The birds outside Sunny’s apartment sang a chirpy morning tune. Sunny herself, however, couldn’t hear them, as she was fast asleep and snoring, even when the sun’s light sat just behind her bedroom curtains.
Deep inside her mind, Sunny’s dreams created visions of an Equestria where Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies frolicked together in vast fields of sunflowers. A drooly smile was etched on her slumbering form. Then, for the second time in three days, she was woken with a start.
“SUNNY!”
Izzy shook Sunny with eager mulberry-furred hooves. Sunny’s eyes shot open and she sat up in a flash.
“WHAT WHAT!” she cried, catching her breath.
Izzy beamed and threw up her hooves in delight.
“I can remember some more things!”
Sunny stared at Izzy like she had just stolen her Famous Ponies of Equestria figurines.
“You woke me up for—”
Izzy started to frown, so Sunny forced a grin.
“I mean, that’s awesome, Izzy! Did you have any dreams that helped you remember?”
Izzy shook her head with a smile.
“Nope — and sorry to wake you like that, I got so excited. I don’t sleep much, and, well, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep that much with you snoring so loud anyway.” Sunny blushed, smiled awkwardly, and rubbed the back of her head. Izzy continued, “I do dream a lot, but —” Izzy tapped the top of her head and looked up at the ceiling — “I just can’t seem to recall what my dreams were last night. I know I had some, they’re just so foggy.”
Sunny cleared her throat and threw off her covers. She jumped off the bed with a yelp and moved for the door.
“You can tell me what you remembered over breakfast! Come on!”
Sunny walked into the main living area of her apartment and looked around with a hum of thought. She looked in cupboards and under furniture. Izzy stood and watched. Eventually, Sunny found what she was looking for in a closet and pulled it out.
“Aha! I knew I had this somewhere!”
It was a dusty, old sun hat. It was white with a pattern of yellow daisies. Clearly, not something a younger mare would wear, but Sunny plopped it on Izzy’s head all the same.
“Sorry, Earth Pony fashion leaves much to be desired, and this old thing belonged to my mom, but it’s better than the rubber hat that smells like a boat full of fish, right?”
Izzy smiled and nodded, giving Sunny a cute, affirmative ‘mhm’. Sunny grabbed a set of saddlebags from the coat rack by the door and the two set off. Once they were outside, Sunny leapt over her second story railing and landed with a thud on the dirt road below.
“Sunny!” Izzy cried with concern, throwing her head over the railing. Sunny looked back up with a wave.
“Hey! No worries, that’s my usual routine! Really gets the muscles warmed up! You try it!”
Izzy gulped and took a step back apprehensively.
“Jump off of… here? But it’s so high…”
Sunny jumped up and down.
“Come on! Trust me, you’ll be fine!”
Izzy closed her eyes and breathed out. She nodded confidently and leapt over the railing. She immediately started to flail her hooves about. A moment later she fell like a rock onto the dirt road. Sunny grimaced, and nearby ponies gasped.
“You, uh,” Sunny began, looking around, “You’re not very athletic or anything, are you?”
Izzy lifted her spinning head off the dirt, little rocks and pieces of sand stuck to her face and mane. Sunny snickered behind her hoof and went over to help Izzy up. Once back on four hooves, Izzy held her head with a hoof.
“Don’t ask me to do that again… please… ugh…”
Sunny’s eyebrows softened.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Izzy. I didn’t expect you to fall like” — Sunny opened her mouth to speak but didn’t. She looked over to the side and thought of the right words. She turned back with a smile — “Well let’s just say I can tell you don’t do things like that often.” Izzy shook her head.
“That’s one of the things I remember. I live in the big city, so most of the time, I’m —” Izzy thought for a couple seconds before replying — “Indoors.” Sunny gestured with her hoof and walked down the street towards the center of town. Izzy followed suit.
“It’s no big deal, Izzy! We’ll sort it out at some point!” Sunny said with a smile. Izzy copied the expression.
It was still early enough that most of the merchants were busy preparing their stalls and couldn’t give Sunny the time of day, which was fine by Sunny because normally that meant getting an earful. Though, she figured, the merchants would be getting an earful from her later, so it evened out!
Some merchants, however, caught sight of Sunny.
“You’re getting a start on the speeches early today, Sunny Starscout,” one merchant said with a huff, a larger stallion with bulging muscles, brown fur, and piercing grey irises. He was unloading his wagon full of horseshoes and other metalworks. Sunny stuck out her tongue.
“You wish! I’m just on the way to the shore for some breakfast with my new friend!” Sunny wrapped a hoof around Izzy’s neck and smiled smugly at the merchant. He rose a brow and laughed.
“Well I’ll be. Not everyearthpony in this town is repelled by your mannerisms. I’ll be!”
The merchant rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes at Izzy.
“Though, I haven’t seen you around before.”
Izzy was equal parts worried about the merchant and what Sunny had said about going to the shore for breakfast. She swallowed hard. Sunny shoved her along and kept smiling wide at the merchant.
“Don’t worry about it, Amos! You’re a busy stallion! Ponies come and go. Hey! I’ll see you later, big guy!” Sunny winked and made a clicking noise through her teeth before leaving with a wave. Amos squinted towards Izzy and hummed in thought.
* * *
The shore of Maretime Bay was littered with hundreds of clumps of sea weeds, ferns, moss balls, and driftwood. The upper part of the shore, which was made up of a blanket of smaller rocks and some larger ones, slowly turned into dark grey, black, and tan sand as it met the water. The tide came in and out at a leisurely pace. The sea was sparkling and twinkling, and of course, the seagulls overhead were frantic with their cries.
Sunny stepped onto the sand and took in a huge whiff. She exhaled happily.
“Gotta love that smell of saltwater on a beautiful day like today! Izzy?” she turned around and saw Izzy lightly kicking at a stone. She looked forlorn.
“I remember…” Izzy said sadly, “About the pony races… I remember now. Sorry that I didn’t remember earlier…”
Sunny briefly frowned, then smiled wide and hopped over to Izzy. She planted a swift smack to Izzy’s behind, generating a red, surprised face out of the Unicorn, before Sunny started laughing.
“Don’t worry about all of that, Izzy! I’m going to unite the Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies once more! It’s sort of my” — Sunny waved her hoof around, brow furrowed — “Y’know, goal, thingy.”
Izzy answered for her, rubbing her rump where Sunny had smacked it.
“You mean it’s your dream?”
Sunny stared out to sea and closed her eyes. A sea breeze lifted her ponytail and streamed it behind her like a thin flag.
“Yeah,” she said quietly, “It’s my dream.”
Izzy giggled and kicked a rock down towards the water. The morning sun was bright, yellow, and warm.
“I think that’s a great dream, Sunny. I can’t remember what mine is, if I have one. But, I can tell you more about what I DO remember during breakfast.” Izzy looked around and leaned in towards Sunny, a look of apprehensive disgust on her face. “It’s not going to be anything… ucky… is it?” Sunny laughed with an open mouth smile.
“Maretime Bay is renowned for many things, Izzy my friend,” Sunny replied, “And, sister, one of ‘ems the grub. Get ready to feast your eyes AND your stomach!” Sunny gestured with a flick of her neck and Izzy followed. The two walked towards the tide. When their hooves hit the water, Izzy stopped and blinked.
“Uhhh, Sunny?”
Sunny turned back around, half of her body submerged in the receding tide. She looked as if she were just interrupted doing the most normal thing of all time. Izzy pointed at the water with her head held up and away as if seeing something abnormal.
“You’re walking into the bay.”
Sunny chuckled.
“That I am, Izzy my friend. Come, follow me. You’ll see.”
Sunny turned back around and her smile devoured the lower part of her face.
I’ve called her my friend, like, five times already, and she hasn’t denied it!
Izzy only very slowly moved towards the water, quite sure that Sunny was mad. Eventually, though, Sunny’s body descended no deeper into the mild waves. She continued walking through the water at lower neck level, taking confident Earth Pony strides. Izzy’s eyes widened. Sunny looked back, noticed Izzy’s incredulity, and waved.
“It’s a sandbank! It’ll lead us right to breakfast!”
Izzy gulped then followed behind Sunny. When she got far enough that the water was up to her lower neck, the cool temperature did wonders for her body. After a few more steps, she felt strange, wavy fingers brush against her hooves, and she shrieked.
“A fish monster! Sunny, help!”
But Sunny just laughed some more and didn’t even turn back around to the pony a few paces behind her.
“No, Izzy, those are just sea weeds.”
Izzy waved one of her hooves around underwater, feeling the slimy texture of the seaweed. After testing its lack of sentience for a moment, Izzy was assured it was indeed just a plant. She smiled and resumed her trot into the water.
“Oh — sorry, Sunny! You can tell this is my first time doing something like this!”
Sunny chuckled and stopped at a seemingly random point out in the bay. Long stalks of dark green, slimy-looking sea weeds stuck out of the water and ebbed and bobbed with the tide.
“That’s good,” Sunny cried behind her, “That means this will be your first Maretime Bay breakfast!”
Izzy caught up and looked all around her. Water as far as the eye could see, except the stalks of seaweed, and the shore behind. The town of Maretime Bay rose ever so slightly towards the sky, and none of the buildings were like what Izzy was used to back home. Everything was constructed of wood, and generally not the best quality wood. The town was surrounded on two sides by medium-sized cliffs of red and pink rock, topped by trees. Izzy couldn’t see the side furthest from the shore.
In the water itself were the various docks and piers of Maretime Bay, floating atop the waves. Innumerable ships, most of them obviously fishing boats, came and went. Closer to the cliffs, to the south of town, were the warehouses and the walkway where Izzy and Sunny had met the day before.
“Well?” Sunny asked, drawing Izzy’s gaze back, “Not a bad place, don’t you think? The ponies could be a bit less, well, Earth Pony stubborn, but it’s home, and I love it!” Sunny rolled her eyes. “Course we need to make some changes, given that this will one day be a town where Unicorns AND Pegasi can come and explore.” Izzy smiled.
“Yeah… umm, so, about breakfast…”
Sunny smiled back, eyes aglow with excitement.
“Right! Breakfast!” There was a sing-songy tone to her voice and Sunny’s tail started to wag, causing mild ripples in the water. Sunny turned toward the sea weeds. Without any worry about her appearance, she jutted forward and snatched a collection of weeds in her mouth and started chewing. Izzy’s jaw dropped.
“Zhis ztuff’s a’azing,” Sunny said through mouthfuls of green, salty plants. She chomped off the stalks of seaweed and turned back to Izzy, happily chewing away. “Try some!”
Izzy grimaced and looked over Sunny’s shoulder to the clump of seaweeds.
“Uhhhhh I think I’m good… I lost my appetite…”
Izzy’s face turned a shade similar to the seaweed as she watched Sunny finish off the last of the food in her mouth. Sunny swallowed and sighed happily.
“Come on! I promise, it’ll be good! You can’t knock it before you try it, Izzy!”
Izzy gulped and waded forward through the water, feeling her hooves sink into mud-like sand beneath the waves. She got within a hair from the seaweeds and looked back anxiously at Sunny.
“I’ll try a nibble, o-okay?”
Sunny nodded and urged her friend forward with a flick of her head. Izzy leaned in and unceremoniously latched onto the upper part of a stalk and pulled back. It took some effort, but the upper part of the stalk tore off and Izzy tried not to gag with the initial flavor of salty, slimy weed.
She started to chew on the seaweed, bringing bit by bit of it further into her mouth. Her face slowly transformed from disgust into surprise. Her eyebrows rose and she smiled at Sunny, who nodded frantically in response.
“Good, right?” Sunny cried. Izzy swallowed and nodded.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding! That’s… not half bad! Pretty salty, but kind of like a fishy piece of hay.” She licked her lips and turned back around to munch on some more. “Sorry I didn’t believe you sooner!” Sunny followed suit.
After a moment of feeding, the stalks of seaweed were reduced by a couple dozen or so. Sunny scooped something up from the sandbank and held it up. Izzy stared with wonderment.
“This is a Maretime Bay fuzzclam!” Izzy cocked her head and studied the hard, white shell of the sizable mollusk. Sunny put her teeth around the top half of the fuzzclam and pulled with her left hoof. With little effort, the two parts of the shell cracked open, revealing a pale, yellow clump of shiny fuzz inside. Sunny tilted her head back, the clam up, and knocked against the bottom half of the shell until the fuzz toppled into her mouth. She gobbled it like it was candy and put the shell into her saddlebag.
“These are good too! We can take some to go and sit on the shore!” she said, scooping up another fuzzclam. Izzy’s mouth twitched on one side and she looked sick again. Nevertheless, she felt around for a clam of her own and, finding one, she struggled to scoop it up. It took a few attempts, but eventually her hoof came out of the water, a clam in its midst. She looked at it awkwardly, then at Sunny, who pantomimed bringing the clam up to her teeth. Izzy bit her lip.
“But aren’t these things… alive?”
Sunny stopped in the middle of eating another fuzzclam and giggled.
“No, silly. Fuzzclams aren’t like normal clams. They’re just plants that grow in the discarded shells of real clams.”
Izzy watched Sunny swallow another fuzzclam. Izzy slowly nodded with a quiet, drawn-out, “Ohhhhhh.” With a grunt of determination, she brought the fuzzclam up to her mouth and pried it open, with less grace than Sunny had.
“Here goes nothing, then!”
The fuzzclam tumbled into Izzy’s mouth. She noted the texture of the fuzzclam took even more getting used to then the seeweed. Izzy’s entire mouth became full of a slimy, mildly fuzzy substance that seemed to dissolve as it sat on her tongue. The taste was, surprisingly, closer to a custard than a plant. She hummed her approved once she finished her first fuzzclam.
“I can’t believe the taste, Sunny! That’s — wow! Sorry I ever doubted you!”
Sunny smiled wide.
“Let’s grab some more and head back. I’m starting to feel pruney.”
The two mares collected a dozen or so more fuzzclams and put them in Sunny’s saddlebags. They made their single-file trek back to the shore. Izzy looked to her left and noticed that, out on several other sandbanks, other Earth Ponies were doing the same thing Sunny and her had just done.
Back at shore, Sunny and Izzy walked up the sandy lower shore and sat down on some larger rocks from the upper shore. As they snacked away on fuzzclams, Sunny leaned back on her hooves and basked in the sun with a loud sigh.
“Yep, Maretime Bay living ain’t so bad! Bet it’s not what you’re used to, being a big city girl and all” — Sunny sat back up and looked at Izzy with eager eyes — “Which reminds me! Tell me what you remember! Do you remember what your home is like?”
Izzy finished off the fuzzclam in her mouth and set the empty shell down beside her. She swung her backhooves back and forth and laid her forehooves on her thighs. She stared out at the sea.
“Hmm, well, sort of,” she began, speaking slowly as if the images and memories were only coming back as she spoke. “Sire’s Hollow is nothing like this place, it’s—”
Sunny gasped and scooted back on her rock. She waved her hooves in front of her face.
“Wait wait wait, you live THERE?! Sire’s Hollow?” Izzy nodded, confused. Sunny bit her hoof and continued rambling, “B-b-but that’s where the Warlock King lives! How could you POSSIBLY live there? Doesn’t he order you around and make you do all sorts of nasty things?”
Izzy gawked at Sunny, quite sure her friend had gone mad. Izzy brushed a lock of sapphire mane out of her face and shook her head with a curious brow.
“No, I’ve never heard of a Warlock King before, sorry. Sire’s Hollow is run by the Council of Five Tribes, as are all the other places where Unicorns live.” Izzy held her hoof to her chin and stared up at a cloud. “Maybe Warlock King is what Earth Ponies call the Voice of the Five Tribes. But he’s not that bad…” Izzy pouted. “I still don’t like him, though. He’s ucky.”
Sunny caught her breath and scooted back to her position from before. She cleared her throat.
“W-well I also heard that in Sire’s Hollow, the Warlock King has a pack of evil timberwolves and frost spiders that do his bidding!”
Izzy giggled.
“I guess you Earth Ponies hear those kinds of stories too, huh?” She smiled at Sunny. “When us Unicorns were foals, our parents and the elders always told us that Earth Ponies were savage brutes who could barely even speak Ponish, and that you’d just get into fights at the drop of a pin!”
Sunny frowned and looked behind her. A group of sailors stood around a wooden crate, guffawing and chewing on wheat stalks, blabbing on about ships and fishing. She turned back to Izzy.
“Yeaaaah… that one’s not far off.”
Izzy laughed and tucked her hooves between her thighs and stared up at the sun.
“It sounds like our elders told us both a lot of things that weren’t true, I think. That’s why I came this far into Earth Pony territory. I wanted to see for myself what it was like.”
Sunny held her hoof up and shook her head. She spoke quieter as some sailors walked by on the road.
“But isn’t that super dangerous? If some of the soldiers who patrol the roads saw you, they’d take you to Castle Rockhoof.” Sunny got closer to Izzy and spoke with her hoof to the side of her mouth. “And FYI, it wouldn’t be because they wanted to give you a friendly tour, you know what I mean?”
Izzy reached into her mane with both her hooves and pulled out a rolled scroll. She waved it around and Sunny followed it with her eyes.
“This is a written permission scroll from the Voice of the Five Tribes. With this, I can basically go anywhere in Equestria with his protection. If the Earth Pony soldiers tried to arrest me, it’d cause a huge national incident, and, well, ponies aren’t looking to have any more of those after the last one.”
Sunny rose a brow.
“The last one? What, did a bunch of hoity toity Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi get together and throw a fit that somepony had the crazy idea to see the world a bit?” She laughed. Izzy looked at the ends of her hooves and shook her head solemnly.
“Not… exactly…” she said quietly. An old, gruff voice shouted from behind.
“If you had paid attention in history class, Sunny Starscout, you would know!”
Sunny and Izzy swiveled around. It was Old Man Withers. Sunny deadpanned and neighed in annoyance.
“Oh no, not you — listen, thanks for not blabbing yesterday about Izzy here, but I really don’t need a history lesson right now.”
Withers squinted off toward the sea and spoke as if he hadn’t heard Sunny.
“The Everfree Forest Incident happened twenty-five years ago, before either of you scamps were born. And it was no laughing matter, Sunny Starscout.” He turned his hard gaze to Sunny, who inadvertently frowned and shuffled back on her rock. He continued. “It sparked a war that caused over a thousand Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi to lose their lives.”
There was a heavy silence as Sunny’s mouth dropped. A sinking pit formed in her stomach and she looked at her rock. The only noise was the sound of the tide as it spread out over the shore and the cries of the seagulls.
Izzy broke the silence, “Yeah… that’s what we were taught, too, more or less…”
Sunny looked back up at Withers and opened her mouth to speak, her usual determination etched onto her face. Withers stopped her before she could.
“Ehhhh, save it. I don’t want to hear more of your incessant babbling about unity. What happened, happened. And neither love nor friendship nor any other collection of namby-pamby WORDS will take it back, or stop something else like it from happening in the future.”
Sunny stewed and bit her teeth. Withers continued.
“Now, moving on: I forgot to ask you what I wanted to ask you yesterday. Your friend here caught me off guard.” Withers searched inside Sunny’s eyes for the truth before he even asked the question.
“Where’d that Professor Tyson run off to? I saw him leave the town the day before yesterday.”
Sunny glared at Old Man Withers and crossed her forehooves.
“W-why should I tell you? You planning on telling somepony and getting him in trouble? I might not know a lot about pony race relations, but I do know that Earth Ponies aren’t supposed to wander out of the Realm without permission from Castle Rockhoof!”
Withers smirked.
“Heh, well I guess you told me all I needed to know anyway. I bet that fool went to the Forbidden Zone, didn’t he?”
Sunny roared, “Hey! Don’t call The Professor a fool!” Withers grumbled.
“But he DID go there, did he not?”
Sunny sucked in her lips and shook her head really fast. Withers laughed.
“So predictable. The truth is all over your face!”
Withers became serious once more.
“That Everfree Forest Incident I mentioned earlier, it happened in the Forbidden Zone. And those Rogue Unicorns that scare everyearthpony so much, that’s where they live.”
Izzy chimed in.
“I’ve even heard of them, though I can’t seem to remember anything specific, sorry…”
Withers grunted. Sunny was staring at her rock with sad eyes.
Professor Tyson…
“Cheer up, little miss.” She looked up to see Withers wearing a rare genuine smile. “I taught that crazy stallion when he was a colt. He’s got my stubbornness and strength of will. He’ll be fine.”
Sunny cocked her head.
“Wait, you were a teacher? You TAUGHT the professor? I just assumed he was always the town professor!”
Withers laughed and started walking away.
“This is why you PAY ATTENTION in history class, Sunny Starscout.”
Sunny glared at Wither’s old, grey-furred form limping away as Izzy poked her on the shoulder.
“So, what are the plans for the day?”
Sunny jumped in place as she remembered something. Her face lit up.
“Right! That Old Man Withers distracted me! Let’s go! It’s a bit of a trek, but you’ll love it! And—”
Sunny jumped off her rock and smiled with closed eyes.
“You can meet my parents!”