"And this one," Arambai said, proudly holding up a silvery box with a slit on one end, "is a nifty device for cooking bread! You put a slice in at the top, and it makes it all nice and crispy, see?"
Starlight looked at the box with a slightly bored expression. "It's a toaster."
"Well... yeah..." Arambai rubbed his neck. "But nobody has toasters out here. Sometimes, reinventing the wheel is easier than dragging one in from halfway across the world!"
"So you just build appliances all the time?" Starlight asked, watching as Arambai set the toaster down next to what looked like a triangular abacus.
The stallion shrugged. "Well, I am an inventor. Science doesn't make itself happen overnight, and I like doing things for the town just as much as for my own curiosity. When I'm not out building roads or getting ponies settled in, that is. It makes for a busy life, with just enough time to do whatever I want."
"Wait..." Starlight blinked. "Getting ponies settled in? They're moving?"
Arambai rolled his eyes. "Surely you've seen at least some of the stallions moping around town. They're a bit of a quiet bunch, but not that quiet. How do you think they got stuck here?"
"I dunno," Starlight said, drooping slightly. "I never thought about it before."
"Remember what I said about Riverfall being a town of second and last chances?" Arambai walked behind her, his growly voice low. "Well, every time some poor stallion up in Sosa gets so sick of their situation that they're ready to leave, this is where they end up. There are two kinds of stallions in Riverfall... ones who were born here and never got out before the boats stopped, and refugees."
"Does that make you..." Starlight trailed off, voice hesitant.
"A Sosan? Well." Arambai hung his head, grinning sadly. "I like to think of myself that way. A lot of the ponies back there probably think of me anywhere from a genius and prophet to a coward and a traitor. Don't ask what I did, or why I left. I think I've earned the right to my silence by not pressing you for where you're from. After all, we both know you're not from Ironridge."
Starlight had known that was coming for a while, but it still felt like she had been slapped in the face with a fish. "H-How did you know?" she stammered, fighting to retain her composure.
"It's simple," he said, closing his eyes and leaning against a wall of boxes. "Just like how it's all mares in Riverfall, Sosa is a male-dominated society. Most of the ponies who call themselves that don't actually live there, see. It's all commuters... and they and their families live elsewhere. A cute little filly like you shouldn't have had any reason to run away, and if you did, your dad would already be here by now." He raised an eyebrow. "And I'd know about you. Hope I didn't spill the beans to miss Amber, by the way."
"That I'm not from there? She already knows," Starlight said, gulping.
"Good..." Arambai sighed, whistling slightly. "I couldn't tell if it was an act you were putting on or not. Any Sosan here would be able to see right through it, if it was."
"Well..." Starlight scuffed at the ground. "I don't want ponies to know where I'm from..."
"Should'a told me earlier," Arambai grumbled. "Now I'll have to make up an alibi for you on the fly. Oh well. Not many ponies here will care, either way..."
"What's the difference between Sosa and Ironridge?" Starlight suddenly asked. "Everyone talks about them like they're the same thing, and I couldn't tell..."
"Mmmm! Right!" Arambai straightened up. "Obviously wouldn't hurt for you to know a bit about the city, if you want to pretend you're from it. I assume you know nothing?"
Starlight nodded.
"Right..." The yellow stallion let his gaze wander, searching for a place to begin. "Ironridge is built into the side of a mountain, you see, which means the terrain changes a lot in a very small amount of distance. So they divided the thing up into districts... There are seven of them, but only four that really matter. The Sky District, Stone District, Earth District and Steel District."
He cleared his throat before continuing. "Sky District's up at the peaks of the mountains. All snow and ice and stuff ponies weren't meant to have to live next to. Then you've got the Stone District, which is the part on the mountainside. Very nice climate, lots of ponies live there. Below that, in the jungle basin, you've got the Earth District. That's where fruit and crops are grown, and where a bunch more ponies live. And finally, you've got the Steel District, which is on the edge of the river. Mostly a bunch of factories and warehouses, these days. Anyhow, the Steel District calls themselves Sosa."
"Huh." Arambai's explanation had been surprisingly simple. Starlight had expected there to be more to it than that. "So what happened to them?"
"You mean, what started this whole 'no more boats' thing?" Arambai smirked wryly. "Well... isn't that a story. What happened was airships." He gazed out across the teleporter dais, eyes wandering across walls of equipment. "In the olden days, the Yule river was the only way in or out of Ironridge, short of trekking hundreds upon hundreds of miles through wildlands full of shattered stone and inhospitable forests. Forget about building a road across that. Would have been impossible..."
The manalights glowing overhead flickered as he talked. "Sosa prided themselves on being the gateway to Ironridge. They were majestic, and had everything going for them. The city was a major exporter, and they were the welcome wagon for traders from all over the world... and traders themselves. They built boats specially designed to handle both the waters of the Yule and the open ocean to the east, until they mastered their craft and came to rule the waterways. Sosa was everything."
"So when airships came," Amber added, having sat quietly for some time, "that stopped?"
"More or less," Arambai said, stretching. "When they were first invented, nopony batted an eyelid. Then they got better, and the bigger ones started packing enough fuel to make it there from Yakyakistan under good weather. After that, they started reaching the cities in the north... Everything really went downhill when they started building a skyport in the Sky District. That place had a refueling station, doubling the distance ships could travel. Suddenly, they could bring cheaper ships, with more room for cargo. It was a blow Sosa wasn't able to handle."
Starlight's ears folded. She knew plenty about forced, external change. "What happened?"
"The Sky District became the new gateway to Ironridge," Arambai said simply. "The Stone District prospered, and so did the Earth District. Most Sosans live in the Earth District, at that. The city's doing better than ever, and everyone's well off... but sometimes, survival isn't enough for a pony, you know?" He raised a knowing eyebrow. "The Sosans were crushed. They lost their purpose, drifting along on a rising tide, completely powerless to do anything. Funny, then, how the ones so desperate to have some say in their lives that they'd leave their families and run away found themselves here, where there's even less they can do to be relevant in the world."
"So now what do they do?" Amber asked, voice subdued.
"Exist? Survive? Don't look at me," Arambai said with a shrug. "I got out early. It's the others you should ask if you want to know what it's like now... but don't expect them to tell you. I may have asked them when they came here not to be downers all the time. You Riverfall mares are so bubbly, and who'd want to depress that?"
Starlight got the distinct feeling that that was the end of the story. Sighing through her nose, she stared straight ahead, focusing and unfocusing her eyes, trying to think of what to say next... if anything.
Her eyes fell on a silver, metal pendant hanging from a strap that had been looped around the corner of a box. It was triangular in shape, with another upside-down triangle inscribed in the center, dividing it into four smaller triangles... or perhaps three, with a hole in the middle. "What's that?"
"Huh? Oh, this?" Arambai walked over and picked the amulet up with a single hoof. "This is a keepsake a friend made me to remember them by. Beats me if it means anything. Probably some sort of personal crest. But it's got a lot of memories attached to it..." He sighed wistfully. "I should put this somewhere safer. Don't want it getting scratched or buried."
"While you go do that," Amber said, stepping in, "we might have to get going. It's probably getting dark out, and I didn't tell Maple when to expect us back."
"Have to leave so soon, eh?" Arambai's face fell in disappointment. "Well, it was interesting talking to you, even if I'm the one who did most of the talking. I have a tendency to ramble sometimes. You should interrupt me more!" He gave a brief, growly laugh. "Probably comes with the whole quiet treatment I give the village most of the time. Don't forget to gossip about those pegasi, now."
Amber giggled. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. Bye now!"
"Hold up!" Arambai raised his voice, giving Amber and Starlight pause. "I've got something for you, kid. Here. Take this."
In his darkly colored aura, he extended a thin book towards Starlight. She took it in her hooves, eying it uncertainly. "What's in here?"
"That," Arambai explained, "is a bit of a textbook. If you ever feel like taking me up on my offer, or at least want to see if you're cut out for this stuff, or even are just bored, give that a read. It's got some of the basics in regarding mana tech and how that relates to pony magic."
Starlight shrugged, stuffing it in her saddlebags. "Okay. Thanks."
"Right, then. Have fun, you two!" Arambai waved as they walked up the stairs. "Ahhhh..."
Maple's door clattered open, a panting Amber stepping through from the dim twilight haze into the now-closed store, Starlight clinging to her back. "Hello?" Amber called, glancing around the dark, unlit room. "Girls, you still here? We're back!"
"We're up here," Willow's voice called, drifting down the staircase.
Amber smirked and began to climb. "Right you are. We had a pretty fun time down at old Arambai's. Got to test out this sweet machine that takes a piece of bread and..." She stopped in her tracks at the top of the staircase, looking across the dimly-lit upper room to where her friends sat at the table. "Maple?" she asked, a hint of concern in her voice. "Are you crying?"
Maple sniffed, eyes slightly red. Willow was presently right next to her, one foreleg draped around her back. The silvery mare answered for her friend. "We were talking about Aspen."
Amber's enthusiasm immediately vanished, and she let Starlight slide off her back. "Oh."
As Maple scrubbed at her eyes, trying to compose herself, Starlight asked, "Who's Aspen?"
Willow ignored her for once. "Since it almost came up earlier, and Starlight decided to trust us with where she was from, I asked Maple if she wanted to tell her this. We had a talk about it."
"And what did you decide?" Amber asked, stepping forward.
"Well..." Maple sniffed again, clearing her throat. "I'm probably going to cry again, but... Starlight? Would you like to hear a story?"
Starlight was slightly taken aback by the mood in the house, to the point where she almost suspected it would be polite to refuse the mare. It felt as if every pony she met that day just wanted her to listen to them, and she had to remind herself that she had done plenty of talking of her own that day. Was that what her life in Riverfall would be? A pony who wandered around, listening to tales? It was like the opposite of a bard. Inwardly, she shrugged. It couldn't hurt to try...
"Sure, I guess." Starlight nodded, and waited for the story to begin.