As Sundance traversed the doorway the weight of the invisible crown upon his head almost took him down to the floor. Wobbly knees, weak legs, his spine turned to jelly without warning, moving from the hallway to the observation room was almost his undoing. While his body fought against the cruel tug of gravity, his mind's eye clearly saw the crystal tree, and it grew a new branch at this moment. He saw it clearly and knew that it was no daydream, no flight of fancy. Breathless, stricken, the door shut behind him and then he understood that he was alone. Yes, he would face these little ones alone, with no help, no aid. No beneficial advice.
This was what it meant to be Baron Sundance and not just Regular Sundance. The lesson in fine distinction between these two halves threatened to unravel him like a sweater. Something happened, something changed; Sundance knew it to be true, though he could not possibly explain exactly what had occured. The crystal tree back home drew upon him somehow, in some way, it drank in some manner of the metaphorical water from his very soul to fuel its own growth. It wasn't a wholly unpleasant feeling, but to be aware of it happening and to have no means of understanding it, much less a way to express or explain the sensation was unnerving, to say the very least.
What the tree drew from him was not loss, though he could not say what he gained.
This room, like the others, was all shades of blue. Off to the left side was a mirror—though Sundance knew what it really was—and to the right was an enormous couch. Directly ahead were gigantic fuzzy alphabet blocks all stacked into an imposing fortress. Of the little ones, there was no sign, though Sundance suspected that all of them hid in the stuffed alphabet block fort. Not a peep. Nary a murmur nor greeting.
As a baron, Sundance most certainly wouldn't want somepony crashing his fortress unannounced, so he respected the rights of the fortress dwellers. Going over there and just letting himself in would be rude and wrong for all kinds of reasons. Yet, he had to do something. Every second that the silence persisted it grew harder to think of the right words to end it. After maybe a full minute or so of internal debate, Sundance settled on the basic greeting that suited him best.
"Hello."
Not a word was said in return.
"Hello?" he said again, only this time in the form of a question.
Well, this would not do…
He dared not approach the fortress; the tykes inside might be armed. Bean bags, stuffies, toys, and potentially even wooden blocks, the small kind that caused one's mother to spew forth a stream of vulgarities when stepped on in the middle of the night when going potty. Some things, once heard, could never be unheard, and this was doubly true when those things were said by one's mother.
Instead, he went to the middle of the room and sat down on the floor. While the couch seemed inviting, the couch would also make him bigger and scarier and more imposing. Which seemed counterproductive. He sat down, fluffed out his tail, gave his wings a good stretch, turned his head left, then whipped his head right, cringed from the horrible crackle that emerged from his neckbones, folded his wings against his sides, and then flopped down so his chin came to rest upon the carpet.
Some creatures, like dragons, could lay in prone repose and look majestic.
Sundance was not one of those creatures.
His ears pricked, rotated around, and then angled forward so that he might listen for any sounds within the fortress. Remarkable silence could be heard from the fortress, which seemed like a contradiction in terms, if not for the roaring rush of blood pumping through Sundance's ears as he strained to listen. The ochre pegasus stood out in sharp contrast to the blue of the room, but his blue mane was a pleasant match.
"Are you a changeling?" a voice asked.
The question caught Sundance completely off guard.
"You might be a changeling," the voice said. "Are you?"
"If I was," Sundance replied, "do you think I would tell you? Why would it benefit a changeling to give themselves up?"
"He's smart," another voice said. "And probably a changeling."
"We built this fort to keep out changelings."
"And pesky adults," the other voice added.
"I live in a fort and I—"
"Really?" the voice from within that spoke seemed almost overcome with excitement.
"Really. I live in a castle. Well, it's not much of a castle, but we have a gate and a tower."
"That's really neat, Mister."
"I'm Sundance."
"We know," a voice said in return. "You live in a castle. Do you have a princess?"
"I am the princess. We have incredibly low standards."
The giggle that Sundance heard was almost certainly feminine.
"I'm supposed to have some changelings come and live with me," Sundance said to be conversational. He had no idea if this would help him or hurt him, but he said it anyway. "Princess Celestia is trusting me to look after them and keep them safe. They are to be the first of several new colonies. It's bound to be interesting… just imagine living with me."
"That does sound kind of neat," a voice said in a near-whisper from within the fort.
"Flax got saved by a changeling. And the mysterious Mare Do Well. Kerpow! There was a huge fight and smoke and shouting and kicking and bam-bam-boom!"
"That changeling was nice, but there were other bad changelings that did awful things."
"Oh." Unsure of what else to say, Sundance lay on the floor and thought about taking a different approach.
"Stinkbug was nice," one of the voices said. "Secret Agent Stinkbug. He has a harpy friend. Flax says she's nice."
"Sounds like Flax made friends with superheroes," said Sundance.
"She has," a voice replied. "They saved her."
"Who am I talking to right now?" asked Sundance.
"That's for us to know and for you to find out," a voice replied.
"I just wanted to know the names of the superheroes that look after Flax right now." When there was no immediate response, Sundance waited for a short time, but silence ruled within the fuzzy alphabet block fort. "That's why I'm here. To find heroes. I asked for heroes and I was sent here to this place. I have other little ones at home in my castle, but what I don't have are heroes. There's a bit of a shortage."
He heard words being whispered in the fort, but could not make out what was said.
Then...
"Prepare to haggle—"
"No, Pluck, you can't go out there. It's dangerous."
"Flax, look after Captain Barf Buzzard, and don't let him do no visual burps. We don't want him blowing no groceries on the wall. And while you're at it, don't let Captain Thunderpants get bent out of shape. You know how he gets. He's already got that look on his face. Yes you do, don't you dare give me that look."
"Aye aye," a squeaky feminine voice said.
"Good job, Flax. Keep this up and you'll be promoted, Cadet."
"Alright, I'm coming out to negotiate—"
"No, don't do it!"
"Not to worry, Captain Barf Buzzard… I'll see myself out the airlock."
Whatever it was he thought he was expecting, Sundance was not prepared for his first eyeful of Pluck. Two things stood out right away: the colt's myriad of scars, of which he had many; and the black fabric eye patch, which was too well worn to be a costume. The little guy was the colour of sand, every conceivable shade of sand imaginable. His puckered hide was covered with dimples, as if he were some kind of golf ball.
He came out of the entrance of the fuzzy block fort with absolutely no fear, and then just stood there with his squint turned on Sundance. Pluck's surviving eye was the ruddy orange of a desert sunset and was filled with more than a little intelligence. Sundance was surprised by the colt's age; this was no little foal, but nor was he an adolescent. He was more or less big enough to see to himself, but as the scars suggested, he'd done a terrible job at it.
"Flax comes with us," the colt said in a surprisingly adult voice.
"All of you stay together," Sundance replied. "That was the condition given to me."
"You're kinda weird, for an adult."
Sundance took this as a compliment. In return, he asked, "Visual burps?"
The earth pony colt shrugged and replied, "Some burps, you hear them. With Captain Barf Buzzard, you see them. These ain't no rainbows of friendship. If you ain't careful, you'll get a faceful of sizzling hot garbage water."
"You're an odd kid," Sundance remarked. "I think I'll keep you."
"I ain't changing for nopony," Pluck said with his barrel puffed out as wide and broad as he could get it. "The world is what it is, and I am what I am. You are who you are… and you ain't bad. At least, that's what my gut tells me. You didn't barge in and demand that we come out and you're kind of like the adults here. So, what is home like?"
Where did Sundance begin? Did he go the safe route and offer up a sanitised version of home? Or did he take some risk and explain how things truly were? Surely this exchange was monitored, and if he started to talk about bottom-biting shitter spiders, an adult would come busting through the door in seconds. Pluck was studying him, and Sundance understood the little colt was a canny customer. In him, Sundance saw potential; Pluck was just the sort of pony his barony needed, a fearless negotiator and adventurous scruffian.
With his chin still resting upon the carpet, Sundance said, "Home is an incredibly smelly place with giant farting bog buttholes that spew boiling mud up into the air. Spider season is wrapping up, I think, and from what little I understand, it was pretty bad this year. We had a bunny bonanza, which we firebombed with airstrikes. We're hundreds of miles from any sort of civilisation and live in the wilds. Ice cream doesn't exist, we don't have flushable toilets, and there are no movie theatres. Most of my residents have never seen functional electricity. But we have beauty. We have a lot of that. Endless meadows, big craggy rocks, toothy mountains, meandering marshes, and boiling, bubbling bogs."
"That sounds incredible," the colt said. "Adventure around every corner, I bet."
"At night, it gets incredibly dark. There are no electric street lamps. But you can see the stars in such a way that you can't see them in the city. The moon is brighter somehow. Can't say why. And things are quiet. So quiet. Sometimes, it is spooky just how quiet it can be. No sounds of traffic. There's no factories so there's no industrial noise pollution. Elevated trains don't go rattling past your window every half-an-hour."
As Sundance tried to think of more to say, he wondered if Pluck might one day be a future envoy or a delegate sent off to negotiate with allies. The little guy was fearless, curious, and listened with rapt attention. So this was what seeing potential in others was like. Was this how Princess Celestia saw little ponies around her? Sundance wondered what she saw during their first meeting. This was he and Pluck's first meeting, and he already had glimpses into a future that he hoped would happen.
"What do you want from a home?" asked Sundance.
Caught off guard, the colt shrugged. He shrugged again, and then once more for a third time. But there was intelligence in his eye and his shrugging was merely stalling whilst he thought of a suitable answer. Sundance watched as the colt actually thought about it, and he could not help but be impressed. Pluck sat down, scratched at his scarred ribs with his hind hoof, and then cocked his head off to one side so that he might focus his eye on Sundance.
"I want a place where I can be important," the colt said to Sundance. "Not because I think I'm better than others, but because I think I have a lot to offer. I used to think I was worthless. Neglect will do that to you. Yeah, yeah, that's therapy talk, but it is true. But now"—the colt's hind leg went still and came to rest upon the ground—"I want to be the pony that Flax thinks I am. I know I can't be perfect, but I can try. That's what I want from a home, I guess. A place where I can prove myself. Having a little sister that believes in you is kinda a big deal. A lot of bad things have happened to Flax, and I don't want her to be disappointed."
Sundance, who did not have a little sister, felt a pang of regret.
"I would go off on adventures and nopony would miss me when I was gone," the colt continued. His expression turned troubled and he reached up with his front hoof to adjust his eyepatch. "Only got rescued because of luck. Almost got eaten by crackle jackals. I want to be wanted. Even though I'm kinda big and even though it is kinda annoying, I want somepony who will fuss over me. I want a reason to come home… otherwise, what is the point of adventure?
"I mean, the whole point of an adventure is that you come home and share your stories. That's what I learned from Daring Do. If you leave, and don't plan to come home, that's not an adventure, that's an escape, and that's just… not… fun. I guess I want a home with books, because books are adventures that you don't die from. You can pick them up, go on adventure, and be home in time for lunch because you never leave home. But leaving home is good too… just so long as you have a home to return to."
"You've given this a lot of thought," Sundance said to the young colt.
"Spent a lot of time in therapy being made to think about this," the colt replied. "All the thoughts were there, but my therapists helped me to put them into words and by expressing them as words, I guess I started to get better. I dunno. But getting all the right words was hard. That was an adventure too. Sorta. Maybe not a fun adventure, but not all adventures should be fun. Some of them have to suck"—the colt cast a hurried glance at the mirror—" otherwise, what's the point of adventure? All of Daring Do's best books are adventures gone horribly wrong."
At the mention of Daring Do's sucky adventures, Sundance thought of when his own adventures went horribly wrong. All the bad things that could happen. The scars that ran the length of his body ached a bit, but he wasn't certain if it was real pain or just the memory of pain. The barony was home, and it meant more to him because he'd bled for it. Yes, Sundance found himself in agreement, sometimes things had to suck so you'd appreciate those moments when things didn't suck.
"I've always been a motormouth," the colt said as he looked Sundance in the eye, "only now after all that therapy and being made to express myself, I am a motormouth with something to say. I have something to say about just about everything. I listen to the radio and read the newspaper so I have something to say. I go on word adventures where I go to find new words, either by listening or reading, and then I try to think about how those words might apply to me. My friends don't get it, but that's fine. This is a me-thing. What I do. What makes me special. What makes me stand out from my friends. We all have our own me-things that we do. Gerard knits—"
"Traitor!" a voice from within the fort shouted.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of it, Captain Barf Buzzard."
"I crochet," the voice in the fort said. "That's not the same as knitting."
"Whatever. You're a cat-bird that plays with yarn. It makes you happy. That's nothing to be ashamed of."
"But it is so girly—"
"Boys," a feminine voice said.
"—it is so girly but I like it so much. I feel so conflicted. Sometimes, I get so worked up it feels like I'm gonna spew."
"You know," Sundance said, "we have brutal winters. We could use a knitter to make sweaters and help us survive."
"Crochet," the voice whined. "I can knit too, but I'm not very good at it. I keep getting distracted by Captain Motormouth and I lose track of my stitches."
"Knitting helps Captain Barf Buzzard stay calm," Pluck explained to Sundance.
"Crochet! Holy cheeses, why is this so hard!"
"When you stick a bird brain onto a cat body, you end up with a lot of nervous energy," Pluck continued. "I think it is because the two parts don't like each other—"
"That's just not true!"
"You chase your own tail—"
"Sometimes it moves in a funny way! It mocks me. I can't help it! Don't judge! Don't judge! At least I've learned not to bite it!"
"Boys," the squeaky feminine voice said again.
"If you come home with me," Sundance said to the yet-to-be-seen Gerard, "I'll make sure that you have plenty of yarn. I'll even make sure that you have critters from which yarn can be made. How does that sound?"
"That's bribery," Pluck said to Sundance matter-of-factly.
"It's negotiation," was Sundance's entirely reasonable response.
"That's really tempting," a voice within the fortress said. "I've always wanted to make my own yarn. I know how… sort of. Just never had the chance. Need a spinning wheel."
"I'll see that you get one."
"You've just bought the buzzard." Head tilted to one side, Pluck seemed both impressed and annoyed by this. "Fine. Fine. So that's how it is then. Now I suppose we parley for the pegasus."
With his chin still on the carpet, Sundance looked up at Pluck. "Parley?"
"Daring Do parleys," the eyepatched colt said as he stroked his scarred chin. "Adventurers parley. It is the sacred tradition of adventurers. Parley lasts until somepony or somebody gets thrown into an airscrew by Cocoa, or Ahuizotl springs his trap, or things end in a hail of hot lead. Kablam!"
"Well, I would hope that our negotiations won't end that way." Studying the young colt, Sundance decided that he rather liked Pluck, but he wasn't sure how Hollyhock might feel about the little smooth operator. "I want to make sure that everypony wins. We should all walk away from this as winners."
"But not everypony can win though," Pluck said. "Somepony has to lose. Like us. We all lost." The colt lifted his foreleg, gestured at the fuzzy alphabet block fort, and then shook his head. "I lost an eye. We've lost our parents. Captain Barf Buzzard regularly loses his lunch. You shouldn't say that everypony wins, because that's just not true. For some to win, others must lose. That's the way of things."
"Pluck," Sundance began, "we can all come away from this as winners. I want to give you a life. That's kind of what I do. That's my purpose. Why I have my mark. When I came here, I had no idea that any of this would happen. But I'm glad it did. Even if I left this place without you four, I feel as though I would still go home with something. Just meeting you has been a win."
The one-eyed colt squinted as he concentrated and tried to read Sundance.
It was almost intimidating just how much scrutiny the colt could deliver. Though he found it difficult, Sundance did not look away. He did not avert his eyes or look elsewhere, even though he longed to do so. At the moment, Sundance was a book and Pluck was the astute reader. Seconds passed like pages turned. As the examination continued, Sundance had an inkling of how important Pluck might be for the barony. Everything hinged upon this moment.
"You actually believe that," Pluck said at last.
This wasn't at all what Sundance expected, and so he was forced to carefully consider what he had to say next. The simple fact of the matter was, he wasn't sure what to say. Perhaps he'd used up his allotment of clever words for the day. He did lift his chin from the floor though, and raised his head. Pluck was still fearlessly studying him and Sundance wondered what the colt saw.
"Grown-ups use a lot of fancy words to say things they don't mean." Pluck's head turned in the direction of the mirror on the wall. "Even some of the adults here. They mean well, I guess. But it makes me angry. They talk about how life will be, and all of the good things, while just ignoring how life actually is, and all the bad things that have happened. What makes it worse is that they don't actually seem to believe what they are saying… even as they say it. I just get so tired of it.
"They have all these empaths around here, and there's all this talk about how this focus on empathy will change everything, and make everything better, and there's all this talk about honest responses during therapy, but they say so many words that don't actually mean anything and that they don't believe in. But they mean well… I guess. It's better here than anywhere else I've been. As for you… I like that you're honest. Because of that, I'll be honest too… I haven't decided."
"I can't speak for the others back home, I can promise you that I'll be honest with you. I am not a changeling."
Much to Sundance's surprise, the one-eyed colt chuckled.
"You've already won over Gerard. You had him when you promised him yarn. And I believe that you're honest enough to keep your promise, so I won't try to talk him out of it." Pluck's head began to bob up and down. "Flax, come on out and say hello to the nice pony. Don't be scared. I'll be here with you. Let's see how you take to him."