Lost in the hazy domain that existed between slumber and wakefulness, Sundance tried to understand why his bed box didn’t quite feel just right. It was warm; far warmer than usual. Approaching the vast frontier of consciousness, it occurred to him that he was not alone. How was he not alone? This required far more thought than his half-dreaming, half-awake, semi-lucid mind could deal with, so he rose from the depths of Princess Luna’s sacred domain so that he might make sense of the curious situation he found himself in.
Somehow, in a bed box that was hardly big enough for one, there was two.
Even more improbable was the fact that this did nothing to harm Sundance’s back, which was too tender to touch. Who had the feline grace to compress themselves into a boneless ball of fuzz that just so happened to fit into a corner and serve as a pillow, which Sundance now rested his chin upon? The answer rapidly pulled Sundance from his slumber and his eyelids fluttered open like dazed butterflies who had bravely fluttered into the path of a twister.
It was a moment that was intensely uncomfortable and caused some emergency soul-searching in the dark confines of his bed box. But the soul-searching required that he be fully awake and aware, a condition he was unwilling to subject himself to. Dawn was hours away—hours that he could be sleeping. Still, his brain was not content with a quick return to slumber, and Sundance found himself musing over the situation in his current muddled, groggy, not entirely awake state.
Why was he panicked? Was he panicked? No… not really. But he was something. Stallions didn’t climb into a bed together and snuggle, did they? Maybe some did. Mares did it and made a point of doing it as friends, all climbing into bed together and giving each other hooficures or whatever it was that mares did when piled into a bed with one another. Did anypony ever fantasise about stallions having a sleepover and giving one another hooficures while exchanging beauty tips? That didn’t seem likely, for some reason.
There was nothing quite like being half-awake and worrying about one’s sexuality.
Even worse, there were other factors that made it even more complicated; Turmeric considered himself girly, a fact that caused a flood questions, a tide of questions that appeared upon the distant edge of the sea of consciousness. Just because Turmeric considered himself girly didn’t change the fact that Sundance now found himself in his bed box with another stallion.
But Turmeric had issues of the trust variety and had crawled into bed—a place of safety.
Within his dreaming mind, something manifested, took shape and form as his thoughts took on a decidedly blue tint. The tide was rolling in now; he could almost see and hear the waves as they formed in the distance. Sundance’s eyelids grew impossibly heavy, a weight far too much to bear. The sound of feathered wings that flapped joined the pleasant diversion of the waves, the call of the sea.
Why should these things matter?
When Sundance awoke for the second time, he was not at all bothered with the fact that Turmeric was in his bed box. The itch of dawn was persistent, impossible to ignore, and he roused himself from his pleasant dreams of the ocean. Seagulls could still be heard in his ears as his eyes opened. After lifting his head, he yawned.
Dawn was a harsh mistress to demand that he rise at such an early hour.
On weak, wobbly legs he rose and pushed open the door to his bed box. Others slept in the dining room, and he had no desire to disturb them. Moving with as much grace as his injured body could muster, he slipped from his bed, crept across the floor, and made his way to the door. Before the dawn could be greeted, he had a bit of business to take care of.
Out the door he went with nary a sound.
The dawn proved glorious and the sun rose from the jagged, gap-toothed maw of the eastern mountains. Owlister hooted—a sleepy sound—and Sundance lamented that he could not fly to his usual position to greet the dawn. He had walked a considerable distance, leaving the box canyon, and now stood in the middle of the vast stone-strewn fields that had once seen battle.
“Hello, Great Grandmother,” said Sundance to the sun as the first few precious rays filtered through the distant evergreen-dotted mountains. He closed his eyes and waited for the first kiss of warmth upon his face. “What surprises await me today?”
Wings could be heard in the retreating darkness as a host of owls hurried to find a place to rest. Sundance, waiting for the sun, thought about the cycles of day and night here, the balance that existed in this place. The wise, studious owls were the guardians of Princess Luna’s sacred night, while Princess Celestia’s sun kept watch during the day.
Or something.
He was positive that more poetic thoughts could be made if he was a bit more awake.
His frogs and fetlocks were damp with dew and the chilly breeze left him with gooseflesh. The cold seemed far colder in contrast to the warmth found in one’s own bed. Turned eastward, Sundance lifted his head high, spread his wings, and waited. The dawn was taking its own sweet time, but that was fine. He could be punctual and the dawn could be lazy, because that was the dawn’s prerogative.
“Hi.”
With his moment of sublime tranquility interrupted, Sundance’s eyes flew open at the somewhat squeaky sound of the filly’s voice. A filly, that, by the way, was now sitting beside him, wiggling her behind in the wet grass. Her eyes were still crusty from sleep and she looked as though she hadn’t slept well.
“My sister cried all night.”
“And just what are you doing away from the protective eye of your mother?” Sundance asked in as stern of a voice as he could muster.
“Well,” the filly replied with a noticeable trace of sarcasm, “my name is Amber Dawn. What’s a pony with my name supposed to do? I snuck out the door and saw you leaving so I followed you. I sure do love my new sister, but holey cheese, she sure does cry. And all that crying made my brother cry, and he’s a mess.” Then, after a moment, she added, “Your owl looks like a pincushion.”
“And you look like a filly that’s going to get lectured by a tired, grumpy, exhausted mom that didn’t get a wink of sleep all night.” Turning his gaze eastward once more, Sundance smiled.
A groaning yawn was the filly’s only response.
Among Turmeric’s many talents was the ability to shape wood. He wasn’t very good at it, but that didn’t matter. At the moment, he was attempting to coax wood into something of a drying rack that could be hung in the rafters of Corduroy’s infirmary. As for the stone cottage itself, it was mostly done, but still in need of a door and windows. The roof was finished, a stone floor had been laid out, and the structure was quite large—enough so that Corduroy could live and work within comfortably.
Corduroy herself was hard at work with a saw and hammer. From the looks of things, she was constructing some kind of table, or perhaps a bench. It was a bit too tall to be a pony table, at least judging by the wooden legs that the industrious diamond dog had already constructed. Sundance marvelled at her immense strength, and the fact that she could sink a nail in a single strike.
The infirmary was an immense structure, really, at least by pony standards, but Sundance suspected that it might be cosy by Corduroy’s standards. The opening for the door had to be at least two yards tall—at least twice as tall as the average, common pony. It was also at least a yard wide; even though she was slender by her species standard, Corduroy was still a diamond dog, a creature of immense bulk.
Potato and Good Spirits went past, the both of them loaded down, bearing buckets of milk hung from well-balanced yokes. Sundance watched them for a time, fascinated by their strength and fluid movement. As he watched them go, he thought about the barony’s many goats, and the lessons in school that he had actually paid attention to. Goats, as a species, were cursed; most of them were quite stupid and only a rare few could converse. Long ago, long, long ago, goats were some of the cleverest of creatures, skilled in magic, and this had been their undoing. Skilled in magic as they were, some turned to necromancy.
One in particular stood out: Grogar the goat warlock.
A single necromancer was a serious threat, a real problem. But Grogar, a clever goat even by goat standards, spread necromancy through his species, who were given a dreadful choice: follow him or die. Some goats resisted, of course, and examples were made of them. They were killed, revived, and made to serve.
Some crazed alchemist, his name somehow mysteriously lost to time, created a vile concoction that was infused with incomprehensible magics and this was turned into a bomb. The alchemist snuck into the city that the goat army occupied at the time, the ancient city of Cowstantinople (now called Istanbull) and detonated his creation. This resulted in the Great Devolve; fauns, satyrs, and the various goat races were struck stupid. Even worse, those who survived birthed common, stupid goats, and so it was that fauns and satyrs slowly vanished from the world. Very few goats survived unscathed.
A great many minotaurs suffered as well, and devolved back into near-mindless bovines.
It was a tale of myth and legend, a claim whose veracity was held in doubt. Some Equestrians held tight to their belief in these stories, which went hoof in hoof with lessons about compassion and kindness to one’s former enemies. Sundance was uncertain of what he believed; a great many things were taught in school, and not all of them could be true.
At this very moment, he was standing amidst the proof that some of his schooling was a lie, absolute falsehoods, and his thoughts turned to this fact. Equestria’s Civil War it was said, ended the feudal period. Yet, here he was, now the baron of a fiefdom that time forgot. Perhaps feudalism had ended in the general sense, and some ponies, perhaps those of a more Separatist bent, were eager to forget the past—perhaps enough so to alter the facts to their liking.
What would his teachers say if they saw this place?
Like a phoenix, Equestria’s feudalistic ideals had only recently rose from their own ashes. New baronies were being established and old ones resuscitated. A new generation of lords and ladies was now established. How must the surviving Separatists and their sympathisers feel, to witness such a revival? It occured to Sundance that he was living in a moment of history not yet written, a history that he had a hoof in shaping.
The realisation humbled him and the weight of his thoughts bent his proud neck.