For once, everypony had gotten up at more or less the same time, shuffling around while cleaning up camp. Garlic was busy pounding flour into sourdough biscuits, and he saw that Sour Sweet had made quick work of her morning routine, throwing her mane back into a ponytail and sashaying over.
Feeling the need to make conversation, he said, “So a few days ago we started to talk about what you’re doing when you’re not a pony, but then we fell into talking about the incident where our worlds almost got merged. So you never got to answer the question. What’s Sour Sweet really all about?”
Smacking her tongue to get rid of morning breath, Sour sat down on her haunches. “We did get distracted. Well, like I was saying, Crystal Prep is a top-notch school for good students, and I’m right up there with the best. Not quite as high as Twilight Sparkle on grades, but—“
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, right. No, not the Twilight Sparkle you know, we have a student with the same name. Had, I should say. She just transferred out. Which means that I’ll have a shot this year at top marks, at least in some subjects. But Twilight always kept to herself. And she neglected athletics. When we were together in the archery contest—“
Again Garlic interrupted. “Archery?”
“Yeah, you know, bow and arrows? Or, maybe you don’t know, because you probably wouldn’t have that sort of thing here.”
“We do. Actually, we have ice archery, which has a special element of danger, and one time at the Equestria Games…but I’m going off on a tangent again. You shoot?”
Sour looked at him, and Garlic wondered if she was going to probe deeper into his digression. But she said, “Yes. Without engaging in false modesty, I can say that I was top archer in the school. I can hit what I aim at. But that’s when I’m in my usual body.” She went through the motions of taking a shot.
“Good for you. I like sports. I like to see everypony building up their skills to do things that not just anypony can. I go to a lot of games in the park and the ball fields further up Manehattan. I used to try things like that myself, before I found my true calling.” He had finished rolling out the dough and was separating it for cooking. “Get out the butter, please, would you?”
With Sour helping to get breakfast ready, Garlic sought out his brother, who had returned first from washing up while the mares still lingered. “What’s going on?” Reggie asked.
“I’ve been thinking that we should do something nice for Sour Sweet. I was talking with her about her home life. Do you know that they still have archery in her world?”
“Ice archery?”
“No, just the regular kind. And I don’t think they do it with standing bows. The way she mimed it, I think they hold the bow in their hooves.”
Reggie shook his head. “Not hooves. Hands. Amazing. Must be much more difficult to aim.”
“Right, well, anyway, I had the idea that we could make one for her. With arrows, of course, wouldn’t be much use any other way. I think there’s some linen thread in the cart for a string, and with plenty of trees around we should be able to find some oak or maple even if we can’t find yew. Chipping rocks for arrowheads we can do too.”
“Yes, but I do see one problem, and that’s in fletching. The only feathers I see around here are going to be difficult to get away from their owners.”
Grimacing, Garlic said, “Hrm, you’ve got a point there. None of us are good enough with animals to convince a bird to give up some, and asking a pegasus to lose a feather is…well, it can’t be good. There may be some fine tree bark that would be flexible enough to use instead. In any case, you’ve convinced me that there’s something to this project. The hard part will be keeping it a secret. Although, we might let the girls in on it. Let’s see what we can gather before we get on the road.”
Hoping and predicting that the mares would take more time to get ready, the two of them trotted toward a nearby wood that was not big enough to be called a forest. With Reggie keeping one eye back to the cart, Garlic scoured the ground for a good branch. When he came back, Reggie asked, “Any luck?”
“This was the best I could find.” Garlic showed his brother the branch he had found. “It needs a lot of knife work to smooth the knots, but it’s got spring.”
“I’ve had better luck with shorter sticks for arrows. We can get maybe a dozen. But I don’t have anything to make a quiver with.”
“Well, it’s something. Maybe we can buy one of those in town. Come on, let’s stow these away in the cart before all the mares see them.”
In short order the cart was on the road again, heading west, with the materials for Garlic’s project hidden under some blankets near the front. An hour later, Garlic found an outcropping of stone and stopped the cart, pleading that he wanted to examine it. He came back with the start of a couple of arrowheads secreted away. Before noon, Reggie pulled over near a lake to drink his fill. Similar stone was found nearby. On the way back, Little stepped away from the cart.
“You never need a drink this early. You’re up to something,” she said.
“Of course I am.”
“You want to let me in on it?”
“Not particularly, but if it comes to it I might need your help. It’s really Gar’s project, something he can do for Sour Sweet.”
Little pondered. “All right. I’ll hold off for now, see how it goes. I like surprises too.”
Garlic caught their conversation, but stayed out of it. Strapping himself back into harness, he stopped focusing on completing his self-assigned task and started thinking about its success. Trotting along with the cart strapped to his back was the best way for him to fall into peaceful daydreaming. He liked pulling, but had little occasion to do so in Manehattan.
If Sour Sweet detected any of their machinations, she gave no indication of it. She seemed content to lounge in the back of the cart, almost as if she was in the same kind of reverie as Garlic was while pulling. She didn’t even say anything when they stopped, which they did frequently.
The towns were getting smaller as they made their way west, but more homey and inviting than they were in the East. Although Sour claimed to be from an area in their world called Canterlot, Garlic had gotten the impression that it was no more than a suburb. Where the other world’s princesses—or whatever royalty they had, he corrected himself—lived remained a mystery. But it was Reggie who was writing the paper, not him.
In any case, Garlic was pleased that everypony accepted seeing the towns and admiring the rustic charm. It was only a few touches, such as a more elaborate and baroque fence where a simple one would do, but it had its appeal. Even Hoof Dame, who Garlic considered a bit stuck-up despite their close friendship, described the bucolic areas with poetic praise.
What was important was that they gave him time to work. By midday he had all the burrs and knots off of the branch he had chosen, and was working it into flexibility. He found the string that he remembered being in the cart and measured a good length for holding the bow bent. Once he had the measure, he snipped several others to serve as spares. Garlic had not kept up with his archery for many years, but he knew that having spare bowstrings was essential.
Reggie had done good work as well at the cost of his own relaxation. He had the bark stripped from the arrows and had chipped twelve good arrowheads, sharpening them against his own hoof. As afternoon came to a close, with their backs to the rest of the party they made quick work of forcing the heads onto the shafts.
“I’ve got some different materials that might work for fletching,” Reggie muttered. “Tree bark seems good, but it’s hard to get properly flat. I’ve got some leaves of pine needles that look like they have the right shape, if they have enough air resistance.”
“This is where we need the pegasi to help, but of course that would spoil the surprise.” Garlic looked back to the cart, but for once they were free to speak in other than hushed tones.
They were parked outside of the largest town they had seen all day, and the ladies had gone in to have lunch. Garlic and Reggie had pled lack of hunger, and Garlic promised his brother that he would more than make up for this at supper that night.
“Let’s fletch them as best we can, and if anything Sour Sweet can correct our mistakes.”
“I agree,” Garlic said, “but leave one or two. I’m still hoping that Moon will let us use some of her feathers.”
“You ask her. I like keeping my flank un-kicked.”
“I think that we’re just about ready to present these to her. Like I said, she’s probably going to have to help finish them off, and I want to see if she likes them.”
They waited until the four mares returned from their late lunch. Garlic looked at Reggie as though expecting him to take the lead, but when nothing was said, he took a deep breath.
“Sour Sweet, we know that, however you feel about our country, you’ve got to still be missing your home a little. Of course, we can’t send you back until it’s time, but Reggie and I wanted to give you some taste of your old life. We were talking about this this morning, so here you go.”
From behind his back he pulled out the bow and the arrows. He could see in her eyes that there was an element of confusion, and he realized that by not having re-strung the bow or quivered the arrows, it didn’t look very impressive. Something along the lines of, “You got me sticks. How lovely,” was probably coming up in Sour’s throat. So to show what it was, he bent the bow and put one of the arrows across it. But realization was already dawning on her face.
“You…made me a bow and arrow? Just because I mentioned archery this morning? That’s…impressive. Good thing it wasn’t Sugarcoat who was your guest. She was on the motocross team at the Friendship Games.” Garlic didn’t understand everything she was saying, but he hadn’t heard anything bad yet. “You went through all this trouble? I’m sure one of the towns that we passed would have had—oh, but you probably wanted to make it a personal gift. Thank you.”
That was something of a shot, but the gratitude was there, and Sour showed happiness. Garlic was content.
“Actually, this may have been the perfect thing for me. Honestly, the one thing that’s been bugging me more than anything, and I’m not sure I realized this until now, is that I don’t have anything to work on. Relaxation is good, but I like spending time improving my skills. I’m glad that Reggie is helping me with my school assignment, because truth be told I’m already good at writing essays. No, correct that, I’m great at writing essays. And I’m a crack shot archer as well. But I’ve always had fingers.” She trotted up, took the bow from Garlic and strung it to his bend. Then she notched an arrow and reared on her back legs. Letting it go in a safe direction, the arrow flew maybe five meters and landed backward. “Yeah, I can definitely practice with this.”
“Great. Tonight we’ll find a camp where we can set up some targets on trees or something similar.”
“You’ve got two of the arrows that aren’t finished though.”
Garlic scratched the back of his neck. “I was thinking that maybe we could fletch them with pegasus feathers.”
Moon made herself known with a sharp intake of breath through her teeth. “Yeah, that’s…”
“That would make for a nice connection,” Sour said. “Can we just pluck them out of my wings?”
“We’ll talk about that later, pegasus to pegasus. Let’s get back on the road.”
Garlic and Reggie strapped themselves into their harnesses and pulled the cart out. Immediately they noticed that it was heavily laden.
“You ladies did a lot of shopping in town?” asked Reggie.
“We had to replenish the stock of food, since you two were busy with your project,” Little replied. “But don’t worry. Hoof Dame took charge of what we should get and picked out stuff she thought you could work with.”
Garlic was blushing redder than his usual coat color, thinking of how neglectful he’d been. “Don’t worry about it. Coming this far west, you’re not going to get the same quality as we’d have in and around Manehattan and Canterlot. Was that all you got though? It feels—“
“Ah, ah, ah! Don’t say anything more, if you please.”
He clammed up. Garlic had a good idea of where food would be packed on the cart, and as he dragged it over the dusty road, he could tell that the normally crowded back seat was even more tightly packed. He figured that the mares had a surprise of their own, and he would let it be shown in time.
It was getting easier to find desolate places where nopony would stop by. Not that they particularly minded, but their circle of friendship was mostly closed. The trees were also getting thinner, but Garlic was able to spot a place where a maple, perhaps having won the lottery of plant food, water, and sunshine, grew thick and tall at the head of a small stand.
“We’ll have good shade here for tomorrow morning,” he said. “It’ll be hotter in the day as we get farther from water. In the meantime, Sour Sweet can use the big tree to practice, if she likes.”
Garlic got to work on making supper, finding no fault in the ingredients he’d been given. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he watched Sour Sweet, using her wings to balance, aiming at the tree. When he saw that she was getting low on arrows, he galloped into the forest to retrieve the ones that had gone wide. Delivering them back, he got a muttered, “Thank you,” that was for more than just passing the arrows. Content, he went back to his cooking as the sun waned.
***
In Crystal Prep high school, most of the friendship cliques were unisex. Or, if they weren’t, it was specifically for young men and women seeking romantic or sexual relations. Sour Sweet had no particular time for that sort of thing, and so her own group was all-girl. When she had come to Equestria and found that two of the ponies she’d be traveling with were stallions, it had thrown her off for a while. She hadn’t said anything, and she’d gotten used to it, since after all they were older than her. Still, it was refreshing to be able to spend the day in town with the other mares.
And then when they had returned and Garlic had given her a present, it had been a cap on a good day. The ponies were good at planning out surprises, and Sour had become dimly aware that Little and Moon had their own surprise, having stowed away a long canvas package into the cart when they came back from town.
In their camp surrounded by trees, Sour felt something of the cover and walls that she was used to sleeping with, but it was still not time for bed. The moon had waxed to almost full and the stars backlit the campsite.
Once again the instruments came down and off the cart, but Sour, despite the laziness of the day—or perhaps because of it—didn’t want to stay up all night listening. She was also physically worn from practicing her archery. So she took her bedroll and stuck it between her wings to prop herself up.
She was starting to wish that she could contribute more. Regrettably, music was one area that she had neglected at Crystal Prep, being nothing more than a member of the chorus who had never soloed. She didn’t know any of the Equestrian songs and couldn’t join in as they played their music. Or, she thought, if her own people were on an expedition like this, her archery skills could have come in useful in hunting, but she’d been strictly instructed not to harm any animals while in Equestria.
But Sour was not so socially unaware that she could not read the ponies’ generosity. They were quite prepared to treat her as a guest and let her be idle. And yet she wanted to do something. Perhaps in the morning she’d get up early and fetch the water for Garlic’s breakfast or wash the dishes afterwards. Probably he would tell her not to, but she’d do it anyway.
Oh no, Sour thought. I’m growing up. Stop that immediately.
She got up and flew over to the cart to get her new bow. Her practice was done for the night, but she just wanted to feel it in her hooves. At the same time, Little was removing the canvas bag that they had bought in town. “I think you’re going to like this,” she said, and Sour nodded, half listening. Returning to her relaxed position, she was ready for one more night of song.
It started off lightly enough, but what Sour realized was that they weren’t stopping and resetting for each song. It was a medley, or perhaps a jam session. At the very least, Moon was keeping the drumbeat going, and when she was the only one playing, it was more than a simple beat but a riddling of snares and basses. Soon enough Hoof Dame would come in with a bass sound or Reggie would grab a saxophone and they would start right in on something else.
But that didn’t limit them to upbeat songs. The ponies moved from swing to jazz to ballad to dirge and back. They weren’t even looking at Sour most of the time, just at each other or at the sky or at nothing at all.
Then came a moment when Little left the group for a minute or two. This didn’t stop the music by any means. If anything, having Hoof Dame on the string melody made the whole sound crisper. But soon enough Little returned, winked to Sour, and took her position.
The music quelled to its lowest ebb, then began to rise with the beginning of a new melody. Although it was in Old Equestrian, Sour almost felt she could understand it. It was telling a story of a great loss and failure. But then her eye was drawn upwards as she finally realized what Little and her companions had brought.
The first fireworks streaked across the sky soundlessly, or perhaps just creating a wind behind them. But soon enough they were bursting with a blast of sound that came in time with the song, each one meant to be taken as its own star of color and light. As if in an effort to compete with the pyrotechnics, Moon began drumming harder and faster, looking like each stroke would break through the skin of the drums and render them useless.
They settled down into the bridge, and so too did the fireworks, changing over to bottle rockets and screamers, and for the first time Sour noticed that Little was not playing as much as she usually did but was setting off each of the rockets with her magic, sometimes holding them in midair to only go off when needed. The pale glow mixed with the light of the fire. Then all went dark for a single beat.
Note by note the melody was rebuilt, and with each one a spot of light, bright like a star, flashed and faded. Sour couldn’t tell if they were from unicorn magic or from more fireworks. Then Garlic came back in with a bass rhythm. Hoof Dame brought forth an electric guitar sound and between the spots of light came a deep and dark glow, as though the night sky itself were alive.
And then all five ponies exploded into full volume and clarity. Reggie and Garlic were pouring breath through their horns and Moon pounded the drums and cymbals and Hoof Dame uncharacteristically rose and moved with the music as she kept the magic going on the strings and Little began to belt out lyrics.
Above all this, the fireworks were going off more rapidly, no longer keeping time but acting as a cacophonous countermelody, and for a moment they made the night sky as bright as the noonday sun.
Sour still found that she could understand, and whether this was because she had picked up enough words of Old Equestrian to fill in the gaps or because the message of the song transcended language, she was given the impression of a great loss, but of life carrying on, with the promise of future renaissance.
With a final crash, the music came to a halt, and all that was left was an echo of cymbals and piano, and the smoke from the fireworks rising in the firelight.
It was Sour who felt exhausted at the end of the performance. The ponies smiled at each other, nodded, and without another word put away the instruments. The moon had not yet risen fully, and there would be plenty of time for sleep.
Using her wings to generate lift but not quite get off the ground, Sour Sweet maneuvered her bedroll from its position as a bolster to surrounding her as a sleeping bag. Right before she closed her eyes, Little came over to her. “Another day, maybe two if we take our time, and we’ll be in Las Pegasus. That’s really the last thing to see going west, so we can start turning around and heading back after that.”
Sour Sweet nodded. That was about how much more travel she was in the mood for.
“We could even take the train back if you wanted to spend some time in Manehattan,” Little continued.
“But how would you bring back your cart and all your stuff?
“We’ll have the boxes shipped and the cart brought later, or loaded onto the train if there’s room. But we can make plans tomorrow. Have a good night.”
Within a few minutes, Sour was out cold.
She looked around, shielding her eyes from the light with her hoof. Something was wrong. She felt dry and thirsty, hot and blinded. There was also a feeling that someone was trying to get her attention. It was someone she’d heard before…but she couldn’t place it. She turned around, two full turns before catching a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a shadow of blue against the sandy yellow. But as she tried to face it, it kept escaping.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she shook her head and looked again. There! It was coming toward her. A pony, now she could see clearly, of dark blue, much darker than the sky blue of Little. The pony’s mane seemed to sparkle with stars like when the fireworks were going off.
“Sour Sweet…”
The pony spoke, and Sour put it together that this was the same thing she’d experienced the prior two nights, but now she could see it. In a moment she understood.
“I’m dreaming.”
As she realized this, Sour figured that as a dream, she could control it or even force it to end.
“No! I prithee! Do not collapse the dream! I have an...ortant…for you…” The pony was cutting out and Sour couldn’t see her as clearly as she could a moment before. She was curious as to what the pony wanted from her, but at the same time, she didn’t know how to stay in or leave a dream. And besides, she…
Sour opened her eyes, breathing deep. Had she been talking in her sleep?
Again she looked around, but this time she was certain that she was awake. But she experienced a moment where she realized that waking up looking at her hooves and feeling her wings felt normal.
But at this point, Little and Moon were stirring and opening their eyes. “Wh-what’s going on? Again?” Little rubbed her eyes.
“Again, I think,” Moon turned to Sour. “What did you see?”
“Nothing. I just had a bad dream. Not even a bad dream, really, just a weird dream. Never mind, just go back to sleep.”
“No, tell me, what did you see?”
“I saw a strange pony, but that was it.”
Moon was fully up now and looking right in Sour’s eyes. “No, listen, this could be really important. Describe the pony.”
“She was blue…tall…”
“Was she an alicorn?”
“A what?” asked Sour.
“A pegasus-unicorn. Horn and wings.”
“Now that you mention it, I think she was.”
“You’ve seen Princess Luna,” Moon took off and flew back and forth. “What could it mean?”
“Who’s Princess Luna?”
“Wait,” said Little. “Let’s wake everypony up so that we don’t have to go over this more than once.”
It took a few minutes, and clearly nopony wanted to get up in the middle of the night, but soon Garlic had the campfire back up high and bright, and they were all gathered round it. Sour used the time to get her thoughts together and try not to lose the dream. Then she recited as much as she could remember.
“Certainly it was Princess Luna,” Hoof Dame said, “But why?”
“I still don’t know who she is.”
“Sour Sweet, Princess Luna is Princess Celestia’s younger sister who, among other duties, watches over the dreams of ponies.”
“How can someone enter dreams?” All the native ponies looked at her. “All right, magic, got it. But why?”
“That’s what we’re asking,” Reggie said, the rasp of sleep still in his voice.
“Excuse me,” Hoof Dame said, “I think there’s some confusion here. What Sour Sweet is asking is why Princess Luna enters anypony’s dream. To which the answer is that she does so to guide us to things we need to do, usually as a means to helping us grow and learn. Reggie is asking why Princess Luna chose to enter your particular dream tonight. And over the past two nights, if I understand correctly.”
Moon nodded. “Yeah, why not any of ours? We would have known to stay in the dream and listen to what she said. No offense, Sour Sweet.”
“I’m not offended, there’s no reason that I would know.”
“But as you said,” Garlic said, looking at Hoof Dame, “Princess Luna enters our dreams to guide us to something we need personally. I haven’t seen her since I was a little colt. It’s possible that she found a particular need to speak to Sour Sweet because of something she needs to do.”
“I dunno,” Moon replied. “But it seems that we’re missing something important here.”
“How do you mean?”
“Sour Sweet couldn’t really tell us the dream. She doesn’t remember anypony she met or where she was or what she was doing. Those are the things that would normally give us clues on what to do. I wonder if dreams in your world are different from those in Equestria. Maybe Princess Luna can’t communicate the way she could with us.”
Hoof Dame reared back, as if the idea that one of the princesses could fail struck her as blasphemous, but it was Little who responded. “Well, ok, we don’t have all the facts. But we’ve still got to make a decision. We could head back toward Canterlot to speak to the princess herself. Or keep going west toward Las Pegasus, where we could wait and send a letter. Or we could try to see if Sour Sweet or any one of us will have another dream to give us more information.”
“Staying here and sleeping doesn’t appeal to me at all,” said Moon. “We probably have a job to do, a mission to accomplish.”
Reggie had finally awoken fully and said, “But going back to Canterlot seems a waste if we need to be here.”
“How do we even know that here is where we need to be?” Garlic replied. “Going to Canterlot might be right."
“There should be adequate communication facilities in Las Pegasus. I would say that we should proceed there, contact the princesses, and wait for more information,” said Hoof Dame.
Little sighed. “Well, that doesn’t get us any closer to a decision.”
“I beg your pardon, but you haven’t asked everypony what they think.”
It took a second for her to realize what Hoof Dame was implying, and then Little turned red before bowing her head. “I’m sorry, Sour Sweet. I didn’t even think about what you wanted. It was your dream after all. What do you think?”
Sour watched the whole thing play out. She wasn’t sure if she did need to be asked. They were the experts here. But still, if there was a decision to be made, then it was incumbent on her to make the right one. “I don’t know your princess as well as all you do, but I think that the best thing to do would be to stick to our plan. Let’s go to this Las Pegasus city. If you want to send a letter or whatever, that’s fine, but then we’ll talk over staying or going without necessarily waiting for a response. If Princess Luna is as powerful as you say, she can find us.”
The other ponies didn’t like the jab at their princess, but since Sour’s answer worked along the lines of Hoof Dame’s and had a sense of logic to it, they came to agree. Everypony returned to bed, but Sour had no more dreams that night.