Selvage Reach

by SymphonicSync

The Rain Never Bothered Him

Sediment crouched under a low hanging branch and crept past through a small gap in the bushes. There was a bare patch of earth below him, a place that the grass would not grow without the kindness of the sunlight, blocked by the trees overhead. He knew why that bare patch lay there, streaking down the bank. He was why, with some help of course.

Sliding down the short slope, Sediment came to rest beside a gentle brook. For the longest time, the creek had been dry. It’d found new life, alongside the rest of the fledgling nation, a few months prior.

He cantered over to the bed of wildflowers he’d been tending since long before the water flowed once more. The rest of the Reach had taken a while to come around to believing, much less accepting that an alliance had been formed with the other races. Too many of the older stallions remembered what they’d experienced at the hooves of the unicorns and pegasi. Pulling up some weeds, Sediment paused and brushed the sunken fur over his cheek, lightly warped by the scar it hid beneath.

It had been three years since the last flight of raiders had descended on Selvage Reach. A time of drought, brought on by their own neglect, had pushed the fringe Pegasus clan to attack the colony in search of food. He’d never forget the day the feathers fell from the sky. It had changed his life.

His heart beat faster as he waited for them to fall once more.

---

Selvage Reach was a harsh and inhospitable place. It had claimed homestead for a forlorn troupe of earth ponies, some aged rosins resigned to leave life a soft memory. Others were only halfway on their journey and wronged by fate in being sent to the island in search of fortune or penitence. And then there were the budding youth, hardly stallions, that called the Reach their home because nowhere else in the world would allow the title. Their seniors hoped they would find a better lot in life even as they bore the same duties.

Sediment was one such pony, fresh out of his colthood years. This, along with many of the arrivals to the Reach, was his first time working the harvest. The older stallions wore distressed faces as they gathered up their tools and made their way to the fields.

They, unlike he and his peers, knew what was likely to come.

The shift leader picked up a horn and slung it over his withers. Sediment watched this as he collected a shovel and inquired “What's that for, boss?”

With weary eyes, the stallion looked to him and instructed “Just get to work, son. We won't have all day.” Sediment moved to trot away but was interrupted by the leader’s words. “Dim. Be quick, okay?”

The words held a mix of reprimand, which Sediment had come to expect from his superior over the past week, but also carried a tone of worry that he couldn’t quite place.

“Okay.” He answered, bracing his tools and going on his way.

---

It was under the beating sun, amid the arid heat, that Sediment felt the first shock. A plume of dirt erupted from where his spade struck the earth, blasting chunks into his eyes and mouth as he was propelled backwards. Stumbling to the ground, he heard the sound of the horn and the voice of the shift leader calling out “GET TO THE SHELTERS.”

A shaky hoof rubbed at his eyes as he tried to blink them clear. More rocks pelted his fur as he felt the ground shaking below him. He rose from the ground, using the shaft of his shovel to pick himself up. It had been snapped in half. Through blurred eyes, Sediment surveilled the field around him.

Stallions were falling over and sprinting through the eruptions of soil. He could hear muffled yells and grunts being cut off midway from all around him.

That was when he saw them.

Flashes of color moving through the chaos. Reflections of the sky in the midst of the ground. They mixed with the dull coats of his fellows as they fell to the ground in bursts of movement. Sunlight glittered as a trim of their figure, complimented by the sound of metal scraping against itself.

Turning his head, he saw a stationary shard of a cloud standing where he had been moments earlier. He blinked, and the form of a mare came to his vision as their wings unfurled.

With a whoosh, the Pegasus speed towards him, a glint of steel coming from where their hooves ended. Sediment fell backwards as a flash of pain rolled off his cheek. He heard a yelp as he forced open his eyes and looked to the source.

A few feet away laid the shift leader, folding one of the mare's forehoof behind their wings. On the ground next to them was a knife, trickled with blood.

He’d tackled her off her course.

Sediment saw the stallion’s lips move and heard a muffled “Run!” through his dazed state. Then his boss’s form disappeared as a wing bashed him to the side and the mare rolled over him, grasping the knife once more.

Another cascade of dirt hit Sediment in the face from a comet striking the ground between them. He rushed to stand and turned to face the settlement across the field behind him.

Sediment ran, sprinted, as fast as he could. He had only moments to react to the sudden change of the clouds above him before they became plumes of dirt rising up from the ground around him. He bobbed and weaved between them as best he could, his path drifting toward the edge of the field and the long dry creek that framed it.

He failed to notice the blur to his side until it met his withers and launched him through the brush. His hide tore through branches, leaves and roots as he tumbled into the dry creek bed below.

Sediment's body ached as his vision faded to black.