The Power Of Names

by Noclipper

Nameless

Beyond the beach spread a large strip of land, mostly devoid of any large features. The plants and animals which thrived on the plains were all small or short, and many failed farms littered the land with the corpses of generations old barns and plowshares that were slowly rusting away. Everypony who had tried learned the same hard, simple fact again.

Water.

Water was in short supply, and probably always would be, as long as the city that ruled the weather for the area had any sway. They deprived the land too close to the shore of a large portion of the natural rainfall, not wanting to waste the resource that could be used to greater effect elsewhere. Once wells went dry, the meager offerings from the weather weren't enough to cure the drought for long.

This dry, but not desolate land spread inland a fair way. It would take two turns of the hourglass of trotting inland to bring an adult pony to the nearest established farm or town, while a slow walk of a filly would take two whole days, if she was going the right direction.

==~~*~~==

When the sun lowered past the far edge of the city that sprawled across the coast's sky to shine on the lower lands, the unnamed newcomer to the wildflower plains was still slowly walking inland. She was taking her time to learn the taste of each new flower, and enjoy the warm wind that Istormbul rarely contained. With so many flowers to choose from, there was no point on filling up on the substantials. Why waste time on stalks and leaves when another delicious flower was a hop away?

The vaguely salty wind whistled around her, the sound emphasizing how alone she really was. Small signs gave hints of other animals which had found a niche. Rabbits and small birds sometimes were seen in the distance, but they kept that distance, fearful of the pegasus who walked by. With a long mane, the deep purple locks billowing out in the wind looked like a tattered flag of a long lost realm buried in dry clay, and the wild things avoided the new or unusual.

Shadows stretched out ever so slowly, as if they feared they would snap, until they reached the edges of vision, and turned inside out, darkening the world. Reluctantly, the nameless filly stopped her travels, and unable to go on, stomped out a flat space of land to rest while waiting for the moon to light her way.

When the moon finally did rise, it was not the full moon of legends and songs, but the thinnest of crescents. With it much too dim to assist her sight, she lay on the grass, head turning back and forth as she got as comfortable as she could. As her eyes spent more time closed than open, she finally faded into sleep, wondering if the moon was smiling or frowning at her.

***

Dreams of a sea of ponies, all turned to bar her way. Dreams of demands she didn't understand. Dreams of being pushed out of a bed that had only just became comfortable. Her young sleeping mind obsessed over it all, the small pains being the largest she had known. She saw nopony she recognized, for in her waking life few had risen above the sea of the great other for long, quickly washed aside as other interests or responsibilities took them away.

As exhaustion waned, the cold slowly became more prevalent to the sleeping filly. Her body curled up to conserve heat, and then hours later began to shiver to make more. An afternoon of grazing only the tips of flowers didn't offer enough energy to go on like that for long, so even that did not keep her asleep until dawn.

Every muscle felt like it had been replaced with ice, except her tongue, it had become a slug instead. Thirst had not yet taken a worse toll from her, but it would soon. Hunger was no worse than any morning's, but it was also the easiest to deal with. In the darkness her steps were hesitant, not taking for granted the unseen ground. Similarly, each shadowed plant was carefully sniffed and tasted before passed or devoured.

The light in the eastern sky grew as the moon reached the opposite horizon and sank beneath the waves. Celestia's light slowly pushed back the darkness. Each color was given back to the world as the star was ever so slowly lifted into the sky. Early morning dew covered the plains, each droplet catching a speck of the sun's power, to shine like a gem as the light and the life competed for the short lived bounty of moisture.

The wandering filly never got what felt like a satisfying mouthful of water, but her grazing did manage to push back her thirst for the meantime. The sun warmed the land, helping with the chills of the night. Unfortunately, this also deprived her of more water, the morning fog rising up out of reach too soon for her thirst to be quenched completely.

The problem of water became more obvious as she walked inland. No streams could be heard when the wind calmed. She hadn't seen any pools of water, rising up from a spring or even a stagnant puddle. The low sun shone in her eyes, and rather than continue inland and be blinded, she veered to the left to follow the coastline north.

To her, the logic was impeccable. Rivers and streams flowed towards the ocean. Walking directly east would just search the same path that she already knew had no flowing water. To follow the coast, she could find standing or flowing water, and she wouldn't have to squint all morning too!

With the shine of the ocean on the western horizon as a reference point to keep her path straight, she set out at a determined trot. The day passed, and while the wild food was just as abundant as the day before, she ate sparingly, focusing on chewing up distance rather than plants. She tried to enjoy her journey across the overgrown land, but her nagging thirst let her know that the one thing that stood between her and a dream life alone on this beautiful plain, was a steady source of water.

***

The first sign that she wasn't the first pony to ever cross this land was a long ago abandoned barbwire fence, dividing two halves of otherwise identical shrub-land. The posts were sturdily anchored in the ground, but completely overgrown. Years worth of vines curled up the dead wood, which had been covered in tiny holes where insects had burrowed. The wires had stiffened and rusted over, and left only a two apple tall gap between each line, plenty of room for a smaller creature to fit, but a tight squeeze for the nameless filly, who didn't want her back and front stabbed by the tiny barbs.

The afternoon sun had baked the dead wood for only it knew how long, but the splits in the dried posts did not weaken it. A hesitant hit from her forehoof to see if she could knock it down was unfruitful, it was far too narrow a target to put her full force to use. She didn't relish the idea of getting a leg snagged by the rusty wire, and her fear held back her strength even more.

The fence reached out to the limits of her vision in both directions with no sight of a gate or break. Each post rose from the ground to much higher than her, and from her experience from her hundreds of aborted attempts at flight, she was sure even her strongest leap wouldn't clear the fence. That left only going under it.

She put off the struggle of crawling through the dirt as long as she could. She spent a good while standing in place, arching and curling her spine as little wings went through the trial of generating lift, but never quite reaching the sweet spot where a jump would become a short glide. Flowers big and small were devoured, even if they made her parched mouth feel even more thirsty. She jumped as high as she could, squinting into the distance for some kind of landmark to aim for. At the peak of her leap, on the far side of the fence, she could just make out a speck of brown that rose above the plain. After knowing where to look, she could just make out the distant building.

After settling on the decision to cross the fence, she began searching for the best place to scoot under. The undergrowth was too thick to dig a trench, but after carefully testing several posts, she found one where the lowest wire's staple was loose, allowing her to pull the wire free, allowing her to pull the wire up higher with two span's worth of slack.

Once she already had crawled halfway through, the barb painfully digging into her back taught her a lesson too late. The sharp point broke the skin on her back, the gap was still a tight squeeze, and once actually under the wire, nothing held the barbs away from her back. Backing away or trying to stand up while under the wire would just make it hurt worse. She grit her teeth in frustration, face screwed up from fighting the urge to wail. Ever so slowly, she pulled her the rest of the way along the ground, trying to flatten herself as best she could against the ground, but never getting away from the barbs. Moving sideways just let two of the points scrape her back, there wasn't enough distance between them.

Once she could stand again, she twisted up, trying to assess the damage she had caused. faint red lines showed through her dusty coat, only up near her shoulders were the scratches so bad already dried specks of blood showed. Unpleasant, but not too bad, she had suffered similar and worse from classmates, or her own carelessness.

After shaking aside her long purple mane, she licked the scratches she could reach, and then headed towards what she was now sure was some kind of a building. Hopefully it had water around and nopony to complain about her drinking until she felt sick.

***

The barn had been painted red, but so long ago that only small flecks of paint remained. Even when she got close, she still didn't smell signs of ponies, and the faint grooves in the ground which had once been trails had been reclaimed by the prevalent weeds that thrived on the dry land.

The barn door swung open with the protest of groaning rusted hinges when she pushed at the with all her strength. A hole in the damaged roof let a slanted beam of late afternoon light in, showing a floor littered with debris. Small animals had claimed corners and rafters with nests made from the scraps of straw and hay that remained after the place had been abandoned. After the pleasant fresh wind of the plains, the smells of the moldering wood and the enclosed space holding in the airs of the wild animals made her unwilling to search the building very thoroughly.

Besides the barn that had been visible from the fence, a few smaller structures came into view when she approached. Skipping out of the obviously empty barn, she turned towards the family size cabin, in a slightly less decrepit state. Its front door was closed tight, and a few sniffs at the handle suggested that nopony had opened it since it last rained, which she was suspecting was very long time ago. This door had an actual latch that was a struggle to open, taking several minutes of beating at the handle before the rust gave way.

Dust swirled in sunbeams as the door opened, air currents exploring the empty space in the sparse room. A single overturned wooden plate on the shorter foal-sized table, and a quick hop showed the second taller table was bare but for a layer of dust. A trio of cupboards on the floor by the window sat beside an unrecessed fireplace. Above long dead coals lay a blackened bar mounted into the stone, sticking out of the back of the fireplace. The free end was covered by a small crosspiece to allow easy yet secure placement of a pot.

She explored through each of the small rooms, finding bed-frames lacking mattresses, and cupboards and closets open and empty. Only after searching through a second time to be sure she hadn't missed a possible boon left behind by the previous occupants, did she find something worth taking. A pair of old saddlebags hid just outside a casual gaze, slung over a rafter in the bedroom.

Balanced precariously on one of the naked bed-frames, she reached for the bag, wings blowing up a cloud of dust to keep her from tipping off. She bit the corner and jerked at it, but the thick rough cloth caught on the bare wood of the overhanging beam, making the retrieval a long chore of shaking, pulling, letting up pressure, and trying to not fall off the narrow footholds she had and end up hanging by her teeth.

She was sure something was inside the bag now, something was bouncing around the inside of the bag. Her hopes ran wild with ideas, starting at the obvious desire of just a good drink of water, but quickly escalated into juice, jam, honey, and even coins, even though the contents made no noise when the bag shook. Finally the bags came free from the rafter beam, and she scrambled at the opening. After finding and undoing the buckle, she upturned the bag to roll out the container inside.

A tall glass bottle rolled out onto the dirt floor, and she made no move to stop its escape, simply staring at it in surprise. The bottle was large enough to fit half of her leg in, barring the opening which was so narrow a grape would have a tough time fitting though, sealed with a cork. With no label to explain what the contents in the bottle truly was, she worked the cork free with her teeth, and poured a small amount onto the small wooden plate on the foal's table, and licked it up.

Once she stopped coughing and spitting, the filly numbly pushed the cork back into the large bottle, set it upright, turned around, and pressed her face into the scratchy cloth, laughing and crying at the absurd horror of her find.

The one thing that hadn't been taken from the doomed farm was enough salt to keep a large family of ponies healthy for a year.

***

The saddlebags were usable, but looked really uncomfortable. Sized for an adult earth pony, they would drag on the ground when she wore them, and the rough fabric was sure to made her itch. Since she was alone, she couldn't even secure them properly, they slid off her back before she could figure out how to secure the chest strap. She had worked for them though, and she was determined to use them, even if her only real possession was the exact opposite of her strongest need.

She pulled the bag into the first room, and considered where to try and alter the bag to fit her. Funnily enough, the fireplace's bar that jut out was just the right height, so she took advantage of the silent offer. Rather than step into it, she slowly pulled out the ash pit, not wanting to turn the inside of the hut into a black cloud by stamping about in the powder. Reaching up to rub her foreleg against the bar, to remove some of the soot from the black iron, she found that the thick layer of soot hid its true nature. The metal under the soot was actually polished steel, which of course it had to be to support heavy pots from the single mounting in the back of the fireplace.

Shortening the bags to fit her small frame was at least doable, once she had swung them over the bar and examined how they were put together. it was simple enough to fold up each bag, and feed the strap that closed the top through the buckle on each bag's underside, originally meant for the chest strap. This kept both sides folded up, small enough for the filly to wear, and the extra distance that the chest strap had to cover meant that even it didn't drag on the ground.

After she had stepped under it and strapped it on, she tried to pull herself out from under the bar, only to realize how the cross-brace impeded her way. The step had caused a quiet scraping sound from behind her, and after the ordeal of getting the saddlebag free, dragging the bar out from the stone was easy. Nothing had actually secured the bar into the stone, but nopony had bothered to pull on what looked like a worthless piece of cast iron.

She crouched down, hopping her rear legs in the air to try and get the bar out from under the saddlebags, but it wouldn't easily slide free. She almost undid the saddlebags to get them off, but then considered that the light rod might be useful in some way, it wasn't worth the struggle of getting out of the poorly fit saddlebags to get rid of it now. As her final act in the small home, she went to the large glass container full of salt, and leaning nearly onto her side, eased it into one saddlebag.

When she exited, she left the door open so the many small places inside could be enjoyed by those who desired shelter.

***

Before she continued stubbornly onwards, she spied a final, smaller construction, and raced over in short lived joy. An open well sat in what could be the very center of the area encompassed by the long barbwire fence, maybe this was what it had been put up to protect. An open pit that was lined with a short round wall of stones stood beside a manual pump, the two ends of a lever molded in the shape of an adult sized work shoe, meant to be pumped in tandem by a pair of earth ponies.

The pump had seen better days, the lone filly was able to stand atop the higher handle, and even dared a careful hop, but her small weight wasn't enough to overpower the rust that had encased every joint of the device. She tried to peer into the well, imagining ways to get at the water below. Her thoughts wandered to a really long straw, a rope and bucket, to simply jumping in. All but the most drastic required stuff she didn't have, stuff she had never had, and she didn't really want to fall into a deep narrow pit filled with water.

With the sun low on the western horizon, she couldn't even tell how far down the water was, so she settled on the old method of dropping a rock in. It took a count of three to fall, and the small rock landed with a sharp crack upon another stone dropped down by another pony a long time ago. She weakly giggled at herself, looking at how she might have tried to take apart and fix the pump before actually checking if there was any water to acquire from this well.

***

Faint ruts where a wagon trail had once lain from the cabin to the barn was the clue on how to leave the farm easier than she had entered, but she solved it with brute force, walking along the west and north fence before she found the gate out, and looked back at the buildings, seeing the faint indentation in the ground that led right towards the buildings, easy to see with the sun on the verge of setting, casting long shadows across the ground.

As the sun started to go down, she turned back to the cabin, unwilling to give up a night of sleeping in the shelter of the dead home. As she trudged back in the setting light, she did her best to fill her stomach on the wildflowers that were all starting to taste the same.

Under the large table, with the rough saddlebags rubbing at her wings, she dreamt of itchy desert sand blowing in wild winds, and of an oasis which turned to salt when she drank from it. But her sleep was deeper than the previous night's, and was unbroken until the pre-dawn birdsong awoke her. In the darkness, painful thirst left the nameless pegasus with dry lips and the early signs of a throbbing headache. Nearly banging her head on the underside of the table, she slowly rose, stretching muscles stiffened from the cool night air that had blown in the open door.

The ground outside was wonderfully damp, and the strength of her thirst overpowered any caution she felt. She walked along the overgrown path to the farm's north gate, devouring leaves covered in the mist that had condensed upon the surface. Even the bitter leaves she sucked dry, ignoring the taste until she had leeched it dry and spat out the rather unpleasant plant. One look back at the failed farm was all she allowed herself, until she felt it was some kind of message telling her that setting out alone would just result in failure. It was a bit late to turn back now, her former home was little more than a grey smudge on the southern horizon.

Once outside the gate, the faint road faded away completely, with no single unambiguous trail to follow, she returned to her simple navigation method of keeping the rising sun on her right as she scrambled desperately across the morning plains for the short lived water. Once the mist rose away, she collapsed to catch her breath, between the short time of availability, and the sparse offering that would take far longer than she had to sate her thirst. She could do so much once she found real water. Build a shelter, bathe, collect the most delicious plants and eat like a young princess.

Of course, the easiest way to get water was in her birthright as a pegasus. Nopony thought to teach a pony who could collect and drink clouds, or just see rivers while in flight, how to collect fresh water in a dry environment. There simply was no reason to teach such impractical methods to one who would always have flight as an answer, for if flight wasn't an option, that pony would obviously have much more immediate problems than getting a drink.

Walking all day took a toll on her body, long before evening, her exertions had made her sweat out all the meager moisture she had collected that morning. She stopped walking for a moment, looking down at her legs, covered in dirt, plant matter, and soot. Tired, thirsty, and dirty. She could walk towards the shore and try and wash in the ocean, but an introspective part of her knew her thirst would tempt her into trying to drink the salt water, overriding the often repeated orders to not do so every time she had been brought to the beach.

As evening approached, hope of finding a source of water shrank. Her breathing was strained as she stubbornly used every hour of daylight to get that much farther away. She still didn't see the city as a safe place to grow up, high above the real dangers of the world. To her, the constant thirst was a large annoyance, not a serious threat.

Her legs refused to hold her for another step, even simply standing was becoming an effort that made her knees weak, so to mark the end of her day's trip, she pulled the saddlebags' securing strap loose. When she shook out of it, the metal bar also falling to the ground with a dull note as it hit the ground. Small orange wings unfolded, and slowly began the simplest movement that was promised to make her fly. Scoop down, slice up. Yet no matter how often she tried, actually keeping that pattern up and flapping several times a second always seemed out of reach.

Using the empty bags as a simple mattress was marginally preferable to the bare ground, but even in her exhausted state, sleep didn't come easily. Plans and ideas went round and round in her mind. Imagining shelters she could build, from tents to castles in the sky, trying to count the number of different plants she had encountered. Thoughts kept returning to how every problem centered around her inability to fly.

If she could fly, she could find water, on the ground or just drinking a cloud.

If she could fly, she wouldn't have fallen from the city in the first place.

If she could fly, nopony would have pushed her off.

If she could fly, they wouldn't even have been mean to her.

If she could fly, they would have been nice to her.

If she could fly, she might even have been part of a family rather than just a number in guardianship files.

If she could fly, she wouldn't even see the appeal of living alone.

***

In the dark of night, when the chill her nose with her mane, the lone filly rose to consciousness, dehydration squeezing her head like a vice. She moaned weakly, shifting on the itchy cloth. When she rolled over, one hoof reached over the edge of the bundled cloth, and she touched something cool and damp. After managing to pinch it, she tore it from the ground. she pushed the brief soothing chill to her head, before trying to rub some moisture into her parched lips.

Travelling across the wild land with a dim moon was slow and risky, but it gave her the advantage of a significantly larger window of opportunity to monotonously collect moist food. After giving up putting on the saddlebags in the darkness, she dragged the saddlebags along the ground with a foreleg, letting it slowly getting soaked in the night's condensation that lay across the plains.

When dawn came, this gave her her first real mouthful of water in days when she carefully squeezed the cloth into a large folded leaf. The faintly bitter taste was completely overpowered by the seasoning of still being desperately thirsty, but she still took the time to savor it, swishing it all around before gulping it down, and letting out a content sigh at the small moment of bliss which had cost an age of dragging and twisting the rough cloth.

As reinvigorated as she could be, she stretched out her wings and began to run through stretching routines. When she spread her small appendages out, she took time to look over each feather, as if one unseen problem was all that was keeping her grounded, and preening just the right spot would send her into an instant ascent. The sting she felt when she made a single flap of her wings down her back sent her into the air in a brief jolt of fright, but when she looked over her back, nothing caught her eye, just the faint red scratches that were still visible down her shoulders. Obviously, scabs had dried against her coat, and trying to fly would pinch her painfully as scabs pulled the tiny orange hairs.

Fortunately for her, they were in the one place that she couldn't idly scratch at, and even she knew better than to scratch a healing wound against the ground. Unfortunately, such actions wouldn't make the injury worse than it already was, even if the symptoms of her infection would not manifest for many days.

***

On a morning which left the anonymous filly in the dawn mist after a nearly sleepless night of painfully inefficient foraging of water, she decided to do something new. Between hours of licking up dew, and three times squeezing out her bag for an extra provision of water, a chore she could now do in the dark, ever-present thirst had been pushed down the list of her current desires. Her legs and sides were stained with green patches, and her mane felt matted and tangled from the many days of constant exertion. She also hoped a soak would help relieve how stiff her joints had been feeling lately, constant travel had to be why her body felt hot and aching after walking in the cool nighttime.

Stepping up to the small rise of land overlooking the narrow beach, she doffed her meager possessions, bundling up the bags and weighing them down with the light steel bar. Walking across the sand, she looked all about as she nerved herself up to step into the surf that quietly licked the sand.

Her surroundings were enough to make her feel like the only pony in the world. The sand was washed clean of pony footprints as far as she could see, and the apparent stretch to infinity of the flat sea held no ships. Even the sky was empty of the signs of civilization, except for a few thin streaks or specks of pegasi travelling across the sky.

Stepping out into the shallow surf, she walked across the submerged beach until the water was nearly tickling her high rear ankles, hyperventilating as the water gripped her. Uncomfortably past soothing coolness, the water chilled the surface of her fever, and began to numb her legs. Determined to get as much benefit from the dunking as she could before she fled to higher ground, she scrubbed at each of her legs in sequence, digging up the fine wet sand to scrub into her coat, the closest thing to soap she could find. Cleaning her sides was more difficult, and she settled for sitting in the water and awkwardly rubbing at the worst of the dirt with her even less dexterous rear hooves.

She had no way to untangle her mane, but it wasn't as dirty as the rest of her, and cleaning it wasn't worth dunking her head into the cold salty water. She opened her wings out to examine how the useless appendages had fared, and winced at how her muscles protested at the act. deciding to give them just a light wash, she curled up in the shallow surf to slowly flap her wings just under the surface.

When the next small push of the ocean on the shore rolled over her back, it felt like the water had sliced her spine open, and the shock crushed her as she struggled to get out of the water before the ocean could do it again. Once on the dry land, she shook off the cold water, and climbed off the beach, sitting down beside her bags rather than atop them. She didn't enjoy the idea of the absorbent cloth being covering in salt, even if that was half of what it had carried away from the farm. Trembling on the edge of the beach, her wings hung limply at her sides as she curled around as best she could to look at the wound on her back that had been completely ignorable up until now.

She had just assumed the deep scratch would just heal up, but her neglect and ignorance had let the wound heal over while infected, and she had managed to pull the scratch open again, letting the brine of the ocean get in to alert her to just how bad it was. With nopony else to help her, she was resigned to letting her body fight it off from the inside. She still thought all harm a pony could be infected with would heal in time.

***

As the infection deepened its hold, her already quiet civilized mind began to detach and escape from the fever, the stiffening in her joints, and the slow realization that the slow decent of health wasn't reaching a place it could start to rise from. Habits solidified into mechanical routine, the threat of hunger and thirst pushing on a body which hadn't given up the doomed fight. With no name to bind identity and mind, the anonymous filly faded to simple actions, resigned to a fate of walking along until the spark faded away like the coil of a windup toy running out of tension.

***

Sleep when noon comes, rest when it's warm. Wake to the moon high in the sky. Eat. Drink. Walk. Try to fly. Fail miserably. Keep walking. Sleep again.

***

Watch the moon slowly thicken. Learn which plants with the most water on or inside them, and tell them apart by moonlight.

***

Feel body weakening, needing to stop more often. Notice how wings spread of their own accord, unwilling to properly fold up against sides.

***

Slide through each day, numb to the growing pains in body, barely even aware of the reason why each day is spent walking north.

***

Drop to the ground as a leg painfully cramps, so strong that stretching it out cannot be done. Wait for the cramp to pass, keep on going until a different muscle has its turn.

***

Find something new in the unchanging plain. A dirt road, something still used by civilization, the packed hard dirt containing the barely remembered scent of other ponies. See nothing in either direction worth walking towards, keep heading north.

***

Slip on the small slope on the other side of the road. Roll down, dragged bag following to bounce the surprisingly resilient jar off skull. Clutch head. Whine as another painful cramp starts to form up burning back. Feel wings painfully stretch up, tips almost touching each other. Feel body convulse as more cramps form, stacking upon each other, pulling tight enough to tear muscle fibers. Hear teeth grind together from a jaw locked tight, keeping in a weak scream as the first true attack of The Rigors takes hold.

***

Hear the sound of heavy footsteps. See with blurred vision a pale figure, as tall as the sky. Make out the square jaw of a handsome stallion. Spot the modest horn atop his head. Meet his blood red eyes. Struggle to return his smile. Hear his wings flap. Think about tales of the silent prince. Accept that this is the end. Surrender the nameless shattered body. Hope next time the wings are bigger, or not there at all. Let the world fade to painless empty silence.

===

Having lived most of his long life on the road, Loom had seen enough on his travels to recognize The Rigors in full bloom, an uncommon event despite how widespread the disease vector was. Anypony with a lick of sense knew how to prevent it, and in case of accidents, there was plenty of time to find a healer before the infection's poison spread too far.

The shock of seeing the semi-conscious foal quickly faded away as he saw the uplifted, spasming wings. The possibility that she had fallen from the sky froze him in place, as the wisdom to not move a trauma victim failed to actually tell him what should be done.

After a moment where the pain wracked foal seemed to catch his eyes, and actually seemed to give a smile before another shock ran up her back. He was only able to act after her eyes closed and her expression went slack as her consciousness left. Opening the clasp of his travelling cloak which fluttered and flapped in the incessant wind, he pushed it upwards with his pale green magic, shaking it urgently far above him as he yelled for help.

The first to join him were the youngest members of his family, Watermint and her brother Spearmint. He wasn't eager for them to see the broken filly, so he stepped forward to block their view, a firm look on his face. "This is grown pony business," he started, every part of him communicating that it was not the time to be playing around and to follow his instructions. "I need you to tell your mother to come down here, and then wait in the wagon until one of us comes back."

With a resigned sigh, the more obedient Spearmint turned about, while his sister was more rebellious and observant, trying to sneak a peek at what he was trying to hide from her. Despite his good intentions, her foalish curiosity won a sight of the filly splayed out in the grass. Tears welled up in her young eyes as she jumped to the logical conclusion, and she tore off back the way she had come, wailing all the way.

When his wife did come to help, the foals were of course stuck to her, rather than actually staying at the wagon. Heather looked rather upset and confused as she approached, her daughter still wailing about a dead pony, and the young colt trailed behind, not wanting to be alone, morbid curiosity wanting to get his own look.

"I'm trying to sort yesterday's gather when Minty burst in, clinging against me like a strangling vine, yelling something about a dead body! What have you done this time?" The mature mare railed, clearly more put out by the interruption than the apparent trauma inflicted upon her daughter.

Loom rubbed his neck against his wife's in apology, before focusing on Sweetmint, touching their small unicorn horns together before draping a foreleg over her back. "Heather, please, I tried to not let her see. She's not dead, but she's in a bad state. A pegasus, looks like she's younger than ours." He hesitated before giving the last bit of the diagnosis. "And... I think she's got The Rigors. They're bad." He winced as two small faces looked at him, eager to learn even if he wasn't eager to teach.

"Hush you two." He mock growled when they asked the obvious question in the exact same tone, only slightly mollified by his grim tone. "It's complicated. All you need to know is it's not infectious, you're not in any danger. You two had immunizations a few years ago, you'll be fine until you're grown up. But you can't be in the way, your parents are going to do everything we can to get her better and back to her family." he said, trying to turn the Mints away from the pegasus.

Spearmint managed to escape to the edge of the road, and looked down the pony-high slope to the little pegasus, with the strap of a pair of saddlebags wrapped around one of the forelegs which stretched out at an unnatural angle. "That's... bad, right?" He whispered, backing up to hide behind his sister. "There's something you can make to fix her, right mom?"

Heather carefully walked down the slope, intent on getting a closer look. After managing to untangle the filly from the unusually damp and stained bags, she began to take charge. "Loom, we don't have anypony with the talent to stop this, you need to head to the city as soon as possible, and get somepony with a good healing spell. Mintmint, head back to the wagons, tell the others that we're going to be stopping early, and bring back the strecher and a blanket. As soon as she relaxes, I'll check her for injuries and judge if we can move her." She stared up at her family who stood frozen in place, as if they hadn't even heard her. "Today! Her fate is on your back, so move!" Her big beautiful mate gave a simple nod, and wrapping himself in his cloak again, the magnetic halves of the clasp clicking together. He ruffled the mane of his two treasures with a touch of his magic, the only way he manifested the family's common color of green, and set off without a moment to spare.

Loom headed down the road to the coastal city of Gallopoli, resisting the urge to do as the city suggested and head there as fast as possible. It wasn't worth getting there in half the time if he used ten times the energy and didn't have any breath left to explain what he needed. Locking in a pace, most of his mind turned away from the immediate goal, and curled up in a tight ball of worry around the small pegasus, trying to figure out how a pegasus filly, of all ponies, could be found alone at the side of the road.

Even pacing himself at a brisk trot, the unicorn simply didn't have the physical endurance of an earth pony. By the time he reached one of the city's hospitals, his undyed linen travelling cloak clung to the sweat drenched stallion. It was getting time to quietly remind Heather for yet another time that just because he was the largest pony in their group, didn't mean he could outrun any of them. His little wife was more than an apple shorter than average, but she could easily outrun him in both speed and endurance. Even his young son had the magic of the earth keeping him strong and moving long after a unicorn who had spent his entire adult life on the move ran out of steam.

It just hadn't been the time, he didn't like to go contrary to her around his foals, they always felt they had to take sides, even if they didn't grasp what the argument was about. He was willing to put off such reminders for later, when a foal's life wasn't resting on everypony's back.

A bored nurse stared up at him, pale magic wrapped about a pen which tapped the countertop. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked in a tone flat enough to make a silly metaphor about.

"No. I've got an emergency! I need a doctor," he said in a voice much louder and desperate sounding than he meant to give. "Please."

"Emergency room is that way." She pointed with the pen before returning it to tap it upon the counter again. "Have a nice day, we hope to not see you again soon." The joke had been squeezed of any humor long ago for her.

Once he actually managed to get through bureaucracy of explaining that no, he didn't need admitting, he was there to get help for somepony else, but no, he didn't have an address to send an ambulance, he was practically frantic. When they rebuked his offer to direct them there, saying that the ambulance was not a taxi service, he was stomping the tiles in restrained urges to trample through and drag a doctor all the way back with horn and teeth.

"Stop pushing me around and help me!" He yelled, tears of frustration making his red eyes shimmer in the sterile light. He knew it wasn't appropriate to be making an emotional appeal, but it was the only coin he had left. "She's so small, in so much pain..." he choked out, before resolving himself, and continued on a deceptively stronger note. "My caravan found a filly foal, and she's got The Rigors. So bad she passed out during the attack. I don't know how she caught it, or why she wasn't treated sooner, or why she was by the side of the road with nopony around to help her. What I do know is, if somepony doesn't come back and help her before she's crippled or worse, I'm going to do something stupid like try and drag a doctor who doesn't even know how to fix her back!"

Once the stunned silence of the disruption wore off, the scattered crowd returning to their own duties, a poke in the side startled him, and he turned to face the poker. "She's lucky then, to be found by such a vocal pony," a pale blue unicorn with her mane bundled up under a paper cap said. "And luckier to have him find somepony who did her thesis on treating an infection that is so rare nowadays. I'm Bubble!" She touched his hoof in greeting, but before he could give his own name, she was already walking, forcing the cloaked stallion to catch up. "I'll get what we need from stores, and then we head to the roof. I know one of the mediwings on duty, and they're never both out. One's out nearly all the time, but it takes something really serious for the reserve to go out at the same time, and even then there's a third and fourth on call somewhere in Gallopoli."

She located the storage closet, and started pulling out things at random, items floating inside what looked like soap bubbles, her magic much more controlled and precise than the typical wobbly aura that manifested for most unicorns. The items floated over her, bandages, scalpels, a thermometer, and several glass bottles with disturbingly long names on the label. As she picked up more and more items, clearly unprepared or inexperienced with fieldwork, a few of the bubbles began to pop as her concentration spread thin. "Doesn't the ambulance have all that?" he asked, pulling his cloak off and spreading it out to catch any of the jars that might fall. The question snapped her concentration away from the dozen separate containments she had been holding, and the entire collection of implements fell into the cloak.

She squeaked in alarm as she prepared to hear all the glass shattering around her, only to look at the cloak spread out taut inside a magic field stretched thin. "Some of it would be, good point. I guess I'm lucky too now, meeting a Wander who's also a unicorn, and just the right time to save me from my over eagerness." She said, pulling out the things that the first aid of the ambulance would have already packed. After finalizing her choices, she packed them into waterproofed saddlebags, and started off again at a brisk trot. Leaping up stairs, Loom barely managed to keep up.

"I... Hate... Stairs." Loom panted when he reached the final landing. The top floor's indoor area looked more like a garage, a large open area with a grid of skylights for illumination. Across the space, by what appeared to be an inner office, his new acquaintance was nuzzling at a pegasus colt. He walked over, and when the younger male noticed him, he blushed and stepped away from the affectionate filly. "Um, hello." Loom tried to fill the suddenly awkward silence. "Not that your fillyfriend gave a chance earlier, but I'm Loom Wander, and a young pegasus really needs this unicorn by her side yesterday, so can we skip the pleasantries and such until we're on our way?"

The obviously new couple managed to regain their professionalism, and quickly moved into action, Bubble strapping down her kit as her coltfriend pulled the bright red aerodynamically designed ambulance wagon out the garage door. Loom climbed in the back, then into the safety harness that she pointed to. "One of the Southeast roads, five wagons together." He instructed to give the pegasus a direction to start.

A small crystal speaker chimed to life, and a chipper colt's voice emerged. "Gotcha. We'll be there in no time, or my name is Featherbrain!"

Loom blinked at the small speaker. "I think the saying is, 'or my name isn't'." He looked up to see the filly choking back a smile.

"Um, his name is Cloudberry. I'm sure that was a joke." Bubble looked around the cramped cabin, mentally running inventory on all she'd need, doubt and worry starting to form on her face. "If... she really does have The Rigors, and it's as bad as you think they are, it's still going to be a long road to recovery. The infection itself can be cleaned out, but the real threat is that it generates a poison as a waste product, which builds up in the muscles and tendons. Either process by itself is invasive and stressful, and neither will undo damage that's already been done, " She worried through the gear, still unsure if she had everything she'd need.

The pegasus chimed in, his tone determinedly happy. "You'll do your best, if anypony can help her, it's you. I think I see your caravan now, did you put up a banner? A long yellow cloth?" He asked as he began to descend.

Loom hadn't heard his wife mention anything about a banner, but spreading out one of their trade cloths sounded like something she'd do to get attention from passing pegasi, even though the sky was empty of casual flocks. "I hope that's them, try not to land on it though!" He said with an awkward laugh. His contribution to the Wander herd was his skill at weaving with linen thread so thin only the most careful of unicorns could set up the loom, he didn't relish the idea of even the cheapest cloth being unwound in such a windy environment. "I guess we could keep it and paint a message on one side next time we need to hail down some help from the sky."

When they landed by the caravan, the line of wagons all unhitched by the side of the road, Loom climbed out of the safety harness, and opened the back of the mediwing's ambulance, grateful to be back on the ground. He stepped out, and galloped over to Heather as she emerged from her wagon. The large pony skidded as he pulled up in front of her, her grim expression making him feel dizzy with worry until she pushed up against him for a breath.

"She's still with us, we managed to move her to the cot between attacks. Nothing broken as far as I can tell, but another attack started a while ago, I was afraid to give her anything to help, all I could do was make sure the foals didn't see." She trembled against him, needing the emotional support as much as he did, and looked over to their twin foals who many wouldn't even see as siblings. They had managed to be distracted from one event with another, meeting new ponies was always enough to get their attention, especially a pegasus who had carried their father all the way from the vaguely close yet still distant city.

Bubble carried towards them a first aid kit in her teeth, while a select few items floated around her, carefully limited after realizing going back to the wagon was better than having to go all the way back to Gallopoli General for a replacement. After mumbling an incoherent question around the handle, Heather gave a small laugh, and pointed at the back door of their wagon. "I suppose talking with your mouth full isn't an art unicorns bother to master." She followed the unicorn doctor in, but couldn't comfortably find a place inside, especially when Loom tried to follow as well, and filled the entrance.

Bubble sat at the pegasus filly's head, and began a thorough diagnostic. Her eyes were closed, and the only sign the blue unicorn was doing anything was a faint rainbow shimmer around her horn, vanishing with a quiet popping sound before reappearing. Each tiny spell was a simple demand for a piece of information, shaped by her knowledge of both the pony's biology and her well known mindless enemy.

Through the silent questions, she learned that the filly had caught the infection about six days ago, that she was suffering from severe dehydration, exactly where each of the infected sites were, and the near lethal level of the toxin in her body. Considering the grimness of the situation, many of the diagnosing spells returned good news. No bones were broken. The infection wasn't deep, disinfecting probably wouldn't do too much damage to the bundle of nerves at the base of her small wings. She wouldn't be flying for a long time, but she'd keep the use of them, and with work, she'd regain the power of flight.

After she ushered out Heather and Loom, she began preparation to begin operating as soon as the cramping attack subsided. Moving her simply wasn't an option, she had to make do. Normally such an invasive procedure would have the network of overlapping spells handled by a group of unicorns, each maintaining a part of the whole, but she was on her own, and to maximize the possible future for the filly, she had to move the instant there was an opening, the poison had reached full saturation in her extremities, even a mild attack that effected her respiration could be lethal. There were risks involved if she didn't drop a breathing tube, but doing so would add new risks.

She began to tick off the spells she'd need as she brought another small selection of items to the improvised operation room. "An external barrier around us both, and another around the wound. A necrotic tissue isolator, and an isolator to keep any of the infection from slipping into the blood during extraction. A muscle relaxant so another attack won't start mid-procedure." She paused mid-step, blinked once, and then reached up to smack herself in the face. "Or to stop an attack in progress!" She yelled at her own oversight, running to the wagon, and staring in with magical intensity. In sequence, each of the cramps and spasms in the small filly weakened and faded away as she made absolutely sure each she forcibly relaxed wasn't one that kept air or blood moving.

With the filly looking a lot more peaceful, the caravan was much more willing to approach the small pegasus, and with the unicorn unable to leave her side, she was reduced to making demands rather than carrying everything herself. She did manage to think of one thing that the caravan could offer which she hadn't brought. After explaining how exhausting running half a dozen of even the simplest spells for a few hours would be, the air quickly filled with the smells of food, even if nopony else felt like eating. Several plates of fried vegetables filled her to the brim, and soon she was feeling ready to cast every spell in the book at once.

She started to build up the spells that made up a field operating room, each dedicated to keeping the area as clean as possible. For Bubble, this meant a series of shimmering spheres that slowly inflated, each directed with rules on what was and wasn't allowed to pass through the surface.

The actual operation was rather straightforward, she just needed to cut away the infected flesh. Once each site was clean, she followed with a carefully crafted healing spell to fill the area with healthy tissue and seal up. The harder part was dealing with the toxin that had slowly been poured into the filly's body. She was one of the few medical unicorns who had studied this infection's byproduct enough to have a fully formed mental image of its complex shape. So small that nopony could actually see it without crafting microscopic spells that took half a herd of unicorns, and even then the sheer density of magic distorted what was seen on that level.

Many knew the complex compound word derived from its components and how they linked together. Few truly grasped the behavior and name of the toxin. It was the difference between knowing about hydrogen monoxide, and swimming. The tiniest filter Bubble could make slowly formed, and was implanted into the filly's leg. It was nearly the size of a pea, and had a single job of trapping within it any of the toxin that still pumped through her bloodstream. More filters could have been set up, but they were difficult to maintain. Letting it slip would let the toxin back into her blood, and she had to keep cleaning the filter to prevent blockage, by extracting the collected poison out through the needle that had hydrated the filly.

Squeezing out enough of the poison from her muscles took hours, but Bubble was determined to make her useless specialty be put to use at least this once. Muscles healed easily enough, it was their nature to be strengthened by being slightly damaged and repaired. The tendons that bound muscle to bone were another matter entirely. Now that the filly was out of danger, she had a mind to be able to see how while most of the tendons in the filly's legs had stiffened and shrunk slightly, the ones nearest to the healed injury had been soaked in the poison. Bubble knew when she was beaten, she had spent hours pulling the filly away from the bony hooves, risking all that work on another operation that could be put off later was simply put, stupid.

When she emerged from the wagon, the sun shone next to its reflected twin in the ocean, slowly dropping to kiss and sink. She walked out to a small fire, surrounded by a dozen worried faces, one of them surprisingly was Cloudberry. Had he waited here all this time? She did her best to give a smile of good news, everypony breathed a sigh of relief, and the quiet tension of the group broke. Curling up by the fire under her mate's wing, she watched the sun set, talked about how to help the filly next, and listened to the grateful earth ponies who seemed to delight in talking both to and about the young couple.

===

The nameless filly rose to awareness surrounded by the scents of the plains, but strangely different, focused and filtered so only the best elements remained. She tried to move, but her body felt strangely detached. Pain was there, but didn't seem so important, and her body felt the same way about her feeble attempts to move, concentrated effort let her open an eye, and move a leg that was politely informing her that it was being sat on. The small room she was in seemed to be a box made from the wildflowers she had spent a whole week getting to know, love, and become mostly indifferent to.

In her field of vision sat a mare, intent on tying a ribbon around a bundle of wildflowers. When she looked up from her work, meeting the foal's violet eye made her gasp. After a breath, she pushed aside a grayish purple mane from her eye with her pale green foreleg, and settled down in front of the small pegasus. "I'm glad to see you're awake. You gave us quite the scare. You can call me Heather, what's your name?" She picked up the bundle, and finding the appropriate space, hung the end of the bundle's ribbon over a small peg containing more of the same flower.

The nameless opened her mouth to respond, but could only manage a tiny confused squeak. After a second squeak, she gave up trying to talk, letting her mouth close into a small frown.

"Don't worry, everything is under control, that'll wear off in no time. We even stopped moving so you can recover. You'll be back with your family in no time." She gently stroked the foal's mane, surprised at how her attempt to give the filly comforting words had caused the weak filly to tremble, again desperately trying to move. "You're safe, we'll take care of you. Just rest now, you've been through so much, the worst is over."

She picked from the wall a bundle of small bright purple flowers, and placed it near her nose, letting her inhale the sweet scent. "If you get hungry, here's a fresh bundle of lavender you can nibble, it's sweet and relaxing." she said, carefully watching the foal's muted body language. She smiled in relief when her small offer helped to relieve some of the filly's weak trembles.

A slow movement forward, and the lonely foal caught a single blossom in her mouth, bit it free, and began to slowly chew. A painfully heavy foreleg reached out to touch the pale green mare's leg, and she squeezed her eyes shut, failing to hold back tears as she gave a pleading squeak.

More than understanding, the green mare moved to the orange filly's side, and sat down close, offering soft reassuring pressure as she curled maternally around the small figure. "You smell like one of my wildflowers, I suppose we can just call you something from my cart until you can tell us what your name is. Lavender seems appropriate, considering that beautiful mane of yours," she suggested, lightly stroking the filly's tangled mane.

With a weak nod, she reached for another blossom of her new namesake.

Comments

[Dark Lightning]

D'awwwwwwwwwwwww.

It's so sad yet touching.

[Thedever]

D'awwwww
I cried when i read this

[Sundancer]

Oh my god. So good. I can't wait for a new chapter.

[MailMareDerpy]

before i even read (if i decide to read) im getting a bit tired of the scootabuse/scootaloo sad stories. i think i have read 10 or so that where around the same premise as this one im sure is.

[Noclipper]

Thanks for the comments, your words keep my words flowing.

131799

Trust me, I'm just as tired of the sad Scootaloo stories, mainly because they're either pointlessly sad, like Final Dreams, or the exact opposite, being pointlessly happy, pure emotional fic with little actual substance. This isn't a story about an angst filled Scootaloo who dies or is instantly adopted, this is Scootaloo setting out on an adventure. "Nameless" is the saddest chapter in this story, it's all uphill from here. Mostly.

[Hilltopper]

I'm looking forward to not-yet-Scoot's first sight of Rainbow Dash, myself.

[La Barata]

MOAR