//------------------------------// // Ambush // Story: House of the Rising Sunflower // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Why do we call goals and things that we hope for dreams? Sundance asked of himself as he blinked in the bright sunlight. Dreams are unobtainable and disappear the moment we wake up. Do we set ourselves up for failure when we refer to what we want as a dream? Will it remain forever-elusive? Dreams are the furthest thing from reality. Do I have a dream or a goal? What if I can't tell?  A few feet away, Corduroy was hunched over, her jowls resting upon her paw, and her eyes were thoughtful. How things had changed. Oh, how things had changed. At the moment, Sundance felt as though he had himself a pretty good understanding of how to read her face. Something told him that she didn't wholly approve of his plan and right now, at this moment, she was probably trying to think of just the right words to express that.  "You can get others to fight for you," she said at last.  That wasn't much of an attempt, and Sundance replied, "Or I could lead by example."  "The issue," Corduroy began, "is that there is only one of you. You're the baron. The pony in charge. If something happens to you… everything that you've worked for… that we've worked for… Sundance, you have obligations."  "I do. To keep others safe. Which means I have to be the one in danger."  "That's just stupid," the anxious diamond dog snapped whilst she turned around to face away from Sundance. "A little adventure here and there is one thing. But this… this is irresponsible. You can't be replaced, Sundance. You've done incredible work here. Don't throw it away."  "I found myself surrounded in a room—"  "That's a wholly different circumstance and you know it. You would have been extracted. Nopony was expecting you to battle your way out of there."  "Corduroy, I have to fight my own battles."  "No, you don't. That's a load of horseapples."  He sighed and discovered that this disagreement left a bitter taste on his tongue.  "You are not Commander Hurricane," she said, clearly irritated with him. "And that's fine, Sundance. Private Pansy is also remembered. There's no shame in not being able to fight."  "Well, I feel that there is—"  "That's just dumb."  As much as that comment stung, Sundance didn't allow his hackles to rise. He somehow remained calm. Passive. There wasn't a single outward sign of anger. Nothing about him revealed his pricked temper. While he understood Corduroy's point of view, and even agreed with it on some level, he still felt that this was something that he had to do for himself. The incident with Sparrowhawk was the final straw.  "Why is this so important to you?" asked Corduroy. "Is this about ego?"  "I don't know. I don't have an answer."  "Well, if you don't know why you're doing it, why do it at all?"  "For my own betterment."  A low growl escaped Corduroy, and she tugged upon her own ears. Eyes squeezed shut, she stood there yanking on her own ears for several seconds, growling and grunting whilst she shifted her weight from one paw to the other. Her supple, stretchy face contorted, her jowls quivered, and her tail sagged. Sundance watched, impassive, and waited for her fit of pique to pass.  "What if you die?" she demanded.  "If I learn how to fight, at least I'll die well. Better than dying like a chump."  "Argh," she arghed, arghling for the sake of expressing her arghlement. "There is no glory in death. Dying doesn't make you great. Living does. Living a long productive life. My job as a nurse is to keep you alive for as long as possible, so that you might achieve greatness!"  "Is this a conflict of interests?" he asked.  "I don't know," was her slow response. "If you die, all your work here ends."  "I'm not that important," he said. "There are others."  "But those others aren't you." Her voice was now an unmistakable whine. "How can you say that you're not important? Look at what you've done here!"  "What I've done here has been accomplished by me being passive and allowing things to happen. I need to take a more active role in things and I—"  "But not by fighting!"  "Somepony has to do it, and there is a distinct lack of someponies to do it. There's problems to the north. Tarhollow has bandits and monsters and such. What if they come south? I don't have an army, or soldiers, or anypony. So I'm stuck defending what is mine. This isn't something that I can be passive about. I can't wait it out and hope for the best. If I take action now, I have a better chance of dealing with it before it becomes a crisis. Before anypony else is in danger."  She slumped and everything sagged. "You're right. But I don't have to like it. But you're also wrong. If something happens to you, it's not just the end of your plans, but also Princess Twilight's. You're instrumental to that. Sundance, it feels like so much is at stake."  "Which is why I need to take a more active role in safeguarding our shared future."  "Well, I don't have to like it. Go on. Go to Lulamoon Hollow while there's still daylight. Though I'm not sure it matters. It's always dark there. Dusk for daylight, and the blackest nights in Equestria. It's kinda spooky, Sundance."  "Are we still friends?" he asked.  She turned suddenly, and with wide-eyed disbelief, she stared down at him. "What sort of question is that?"  "We're fighting," he replied.  "No, we're not."  "I think we are. And it worries me."  "We're not."  "If we're not, then what are we doing right now?"  "Saying goodbye," she snapped. "Get out of here!"  "So we're still friends?"  "There's nothing that can change that!" Pulling her paws away from her face, she began to wave them around over her head. "I need a calming cup of tea! And you… you need to go! Before I change my mind and don't let you leave! Are we still friends… what sort of crummy question is that? Argh!"  As Sundance spread his wings, Corduroy stomped off towards her infirmary.    Tarhallow was aptly named. The lowlands north of the mountains, beyond the foothills, had a great many boiling lakes and pools of tar. While much of it was marshy, or downright swampy, there were patches of what appeared to be fertile land. There were ruins here, Sundance could see the shattered remains of old buildings, crumbled walls, and the decayed remains of what was once prosperous. He saw treacherous paths and rotten, collapsed bridges.  A cragodile wallowed in a bubbling pond of steaming, roiling tar.  It was hotter here, very much so, and the air was actually steamy. This would be a miserable place to spend the summer—it would be miserable to live here at any time of the year. Yet this land held promise. Naphtha could be found in the tar pools. He had little understanding of what it was, other than that it was flammable and valuable. Before electricity, lamps used naphtha for fuel. Seeing the ruins made Sundance realise that this land had once been valuable, but since electrification it had become less-so.  The moldering, mildewed remains of an old tower stuck up out of the swamp like a rotten stump.  Somewhere in this area, a hospital complex would be built. Perhaps farther north. All the runoff from the mountains and foothills collected here in this place, these lowlands, but farther ahead on the distant horizon Sundance saw trees as far as the eye could see. So Tarhallow was just an unpleasant patch. It certainly didn't smell very nice, and the stench was somehow even worse.  At least the boiling lakes were majestic in their own way.  Then, much to his surprise, Sundance saw a sign. It stood right next to a rather perilous path that was decidedly too close to a bubbling tar pit. While grey and somewhat weatherbeaten, the sign wasn't rotten. It wasn't decaying. The sign seemed far too new in comparison to everything else, so he swooped down to have himself a better look. Somepony had put up a sign, and it couldn't have possibly been all that long ago. He doubted that the previous Milord had done so, which left him wondering who might have done this?  "Tarhollow region: postal code five-five-niner-six-banana," he read aloud from the weathered sign. Then, below that, he read, "Welcome to Putrid Puddleberg. Beware the boglins!" And then, below that, he read, "Lulamoon Hollow: north and west. Stay on path." Befuddled, he said to himself, "How odd."  Hovering in the air just above the sign, Sundance scratched his chin. This place had a postal code… which meant it had postal service. His barony however, had no such service and this was one of the many things on his to-do list. Bureaucracy made no sense and defied reason. It maddened the mind. And this was a perfect example of absolute inanity. This place was a functioning township, he realised. Some agent of the Crown probably came out all this way to plant this sign. Yet the barony proper was largely forgotten. It didn't even have a name, but was in need of one.  "What's a boglin?" he asked, even though there was nopony to answer.  As it turned out, said boglins lurked in the bushes—bushy bushes perfect for ambushing. They loitered in the shrubbery, lollygagging languidly, leering lackadaisically. Sundance was completely surrounded by horrible, wretched, perpetually soggy bog-dwelling goblins. Dozens of the dirty opportunists waited around this very sign, because ponies were stupidly curious enough to come down and have themselves a better look. The murderous little psychopaths had crude, rusty knives, nasty axes, and jagged, crooked spears.  But before they could strike, just as they prepared themselves to ambush their unsuspecting and not-so-terribly-bright lunch, Sundance pooted and flew away.    The shadow of the Canterhorn really did fall upon Lulamoon Hollow and Sundance saw a wall of dusk ahead of him. It was more than mere shadow though, some of it was magic, and none of it could be understood. Even shrouded in dusk, bathed in twilight, the land was lush, green, and verdant. Flapping his wings, he spent a few moments hovering in the air so that he might take it all in. There were ponies here right on the edge—a whole settlement in fact. A small town was half-in and half-out of the shroud of twitterlight.  And what a town it was!  Though small, it was impressive. There were neat stone buildings, which were of spectacular construction, but also shaped trees and shaped earth structures. He saw carriages, wagons, carts, and there was a surprising amount of traffic in the narrow cobblestone streets. Past the town, beneath the gloom, there were strange apple trees that Sundance had never seen before. How anything grew without the sun was unknown to Sundance, who could not even begin to imagine such things.  A sunny golden pegasus maid swooped upwards, and before Sundance could introduce himself to her, she said to him, "Hi! Welcome to Gloamingwood! If you've come to do the business of banditry, I'd advise that you reconsider!"  "Banditry?"  "Oh, you've chosen poorly! Prepare to die in the most horrible manner that you can—"  "No, no! That was a question! I'm no bandit! I'm Sundance… of the Sunfire Barony. Baron Sundance. I've come to meet with Lord Sumac."  "Oh." The pegasus maid's expression turned sweet, but not the least bit apologetic. "You have a long way to go. And you won't be able to see. Probably. But some dusk apple brew will give you the night vision you need. No charge. Lady Pebble would scold our ears off if we charged you… but everypony else is fair game. It's darker than it looks."  "Thank you," Sundance said. "Miss… uh… I never got your name?"  "I never gave you my name. I suspected that you were a bandit."  "So I noticed, Miss."  "Snowtart Apple," she said in a syrupy voice.  "Miss Snowtart Apple." He nodded, once, then a second time, and it was then that he took notice of the pretty pegasus maid. She was lean, but well-muscled. A tiny scar existed between her nostril and her lip. Her golden hide almost appeared to be metallic and the more he looked at her, the more he liked what he saw.  "Like what you see?" she brazenly asked.  "Um, my apologies, Miss—"  "There's no harm in looking," she said, her voice somehow syrupier. "You're kinda handsome. Wouldn't have stopped me from pummeling you into pudding if you were a bandit though. I make a fine distraction, wouldn't you agree?"  Before Sundance could respond, he heard sniggering from behind him. A quick glance over his withers revealed two other pegasus ponies, one male, the other female. With a nervous laugh, he held his front hooves up in good-natured surrender. When he returned his attention to Snowtart, he saw that she had a particularly toothy grin that stretched from ear to ear.  Snowtart made a come-hither gesture with both of her front hooves. "Please, come with me, Lord Sundance. You look thirsty. Care for a little lunch?"    As it turned out, Snowtart Apple and her companions, Pepperjack and Peppercorn were incredibly friendly sorts. He sat in a far too comfortable chair with a slice of apple pie that was far too large, on top of which there was a slice of melty pale yellow cheese. A tremendous tankard of what appeared to be cider was plunked down beside him, and the unicorn serving maid smiled at him as she retreated.  "Thank you, Sunshower," Snowtart said to the serving maid. Then, she turned her attention to Sundance. "So, what brings you to Lulamoon Hollow?"  "I came to ask a favour," he replied with all of his attention on his wedge of pie.  "Oh… a favour?"  "Need to do something about the bandits."  "You do," Snowtart agreed, her head bobbing up and down.  "But to deal with the bandits and such, I need to learn how to fight them. Need to learn to fight, period."  "You don't know how to fight?" The golden mare's golden eyes blinked and then went wide. "There's nothing wrong with that. Don't be ashamed. You poor dear. This happens."  Both Pepperjack and Peppercorn began to nod.  Poor dear? This ruffled his feathers more than he cared to admit. Already beset by insecurity and self-doubt, this made everything worse somehow. When he looked up from his pie, he saw that Snowtart had a look of serious concern on her face as she studied him. Well, at least she was sincere, not that her sincerity dulled the sting. Her attractiveness however, that went a long way towards distracting him from his woes.  "You'll want to go to Lulamoon Hollow," she said to him. "Just follow the road with the glowing bright blue fungus. Don't veer too much off the road. It's enchanted and keeps the dangerous monsters away. Just follow the path and when you get to Lulamoon Hollow, seek out Megara the Lioness. She's the Manticore at Arms. If you ask nicely, I'm sure she'll help. She trained me how to fight, along with the Pepper twins, and pretty much everypony else."  "She taught you how to fight?" he asked.  "We already knew how to fight." Snowtart seemed a bit miffed and her nostrils flared wide. "She taught us how to win. How to fight dirty."  "How to distract somepony and then sneak up behind them?"  She nodded. "Exactly. She has rules. The number one rule is to never get into a fair fight."  This caused Sundance's eyebrows to rise on their own free will.  "We're all scoundrels and rogues." Peppercorn's baritone was a throaty rumble that made Sundance's ears quiver. "Our barony has a reputation… one that we take great pride in."  "We let monsters live in our woods so that we might test our mettle against them," Pepperjack said to Sundance. "And we don't cower from bandits. We're not like other ponies."  "Soft living makes for soft ponies," Snowtart said as she leaned against the smooth wooden table. "It is good that you came here. Now, drink up! The dusk apple brew has quite a bite. That first swallow is always a doozy!"