//------------------------------// // 23. Resemblance // Story: The Name of Our Mistakes // by ObabScribbler //------------------------------// Onion Flowerpot was not a stallion much given to deep thought. He knew what he liked and he liked what he knew. Since colthood he had known he was destined to work on his family’s farm, growing vegetables that they could either sell at the village market, or give as tithes to the unicorns who raised the sun and moon, or pegasi who controlled the weather. His plans for this samey, quiet life had been thrown off somewhat when the harsh Winter of the Windigos all but destroyed the farm and much of the village died of starvation and frostbite while their leaders were off choosing a new land and naming it. Life here at Castle Everfree was nearly as good as working the farm. He still ploughed fields in Spring, nurtured the crops in Summer, harvested them in Autumn and stored them away for Winter. The only real difference was in scale and money. He no longer needed to sell anything, since everything grown in the castle grounds went to the castle kitchens and stores. He had once assumed he would marry some nice young mare and they would take over the farm when his parents were no longer able. The nice young mare had never happened, but he took over as Head Groundspony after his father retired and took pride in his work. He stood at the doorway to the kitchens, leaning on a stick he tried not to use when his subordinates were around. He was a strong, big-chested stallion, even bigger than his father had been, but age caught up with everypony eventually. He marvelled that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna looked as young as they had since the day they came to Equestria. Whatever troubles were going on, Onion had confidence that the princesses could deal with it. They had defeated Discord, hadn’t they? He had been there when the master of chaos changed what remained of his village into flowers that sang his praises, and then set fire to them all. The princesses had turned the beast to stone and saved as many ponies as they could, bringing them all back to Everfree with them. They had defeated King Sanguine and made it safe for villages to grow into bigger and bigger towns without fear of being targets for griffin raiders. They raised the sun and moon, allowing unicorns to turn their magic to more creative fields that enriched the lives of all Equestria. Onion remembered a time when art or music were greeted with snorts and derision. Now the castle often had evenings of poetry and song and there were plenty of portraits in the halls and sculptures surrounding what remained of Discord in the gardens. His reverie was interrupted by movement from the corner of his eye. He blinked, squinting a little. He really needed some of those new-fangled spectacles the glassmakers had been developing in Unicornia but he worried his groundsponies would respect him less if they thought him infirm. He saw a blob of yellow and pink moving down the hill and wondered what Posy could be doing abroad at this hour. It was only just sunrise. Onion had woken early because his old bladder couldn’t cope the way it used to and once he was up there was no getting back to sleep for him. He liked watching the sunrise with a cup of nettle tea and often stood in the kitchens before even the scullery maids stirred in their beds. Posy was a nice young mare, he reflected. She would make some stallion a fine wife someday. If he had been a few decades younger … but no, that was foolish thinking. Some things just weren’t meant to be. Still, for such a small mare she could certainly work. She always acted like she had something to prove to the other groundsponies. Onion couldn’t care less about hedgewitches and superstitions but he recognised how it could affect others’ judgement. That was why he had taken Posy into his team instead of leaving her to be absorbed into the great mass of hoofmaidens, maids and cookery mares. The girl had talent with plants and deserved the chance to show there wasn’t an ounce of malicious witchery in her. He sipped at his tea and listened to the birds give the dawn chorus. As the last of sunrise’s colours gave way to blue sky the floorboards above him groaned with the weight of ponies waking and dressing for their morning duties. As he was turning away, he saw the blob of yellow and pink returning. Posy didn’t come in through the kitchens, instead passing of sight through a small door in the castle wall. Onion shrugged, deciding she must have been doing that new ritual he had heard young mares talking about. He couldn’t imagine why washing your face in morning dew would make any kind of difference to your looks, nor how you were supposed to see the image of your true love in a puddle, nor get his initials from the seeds of a pomegranate, nor any of the other innumerable things young mares did these days. It was all a bit beyond him, quite frankly. As long as Posy did her work well, however, he wasn’t going to inform the guards that she had been in the grounds before dawn. It was all the innocent fun of youth, after all. Onion’s old ears had been too far away to hear the creak of a small gate in the wall around the grounds. He had not seen Posy walk unthinkingly into the forest, seen her strangely blank eyes search out plants and tubers that she dug up using tools rather her mouth or hooves as she usually would. He didn’t see her carrying a basket when he spotted her re-entering the castle, nor would he have recognised half the things she carried in it. A farm pony like Onion Flowerpot had never learned about what grew in a vicious forest like the one around Castle Everfree and certainly did not know what a careful combination of the most innocent looking of things could do. But Posy did.