//------------------------------//
// Jamjars' Ambition 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
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The sun broke over the trees like a hot yellow wall, flattening spirits and inflaming hoofsteps as an endless procession of equines marched down the straight, white-fenced road between Gnarlbough and Grand Acorn. Dangerous Karma's fruit groves stood tall and lush to the southwest, stands of orange trees immediately visible past a trench meant to collect runoff. It was doing a better job collecting ponies, many of the younger evacuees preferring the leftover rainwater to the sweltering heat.

Starlight wiped her brow with a dusty hoof, though it hardly made a difference. She could feel her mane growing heavier with sweat, and the road's dirt clung to her instead of merely brushing by. It wasn't fair. Heat was supposed to be a good thing, a warm hug or recovery beneath a blanket or riding on Maple's fuzzy back after storms and nightfall and being soaked through with freezing rain. It was supposed to be the dryness she returned to after enduring the weather of the world... but then and there, it was baking her, and the air was so thick with moisture it still felt like she was drowning.

Blasphemously, she wished it would start raining.

Her consolation was that Jamjars was faring even worse than she was. It wasn't right or fair to enjoy the suffering of others, but Starlight still had a chip on her shoulder from her ribbing the previous night, and if reminding herself that someone else had it worse than her was what it took to keep going, that was what she was going to do. The yellow filly's mane was positively deflated, clinging to her like an annoying dog and matted beyond repair, its magenta streaks so messed up that they lost definition and became a single soup of color. To her credit, she wasn't complaining either.

At the front of the cart, Maple sweated and pulled, and Howe pulled and sweated, the latter's mane somehow containing such a huge quantity of gel and stylizing agents that it held its shape perfectly amid the heat. Maple looked to be doing the best of the four walkers despite pulling the cart, her recent drenching warding off some of the temperature, though Starlight didn't fancy racing ahead to check. It was all she could do to keep one hoof moving in front of the other, clinging to the cart's right side to steal some of the canopy's shadow. Jamjars had the same idea, putting her uncomfortably close by.

"Hey, Starlight," Jamjars said, voice limp and quickly drowned out by the rattle of the cart's axle and the far voices of other worried evacuees. "You're pretty tough to keep up like this."

"Thanks?" Starlight's ears were folded. It was hot, and she didn't want a conversation.

"Yeah." Jamjars pulled alongside her, forcing the tiniest bit of bounce back into her step. "What's your story? Are you from somewhere where it's hotter than this all the time, and just don't notice it?"

Starlight plodded, focusing on her hooves. "No."

"Oh." Jamjars' neck twitched, as if she wanted to shake her mane but the thing wouldn't budge. "You must just be tough, then. Your magic is strong, too. Probably stronger than my whole family put together. That's not saying much, though, since they're wusses."

"What do you want?" Starlight grumbled, turning to acknowledge her with a single eye. Did Jamjars know she was annoyed by ponies calling her special? Was this some type of revenge?

Jamjars just shrugged at the ground. "I want to know how you do it."

"...Huh?" Starlight's face scrunched. "Do what?"

"Be special," Jamjars said, kicking up dust in her wake. "You know who the only one in my family who has a brand is? Mom, and she cheated. I can beat all my siblings at magic, or outsmart all of them or look prettier than them or anything, but it doesn't matter because they're all weak and that means it's not enough. But you aren't. You did something different."

Starlight's ears perked. The filly's voice had completely changed - where there was haughtiness and a layer of false politeness before, now there was only well-veiled frustration. Starlight imagined she was still incredibly sore about being crystalled the previous night, but was brushing it off in favor of a legitimate question. Despite the obvious lie, it felt more honest... and interesting. She let Jamjars go on.

"Well?" Jamjars asked. "What makes you so special? Don't make me guess."

"...I don't know." Interesting or not, the last thing Starlight wanted to do was brag about herself. "I hate giving up or losing, I guess?" She stared at the cart, away from Jamjars. "I don't really want to be special. It makes ponies treat me unfairly."

Jamjars scoffed. "Unfair? You think being praised is unfair? I'll tell you what's unfair. I'm the third-oldest in my family. Snow and Hayseed are older, and they're twins. My parents could have taken us and raised us and taught us how to do what we wanted to do, but instead they were like 'Let's have a million more foals,' and then forgot about us like we weren't enough. Dad spent all his time wandering around and being sad, and Mom was always too busy needing to care for the youngest of us or else being fat and slow and pregnant to raise those of us who were old enough to think. And look how we turned out! Hayseed is a goodie four-shoes who'll probably end up just like Mom, Snow's a pathetic bookworm who reads the same old magazines again and again, and I'm the only one around here with any ambition. I'm rude, too. Don't you think I'm rude?"

Starlight put an extra hoofstep between them, just in case. "Yeah..."

"See? I told you." Jamjars flung her mane, only for it to slap her across the face like a wet fish. "Aaack! Ugh." She wiped it away with a hoof. "Dad worked for Sosa. He knew how to do things, and he was smart enough to leave. Mom can't, apparently. He's gone, and she's still making the same mistakes. Either she thinks it'll turn out different for no reason, or her head's in the ground, or both. Kind of like where we live. In a hole. Some day, I'm going to leave, too... I just need something I can do first."

Starlight sighed, the hot dirt of the roadway burning against her hooves. "I ran away. It's harder than it sounds."

Jamjars' lips pursed, and for a moment it looked like she had forgotten about the heat. "Really...?"

Before continuing, Starlight checked herself, issuing a stern mental reminder that basically everything from her past, from Equestria to Riverfall, wasn't for telling to random ponies... especially those crazy enough to act on it. "Yeah," she settled for. "I ran away."

Jamjars' gaze drifted to Maple. "Did you come back? Or is she not really your mom?"

"Maple adopted me." After hesitating, Starlight added, "She needed me as much as I needed her. But the parents I ran away from adopted me, too. I don't know who my real parents were."

"...Huh." Jamjars trudged alongside her, staring at the road ahead. "I'm jealous. But you already knew that. It probably makes it a lot easier to run away if you don't care about them in the first place."

"...So you do care about White Chocolate?" Starlight squinted.

"Hmmph."

For a moment, the fillies fell silent, sounds from outside rumbling around them. There was no wind to stir the trees, but between the mechanical grinding of the cart, the nearby squabbling of foals atop it, and the distant mashup of pony voices beyond, anything but silence rang in Starlight's ears. Somewhere, it sounded like someone had started a fight, though she didn't bother to look.

Suddenly, Jamjars yelped from beside her. Starlight whipped her head around to see that the filly had almost tripped... on a small picture frame laying in the dust, inevitably fallen from an earlier pilgrim's bundle. Three colorful shapes dotted the canvas: a mare and a stallion lovingly embracing, and a cheerful, bouncy filly sandwiched between them.

Jamjars gave it a venomous look, and kicked it into the drainage ditch.

The painting was saved at the last second by Starlight's telekinesis, floating discreetly up to the wagon and sandwiching itself between a box and a crate. Starlight didn't watch it go, instead looking levelly at her companion. "Being an only child isn't fun either, you know."

Jamjars raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to go on.

"When you're alone..." Starlight swallowed, struggling to explain. "There's no one else who has to be there. All your friends are the ones you make. And they can leave, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's lonely."

"Family can leave too," Jamjars countered. "Like Dad did. And he was smart. And even if they couldn't, that means you get stuck with wimps like Snow. Do you think I like bunking above him when he's drooling into the night with his flashlight on and giggling about stuff he's looked at a million times before? I wish there were other foals around to make friends with. Then I wouldn't be stuck with them if they turned out to be dumb."

Starlight winced. "You really don't like your family, do you?"

"It's Mom and Dad's fault for not raising us right." Jamjars shrugged. "Unfair is unfair."

"So?" Starlight glared. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do something about it. Help your family, or at least treat them nicely!"

"Shouldn't I?" Jamjars stared back. "Dad didn't. He was smart, and got out. Mom doesn't. She just keeps having more and more and more foals, and she wouldn't if she wanted anything to change. At least it's only one more this time. And it's not like my other siblings aren't all lazy or useless or unable to act for themselves."

Starlight rounded on her, halting their progression and instantly regretting it when the cart's shadow rolled on past. "You want to know what makes me special?" She pointed a hoof. "It's because I don't give up. Because if there's something unfair, I don't just sit there and act like that gives me a reason to be unfair too, even though it does! It's because I go out to fix things that are wrong!"

Jamjars bristled, sweating. "You ran away," she countered. "You said so."

"Because there was nothing left at my old home to fix." Starlight wanted to wilt from the heat, but stayed strong, perfectly matching the other filly in height. "So I left to find something better, where ponies treated each other fairly. I'm still looking, but if I don't find it, then some day I'm going to make it myself. It'll be a place where unfair things don't happen, ever."

Jamjars opened her mouth to reply... when a noise blared behind her.

"Beep beep!" an earth pony yelled, part of a team hitched to another wagon that was bearing down on them. "Out of the way, shrimps! This here's a wagon lane! Keep moving, 'cause you don't wanna get gotten by the floooood!"

"Aack!" Jamjars leapt ahead, trying to shift into a run. She made it three wobbly, heat-weakened steps before her limp mane caught under a hoof, yanking her head down and slamming it into the dirt.

Instantly, there was a lilac presence at her side, propping her back to her hooves and giving her something to lean on as she struggled to chase after White Chocolate's cart.





"You obviously know better," Starlight said once they were both safely in the shade and had caught their breaths as much as they were going to. "You keep talking about all the stuff that's wrong with your family, but if you thought that was normal, you wouldn't notice it. So why not be better?"

Jamjars' muzzle was stained with dirt from where she fell, and she tried and failed for the umpteenth time to wipe it away. "Do we have to keep talking about this right now?"

"Well... no..." Starlight shrugged. "I mean, you're the one who's been doing most of the talking."

"...Yeah. I am," Jamjars agreed with a huff. "Because I don't think you get it. I don't want to be a good family daughter like Hayseed. I've already tried fixing my family the nice way, and nopony listened. All I want is to know how to be special so that I can have a good life even though my parents stink at parenting."

Starlight squinted. "Then what are you asking me for? I just told you what makes me strong. It's having a goal I'll never give up trying to reach, and that's to protect my friends and make the world a fairer place."

"Pfft," Jamjars scoffed. "Like your horn magic is powered by goals and hopes and stuff. You're just strong! I want..." She gazed up at the sky, teeth bared. "I want to be something, instead of the small fish my family set me up to be. You think I ever want to be like them?"

"What kind of something do you think I am, then?" Starlight tipped her head. "If you're asking me for advice..."

Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Well, you're a traveler, for one. I wish I knew how to go places. I want to leave this family, leave this town, leave this city and go somewhere awesome, where I can get stronger and figure out how to do what I was always meant to... and what that is in the first place."

Starlight glanced at Jamjars' blank flank, then at her own. "I don't have a cutie mark either, you know."

"But you have your own name for them," Jamjars pointed out. "Everyone else just calls them brands. It's unique. It's special. I want to be special."

Starlight's ears folded. She had never thought about that before.

"It's... cool. You're cool, and I'm jealous," Jamjars continued. "And if you think for one moment I'm not trying, you can eat one of the socks Hayseed thinks I don't know she brought along, because I hate that and am sitting here telling you about it like a well-adjusted pony, even though I'm not and have never had any reason to be. I want to be the best, should have been the best, and am still going to be the best, and you right now with your superior magic and travel experiences and special names and all that stuff are doing nothing but reminding me I'm not. Right now, I want nothing less than to find something to rub in your little pink smiling face to take you down until you're below me and I'm back where I belong..." She paused, and drew a bitter, heaving breath. "But I'm not, because that won't make me better. So don't you dare think I'm not trying, or that I'll give up, or am not a mess of a pony with my family to blame for it."

Starlight gaped, having a sudden flashback to a bitter little filly who had been pulled from a river by three curious mares. The filly had been warmed, coddled, and loved far beyond what she had conditioned herself to live with... and had made a painful choice to accept it, rather than staying as hard as she could so it would hurt less if it ever disappeared. She looked at Jamjars, realizing that somehow, she had that same hard crust of self-sufficience, and saw a lonely trek through an empty mountain range, fueled by nothing but the knowledge that things should have been better.

A pang of frustration flew through her, and she glared at her filly-sized hooves, wishing she were twenty years older and could do exactly for Jamjars what Maple, Amber and Willow had done for her... but as it was, they were too much of equals. Nevertheless, when she straightened up, it was with renewed determination and a new promise added to her list of goals for Ironridge.

She would find a way to help Jamjars. Just like White Chocolate's family situation was personal for Maple because of Willow and Faron, it was now personal for Starlight, too.