//------------------------------//
// Last Grand Goodbye, One 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
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Maple hadn't had as long to prepare as some of the crew's previous feasts, and it showed in the number of dishes she had brought to the table, but not in the quality. Starlight had a plate with honeyed corn bread, bean salad and a slice of fish, and while she had a feeling the sweet bread was more supposed to go with the pineapple than the other foods, it had been long enough since she last had it that she wanted to try it again.

"Wow," Amber remarked, equally attracted to the corn. "I don't remember us having any of this since our supply from Riverfall ran out in the Empire. I guess it's not a thing they grow in the east, huh?"

"When I saw it available, I knew I had to do something." Maple shrugged. "How is it?"

"Sufficient for consumption while telling stories," Gerardo praised. "And everyone should know I take that quite seriously."

Amber leaned back in her seat. "Whew. You know, Gerardo, it's hard to believe you were one of the founding members of our party here."

Gerardo chuckled, spinning his glass on a talon. "Can you truly call it founding? We were nothing but a convergence of groups, and some of us decided to stay behind. After all, many of you had past organizations, I'm sure."

"Like the Spirit." Grenada's ears fell. "But you cannot use that to say this group does not exist, can you? We all have backgrounds of our own, yet I could not consider mine part of this same chapter in my life."

Valey thumped her stomach and belched. "Yeah, Birdo. Face it: this team here started with you, Starlight and Ironflanks hopping on a boat to Ironridge. It's been a good thing. Bet you never thought it would go this far, though, did you?"

"Indeed I didn't." Gerardo drank deeply from his punch, twiddling a feather. "Though if you really must reach back and hunt for the very beginning, that was before even my time. I was merely a wanderer who happened to be of use kicking off someone else's dream." He nodded to Maple. "I'd say the real beginning must have been whenever you met Starlight."

"Maybe it is, isn't it?" Maple shook her head. "It feels like a lifetime ago. It practically is, when I add up the years of my life and look at how much each one was worth. I've had more happen in the months I've traveled with you than all the years before them combined."

"I was there for that." Amber leaned back, smiling fondly. "Starlight, I dove into the river and fished you out. Hey, have any of you heard exactly how we first met?"

Starlight hadn't. She knew what had happened before, and she knew how she had woken up, but she had been unconscious for their very first meeting.

"Once upon a boring, lazy Riverfall afternoon, I was down by the river, doing whatever." Amber crossed her hind legs and stretched, closing her eyes in remembrance. "Now, Riverfall is on the Yule, which flows from west to east, and we all knew Ironridge was to the west. But there's a smaller river that flows north up from the mountains, and joins the Yule at the corner of town! It's a pretty laid-back place. But I was there, splashing around and enjoying the water, when one day, I saw a crate come floating down the river."

She gave everyone a serious look. "Now, remember: this river comes straight from the mountains. I've been to the source, once, or at least the waterfall basin at the bottom of the cliff, and there's nothing down that way. Total wilderness. And this is a crate? Like, something someone made. So I fish it out, pry it open, and it's full of alcohol so vintage, I couldn't even recognize it. I was impossibly confused. But I dragged it home, showed my friends, got them confused too, and all together we had no idea where it came from. So we went back to the river to see if anything else would come floating down, and started a camp-out! Took turns taking watch. All for curiosity's sake. And then, one fateful minute, we saw another..."

Amber nodded at Starlight. "And inside was the coldest, soggiest filly we had ever seen, totally passed out with a wet blanket and wet saddlebags and some water in the bottom of the crate with her. So we rushed her home and Willow nursed her back to health and that was how it all began."

Starlight folded her ears. "I tried to make the crate into a boat. But I don't think I got it watertight, and I fell off the waterfall before I was ready and barely survived the fall."

"But we got you," Maple assured, "and Willow had foals of her own already, so she asked me if I could take care of you! And that was kind of momentous for me, for a lot of personal reasons. I had spent the last two years in a very bad place, trying as hard as I could to get back on my hooves, and it really felt like the world was giving me a second chance."

"Yeah..." Amber smiled distantly. "We hung out for a bit, and showed Starlight around town. Had some good days." She raised an eyebrow at Gerardo. "And one day, we woke up to the sound of distant drums, even though it was pouring. I think? It's usually pouring in Riverfall. But that's where you came in."

"Ah, but that was a memorable arrival." Gerardo wiped his brow, as if the day's rain was still clinging to his crest and weighing it down. "I don't usually operate under contract, but Yakyakistan had promised a reward I very much desired for the land-and-sea delivery of two unmarked crates to Ironridge, and as Varsidel is ripe with bandits and lawlessness amid its perpetual warfare, I had scarcely set talon in civilization for months, save to resupply! There's a majesty to be had, for certain, when it's you and your boat and nothing else but the waves and shoreline. But when I stumbled into a town full of isolated mares who just so happened to have lacked outside contact for years, well, ha! There's nothing like telling stories to a good audience."

Amber nodded heartily. "Lucky us we had a good place to listen from. How did we even start hanging out after that? Was it Arambai?"

"It was Hemlock's crane," Maple murmured, sitting upright and balancing a plate in her lap. "It exploded when we were watching, and Starlight saved Gerardo's boat."

Gerardo winced. "Ah, that incident. I can't deny it, having your cargo imperiled when you've just spent a good number of months out of your life lugging it across continents is a slightly stress-inducing experience. Even though in hindsight, it would have been better not to deliver it at all..."

"Oh yeah. I remember that." Amber giggled. "Hey Gerardo, remember how we started showing off and doing some sort of antics together to try to get the crowds to forget about Starlight?"

"Thanks again," Starlight muttered, wondering how she would react to the same incident today. Would she save Gerardo's boat again? Certainly, and it probably wouldn't tax her horn as much either. But the crowds? She hoped the ponies of Sires Hollow would be more chill about it than Riverfall.

"Indeed I do," Gerardo replied, "and you're very welcome. Honestly, falling in with you and then Arambai... It can't have been much longer before Ironridge rose as the topic of debate."

"We wanted to go so badly," Maple added. "Like a fire that had been put out before burning all its fuel, and got relit. We had been planning on a trip ten years ago, and all that fell through..."

"And when the opportunity came?" Amber shrugged broadly. "Willow and I practically pushed you out the door so you didn't repeat the mistake we made the first time, waiting and missing our chance."

The rest of the ponies listened keenly, especially Harshwater and the others who had never been to Riverfall. "Humble beginnings," Harshwater remarked. "I thought adventures were supposed to begin with everyone meeting in a bar, or something."

"When you think about it," Gerardo muttered conspiratorially, "ours did begin with a crate of alcohol."

Everyone laughed.

"Arambai helped us sneak out of Riverfall," Maple said. "The town was so isolated, all he had was a secret midnight ferry from a dock outside of town. The night we walked out there... there was so much anticipation, we almost couldn't say goodbye." She let out a deep breath, closing her eyes. "It felt like... it was secret and solemn, like we were invited to witness something that was too special to be seen. Back then, not knowing what was on the horizon, returning to a dream we had long-since abandoned..."

Amber nodded reverently. "It was how I always imagined it would be to pull up an ancient shipwreck, or talk to someone unfathomably old. Like our dreams of adventure had sunk to the bottom of a cold river, and they were being resurrected, just for us. How do you even describe that, feeling something that used to be golden and majestic and untarnished in your mind that sank and fell away suddenly being raised again? And you see that your dream still had its old shine, and that it wasn't just a hallucination but really was that special."

"We could barely speak," Maple agreed.

"Hah," Gerardo quietly chuckled. "I've had my fair share of secretive, late-night township departures, but I could feel the energy as well. Riverfall didn't seem to be the sort of place anyone just left for no reason."

"There wasn't supposed to be a reason to leave it," Shinespark cut in, sitting well within Valey's personal space. "It was the last stop, the end of the road, the place you went when you had nowhere left to go. Arambai and I worked our hardest to make sure it would be enough, and could stay a quiet paradise where ponies could take their failures off the map and try to give one more chance to their lives."

"Sounds like a sticky line to walk between a very nice place and an oppressive one, darling."

"Felicity!?" Maple jumped, almost dropping her plate and staring at Valey. "How long have you been listening?"

Valey smugly held out the glowing sound stone. "Eh, me and Sparky got her to pick up while you were telling stories. No offense, but Birdo's really good at drawing attention."

"I can confirm that. Hello, all. Sounds like you're having quite the retelling party."

"Well, yeah, but..." Amber aggressively shrugged. "What about you? How are you doing, girl?"

Valey nodded along. "Yeah, spill the beans. Short version of the day's events: we're at Sires Hollow, and Ironflanks and Starlight are settling down and staying behind."

"Ha. Perhaps I'll be able to come visit one day." Felicity's voice was light, as though she was perpetually winded, but her spirits still sounded strong. "As for me, in the most shocking news of the year, I'm still pregnant, just like I was last time you called, and the time before that. The weather is the same as it always is, and I haven't successfully seduced any more nurses. I think they're getting wise to me, to be honest. But all things considered, I'm alive, surviving, and it's not so bad. The boredom may be dreadful, but one day it will be over and I'll be on my hooves again."

Valey bobbed her head. "Glad to hear it. Stay perky, and don't give up on those cute nurses."

"As if. But enough about me! Don't let my monotony ruin the mood. Please, go on with your reminiscing. It makes for much better listening than you know."

"Glad to know our party grows just a little bit larger." Gerardo raised his glass again in a second, silent toast. "It is a celebration of how far we've come and all we've done together, and we were just discussing our humble origins."

"Yeah, you're also dawdling." Valey rolled her eyes. "When are you gonna get to the part where I come in?" She raised an eyebrow. "You remember how you met me, right? It was pretty sweet."

Maple glanced at her and Shinespark. "Strictly speaking, I think we met Shinespark first? We got to Ironridge by boat, and walked in on one of the Spirit's staged ambushes on a weapons convoy. All I remember was learning that my cutie mark could absorb and reflect energy blasts..."

Shinespark rubbed her face with her forehooves. "That was so long ago... So many schemes that were so complicated. We had a contract to make weapons at the Sosan factories and sell them to the Defense Force in upper Ironridge, and I organized the Spirit of Sosa to attack our own convoys and steal back our weapons to keep us armed and force them to renew the contract to keep giving our ponies work..."

Valey rolled her eyes. "I mean, you can say it like that, but the less-complicated version is that you were committing insurance fraud."

Grenada gave her a dour look. "That is not a very noble way to put it."

"The ignoble thing about it is that Herman played us for fools, and kept renewing the contract after the weapons got stolen because he wanted us armed for a fight," Shinespark groaned. "But yes. We were committing insurance fraud by stealing back the weapons we were supposed to be selling to our enemies."

"Good grief. I've schemed a lot of schemes in my day, but that seems rather extreme."

Shinespark shrugged. "We had years to prepare and a delicate situation to navigate, and our ponies were low on hope more than anything else."

Valey started to growl. "Yeah, but what about after the ambush when you got to my totally impenetrable blockade?"

Shinespark groaned and shook her head. "That's a different story..."