Wagons of the Wander Tribe were built to be as light as possible, while still being able to carry the upper limit of a single earth pony's pulling power. With a base resembling a large cart with a false floor, and a cover made from waterproofed cloth which was strapped over a skeleton of sapling trunks, they multi-tasked as many things, a storage space, a small workshop, a place to sleep, and in an emergency, an operating room. With the covers and frame removable, they also served as a way to store unwieldy tent poles, unused poles becoming redundant parts of the wagon's rib cage.
Trade caravans had the advantage of being able to specialize the wagons further, allowing some of the wagons to be primary storage for some trade goods or travelling supplies. If they transported items that water would damage, that wagon could be excepted from the need to carry its share of the water, and remove the risk a single wagon would have to carry. By giving young ponies a place to sleep that was mobile, the older ponies were able to travel for longer periods without having to worry about leaving somepony behind.
The wagon became an extension of all the ponies around it, making it far more valuable than any trade good it could ever carry.
==~~*~~==
When she woke up, she was alone again, the green mare hadn't stayed around after all. It almost felt like a dream, the way she had been almost completely unable to move. Her body still protested when she moved; standing up on the small cot which she found herself on was a struggle. When she saw the small dish and mug at the edge, she was more than happy to delay her escape from her confines.
The small meal consisted of a few small boiled and spiced potatoes, as well as a pickled carrot and cucumber on the side. Simple fare, but after a long time without a single vegetable, the meal was a wonderful change from her days and nights of eating low calorie plants that needed to be chewed for ages. The potatoes melted in her mouth, and the way the vinegar soaked into the carrot and cucumber bit at her tongue while they crunched and snapped made her savor each piece, her world briefly fading to the first real food she had eaten since she landed. The mug was drained in only a few gulps, but it was so much cleaner than what she had barely gotten by on for weeks, she slightly regretted drinking the whole thing in one breath.
She sat down on her haunches, forehooves rubbing at rear legs. All her muscles ached, and most of her joints felt weird as she moved, things inside resisted when she moved around. She couldn't quite straighten out her limbs, and when they were curled up, parts of the leg which hadn't complained before began to ache. Her few possessions were missing, the small floorspace was bare apart from the mattress, and the long poles that arched overhead contained a few hundred hooks, nearly all of them containing a bundle of a picked plant, but none of the spaces contained the dirty stained saddlebags.
Indecision on what to do next left her paralyzed, especially after she thought back through her patchwork of recent memories with a clear head. There had been so much pain she had been wishing for death. He had come for her, glowing red eyes in a stallion as big as the sky. Yet, here she was, mostly intact. She didn't feel dead. She was still a thinking, feeling filly, not a zombie pony. She still saw her own palette, if faded from dirt and grass, so she probably hadn't dropped back into a new body, if such a thing was even possible. Somehow, she had cheated death. A little foal had somehow scared off a nameless horror. The idea was so ridiculous, she began to laugh.
Her weak giggles broke off into a scream when the white stallion stepped through the door, horn glowing green. Scrabbling off the cot, she stumbled away from the doorway which he filled, scowling at her impunity to have thought she, a tiny filly, could cheat him. Her hooves scratched at the back wall made of a thick cloth, trying to find, or make a doorway out.
"Woah there, calm down!" He stepped all the way up into the room, dropping the bowl of warm soup he had been carrying over to have as lunch while he took a turn watching over the recovering pegasus. The filly was in a mindless panic now, ineffectively digging at the back wall with her hooves as she looked around wildly for an avenue of escape. Not one for confrontation, the large stallion decided that retreating to let her calm down was the best option, so he carefully backed out of the small room, and once he was clear of the doorway, a frantic orange and purple blur made a break for it.
She didn't quite have her legs figured out, unable to stretch them out for a proper, fully supported landing. Rather than hitting the ground running, she hit the ground like a sandbag. Legs collapsed up as she landed heavily on still bent joints, unable to properly support the touchdown. The breath was knocked out of her lungs, and the burst of energy from her fear ran out as she wheezed on the ground. Looking around to meet her doom head on, she saw nothing but a small covered wagon that she had bolted out of, and the empty road.
"Where'd he go?" She asked the empty road, her voice a broken note. The first real words she had bothered and managed to say since she had set off away from Istormbul. "Talking to yourself, seeing imaginary ponies, you're going crazy Lavender." She muttered as she rose off the ground. After she actually heard what she had called herself, the fuzzy memory rose closer into focus. Having seen the wagon's inside while much more lucidity, it was clear that the mare who had held her was more than just a dream. Unless her mind was really starting to drop her into delusions mixed between her fears and desires, which was starting to feel like the case.
As she walked back up to the wagon, and around it to see a whole line of similarly constructed wagons, each made from faded cloth tacked down to a wooden frame, Lavender heard the distant rhythm of a quick trot. Before she could move to hide, a small green mare appeared from between two of the far wagons, saw the pegasus, and ran the remaining distance.
Heather was on the small side for an adult mare, so while she could still tower over the foal, she was also able to drop to the same level without the position looking awkward. "What's wrong? I heard somepony screaming like she was on fire!" She looked over the foal with experienced diagnostic eyes; the pegasus was clearly struggling to stand, but didn't seem to be in any serious pain. She was practically gasping for breath, but it was slowing as she calmed down.
After the foal had enough air to recover, she managed to explain in a whisper, not really trusting her voice to hold on anything louder. "I thought I saw... something." She finished lamely, she really didn't feel like saying she was hallucinating a ponified embodiment of death. "Where am I?" she asked, and realizing questions would be the best way to change the subject, piled on as many as she could. "Who are you? What's all the wagons for? Where are you going? Do you have any more water? Why am I--" her questions were cut off by Heather as she touched at the foal's neck, a simple gesture of reassurance.
"There is plenty of time for all those questions, you've been through a very close call, and I and others had to take rather drastic measures to save you," she admonished. "We've tried to locate your family so they could be here when you woke up, but none of the farms nearby recognised your description, and nopony in Gallopoli has reported you missing." She sighed, looking down at the small foal who had dropped into her life.
She had appeared with a tangled mane and tail, and a salt encrusted, grass stained coat, and the few bizarre items that had been found by her. Heather wasn't sure exactly what to think about what had led her to be dying in a ditch, but the outlines of the shape of the problem hinted about something grim, and forcing the foal to fill in the details might not be the best idea at the moment; so she asked a simple question that could help them both, and hopefully not harm the shell shocked pegasus. "Is there anypony you want us to contact? We know a pegasus, he was too busy with his own job to search with us for your home, but he'd be able to get a message to a cloud town, if that's where your family lives."
The pegasus turned briefly to look at the southern sky, as cloudless as ever from diligent weather wardens taking the rain inland, and the clouds of her former home far over the horizon. After a silent beat, she answered. "No. Just me. Sorry for wasting your time."
Heather showed a small frown of pity as she followed the foal's gaze, smoothing back over as the orange foal turned back to their quiet conversation. "That's all right. There should still be some soup left from this morning if my ever hungry twins were stopped from finishing the pot." She took a step back and beckoned.
The two ponies slowly walked around the wagons to reveal a small group of ponies sitting around a campfire, with a frame holding a pot high above the fire to keep the contents warm. Each of the ponies wore a bright cloak, the same pale yellow with vague patches upon the cloth. Once she noticed the pattern, she paid attention to the cloak over the back of small green mare, and saw how each patch sewed onto the raw cloth was a simple embroidered image.
Varying in size from as small as a foal's hoofprint to a few as big as an adult's cutie mark, they seemed carefully arranged. A matching pair on the cloak's flanks showed a bundle of flowers, presumably they were heather. Behind them at the rear edge of the cloak, a pair of other symbols intertwined, a small tree grew from the flat iron of an anvil. Along each edge up her sides, smaller patches contained far simpler embroidered images, many difficult at first to make out what they were supposed to be. Up at the collar, somewhat obscured by her fading pink mane, a pair of empty patches could be seen, one plain grey, the other a greenish blue.
Before she could ask about the patches, one of the by the campfire saw them, and cheered a welcome. Once they all saw her up and walking, they wasted no time ushering her over to sit upwind from the fire, just close enough to feel the suggestion of warmth. The surrounding coals showed it had shrunk from a big cooking fire, to a single log covered in discarded plant material. Some of the ponies tossed in the bits as they sorted plants collected by the others walking around the nearby land.
She looked at each of the kind faces around the campfire, and for a moment, was able to show a pure smile, happy to find a place that wanted her. Until she saw the red eyes of her now habitual phantom terror, startling her out of any feeling of peace she had, and she scrabbled backward across the ground. When she backed into another pony, the spell was broken as she looked for Heather for defence rather than blindly flee. After a moment, the mare was located, nuzzling up against the apparition, even though he was an apple taller than any of the other ponies around, and towered over her.
Heather turned at the protest to see the small pegasus untangling herself from a scattered pile of gatherings, her wings desperately fluttering in the small arc of movement available to them. "Calm down silly filly, you're going to hurt yourself if you keep up like that." She teased and scolded with a light tone to show there was no hard feelings about the small mess the burst of panic had caused.
The pale stallion sunk down by the fire, just out of the stream of smoke being spun out by the wind. "Every time she looks at me she's scared sideways!" He exclaimed like the 'she' wasn't even there. "That's what all the fuss was about, she was awake when I checked on her, and she just started screaming. I came back to the fire to get you to figure it out, seems like we were two ships in the night missing each other like that." He sighed, and sulkily ladled out himself another serving of the soup pot's contents.
Heather blinked, wondering if it was really that simple. She looked down at the surprised filly, who's emotions hadn't quite returned to level, but had been twisted away from mindless terror. "Did he do something to scare you?" she asked, trying to hold back a laugh. "I'll have you know, he's the biggest softie in Equestria. He's harmless!" Perhaps she was going a bit far, as seen by his little sulk deepening briefly.
When she had calmed down enough to help regroup the pile of assorted flowers and herbs, the lavender maned pegasus managed to give a slightly confused explanation on how the last thing she had seen when passing out from the pain had reminded her of some stories of a hidden alicorn who came to take the dead away, and when he had shown up after she had woken up completely, it terrified her, still linking him to the embodiment of mortality.
They all had a good laugh over that, to the point where he even briefly pulled off his cloak to confirm he most definitely didn't have a secret pair of wings. His cutie mark was seen to be a simple loom shuttle with a free thread wandering from the spool, and he graciously introduced himself as Loom Wander. After he replace the garment, he offered a bowl of the soup up in a bowl wrapped a bubble of his simple magic. She was more than happy to accept it, even if she had just eaten.
As she drank the liquid, more interested in the hydration than the bits that floated around in it, the familiar couple related a simplified account of how they had found her. After it was made apparent that the pegasus had no knowledge of The Rigors, they also taught her about the affliction, and just how bad it could have been. They were more than willing to scare her to get into her head that she was not immune to it now. An untreated injury in the outdoors could start the cycle all over again, and it would probably happen faster if it was left untreated a second time. When they had exhausted that topic, the dead air was left open, only the wind whispering around, and the mismatched couple patiently watched the pegasus, as if waiting for an explanation.
Lavender drank the rest of the liquid, leaving at the bottom the peas, bits of tomato, and other less identifiable vegetables. She sighed, looking up to the pair who had literally saved her life, but didn't demand anything in return, except perhaps an explanation. Even that request was only suggested at, as if they wanted to know, but weren't willing to force it from an unwilling foal. They were willing to listen to her story on her terms, rather than interrogate her for the details they thought more important.
"Um, thanks for, well, everything." She started poorly, but Loom simply nodded and smiled, silently accepting the nervous gratitude. "Something like ten days ago, I'm not sure exactly, bad, stupid stuff happened. Nothing as bad as The Rigors, but she, um, it, pushed me over the edge. I just wanted to be alone, and this place let me." she gestured around at the plains, now dotted with a few small groups of ponies in the distance, wandering and talking as they gathered the wild plants. "I got scratched when getting under a wire fence, I was really thirsty, and I thought that maybe the place had water, but the farm had nopony. They were all gone. There was a well, but it was empty. All I could find was a useless jar of salt and a loose bar from the fireplace. I thought I could use it to make a tent once I found water." She scuffed at the dirt, not needing to say such a plan had failed completely. "By the time I realized that something was really wrong, nopony was around, and these useless things couldn't get me anywhere else." She grumbled the last words, looking over her shoulder at the small wings on her back, still stuck up at the funny angle.
When it became apparent that she didn't have anything else she wanted to say, her drained soup bowl floated up from in front of her. Another few ladles of the simple meal were deposited, and it returned to the thirsty pegasus, who eagerly began to drink. Loom smiled broadly, glad to see his distraction gambit had worked, he didn't like seeing her angsting over wings that didn't work. "I'm sure you've got plenty of questions, and we're always willing to share stories, but the one that is really important, need to be told the right way, when the day's nearly over. In the meantime, we're using the rest of this day gathering, we won't be setting out towards Gallopoli until the morning. I'm sure my little ponies will be heading back here soon for seconds too, they'll be glad to see you're up."
With another mention of other foals in their currently scattered group, she nervously looked at the distant ponies, trying to identify the ones they were hinting about, but none of the closer ponies were noticeably young. At least adults were usually benign in her experience, it was the ponies closer to her age who were willing to actually be outright mean back in Istormbul, so she was more than hesitant about meeting a pair of them.
Once it seemed the aforementioned ponies wouldn't be joining them soon, she tried to fill the silence with a benign question. "Um, why do you all wear those cloaks? I hated wearing--" she cut off in embarrassment, not wanting to talk about the stigmatized garment she had been forced to wear atop the clouds.
Heather gave a quirky smile, reaching up to rest a hoof on the largest cloak of the group, worn by her mate. "That, my dear, is part of the story. But it is a part that many ponies ask about, so the short version is, we're a part of the Wander Tribe, and these cloaks are what we use to signify that fact. We use them to record all the connections we build with other Wanderers, to show the Earth, and others, that we tie ourselves to those ponies, rather than places. Each of these small patches represent another Wanderer who we helped in some way, or built a connection on one of our travels, while the larger ones represent closer family." She took a sip from Loom's mostly untouched soup bowl rather than bother with the ritual of filling her own bowl. "It's more complicated than that, like usually, a cloak was made by the wearer, and most of the patches were made by the pony who displays that symbol, but that's the outline."
Heather was cut off by a high cheer from a pair of foals, who each wore a small pair of saddlebags, which were actually sewn small enough to wear comfortably. The taller of the pair skittered a bit on the slightly stilted legs of a filly during a growth spurt as she came to a halt. "You were right mother, they're all over the place!" the young filly exclaimed, her small teal horn lighting up to lift off the saddlebags from both her and the shorter colt beside her to drop them in front of her parents. One of the bags was opened to reveal a long stemmed flower which had been torn from the ground. The stem itself was so tall that if it hadn't been broken, would have easily stood as tall as the pegasus when she was upright. Currently, she had sunk down away from the fire, trying to avoid drawing attention to herself, but also blatantly eavesdropping the public conversation with her ears turned toward the mare and her growing daughter. "We got like, a hundred of them, most of them intact," she said with pride. "Should we go look for more?"
Heather sighed, and tore the thick white root from the body of the plant, and then slowly fed the long stem to the fire. "There's no fibers we can make into thread, and the actual flower isn't worth trying to choke down. When you harvest something that you don't need all of, you don't need to carry back all of the plant if you can strip it while still in the field."
"I know I know, you didn't say to get just the roots though." the turquoise unicorn muttered as she began processing the pair's collection, burning the stems and flowers and inspecting each root for signs of infestation, kicking out into the field any that had been burrowed into.
The shorter grey colt watched with a small smirk, as if he had told her that they only needed the roots a dozen times. After his sister had moved a bit away from him, he recited in a small voice, barely above a whisper.
"You can eat young roots of maiden's lace,
And the summer seeds will save her grace."
That short couplet had a rather drastic reaction on the rest of his family. His unicorn sister whirled at him, an angry blush burning all the way up to her ears. A deep laugh erupted from Loom, and was soon joined by the counter-tone of a higher laughing note of his wife. "Trying out for poetry? Or was that a shot at "making the fillies blush"? It's a fine line between love and hate if you recite about such matters." He rose to stand, and gave a pat to the short colt's mint green mane. "I'm going to go bring in what's been gathered so far, you two should introduce yourself to our quiet guest."
The twins looked around the campfire, and both instantly saw the orange foal now that they weren't focused exclusively on their own task. The twins dashed around opposite sides of the campfire, crowding into the new pony's comfort zone. The unicorn's squees of delight at she sat down made sure she got the attention first, and she grinned when she had it. "I'm so glad you're awake everypony was so quiet for days they were afraid you'd never wake up but you got better and everything's all right You're going to love the wild carrots we found nearly a hundred so far and there's so many more You should have seen father racing off to the city to find a doctor and he came back with a doctor in a flying cart Being pulled by a pegasus He's in love with the doctor He was a pegasus like you Your wings are so cute I wanted to ask to touch the other pony's wings but I was afraid the doctor would get jealous if he said..." Her words broke off as her mind outpaced her breath, and part of her realized just how crazy she sounded.
The much less talkative colt nudged the sitting filly's foreleg, and once he established eye contact, he introduced himself. "I'm Spearmint, and that's Watermint. Sorry about her." He sat down and looked at the fire which crackled weakly as it ate the refuse from the roots they had collected. After it seemed like she wasn't going to offer her own, he asked the question. "So, what's your name? Two days of calling you the pegasus is kind of rude, even if we couldn't ask."
Feeling quite torn between the two, she stretched out to just touch the warm boundary stones that defined the open fireplace, and tried again to properly straighten her forelegs out. Finally, she responded to Spearmint's question. "Lavender's a good name, right? It seems like an earth pony name though, since it's a flower." She wasn't completely sure about the name Heather had offered, but it was better than just keeping silent, or saying she didn't have a name.
"I think it's a great name, you've got a great mane to match the name. Mane name mane name may-nay-may-nay-mane!" Watermint laughed as she used her faint blue magic to tug free locks of Lavender hair from the tangle on her head. "Well, your name is good, your mane needs a bit of work. I've got a brush, that tail needs a good scrub. It's so dirty, we would have cleaned you sooner but water is hard to get on this road so we had to save it. Once we get to Gallopoli there's huge baths that everypony can use. They even have ponies who can give great massages, make your hooves feel brand new, and there's even some who do things for pegasi wings!" She paused for a moment, feeling rather like a salespony who hadn't completely studied the product. "Well, I'm not sure what exactly they do for them, but they'll make you fly better than ever, I know it!"
Lavender shook her wings, gently twisting them around, they reached the limit before they were even leveled out. "Fly better than ever. Yay." She deadpanned, but the hyperactive filly was already trotting away towards one of the wagons, presumably to get a brush. Brush plus tangled mane equals pain, every foal knew that simple equation. She turned to the twin who hadn't run off, forehooves pressing on his folded front legs as she pleaded with who she was starting to consider the normal one. "Stop her! I'll do anything!" She whined desperately.
"There are things I've learned growing up with her. The biggest thing is, if she's spending energy doing something that isn't harming me, I can't get in the way. Can you imagine how much tickling a unicorn can do? I don't have to." Spearmint shuddered, the torment of often being at the mercy of a unicorn sibling, with no overt magic of his own to defend himself, was a big part of the reason he had become the quieter, less brash twin, even with the controlling influences of their parents nearly always around. "Remind her to grab the base of your mane, that way the brush will break knot or the hair, rather than tearing off your scalp." He suggested as Watermint trotted back into sight, a brush and comb floating along beside her. Spearmint wasn't willing to take on the burden of his sister, with the chance of a small reprieve from being the pony in her focus, but he was willing and able to help turn a painful ordeal into a merely embarrassing one.
***
As the news of Lavender's awakening spread through the scattered caravan, the general mood lifted away from the morose nervousness that most of the ponies had been wrapped in. On a day that would have been perfect for finishing the last leg of the trip to the city, they had been gathering from the same area for two days in a period where few plants were worth harvesting from the ground, few flora matured this early in the season, and they were the ones which could sprout any time during the spring and summer.
With the reason for the halt gone, the gathering changed from an ineffective distraction to a welcome day of relaxation, with the ponies more willing to group up and bask in the warm sunlight and gossip or plan. The gathering ponies began to slowly build a harmony of song, with one or two voices at the focus which all the other wordless notes followed, the melody slowly shifting themes as voices joined and left the chorus.
As the sun dropped towards the horizon, the group began to converge towards the fire as its flames grew from the meal the two unicorns were beginning to feed it a dinner of firewood. Meanwhile, two young stallions she hadn't been introduced to yet cleaned the inside of the large meal pot with long brushes, carefully rinsed it, and began to prepare the final meal of the day, even though Lavender hardly felt hungry. Cleaned, diced white wild carrots went into the pot, along with a paper tube as big as Lavender's leg, which opened to clatter thousands of long thin noodles into the steel pot.
After a splash of water was poured in, Loom helped them mount the large pot above the fire, and more water was added until the small water barrel was nearly empty, and the pasta was left to rise to a boil. Stirred occasionally, the noodles and carrots were tended to while the caravan ponies drifted back to the fire, each wanting to get a bit of time with the new found foal, to share a simple story as introduction, or ask a bit about the pegasus. They were each gentle in their treatment, but even the kindest roads can wear down hooves to make walking painful.
Many of the small stories were interesting in some fashion. A passing pegasus had helped a caravan stuck in the mud each year. The third time she pulled them out of the mud, she decided to wear the cloak and go where her abilities were cherished. Since she was mother of the storyteller, many of the caravan had interacted with pegasi, and several did wear the cloak, even if they had to make a place for their wings to fit.
Others were less than boring, some talked to the foal about economic or environmental concepts she didn't even know existed. Eventually the foal or the socially blind pony gave up, letting meaningless words flow over her, or the other would make some excuse and leave after she asked for him to explain yet another strand of the conceptual web that didn't catch anything she was interested in.
A few, with awareness enough to stick to topics the foal would enjoy, but without anything more special to offer, returned to the default story to tell a foal who hadn't found her purpose. A young mare named Clover was sure she knew what her symbol would be, so she stitched a four leaf clover patch. A few days later, when looking for real four leaf clovers, her cutie mark appeared, missing the fourth leaf. She took it as a sign she had to make her own luck, and kept making her patches with four leaves, to share the luck with everypony.
When the meal had been cooked, the water was strained away, and twenty-three bowls were brought out, filled with the fresh hair-like pasta, and arranged in a large circle about the blazing fire. One pony placed atop each pile of noodle a pair of small tomatoes, already sliced in half, while Watermint share out a sprinkle of herbs and spices. Once all the preparations were complete, Heather stood, which seemed to be a signal, for all the others quieted down, giving her a silent air.
"We are all Wanderers, journeyponies who live for the road. Most of us will never be content to settle in one place, unless something changes who we are. But we are not lost, we are not cast adrift alone in the world, our homes travel as readily as we do, and we preserve every connection we make, until the next time ties can be strengthened again. Two days ago, we found somepony who was lost, somepony who was alone. Her vessel was blind and sinking. Due to my husband and children, help was found, and even though she is still recovering, we all helped her get there simply by keeping still these days." As she talked, she slowly walked around the campfire, briefly dipping into each of her travelling companion's shadows, giving them each a brief touch of acknowledgment.
When she stood upon the small shadow of Lavender, she stopped, and smiled down at the foal, no longer talking to the group as a whole. "Lavender, normally when new ponies walk a road with us, we share our first story with them after a day of travel. You've already been with us for two, but we have been with you for less than a day, or the other way around, depending on how you look at it. But you were on your own road before then, living off the bounty of the Earth, so I believe you have no need to wait another day. Will you share in this meal, and listen to the story that connects us all?"
Lavender gulped, looking away from Heather briefly to look at the circle of ponies she was part of. They each had intent expressions, as if the simple offer was far more important to them than it seemed. "Yes?" The irrational nervousness made her word a squeak. The tension mostly lifted when the small mare touched at her shoulder, and gestured to the food. Scooting forward, the foal pulled at the bowl closest to her, and tasted the mildly spiced noodles. "Um, thanks?" she asked, feeling like she was suddenly part of a rather important play, but hadn't been told her lines.
Heather nodded in appreciation, and continued to circumnavigate the group as she spoke. "A long time ago, when the ponies who first settled this land of wild magic still lived, many earth ponies struggled to thrive. Farms grew and prospered, overseen by those who connected to the Earth through apples or wheat or one of the many flora that crave the care of a pony. However, many plants will not grow in the same soil twice. Many earth ponies found an affinity to such plants, and travelled most of the time, filling saddlebags and travois with foraged plants to turn into dyes, spices, or thread. The many dangers of this land were far moreso in those times, so for safety and companionship the gatherers grouped together. When groups became large enough, the small tribes began to clash when multiple groups wanted to collect the same plants from the same area. Sometimes, the argument would last so long, with nopony able to gather without being attacked, that the roots grew too tough to eat, or valuable flowers wilted, or seeds blew away in the wind, leaving no prize for the victors.
This went on for many years, and the smaller tribes were forced to join the larger ones, lest they be pushed out of where they could gather the plants they knew. But once they grew too big, it was impossible for them to gather enough to support everypony without spreading out so thin they were vulnerable. Leaders arose, who saw the gatherers as a means to an end, rather than fellow ponies who did what they could to support themselves and their families, willing to leave behind those who weren't the very best at their work.
One of the many dispossessed ponies was a young stallion, who after being forced out of the group he had considered almost family, walked deep into a wild forest. Some say it was out of depression from having a romantic falling out with the leader, some say he was following a treasure map that he refused to share with the leader for free. Small details like that are often lost or shift as a story ages, even such an important one as this. I've heard the story told a dozen different ways, giving him many different names and palettes, so I shall stick to the bones of the tale.
Through luck or skill, he found an untouched treasure. A large clearing in the forest, where flora grew so dense that no young trees could compete for the light, and merely walking across it would crush enough rarities to trade for half a month of food for a pony. He gathered in secret, quietly trading for what he needed, eventually acquiring an old cart along with bolts of cheap linen, cheap material to hide the more valued produce.
With a cart, he didn't need to bring his harvest as often, but at the same time, he suddenly became a visibly successful pony. He had to invite other ponies to join him, for a successful pony alone was vulnerable to predators as well as others who wanted to take his success. Rather than build up his own tribe carefully, letting each new pony earn their trust, he rushed things so as much of the clearing could be foraged before the plants turned.
With promises of untouched rich lands close by, he easily collected many who were eager to make a quick small fortune. A small group set off with him to harvest as much as they could with ten days of water barrels, on condition that their leader got a share from each pony's harvest. Again, depending on who's telling the story, and if they consider him the villain or a good yet foolish pony, the size of his share varies, sometimes one or two in ten, half, or even nine parts in ten, which stretches things too far to be believed in my opinion.
Not all who had heard him joined up, most just passed it by as another pony's boasts, while some saw it as an opportunity to earn favor with a stronger tribe of gatherers. When they set out with their one cart, a few who were with them were spies with prior allegiances, while others who had been rejected trailed along behind, quietly following them. So, once the trail had been forged through the wood, and the first day of gathering had been wrapped up, another group had found the clearing.
When our hero saw the other ponies setting up camp in the forest, he began to worry. He worried about his employees being tricked, putting his forage in the wrong carts, or them simply giving them a better offer, they had no real loyalty to himself, or anypony else in the group. With the threat of ruin, he saw he hadn't made a tribe, but merely pushed together a crowd of strangers, even he wouldn't notice if another joined them.
Once he realized that fact, he was able to see a solution, taking one of the bolts of cheap cloth, he had ragged cloaks cut and tied, making sure everypony had one. He instilled fear of the others as best he could, promising the other ponies would gladly pull away their harvest without them, the other tribes would gladly take their hard work, while he knew how difficult being a pony without a place was, and so on.
The next day, What he had promised did come to pass, some tried to barge in with force or guile, but a cloakless pony was easily spotted and driven out." At that point, she stopped talking, taking a drink to let her voice recover.
Lavender, taking the long pause as a strange ending spoke up. "You wear those cloaks so you can kick out anypony that doesn't wear one?" she asked, feeling like she had missed a detail in the story. "Isn't that the exact opposite of what you just did for me?"
Heather licked her lips, and gave a small laugh. "That was why he gave them out, yes. But that's only half the story." She took another swig, and then continued to weave their tale. "The other ponies wanted to be able to harvest the clearing as well, but couldn't simply force the cloaked group out without hurting the forage as well. It didn't take long for the other ponies to see the pattern of the cloaks, and see it meant the ponies wearing them didn't really know each other. Soon newly cloaked ponies were walking into the clearing like they had just dipped into the trees.
It took awhile for the cloaked pony's leader to notice, but when he did, he wasn't sure what to do. His workforce was growing, but they weren't really working for him. When each pony filled a saddlebag, they were supposed to bring it to the cart and swap for an empty bag, but many were now taking full bags into the woods, and returning with empty bags.
To stop those who he saw as thieves, he demanded they change the way the ponies gathered, leaving their bags on the ground, and each gathering all the plants near the bags, rather than sweeping across, collecting only the plants they knew. A few ponies he was sure weren't part of the hidden enemy would then collect everypony's work, and bring it back, while he kept watching the forest for newcomers.
However, they were still able to sneak new gatherers in under the cover of darkness, and each day a larger patch of the clearing was collected from, while the cart filled much faster than he had hoped. He began to worry about being ambushed on his way back to town, especially since he was claiming a share of the harvest of many ponies who hadn't promised him anything. He began to worry about the water supplies, for even with careful rationing, what had been enough for ten days was nearly gone in five. But before he could find a solution for any of his new problems, the worst, possible, thing happened."
Each of the ponies had been awaiting this moment, and had each casually acquired a twig from the kindling. with a silent signal from Loom to synchronize them, they each loudly cracked their stick, the effect reasonably imitating a much larger piece of wood suddenly giving way. The sudden sharp sound caused the only one who wasn't in on the joke older than the sky to jump right up into it. Once the panic left her, she managed to join in with her own nervous laugh. "That wasn't funny!" she declared, even as the good humor infected her. "What happened? Did he break his leg? Lightning?"
Spearmint patted at her back to help her calm down, to show it was merely a good-spirited prank. "Nope! They had filled the cart with so much, the axle broke!" He explained with a grin. "Or somepony sabotaged the axle one night, or it was a cheap cart with a rotten axle to start with. I heard one pony say he was jumping up and down on top to fit more on." He looked over at his mother, and after seeing she had sat down to take another water break, he finished that part of the story. "It doesn't really matter why the cart broke though, the point is, there was no way a pony could could carry even their own harvest, and he thought he had a claim to several times that, even after the cart broke." The colt again looked over at Heather, who gave a little upward nod, letting him pick up the flow of the story.
With the story actually on his back now, rather than just borrowing it while Heather paused, he verbally stumbled a bit, now painfully aware everypony was focusing on him. Even though it was a story every other pony at the fire knew many different ways, it was no longer a one to one conversation. Gulp. "That's when things got kind of crazy. A few carts were pulled out of the woods, each with a few bags that had been hidden away into the forest. There was a whole lot of yelling and shoving as ponies tried to get at the pile that was under the hooves of the stallion who had found the clearing in the first place.
Then one mare climbed up onto one of the carts and spoke. She had been one of the infiltrators, but only because the only other option was to leave. Pegasi have magic of the air and the water. Unicorns have the magic of fire and the mind. Earth ponies have the deepest magic, drawn from the earth and the body. This mare had a simple talent, connected to the quiet voice of the Earth herself. When she spoke a simple truth, nopony could ignore it, or pretend the fact didn't matter. If she had spoken seven words to the dark princess, we would have an empty moon today.
"We had four days of peace, and collected more than we can carry, because we pretended to be friends." All the fighting paused as they all thought about what that meant. If four days of just gathering beside each other rather than fighting over what hadn't been picked, four months would make them better off than some farm ponies.
Gathering feels like a long chore, especially when you do it alone. Arguing or fighting feels fast, even if you're doing it for a long time, so most ponies didn't notice how so much of their time was wasted trying to push other ponies out of a field, or keep others from pushing them out. It would mean more travelling if more ponies foraged a space, but a lot of that wasted time would become more gathered plants to trade.
So everypony sat back, and let the finder sit of the pile of bags like a dragon on a hoard. Once it became clear that nopony would help him repair the broken cart, he pulled the lead poles from it, and made them into a pole drag. He put two pairs of saddlebags onto his back, another four he tied to the pole drag, and he left the rest behind. The three full tribes, as well as the ponies who had come out with the leader who had abandoned them, shared out the bags, each pony selecting a single one without looking inside from the pile, until there wasn't enough left to share out equally. The few leftover bags were emptied out over the clearing, and each pony gathered again, collecting a bit of what they wanted alongside the random picking.
After that, the groups parted ways, but they promised to keep the cloaks to show they wouldn't fight anypony who wanted to gather as well. When the cloaked ponies who shared the land, even with uncloaked ponies prospered, the idea spread, and others began to wear cloaks as well, always of undyed linen, because the cloaks were a message, not a piece of fashion. Ponies began to take pride in the cloaks, wearing them all the time, and to show who they were, they began to add patches of their symbol to the cloak, and then they gave out patches to family, friends, and anypony they made a connection with who had a cloak to sew one onto. Eventually, everypony who collected wild flax had made a cloak for themselves, and shared the wild harvest, claiming for themselves only what they already gathered up."
Watermint groaned as her brother wrapped up the story. "And that's why we don't let him tell the story." she muttered as she gave her empty bowl a flick, letting it roll back towards the fire.
"Huh? I thought it was pretty good, a bit strange how the first pony is kind of the bad guy, but that's not his fault," Lavender said, talking at her only half finished bowl.
"He forgot to even mention her name! The pony who found the clearing isn't in other stories, that's why nopony remembers his name anymore, he became the single story. Sooth Sayer has like, hundreds of stories about her, so it's impossible to forget who she was." Watermint began to rant about the perceived snub, cut off only when the only other unicorn gave a deep cough.
"I think forgetting a detail is a forgivable mistake," Loom said. "Considering he wasn't planning on finishing the tale by himself, and he tells tales so rarely, hearing even half of one makes me proud of him. The sun has set, the story has been told, the earth now sleeps, you should too." He stretched out his legs with a fake yawn, before tipping over to pretend to fall onto Heather.
"We'll be moving at dawn, to hopefully reach Gallopoli by tomorrow evening, so make sure you pick up before you get into the wagon," Heather told the siblings, before spending a few moments to give Loom a little revenge of her own. The edge of her hoof dug into his side as she pushed at his leaning body, eliciting a small yelp from the large unicorn,
Lavender slowly hobbled back towards the wagon she had woken up in, with Spearmint graciously walking beside her to be her support if she needed it. "Did you forget that story pony's name intentionally?" she asked once his sister had trotted on ahead.
The colt hummed, as if wasn't completely sure, then laughed. "I suppose I did. I never really liked the stories about her, they're mostly about ponies being crazy, with her pointing out the obvious at the end. The way she has a lot of her own stories, there's a possibility that she just snuck into the story because her special talent fit." When they reached the rear wagon, he unclasped his cloak, shook it out, and entered the wagon with it in his teeth, ready to hang up inside. in the fading light, Lavender caught a sight of what was obviously his cutie mark, even though his cloak was still blank.
"Wait a sec, your parents had blank patches for you, but you're not blank!" She protested as Spearmint disappeared inside.
Once she entered, she found there was now multiple mattresses laid out, three in a row nearly completely covering the floor, with Watermint on the one deepest from the entrance, and her brother awkwardly stepping on them as he struggled to get the cloak hung up before settling down onto his own mattress, close to the entrance and as far away from his sister as he could sleep, leaving the pegasus with the one in the middle. "Yeah, we got them two years ago now. We mostly grew up living by farms, parents didn't want to be moving around often, so we only went on short trips when other ponies wanted mom or dad's help. I brought back all sorts of plants to mom who would tell me everything I could ask. When she didn't know about a flower, I started to experiment with it. It tasted horrible, it was too small to collect fibers from, I couldn't find any part of it that made a nice color to dye cloth.
Sometime during my experiments, a spearmint plant appeared. The silly thing is, it shows the spearmint with flowers already open. Mint is valuable for the oil in their leaves, but the oil dries out when the blooms open, and its too late to gather. Last year, we collected the flax, and after we had enough, dad helped us weave it into our cloaks. This year, we're making the colored threads to make our patches, they take ages to make, and we each have five to make for starters, two for our own, and one each for parents and each other." He rested his head down onto the light mattress as he prepared to sleep. "I'm not too worried about my mark that says I'm worthless, stories are full of strange symbols that look like one thing and mean another, I'll figure it out eventually." He said quietly to himself with his eyes closed, as if he was trying to convince himself more than Lavender.
Watermint's half closed eyes reflected a bit of light, the rest of her a vague shape in the darkness. The pegasus felt more like talking than sleeping again, and so asked the unicorn if she had a watermint plant as her symbol. The two bright patches in the darkness shook side to side. "I think that one of the rules, is that only earth ponies get plants. The same day he was pulling apart flowers, I was washing newly dyed cloth with father. When I was having fun splashing around, my symbol appeared. It's a waterfall, even has a faint rainbow in it. But I haven't even seen a real waterfall yet." A small yawn was heard, and the glimmering pony eyes closed.
In the dim wagon, Lavender was left alone with her thoughts, unable to sleep as her body refused to settle after being asleep for a day, but she couldn't flee into the night to continue blindly north without disturbing the colt between her and the entrance, which now had a cloth door pulled down over it. As she rested, considering just staying up and leaving once the others fell asleep, she thought about how growing up with the twins as almost elder siblings would be like. Between the chaotic magical Watermint, and the meek, but intelligent Spearmint, neither had been actually mean to her, both welcoming in their own strange way. Their parents had been just as kind, but they felt more suspicious about her, less willing to accept her in the long term.
Part of her knew that they would gladly pass her back to the Istormbul authorities if they found where she was really from. The only thing keeping her with them was the fact no pegasi were looking for her this far out, or travelling all the way back to the city to tell about her. Silence about her past was her only defence, but even that might not be enough, until they travelled so far away not even a pegasus would connect her back to her old home.
When she heard the ponies quietly walking about outside, even when the twilight had faded, she realized that ponies were taking night watch duty, and escaping in the night seems a lot more difficult. As she drifted into chaotic dreams, her wings gave a small twitch as they went limp, the small weight lightly stretching the short tendons that wouldn't let them drop to her sides.
===
In another wagon, at the very front of the line, Heather and Loom sat by a sheet of linen paper, and a fine quill which was wrapped green magic. With no pegasus available to do a systematic search of the cloud towns where the foal might have come from, the only clue they had was rather weak, a single nervous look to the south. A letter was penned with both their words, explaining how they found the foal, and how she had developed a serious disability.
The couple were hopeful the letter would reach the right ponies, and so gave the details of their planned travels, to the east after they left the city, along with a description of the caravan, so they could be found by the air if the intended recipients took a while to receive the message. The letter described her palette and condition in detail, as well as the medical treatments that had been used on her. The only useful detail they couldn't offer was her lost name.
Once the letter was complete, folded, and sealed, they quietly held each other, each using their warm mate as emotional support as they tried to catch some sleep before their watch shift started.