As it turned out, now did not quite mean right now. After agreeing with the elder to send someone looking for Kalypso, Honeydew had pulled me to the storage, all the while naming different items under his breath.
“Two-three stalks for each, twice. Pick… no, too cold for most insects.” He suddenly shot me a glance. “If you need to eat, you should do it now, we’ll be travelling light, it might be the last decent meal you’ll get before we arrive.”
“Y-you think?” I shuddered as I remembered my first day out in the wild, the intense fear of not knowing when or even if you’d have your next meal… part of me was already starting to regret coming with him.
He gave a brief nod. “It’s getting harder to forage every day, and we need to be quick. It’s better to stay hungry anyway, makes you more willing to get yourself going, so that the other clan can feed you back up sooner.” He actually winked! It boggled my mind, was he exaggerating or was he actually that nonchalant about a coming week of hunger and misery?!
Honeydew’s eyes darted over the collected tools in the storage, a frown appearing on his face. “Carveshine must’ve left it in his workshop again.” he groaned. “Twilight, tell him I need my gear back, he’ll give it to you.”
I nodded, a bit taken aback. He’d never given me an outright order before. By the time I came back, he had already gathered everything he thought we’d need. I was appalled by the meagre amounts of food he’d taken, two berries and a chunk of walnut for each of us, I could eat more than that in two days! Either he expected us to find quite a bit more, or he thought it acceptable for us to arrive as walking skeletons. Or gliding skeletons, I suppose. Then there were two stalks of sizzlegrass for each of us, another harness that looked a bit too small for me, some rope, a knife, a sort of cloth and a small, highly decorated clay vase about the size of my hoof.
“What’s in there?”
Honeydew frowned as he followed my look to the vase. His hoof immediately surged to it, as if he thought I could make it disappear with a glance. “It’s honey.” he said tensely.
That… was less exciting than I had imagined. I knew honey was deemed valuable, but I’d hoped for something special that only breezies could produce, some magic juice to heal injuries maybe, or gems with unique qualities. Preferably ones with a hidden ability to re-open weird, finicky magic portals. Instead, it was just food. Then again, the sheer vigilance with which Honeydew was watching me as his hoof hovered over the pot suggested it was much more than that. And hadn’t Carveshine told me how hard it was to get any honey from the bees, especially since breezies had no means to take it without their consent?
“Is this what we’re trading for the sizzlegrass?”
“What else have we to trade with?” he replied, giving the vase a wistful look. Now I was certain. A rare, never-spoiling substance highly regarded by what I assumed were all breezies, used as trade goods? It was synonymous with gold! No wonder Honeydew had been suspicious when I’d shown interest in it.
“How do you get honey?” I asked with my most pleasant smile.
“Slowly.” he answered, feelers bouncing as his gaze softened. “Rarely, we find wounded or lost drones and return them to their hive for a drop or two. More generous queens reward us for warning her of spiderwebs they weren’t aware of, but that’s a gamble.” With a sigh, he regarded the vase. “I think we were just starting to fill this one around the time I was born.”
They’d been filling this thing for twenty years. I swallowed as I regarded the container with newfound respect. And now we’re trading it away… possibly because of me. “Isn’t there any quicker way to get honey?” I asked, imploring him to tell me some sort of solution to the guilt settling as a lump in my throat.
“Well-”
“There’s only one thing bees reward generously.” A brisk voice cut into the conversation as Kalypso slid into the storage. “Ridding a hive of parasites. Got our previous elder two vases of honey just like the ones here. One he shared with the clan in celebration. I wish I’d been alive back then, the elder tells it like it was the brightest day in the clan’s history. ”Both she and Honeydew adopted a wistful look. Oh, Celestia, I’ll never be able to look at honeyed oats the same way again!
“Ehem, urgent journey?” I asked, looking from one to the other. “Aren’t we wasting time right now?”
Snapping out of his daze, Honeydew nodded. “You’re right, the more ground we can cover before nightfall the better. Are you prepared, Kalypso?”
“It looks like you prepared for me.” She noted with a glance to the three distinct piles of supplies he had built. “Though an earlier warning would’ve been nice.”
He gave her an apologetic smile. “We all just found out.”
“Besides, shouldn’t you have already known?” I quipped, reaching to poke her shoulder.
In an instant, her expression darkened. “The gods don’t send me visions for my comfort.” she hissed. “They don’t concern themselves with such banalities.”
“I-I was just making a joke-”
A hoof poked against my side as Honeydew walked between me and Kalypso. “We need to go now, keep it for later.”
I nodded, casting my eyes to the ground. Kalypso seemed… conflicted? With a sigh, she took her travelling gear and followed quietly.
The last few days in the village had been a hectic rush from one unfamiliar task to the next, never catching more than a little break. It had been frantic, exhausting… but now, as I soared through the air, seeing it disappear behind the skeleton-esque fingers of a leafless bush, I realized that it was a tiny, protective bubble I was leaving behind. Civilization. But out here, riding the cold wind between skyreaching, knarled trees akin to aging titans, I was firmly reminded of just how small and fickle this illusion had really been. That all it took was one hungry predator, one sudden gust of wind, heck, just for us to stray from this path only Honeydew seemed to know, and this expedition would meet a tragic end.
Like always, Honeydew flew ahead, rigidly looking only ahead, his head shifting as he scanned our surroundings. His antennae occasionally sparked to life, emitting a faint glow for a brief second before falling dark once again. I just hoped it was brief enough not to attract unwanted attention. My eyes darted up into tree crowns of twisted branches, trying to look for danger like Honeydew was doing. But without any idea what I was looking for, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
On reflex, my wings closed just before a sudden updrift would’ve catapulted me upwards. A short drop later, I reentered position, now behind Kalypso, who had deftly used the wind to push her onward. Maybe by angling her wings, though I wasn’t sure if they could even do that. She shot me a quick look back, and for a moment, I expected it to be a competitive grin. Instead, I saw only concern. She shouted something to Honeydew and they both slowed down a bit, allowing me to catch back up. With a thankful smile, I once more took my place in the middle of the flying order.
Once you’d figured out how to react to the sudden impulses of your feelers, which somehow always knew how the air was going to move, breezie flight was remarkably easy. On a steady breeze, you could get away with a single flap for several minutes. And when the wind became hard to deal with, you were supposed to land anyway. It was about as exerting as an elongated walk in the park. But as the sun got closer to the end of its journey around the sky and the last bits of afternoon warmth fully disappeared, with the cold sinking through the tissue of my skin, I found myself wishing it was less easy. At least pegasus flight kept the body warm. I’d already lost feelings on my hooves. My ears stung as the cold air stabbed into them like daggers, worsening with every breath, and especially every time I swallowed. Meanwhile, I was starting to regret the idea of licking over my cold, dry lips as the saliva soon grew as frigid as the air.
How long do we have to go on? My eyes drilled in Honeydew’s back, trying to force him to say it, to make him look back and see my suffering. Why didn’t he look as cold as me? Sure, he was rubbing his forelegs on one another, but he didn’t even shiver… that often. Only the awareness that taking an early break today would every day after worse was keeping my mouth shut for now, but there was a growing resistance in my head, that just wanted it to end for today. How long? How long, I wanted to ask, if not for the knowledge that the answer might lead me to giving up.
All of a sudden, a hoof reached down from above, touching my feeler. I jerked back, startled by the overbearing sensation of touch, while Kalypso gasped.
“What are you doing?” she shouted down, drawing her hoof back in.
It took my numb lips a moment to stutteringly respond. “W-w-what d-d-do you mean?”
“Your feelers, they’re freezing! You need to light them.”
Looking up, I watched her antennae spark with light, at a higher frequency than before. She was staring down at me expectantly.
“I-I don’t know h-h-how.” I whispered, mentally beating myself over the head. Of course it was important. I should’ve wanted to ask earlier. No… I had wanted to, but something had stopped me.
“You are joking.” Kalypso muttered as she stared at me with widened eyes. “How- how can you not know?”
“She did not know how to fly, either.” Honeydew admitted quietly, without turning his head, just loud enough for us to make out his words. I averted my eyes from Kalypso’s baffled look.
“But- how? Where did you come from that you don’t know these things?!” I could hear her draw a breath to say something else, but her voice froze, before she called in an alarmed tone. “Honeydew, if she doesn’t know, we have to land and show it to her!”
He grunted. “We have more ground to cover today.”
“Honeydew, if she flies in this cold, she might get injured!”
At those words, Honeydew finally turned, possibly for the first time since we’d left the village. “We’ll all be in trouble if we don’t get to the spot in time. You think this is cold?” his hoof shot out, pointing at the setting sun. “When it is gone, you will get your first real taste of winter!”
“If she freezes now-” Kalypso shouted, but I put a hoof to her mouth as I glanced at Honeydew, licking over my blue lips, flinching at the horrid pain in my ears.
His gaze softened at my pitiful look, and he soard a bit closer. “Twilight… if it’s too much, we can land now… and deal with the consequences later. We’ll just have to make haste the next days.”
Another breath of cold air froze my throat as I stared at his concerned expression. He looked so warm… his offer so tempting. “H-h-how long until we’re at your spot?”
“If we continue like now, just at sundown. But if you’re not up for it-”
“I-I can do that.” I said, forcing as much certainty in my voice as my quivering lips allowed. “It’s just a little more.”
He nodded, a miniscule smile on his lips. Suddenly, both his feelers shot out, glowing brightly as they pressed against both of my cheeks, hurting as they burned away the numb cold. The next moment, he’d drawn back, leading the way as I followed, savoring every piece of fleeting warmth he’d given me.
----
The grass crackled inside a small hole in the ground. I pushed myself closer, breathing a long sigh as my limbs thawed in the warm glow.
“You feel alright?” Kalypso asked as she lied down next to me, leaning against my side. I paid it no mind, it seemed that breezies saw this sort of bodily contact mainly as a way of preserving warmth, a thoroughly practical way to view it. One that, in this environment, I could fully understand.
“B-better.” I said, before rubbing my hooves over my cheeks. If only Honeydew’s touch had lasted longer.
“You’ve really never used your feelers before?”
“I… didn’t need them where I came from.” I muttered, averting my eyes so I wouldn’t have to face her doubtful look.
“Well, then you have to learn now. Or you’ll lose them before we arrive.” She took a long breath as we both sat up. “Focus on your antennae.”
Nodding, I closed my eyes, trying to tune out everything else.
“You don’t… have to close your eyes, Twilight.” Kalypso muttered, a bit taken aback. “Anyway, you have to squeeze them.”
“What?” my eyes opened again so i could deliver the full force of confusion I just experienced.
“Squeeze them.” she repeated earnestly. “Not with your hooves!”
I sheepishly sat my limbs back on the ground. “But then, how?”
Kalypso sighed, rubbing the back of her head. “You can squeeze inside your feelers, Twilight-” She groaned. “Ugh, it’s hard to explain, just try it, okay?”
I nodded, despite how lost I felt. I wasn’t used to having these body parts, could she not understand that?
No, and she probably never had to explain something like this to anyone. I could just envision my snarky brain rolling its eyes, if- a… brain had... eyes. UGH, even my thoughts are frozen!
“Focus, Twilight,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead as I refocused on my feelers. If I was not meant to squeeze them with my hooves, it had be an internal muscle I was supposed to pull. For a while, I just sat there, eyes closed, occasionally hearing a giggle. I supposed I had to look pretty stupid, moving my feelers in every-which direction, trying to find a way- Suddenly, as I slowly curled my antennae, I felt something unusual, a hardened nub of sorts, pressing into the muscle. Biting my lip, I tried to tense my feeler, and-
Kalypso shrieked as a sudden heat rose up in the antennae, and all the way back into my head. As soon as it appeared however, it vanished, and as I opened my eyes, I could only see darkness creeping back in, like when a fire had burned out.
Kalypso groaned, rubbing her eyelids. “Don’t flash me!” she complained, blinking in the returned darkness.
“Sorry!” I said, yet I couldnt stop myself from grinning. Knowing where it was, I consciously squeezed the nub, giggling as a flickering sphere of light surrounded us and heat streamed into my head, before spreading throughout my body. However, the first flash had left me with a bit of a headache, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I couldn’t keep them going for very long.
Still, I exuberantly hugged the surprised Kalypso, who stemmed her hooves against my chest to push me back. “You did it, alright.” she rolled her eyes, but just didn’t manage to frown like she obviously tried to.
A rustling of fallen leaves brought us both back to alertness, but it was just Honeydew, carrying a sack full of what looked like thorns. “Twilight,” he exclaimed at the sight of my glowing antennae. “Well done!”
Kalypso let out an annoyed huff.
“And of course, well done teaching her, Frindrì Kalypso.” He added. The praise only seemed to disgruntle the other breezie further.
“I didn’t do it as Frindrì.” She muttered. “Lets just decide who’ll stay up and go to sleep.”
I was about to agree, but a niggling question was circling my brain, demanding for attention. “I- thought you wanted to know where I come from?” The moment I said those words, and Honeydew’s head rose with interest, I partially regretted them. I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to tell them. It might scare them, knowing what I was, I wasn’t sure if I could really trust Kalypso just yet… but most of all, I didn’t want to spoil this moment.
Kalypso gave me a long, stern look. “No,” she finally, slowly spoke. “Because you wouldn’t tell me.”
Wait- I would’ve if she’d asked, right? Right? I looked from her to Honeydew’s frown. Maybe I wouldn’t have, if that’s what she saw. But maybe she did see, and that’s why she didnt ask, and that’s why I wouldn’t tell her? Or is it a setup to make me say it? Or- I shook my head, trying to rally my thoughts. “Did you see that in a vision? Or do you just… assume?”
Kalypso let out a long sigh as she rested on the ground, close to the sizzlepit. “That would imply that one could tell the difference…”