loom and the other couple stayed with them.

Floating at a comfortably close distance above and in front of Loom was a small wooden box with an open top. After her gaze locked onto it in curiosity, it was lowered to Lavender's level, letting her see that it contained perhaps half a hundred small vials in individual cushioned niches, each with a specially colored glass stopper. She sniffed at the small bottles curiously, getting a hint of just how concentrated the contents were. Even sealed up a close intake of breath overwhelmed her sense of smell. "Whew, ponies wear that?" she asked after her head jolted away, shaking to clear the air.

Loom gave a laugh as he lifted up the box, turning to lead the way down to the attendant, who spotted his cloak and lit up at seeing a cloaked pony, identifying him from the several traits that created a rather memorable individual. The attendant offered her hoof to the stallion, who graciously touched it for a long breath, before stepping back and placing the carton of vials on the short counter-top. "Not usually directly, these are the base oils, which are usually mixed with soaps or other products to dilute them. These are so strong, you could dilute it to one part in a hundred and still feel the effects, some need even less," He said to Lavender as he waited for her to catch up. When she was beside him at the counter, he turned to the mare behind the short desk. "Your order has arrived, and of course they are all accounted for and intact," he told the attendant, who was already eagerly lifting them each out of their cushioning and replacing them in quick succession, perhaps looking for a specific favorite of hers.

Looking up at the stallion's amused smile, the bathhouse unicorn stopped looking through the carton like she was searching through a box of chocolates. "Oh, of course, thank you Loom Wander, I'm surprised it got here so soon, it's not even summer yet." She looked over at the three younger ponies. "I remember your twins, but your pegasus is new. Congratulations, you're so lucky to have one of each, and she has such a wonderful palette too!"

Lavender shrunk back at the close scrutiny, her wings fluttering nervously around. Loom came to the foal's aid. "Her name is Lavender, but she's not mine, we're taking care of her for a bit while her wings recover from an accident. She's a bit shy about them, she still has trouble moving them around." He quietly explained. Gesturing to the couple beside him, he also introduced his new acquaintances of Bubble and Cloudberry.

When Heather returned cloak-less, the young filly was being walked through the rules of the establishment. After she pulled off her mate's cloak and checked that one in as well, the group was ready to go in and get what felt like a month of road dust off themselves.

The bath house proper was divided into three large open sectors. Stalls with individual shower heads allowed for a quick cool down for a busy pony, as well as a place to apply soaps or stain removers. The middle division showed a series of baths recessed into the floor, each filled nearly to the brim with water. Each large communal bath had a short pillar rising from the center, with symbols and colors upon it showing how hot or cold the water was, how deep the bath was, and other information concerning the comfort and safety of the patrons. In the final division, an assortment of spa services were offered, from poni pedis to manestyling and massages, along with a few steam rooms.

For late evening, the current crowd was unusually large, but even then several of the baths were empty or nearly so, with foals happily using up their excess energy of the day splashing around while watchful parents genially chatted with each other.

After so many days of being utterly alone with nopony around to mandate her schedule, it had been a quarter month since her improvised and aborted ocean bath and longer since a real bath had been had, Lavender was surprised to find the cleansing to be rather different than the uncomfortable chore it had been in her former life. Primarily this was due to the significantly more noticeable feeling of purification of her orange coat and wings, but it was more than that; When Heather offered to help the foal who had twisted uncomfortably around to still fail at attempting to get her hoof-mounted brush up between her wings, rather than simply interposing, the earth pony subtly demonstrated how she saw the pegasus as an individual in her own right who she could help, rather than an obligation that she reluctantly managed.

Within the awkward zone of too old to mindlessly enjoy the splashing games of the younger foals, but still too young to fit in with adults, Spearmint and Watermint managed to find some fun by entertaining the younger foal. Using their bodies to force one small pool into a slow whirl or to create undulating waves that nearly splashed over the sides, they playfully tried to trip up Lavender as the water spun around her, who tried to stand in place without wrapping a leg around the center column to anchor herself.

The steam room was a surprisingly unusual experience for the pegasus filly. Clouds filled the room, hot and dense, but the steam clouds felt oddly different, and the heat as well had a different quality than that of a hot bath that was hard to identify. Rubbing at her forelegs helped clue her in, the steam heated up her coat and mane, but the skin was mostly insulated from the direct heat, creating an odd sensation where hair follicles were hotter than the surrounding surface, creating a feeling of prickling heat. The only other pegasus in the steam room, Cloudberry, was happy to play with the swirling clouds with her. Using a wing to scoop at it like a large net, he kneaded and sculpted at the gathered clouds with his hooves, dropping to the floor several large crude cloud bricks, which Lavender happily climbed up onto. Standing with small hard hooves between her and the steam which had been forced to stay still by the skill of the pegasus magic, she reveled in the amusement of the adults and the baffled experimentation of the twins as they both failed to duplicate her achievement and getting a case of hotfoot.

When the small cloud crafts were removed from the heat, they quickly shrunk in size as they cooled, and with them all compressed together, the large slabs of hot steam had condensed to a slightly over-sized brick which resembled slightly translucent smoked glass. With the strange and apparently useless affinity with clouds being the only part of her pegasus power that she still had available to her, Lavender decided to not leave the small cloud behind, dropping the almost weightless object onto her back, able to hold it up between her wings.

The pedicurists pretended to faint away when examining the sixteen hooves of the family, lamenting over chips, burrs, rough edges, and uneven corners on all of the cloaked travelers. This was apparently nothing they hadn't heard before, as it looked like Heather and Watermint were holding back laughter. The pegasi had less attention paid to their hooves, and despite the possibility that Lavender was the one who had walked the farthest in recent days, all the pedicurist deigned to do was apply a few choice rubs with a file and give a quick cleaning scrape before moving on, unknowingly demonstrating just how much of the role was showponyship.

Lamenting the state of the stallion's wings, a small unicorn stallion fussed over the feathers, carefully brushing them flat and applying a coat of a clear substance which quickly hardened when smoothed on. When he approached the foal, she fought to not shy away, looking to the other pegasus for an answer when he asked about what kind of proofing she would prefer.
When she looked at the other "Go with a wax coating, better if you're going to be traveling a lot." He said decisively, his own preference of the same perhaps slightly biasing him. After an accepting nod, she felt her wing gently stretch up, arcing to splay the feathers out. Rather than pulling the wing flat, the experienced wing proofer acceded to her obvious preference to keep her wings fanned up, and had no difficultly in rubbing on the soft wax to the feathers while they were vertical.

The quiet but slow process allowed Lavender's thoughts to self assessment, seeing how even one who was right up by her wings apparently hadn't noticed how useless the animate feather dusters were. Plenty of young pegasi relaxed with their wings slightly fanned out when they could, it was hardly a matter of concern to other ponies most of the time. Of course, she had been in that exception area, where wearing a safety cloak without folding up her wings tripled how uncomfortable the item was, as well as the embarrassment of wearing it. Folding up her wings had been a necessity that became a habit, and eventually a preference. With the option ripped away, she had been thinking in terms of how other cloud dwellers would see her with her required safety cloak, and how nearly everypony she had seen which she could name wore a much more mundane cloak. Briefly, she envisioned how a Wander cloak could be modified to accommodate her wings, cutting holes wouldn't ruin a linen cloak, that dangerous modification would make a safety cloak tangle dangerously around wings as it opened.

After a final tending to their manes and tails to take advantage of the moisture's molding effects before they dried off, the group decided to call it a night. After retrieving their cloaks, the doctor and the mediwing said their goodbyes, thanking them for the wonderful time and giving last bits of advice along with friendly hoof touches and pats on the back.

Outside, time had passed in its usual way, the sun had set and the moon had risen. The pale shape that dwarfed its countless stellar companions had slowly but surely grown as it had watched the foal trek across the coastal shrub-land, the crescent gradually thickening until this night, it rose perfectly bisected, the moon's shadow hiding the specter bound there since times of legend.

The cool early night air refreshed their lungs, but also hastened them home to their wagons, a nervous silence wrapped in four billowing cloaks.

***

Lavender was the first young pony to awaken in the early dawn, thirst driving her to look frantically around for several seconds for the bag which had been her only method of gathering tepid drinkable water. Her mind finished awakening, and her current situation focused into place as she looked around at the gathered plants all around her, and the twins sleeping on opposite sides of the wagon. Carefully sneaking around Spearmint to get to the covered exit, she nosed the loose cover out of the way and stepped out.

In the early dawn buildings to the east kept the market square in shadow, and the place was almost creepy in the silence. Most stalls were bare, still awaiting the products and their proprietors, and sheltered between the wall of a building and the half circle of wagons stood a series of tents made from the same strong fabric that covered the wagons, the respite from travel allowing the full compliment of tents to allow everypony the luxury of room to spread out to their own private shelters. It was usually nice to sleep in groups, the familiar comforting smell of others making them part of a family even in dreams, and in the cooler times everypony shared the body heat, but even the closest groups need breaks from each other to let strained connections heal.
The only other wagon which still stood unconverted contained the two adults that she currently felt closest to. As she walked over, she delighted in finding that her legs finally were willing to straighten out, with only a bit of discomfort. Sticking her head through the slit in the loose cloth door, she saw them lying side by side, with the larger unicorn's head curled over Heather's neck, and they were both apparently asleep. The sleeping couple blocked easy passage to the row of barrels, one of which hopefully could quench her thirst. Sneaking past turned out to be impossible, as when she touched the wagon's floor as quietly as she could, Loom's eyes slowly opened.

Gulping, she waved with the fore-hoof which hadn't stepped down, and whispered as quietly as she could, her dry throat making the whisper a squeak. "Morning. I'm Thirsty?" She spoke laconically, not wanting to wake up another. After he nodded in acknowledgement, she withdrew and waited while stretching out her forelegs, briefly trying to force the inner tension to give way until she found that such attempts were just making the tight tendons hurt more. A barrel glowing with Loom's green magic pushed through the curtain, making Lavender take a few steps away from it before it settled to the ground.

A few moments later, he emerged with a small stack of wooden mugs, which he separated out and placed atop the barrel. As he filled the first mug from the small spigot at the bottom, he talked quietly, not a strained whisper, just a calm voice that would blend into the background for the ponies who slept around them. "How are you feeling this morning? You look better than before, up and around rather than hiding all day."

Lavender sat and reached up to grasp the mug, sipping at it after the green field around it vanished. After clearing out the dry gummy feeling, she tried to explain a bit about how she felt. "I can stand well enough, I guess. Not sure about how I feel, all mixed up. Happy that you're all being so nice, but I don't know how long it will last." She drained the cup, and put it down by the spigot. "Woke up looking for these stupid dirty bags that I lost, they were the only way I could figure out how to get water, letting them soak up dew at night." She looked down in embarrassment, rubbing at the smooth cobblestone paving.

Loom looked at the small pegasus with a slightly tilted expression. "Your things are safe, we could get them from the wagon if you want them. I don't think you'll have much use for them, maybe a bit or two for the scrap metal. The market for salt is much better inland, away from the ocean."

She blinked, considering the suggestion. She had carried them along mostly because leaving them behind seemed like a waste, and a small part of her mind was strangely convinced that if she had left them behind, she'd suddenly find herself in a predicament that would need one to escape from. Selling the items hadn't crossed her mind, mainly since like most young ponies, she was mostly sheltered from the worries of money. Many ponies never even bothered with the small golden coins, preferring to trade goods and services with their community to fill modest desires. "So I need to go east if I want to sell the salt?"

The unicorn looked down, refilling the mugs with a sigh. "I was hoping you would be getting homesick, rather than planning trade routes." He returned to her the mug with a worried frown on his face. "You need to be with those who care about you. I know it's tempting to see the world, but you don't just charge out into the unknown alone, especially in your condition."

Lavender screwed her eyes shut, holding in an irritated mumble. What did he know about ponies who cared about her? At the moment, it felt like that short list only contained his family. "I didn't belong up there. I don't belong up there even more now. Up there, I was... am a defective pegasus that everypony worries about, but nopony wants. Down here, I at least don't have to worry about being pushed off the edge."

Loom understood her reasoning, but he still couldn't completely approve of her desires. He looked around, and hearing others stir, began to fill up the spare mugs. "Even if you want to live on the ground, there's a right and wrong way to do it. Just running away from everything and expecting a new spot to show up for you won't work, there's plenty of ponies who would be willing to help find a home you'd feel safe in."

She looked up at the tall pale figure, a stallion of whites and grays, the only color in his palette in sad red eyes, which she could feel were mirroring her own conflicted emotions. "I feel safe here..." She broke the connection, looking around at the tents and wagons, and beyond to the solid buildings which were starting to climb out of the morning shadows to show their true vivid colors.

"I'm glad to know that. We've done all we can to help you recover in mind and body, but you need things we simply can't provide. You need teachers and doctors, not a band of gatherers and market-ponies." After filling the last mug, he looked down at the young filly who seemed to be reluctantly taking his words to heart, even if they hurt. "I'm no pegasus, but I've got two good ears, I'm willing to listen if you want to borrow one."

Lavender shook her head, then rubbed the hair from her long mane out of her eyes as she stood up. "Thanks for the drinks," she said, quickly trotting to get away before she broke down in front of him. Through the market she went, stumbling a few times when she dodged to avoid a collision. Once out of the market by the same way she had been led the day before, she headed down the road, past the bath house from which the morning crowd's cacophony spilled out, and down the sloped road to a wooden boardwalk.

Brisk ocean winds blew in, bringing with it a mix of smells which could be relaxing or mildly unpleasant depending on who breathed the air. A variety of boats of many designs were tied to the docks below, with small two pony boats pulled up onto the beach, growing gradually in size the farther they were docked from shore. Far out, a pair of gargantuan ships sat on opposite sides of the complex, like two dragons sizing each other up.

The nearer of the monstrous ships stood tall in the water. Half a dozen slender masts rose from its vast wooden hold, sails rolled up as the ship slept in the harbor. She could see a few when they moved close enough to the edge of the high deck.

The farther one was an aged metallic relic, a quartet of steam chimneys rose high above the decks. On its dull ocean stained side, a single word was visible in block letters that might be taller than her.

With plenty to watch, she was able to let the worries of her own be dulled into the background for a while, and let the world move on around her. Rather than try and plan for the future, she let her mind fill with inconsequential things, like the sounds of birds, the wind and the waves, and the dull wooden notes as ponies walked across the elevated walkway.

***

When the twins finally tracked her down, the sun was nearly overhead. Her hungry stomach had made a few audible complaints, but it hadn't reached a point where she felt like walking back. Internal distractions were slowly pushing away the ability to forget herself in the sea breezes. One of the louder stomach gurgles elicited a giggle from nearby. When she looked around, Lavender found the twins on either side of her with their own forelegs also hooked over the edge of the railing, imitating her as she looked out over the edge of the boardwalk. Each of them stood a length away, giving Lavender her space.

After a few awkward moments of staring at Watermint's face, the unicorn asked, "so, why are you out here all alone? You're missing all the cool stuff in the market again!"

Looking back down at the water licking at the boardwalk's pillars, Lavender wasn't sure how to explain why she felt the desire to be alone. "You're all really nice, but I won't be able to stay with you forever. What about when I have to leave?"

Spearmint scooted along the rail, and touched at the orange shoulder beside him. "Well that's just silly. We might not see this city again for a year, or ten years. Just because we leave tomorrow doesn't mean we should waste the time moping about all the places we might miss."

"Tomorrow?" Missing the attempted inspirational message in the new information, the word she squeaked back was the sudden focus of her attention.

Both of the cloaked ponies laughed at the way her voice cracked on the word, but not unkindly. "Sure, we rarely stay in any one place for longer than a few days," Watermint explained. "Since we stay for only a few days, everypony in the city knows to buy what they want quickly, and we only need to stay for a short while. Each fact helps the other."

"Well, in some places we might set up for a bit longer, like if a city has two markets on opposite sides, we make sure to visit both so nopony has to walk too far." Spearmint said, gesturing in the air as he added to the explanation.

"Except for the market on the far side of Manehattan island, it's too difficult to get the wagons through the streets and back." Watermint added, willing to add the exception to the exception.

Rolling his eyes at his sister, he hopped back away from the railing and beckoned with his tail as he turned to leave. "Anyway, now that we found you, we can get you back before the last of the lunch selection dries up, unless you'd prefer to stay down here and eat fish like some crazy sailponies do."

"Ew! You've got to be making that up!" Lavender protested as she quickly followed.

***

To most ponies, the ocean is a mystery, especially when it comes to the life that grows beneath the waves. Besides the slimy seaweed that washes up on most shores, the underwater flora is even less well known than the broad categories of fauna. When washed and dried, the seaweed is seen as a delicacy inland, but a staple by the shore. This is hardly the only food the ocean has to offer.

***

"Oh just try it, it's not really hair, that's just what they call it," loom said to the hesitant pegasus, who sat by one of the wagon's rears and stared at a small plate holding a tangle of thick green fibers. Her first impression was that of a moldy hairball, which hadn't been helped when it was announced to be a serving of 'seapony hair'.

Screwing up her face, she tried to pry a few strands of the dish free, and struggled to choke it down. It was pleasantly crunchy, and a lot less salty than she expected a saltwater plant to be. With her tongue and stomach outvoting her previous classifications of icky food, the wooden plate was empty when Lavender spoke again, with a much happier tone. "They're like really long bean sprouts!"

Loom gave a wide grin and lifted up a few tendrils of his own plate to munch on. "That's part of the fun of traveling around so much. Sure, you could go all the way around Equestria and only talk to your friends and only eat the same old bread you grew up eating, but is that really experiencing new places?"

"New stuff isn't always good though," she said as she pushed the plate back to the large unicorn.

"And old stuff isn't always good. Most new experiences are worth having no matter if they feel good or bad, simply because the good ones will last a lifetime, while most bad experiences have important lessons. Even if it's just being able to understand how another feels when they have unpleasant events happen to them, every event in your life will teach you something." Loom carefully wove his words around the argument, trying to encourage the young filly towards an attitude of inquisitiveness.

"Yeah yeah, when in Roam..." she said, in a moment distilling a carefully thought out piece of advice into a phrase that everypony uttered with little heart.

Loom waved his hoof in disgust. "I hate those pithy sayings, most ponies just repeat them without thinking about them, and there's always one to back either side of the debate. Always be yourself, but do as the Roamans. Slow and steady wins the race, but the early bird gets the worm. Two heads are better than one, but too many cooks ruin the soup. Just because it's a phrase you've heard before, you shouldn't be quick to accept it as true."

Lavender laughed, immediately agreeing on the substance, if not the emotion of the point. "There's no place like home." She offered in a grumble, apparently considering the wistful positive saying as anything but.

"All places are different, you're not the only pony who considers, forgive the metaphor, that the flowers are sweeter on the other side of the road."

With a sigh, she stood up to stretch, trying to force away feelings of stiffness with nearly cramp-inducing extensions. "But there aren't any flowers that grow on a cloud."

With a nod of agreement, Loom also rose, swooping the last mouthful of seapony hair up into his mouth in a brief green glimmer. After it was down, he picked up the pair of wooden plates to return them to the wagon. "And that's why metaphors are unwise to use in an argument, since while there might not be flowers literally growing in the clouds, there must have been metaphorical flowers."

"Not enough to make the metaphorical manure worth putting up with," she grumbled as she walked to the wagon stalls which were barely visible behind the crowd of ponies browsing and buying the exclusive products.
***

As the last of the midday crowd began to disperse, the sales slowed to the point where it didn't take two ponies at each of the unusual stalls constantly wrapping or bagging or counting coins to keep the customers happy. The twins had done a share of the work, with Watermint eager to sell the fiddly essences, lending her power to allow anypony to have a vial opened for a sniff. Spearmint took a short shift helping measure out cloth orders, but worked slowly, measuring out each order several times before he felt sure enough to cut it, as well as often unfolding and refolding the fabric.

When he was relieved of the chore by another of the traveling tribe, he plodded over to the shelter of the shady side of the wagon he had called home since the last snows melted. After kicking a few of the sharper looking stones away from a patch of ground, Spearmint lowered himself down with a quiet huff as the cool earth pulled away the heat in his stomach.

Sharing the shadow with him was the young pegasus filly, who had apparently used the firm but not completely unyielding ground to scrape out the indentations needed to play the Wander's game. She was puzzling out the board, mumbling to herself, apparently oblivious to the attention.

"Would you do it again?" Spearmint asked in a near whisper after a long pause to carefully choose his words. When he spoke, her foot jerked in a startle, scuffing up the game.

She looked at him with a small tilted scowl. "Do what again?"

With a sweeping gesture to the city and beyond, Spearmint elaborated. "Come to the ground and the city, leaving behind everything and everypony that kept you safe and happy."

Lavender looked up at the sky, a clean blue canvas painted with streaks and splotches of clouds, young feral things from the ocean's skies that were too numerous to completely clear away, but no threat of a surprise spring shower. "Probably I'd be more careful around rusty stuff next time. I wasn't happy, and I wasn't safe." She turned back to the disrupted board, and began chipping at the hardened soil to remake the grid of depressions.

"You're young yet, I know you'd be careful about that now that you've learned the hard way, but there's so many other things you don't know how to keep safe from. There's plenty of dangerous, beautiful things out there which don't let you have a second chance. You don't even know what to avoid or how to avoid them, and it's simply dangerous for you to try and learn when... you're not in a proper and healthy condition." He stumbled over the end, blatantly trying to avoid her explicitly mentioning her disability.

Lavender briefly stiffened, her small wings twitching around as flight reflexes futilely tried to prepare to launch. "Sure, but up there is plenty of other dangers, ponies who are mean or just don't care, clouds evaporating or sinking, dragons, sky whales, windingos, and so on."

Spearmint sighed, resting his head down on outstretched forelegs. "I think you're brave. I think you're a little too courageous for your own good, but I'm also a little jealous." He laughed quietly at his candid admission. "You decided to try a different life because you got fed up with the one you started in, lots of ponies want to do that, but they're too afraid of the change and the risk."

"It's not that hard, I just started walking." She said with a careless flick of the tail.

"That's the hard part though, your life is something that slowly hardens until you can't change its shape without breaking part of it. Changing everything after the old shape is shattered can work, but then the way things used to be is gone, and impossible to get back, even if you go home you'll always be the pony who didn't stay." He said, the detail of his words hinting that he had considered it before.

After a moment, it connected together in Lavender's mind. "You want to leave this? But you've got everything, parents, even a sister! You already get to travel Equestria all the time, you already get to go everywhere!"

Spearmint laughed a dark note, closing his eyes for a moment. "They're a good family most of the time, and I do care about them, but," He paused and gave another world weary sigh. "I'm starting to think that just because I was born in a family of travelers doesn't mean I have to travel forever. I'm starting to think that even though she's always been there, I don't have to live with her forever."

She sorted out the smooth black and white riverbed stones, thinking over why he was admitting his discontent to one he hadn't known that long. "And you're afraid they'll hate you for wanting to leave?" She asked, looking up to catch his nervousness.

"That's one way to put it, but what's the alternative? Tell them after I've already found somewhere and give them no chance to prepare, or just vanish one day without warning? Those seem even worse." He stood briefly to get closer to her improvised board, and sighed again as he dropped down. "There doesn't seem to be any happy way to become truly happy, which makes me wonder if it really would."

Lavender rocked her head from side to side, her mind going in so many directions at once. He wanted a life free of the love-hate relationship with Watermint, a pony who had always had power over him and the will to use it, the same way dozens of mares and stallions had controlled her life for all the wrong reasons. "At least you're old enough that they'd let you go, I still feel like I'm not in charge of my own life. Even in a completely different city I'm just going to be dragged back, since if I leave your group I'll just die of thirst out in those dry plains, or go crazy drinking dew all night."

Spearmint rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Yeah, because the dozen farms and orchards a day's walk from here never bothered digging wells, they just drink imported rain," he said in a tone that went up and down several times, thoroughly coating it in sarcasm. "And if the water smells, you just need to boil it with a crushed ripe apple and a small lick of salt, and then pour it through a fine cloth."

"Boil?" She asked, intrigued by the change in topic. "Great idea, all I need to do is grow a horn and I'll be set."

With a shake of his head, Spearmint flicked his tail in the direction of the stone circle encompassing the hot bed of coals, the last life of an earlier fire. "Unicorns didn't invent the fire, and it's even easy to make your own if you have the right tools, a small sparker kit doesn't cost five bits."

She nodded in acceptance, not knowing exactly what tools he was talking about, but that was hardly her fault, in a pegacity fire was as rare as a unicorn. "Well if its that simple, I don't have to go back at all!"

Spearmint realized with a frown how his small bits of advice were being accepted as complete lessons on how to survive away from the big city. "It's not simple, it's not easy, and it's not fun. It's working all day long to be sure you have enough to drink for tomorrow. It's working all day to have a place that won't soak you too much if rain is scheduled for the area. No pony can live all by themselves in the wilderness! What if you got so hurt you couldn't walk as well, or lost something your life depended on?" He rubbed at his eyes with a groan. "Forget about age, that's not what's really important. You're not too young to live in any way that works, but you're too alone. Wait until you find somepony else that's willing to rely on you and the other way around."

She looked down at the board, and in barely a whisper suggested, "You could come with me..." and shied away from the older colt when he gave a sharp laugh.

"No offense meant, but I'm not going to trade away the crazy filly I already have for another." He said with a teasing smile. "You want the exact opposite of what I'm looking for."

With a quiet cough, a small turquoise horn poked from around the wagon, followed by the familiar flaxen mane as Watermint curled her head around the corner. "And who're these girls you're planning on trading around like barrels of apples?" she asked, pausing to look at the neglected game. "Did she just ask you to elope with her?"

Spearmint rolled his eyes at his sister. "Nothing like that, not really. We were just... borrowing each other's point of view on things."

After a pause with a funny look on her face, she shook it off and got down to business. "Well then, since you've had plenty of rest in the shade, time for you to earn your oats again. Tailors, dressmakers, and whatever the fancy word is for pillow stuffers are all waiting for ordered cloth, and we're going to start delivering them now. And by we, I mean you."

He stood up, stretching out each leg in turn as an excuse to delay the chore. "Haberdashery."

"Gesundheit," she giggled.

"Ha ha. I guess that's my time gone. I'll see you later," he said as he trotted off back to the cloth wagon.

***

The afternoon was pleasant enough, but with all the thoughts going through Lavender's mind, playing solitarily didn't do much to reduce the restless feelings that were building. A thorough wander around the marketplace was taken, but without any bits, she couldn't do much more than try a few sample strawberry chunks left out for customers to sample.

After a short conversation with Heather, the saddlebags which had kept the pegasus alive for the dry week were retrieved from the storage of the water wagon. The cloth had been washed, but while the bags were clean, it was unlikely the green tinge of grass stains would ever come off. A little insistence was all it took for the short mare to disregard her confusion at the insistence to keep the bag in the wagon which had been her bedroom for the last several nights.

By the time Spearmint finally returned, the Wander tribe's communal supper soup had been in the pot for hours, the large amount of water seemingly able to absorb heat indefinitely without boiling. Hungry cloaked ponies wandered in and out, each of them taking a peek at the surface of the steaming water while Loom sat patiently, slowly stirring it around unnecessarily.

Many tales were suggested to be told, but they were only discussed by those already familiar with them rather than told, as if it was impolite to fill up on stories before filling up on soup. Tales of impossibly ancient events were discussed like they had only happened last spring, and she briefly felt surrounded by a warmth of family that was like the mirage of water all over, only to fade when she felt too close.

Mentions of stories she had never heard flowed around with stories she was familiar with: The climber of the mountains. Wave tamer. The last great migration. Hearth's warming. The first pegasus. Her ears perked up at those words, but she was unable to discern who had mentioned that, a story she knew she wanted to hear, but had never had an inkling to asking about it from anyone in her short life. But before she could ask, the tone of the crowd shifted, hushing for a moment as the soup announced that it had reached a rolling boil.

The large cloaked unicorn started to dish out the scalding hot meal as fast as he could safely do so. A mildly salty and spicy soup full of rice and numerous chopped green things, enough of the water had been steamed away for the meal's consistency to be closer to that of gruel, but with a flavor that put it above the crude term.

The story of the evening was led by one of the Wanderers who's name she hadn't learned, and revolved around several concepts she couldn't quite understand. In the oldest stories dredged up from the quiet long memory of the world, the rules hadn't quite been finished, and so the first ponies could do what now seemed nonsensical, like trade tails with a tiger, or talk to a rock and get a response. In the strange wandering narrative, a colorless world of black, white, and gray lay beneath a sky which was every color of the spectrum.

During the meal, a love story between a white pony and the sky was told. The sky gave the early pony a colorful palette every morning, but by the time the sun set, the color had been given away to something else in the world, until the sky was one color for most of the day. The sky mourned the inability to find the palette which made the pony happy.

Only when they truly talked did the sky see how the pony was trying to make the world beautiful for all, and only then did the pony see how little was left in the beauty of the sky. Long story short, the pony gave away every piece of herself, until she was only mist. The first cloud to rise into the sky who had sacrificed so much to get the pony's love, and even now, when the sun and the clouds are just right, a little piece of the sky remembers what it was like when the world was young.

"That was a weird story." Lavender said to Loom and Heather, fighting back a yawn as ponies drifted away to their tents. "Could you tell another? I heard somepony mention the first pegasus, I'd love to hear that one!"

Rather than a story, all she got was soft touch on her head from the small mare. "It's getting late, there will be plenty of time to tell that story another time."

***

The next morning, the young inhabitants of the herb wagon were woken rather early, to help pack away tents and transform the shifted wagons out of the state of being market stalls. Sleeping in would have been preferable for Lavender, but the noise as everypony got ready to leave on the first sight of the sun made this annoyingly difficult.

When all the preparations were complete, and goodbyes had been said to the local merchants getting ready for the early shoppers, Wagons creaked into motion as they left Gallopoli's market. When they left the city towards the rising sun, many of the cloaks' hoods were pulled down to shade eyes from the morning glare, and content to be still heading towards adventure rather than back to the city that was once her awful and boring home, the pegasus felt she had finally found something close to a good family, and a name that matched her properly. Content, Lavender went back to finishing that night's sleep in the company of the hundred wonderful scents around her.

If the caravan was planning to spend all the day heading east, they likely would have waited until the sun was higher in the sky. Barely an hour out of the city, the first real road south was reached and taken. A six pony wide dirt path worn flat by a million hooves since it was first surveyed, it ran mostly straight between fences which marked off land full of grain, or occasionally enormous vegetable gardens or orchards.

With little to gather, most eagerly galloped on ahead, drumming up potential customers from the farmlanders, or haggling over sacks of the local crop to keep the group fed. As the day peaked and faded, it only became apparent to the young runaway their heading when the group stopped traveling at a crossroads, making it clear to even a novice navigator that they had reached the stopping point by heading south.

When she asked Heather about when they would reach the next city when the small but sturdy mare was unhitching herself, she paused for a long breath before responding that it would be days and days, and told her to enjoy the journey rather than focusing on the destination. Lavender nodded in understanding, and walked off to take a look at the nearby farms.

The evening meal was a pleasant change from the soups and gruels she had been given as well as the bare sustenance that had kept her moving on the dry shrub-land, the edge of which was a single field to the west. After freshly baked bread rolls with a creamy cheese filling and shared bowls of cherry tomatoes full of flavor like tiny balloons waiting to be popped, Another tale from when the world was young was told. Despite Lavender's begging, the pony who had been granted the role of storyteller sung a tale in a quiet voice, unsure of the notes he found.

In the young world of color where all ponies were one herd, unworried by the maliciousness rooted and waiting to rise, a strange one was born, the first of a new herd. Cast out for being different, the new pony had to grow up alone. Once grown to maturity, he had strength that no mare could match, and returned to take over and rule all the others. For a season he fought, and with all contest defeated, he ruled in all imaginable luxury. However, soon more of his kind were born to the world, and fearing competition, he banished all who could take his place. As more saw that the new foals were not evil, and that any of them could have grown hungry for power after being unjustly exiled, the first mothers left the herd as well, willing to protect the new foals who were still innocent of any wrongdoing.

The first herd slowly fractured, each year half of the first ponies leaving the herd rather than leave their foals, until only one remained, who had never had a foal of her own. Too afraid to run away, she begged The Earth for child who would please the one who had shattered the herd. The Earth awoke from the pleading fear, and saw how the shatterer had grown up as a wild beast, with none to teach him words, awaken empathy, or give him love. It was too late to bring everypony together again, but the deep magic of the Earth was able to at least fix the worst of the pain caused by the fear of the first towards the now old foal.

The Earth taught the last of the ponies she had awoken of wild magic bound by the quiet will of the world into the rarest of flowers, and in particular of one which granted the deepest wish of anypony who was willing to search for one. When she finally found the flower we now call heart's desire, she offered it to him, telling him of it's properties.

Promptly saying that he wanted all the mares to return to him, he ate the flower. In moments, his heart's desire was granted. Of course, not his wish to be again ruler of all ponies, but his heart's desire to have not been cast out to grow up alone. All the years melted away in moments, and with them, memories of loneliness and hunger, until he was little more than a foal.

A mare and a foal is not a herd, and so the first herd was gone. Soon they found others who welcomed the lost sister and new foal into their lives, and from then on, nopony was banished from their family because they were born.

***

"Your stories are really weird." Lavender said to Spearmint as she sat by the entrance to the wagon, looking up at the stars. The slightly more than half full moon lay low on the horizon, its current shape resembling nothing within the young pegasus' realm of knowledge.

Spearmint gave a small laugh, and nodded in agreement. "Sure they seem strange, but I bet in a thousand years, the stories made today will seem just as strange, but the stories told then will have all the same things." He gave a small sigh. "Change is hard, but worth it. It's natural to fear something new, but that doesn't mean you have to. Love is possible for everypony. Fairness is worth fighting for."

"Still, it's strange to blame the first unicorn for breaking up the first herd." Lavender said with a little huff.

"The story doesn't blame him, and he wasn't a unicorn." Spearmint tried to correct her assumptions and interpretation, but was quickly interrupted.

"So what was so different about him? I know it wasn't because he was a pegasus." She scowled in confusion, shaking her head as if denying his corrections.

"He was different..." he said, trying to find the easiest way to explain in a pause. "...because he was, um, a he."

Lavender shook her head again, feeling doubly confused. "So you blame colts for everypony not being the same herd anymore? That's worse!"

Spearmint smiled, reaching out to nudge at the younger pony's foreleg. "Glad to hear you think so. But we don't blame colts for that happening, anymore than I'd blame all pegasi if one pushed me over. At one level, it's hard to blame the one who actually did it in that old case, perhaps the blame falls on those ponies who were unwilling to care for him as a foal just because he was a slightly different shape. You could even go back further and blame the Earth for letting them do it. Blame doesn't help anyone, that's what forgiveness is for. That's what really heals problems, not revenge or separation from the problem."

Lavender sighed, clearly getting the subtext of his words and the story. "Forgiving someone who doesn't want it doesn't help though," she grumbled. "I can't really get revenge, at least getting away from the problem means I don't have to have it."

"True, but it usually means you end up with harder problems. That's what you end up with if you're alone. If where you live isn't right, fight to change it in the proper way, so you won't end up on a road with nopony around to help you. But tomorrow, you'll get to appear from beyond the grave with as many stories about how strong and dependable you are to share with your peers as you can remember or imagine." He said with a grin.

She sighed, never being one to want to be the center of attention, it didn't feel like any of her adventures would actually improve how other pegasi saw her. "Wait, what do you mean tomorrow? I thought it was going to take several days to get there!" she said in alarm, hissing her words as she tried to not yell them.

"Oh yeah. It will, if the city doesn't send some pegasi to chariot you back sooner, which might not happen." He sounded resigned, unwilling to hold back the ruse that had somehow been slipped to him.

Lavender stood up and climbed into the wagon, suddenly realizing her short life of freedom was nearly at an end if she didn't act. It would cost her nearly everything she had found in her short time on the outside: Real friends, of a sort. Ponies who wanted her to be safe. An ordered life and education of things that really mattered. All being shredded in the wind of wings that were not hers.

Inside the wagon, her saddlebags containing her only possessions lay in a corner, clearly empty. As she frantically whipped her head around, looking for the jar of salt and scrap metal bar, Spearmint stepped inside.

"I knew you'd run as soon as the pressure came." He said sadly, stepping over to one board near the middle which he flipped up with a press of both fore-hooves, revealing in the under-compartment another set of saddlebags, this set properly sized for a young pony. He pulled the bags out and put it down in front of her, before flipping the compartment closed. "Honestly, I'm too jealous to stop you if that's what your goal in life is, but I'm not too uncaring to let you leave without a chance. There's nothing in there that isn't mine to give. If you really have to go, you have to see that you'll be hurting a lot of ponies who care for you." He stepped back to another panel, which he opened to retrieve sleeping mats and sheets. "Everypony here wants you to grow up somewhere safe, as well as all those who make it their life's work to take care of all the fillies and colts just like you."

Lavender watched as he solemnly set out the three sleeping mats, and laid down to pull a sheet over himself to keep the drafts off. "If they were the only kind of pony in this world, I would go back in an instant." she said slowly between grunts of pulling on the already loaded saddlebags, much more difficult than loading them after. She looked down at the gray colt whose dreams she was acting out, and after a hesitant moment, she leaned down to him, nearly kissing his ear. "Thanks for trusting me." was all she could think to say before peeking out the curtain, and after looking around, jumped out into the early night, and after she was sure nopony had noticed her exit, she headed off into the night on the inland road towards a moon that showed the first hints of the greatest terror of the night.

==~*~==

"What do you mean she's gone? Is this some sort of joke?" The officer yelled at Loom, who was looking unfazed from the pegasus's words, possibly due to the unicorn's extra hoof of height.

While he was large, Loom was not one to easily escalate a bad situation, always preferring calm reason over heated emotion. "This is not a joke, merely an explanation of what happened."

Repeatedly the pegasi interrogated the members of the Wander tribe, always getting the same crazy story. Being ordered out on a milk run before even having a full night's sleep due to shortages had put them all on edge, especially when it wasn't turning out to go as planned. But the witnesses they had sworn would corroborate how they had been in the company of an orange and purple pegasus at Gallopoli, and they hadn't been anywhere near Istormbul where they might have actively hampered rescue efforts, there wasn't anything that could be actively done to them without countering evidence.

While one of the trio was unfortunately selected to keep watch over the caravan with crazy claims in case for some reason they tried to flee, the others made a token sweep of the surrounding area for any sign of the filly foal who had been missing and presumed drowned for half a month. With no signs spotted by the bleary-eyed fliers, they returned to the city station to offer updates and if possible, pass out immediately after.

***

There wasn't a single part of her that didn't hurt. Hooves were all sore from walking and running all night. All her legs, doubly so. Carrying bags that felt like they doubled in weight every hour made her back feel like it was being cut in half, and her sides felt like all of her coat had been removed with sandpaper. Lungs burned from all the air she had used that night, and her stomach clenched in empty hunger. As the sun's first rays appeared, they stabbed at her eyes, killing her night vision and reminding her just how tired she was.

The grove of trees she had found offered some shelter, a hollow space out of the wind inviting her in like a five star hotel for squirrels. In the hollow, she collapsed, and finally took the time to look through the bags she had been given.

Two oilcloth pouches full of fresh water, one of which was instantly opened and drained. A bag of carrots, as well as a few paper pouches with pictures of other vegetables, probably seeds. Another cloth pouch which held the collection of black and white stones, as well as eight bits.

Finally, besides her jar of salt, she found a bundle of plain raw cloth, which she carefully unfolded in disbelief. A blank wander cloak, just a little too big to have been made specially for her, but with roughly cut and sewn wing slits, wrapped around two tiny vials, easily identifiable from the labels as lavender and spearmint oil.

After staring at the gifts she surely didn't deserve, she pulled the cloak hastily over herself, and struggled to crush the tears that slowly welled up, which eventually she sank into and slept.