Shortly after the founding of Equestria, one stallion thinks back over a conflict with another tribe.
Life for the earth ponies of this barren island is hard. A marauding band of pegasi didn't help. A drought years prior had brought out the worst of tensions between the groups on the edge of known pony territory.
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.
He woke to a gentle hum and a soothing chill resonating from his cheek. Sediment opened his eyes to see a beautiful sunrise peeking through the trees above him. His head lay on the ground, soft and warm under his mane.
The sunrise moved as Sediment looked into the fiery golden eyes.
He startled and crawled away from the figure. His hoof fell on a branch as he saw their wings twist and their body followed his movement.
In the next moment, he found his back hooves beneath him as he thrust the branch towards their chest. Sediment met the gaze of the Pegasus. The beautiful sunrise. The gentle hum. The youthful face of a mare, no older than he was.
His grip waivered.
Her hoof knocked the branch away as a wing met his shoulder and her hind leg swept behind his own. Her fetlock twisted behind his back to catch him as he felt her weight meld into his, throwing off his balance and setting him on the ground. She arched over him, a hoof laid squarely on his chest as a wing pressed under his chin.
A chuckle escaped her as she spoke “Heavens, your form is terrible.” Her hoof lifted as her wing remained, resting on the soft of his neck. “Careful now,” she chastised through a laugh, “You'll open your wound.”
The scent of fresh lavender reached his nostrils as Sediment released the tension from his shoulders. The mare’s wing inched back, hesitantly, before retracting fully as she sat next to him.
“Uh, sorry?” he mumbled.
Her wings fluttered, matching her hooves as she gesticulated along with a response. “Don’t worry about it, I felt really bad about hitting you so hard. It's sort of my first time and I couldn’t tell how fast I was going-”
Sediment looked up to the gap in the brush and the divet in the dirt along its base, resting under the rays of sunlight that poked through. She tackled them into the dry creek bed and then made a poultice as he was unconscious. Facing her again, he could hear her still talking.
“Of course I didn’t really want to come in the first place, but they said I had to come along at least once, so-”
“Why are you here?” he asked, cutting off the rambling pegasus.
“The commander said I had to.”
“No, why are you here. The pegasi.” He clarified.
“Oh, we're looking for food.”
“Let us know if you find any.”
She looked to the ground. Her wings drooped. Sediment wasn’t used to reading wings as part of body language. At least as anything other than threats of violence. She'd caught him after he'd attacked her. She didn’t have to do that.
“What’s,” his voice was tentative, unsure. He stuttered and started once more, “What's your name?”
“Cirrus Glow!” she chirped, extending a wing. He couldn't tell if she noticed his flinch. “What's yours?”
“Sedimen-” he tried to say before the sound of her balking laugh cut him off. It had a merry ring to it, and her mane flowed weightlessly as she shook her head.
After a stifled snort, she asked, “What, like dirt?”
“Yeah…” he reached out a hoof, placing it in the crook of her wing. His contact was light, but she squeezed it and gave it a brief shake.
“Pleasure to meet you, Sediment.” She chuckled before pulling her wing back and raising a hoof. She waved it in the air as if to brush a thought aside while another fit of laughter started. “That just won't do, Dirt. Have you got a nickname?”
He paused for a second, mulling over his options. Cirrus Glow didn’t seem hostile, and if she wanted to hurt him she always could have earlier, both when he was knocked out and when she countered his attack. He spoke a few moments later “The others started calling me Dim.”
A frown split her cheeks. “That sounds cruel.” The words carried the same tone as when she had chastised his risking her first aid.
“It's supposed to be endearing, I think?”
“How about Mint?” Her voice returned to its normal sing-song quality.
His heart gave a mighty beat as the stress over the thought of her dissatisfaction left him. Sediment had been unaware he'd held it until it was gone. In the momentary surprise, all he could manage to sputter out was a “Huh?”
“As a name, silly.”
“Oh.” He watched as Cirrus shook her head and closed her eyes. He looked at her with a perplexed visage. “Why are you being so…”
“So what?” she asked, straightening her posture.
“So, cheery. Friendly,” he paused as the image of the mare in the field came to mind, the glint in her hooves, “Warm. I tried to hit you. You're here to steal from us.”
Her eyes drifted past him, up to the gap in the treeline. He could still hear faint sounds of the brawl above. From the way she pursed her lips, he assumed she could hear them as well. “I'm not here to fight. They said I had to come, since I’m the age of a warrior now, but-”
“So why’d you dive at me?” An unconscious command brought a hoof to rest on his aching side. He saw one of her wings give a momentary shake as he spoke. This drew his attention enough to notice how it drooped slightly lower than the other. It had been this whole time. His question shifted, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she spat, her wings withdrawing behind her, “it's fine.” A wince of pain following the movement.
“Let me see.” Sediment ordered, offering his hoof. He tried to muster up the authority his supervisor always seemed to have at hoof.
She sat, motionless, head turned to the ground. The wing was behind her on the side opposite his view. A furtive glance met his eyes before it retreated once more.
"Cirrus..." Sediment pleaded. Before the name finished rolling off his tongue, the Pegasus had extended her wing towards him. Her head twisted down and away, as if she could ignore the situation if it was outside of her peripheral vision. "I'm not going to hurt yo-"
"You already tried to."
His body spurred the action to say Only after you did so first, but he supressed the words before they came out. The urge was brought on by an old animosity trained into him by his time on the mainland. It would accomplish nothing here.
She didn't seem like the pegasi up on the ridge. She didn't seem like the soldiers in his old home, far away from this island.
"And that was a mistake," the words came out stiffer than those he'd wanted to react with, "you were helping me and I shouldn't have done that." He gulped down a measure of pride.
It rose back changed, greater somehow as her withers softened and the profile of her face came into his view. Her eyes were closed, but the uncertainty she displayed had slipped away in part.
"We're not supposed to show weakness," she spoke, her eyes still closed, "'better one injury than two' as the commander puts it."
Sediment rested on his haunches and raised his hooves to hover inches from her outstretched wing. "I'm going to see if you've strained or broken anything," he said, gingerly placing his hooves on her feathers, "okay?"