//------------------------------// // XIII - Flatstone // Story: Rise and Shine // by Skijarama //------------------------------// The beasts emerged without warning, chasing them through the dark. When at last the sisters escaped their pursuers, the elder found, to her despair, that the younger was gravely injured. It was thanks to blind luck that they found their destination as they descended—the village their parents once called home. But their hope for salvation would prove short-lived, for none were there to greet them… Celestian remained still, her eyes scanning her surroundings while she fought to keep her breathing under control. The freezing wind whistling between the dark, empty buildings was the dominant ambiance, sending a chill crawling up and down her spine like an angry millipede. There was an unusual feeling hanging over the village, one with which she was unfamiliar. Luna shifted uneasily, a tiny whimper slipping out of her throat. “T-Tia, I’m scared… where is everypony?” she asked again, her eyes darting this way and that. Celestia didn’t answer at first, trying to rationalize it in her head. “Maybe everypony’s inside?” she thought. She turned to the nearest building and trotted up to it. She peered in through one of the windows, pulling the curtain aside with her magic. It was stiff and crackled with frost as she brushed it aside, making her cringe. This cloth had been left in place for a long time, and it had almost completely frozen over. The inside of the home was not faring much better, from what little Celestia could see. It was dark inside, with no fires lit, though she could see a central firepit. A single shaft of light came out of a hole in the roof over the fire pit, providing faint illumination for the rest of the interior. There were two beds, one in each corner, both missing their blankets. The various shelves, all made of wood, were barren and empty. “There’s nothing…” she whispered anxiously, a chill running down her spine as she backed away. Luna whimpered again. “N-nothing?” Celestia staggered back, her head spinning. Without speaking, she turned and sprinted for the next house down the street, this time shoving the door open with her magic. To her growing dread, there was nopony here, either. Everything had been stripped bare and left to rot. How long ago, she couldn’t say. Had they all died? Had the cold stolen away the ponies of this village, like it had her parents? A tiny, terrified whimper escaped Celestia at that prospect. If there was nopony else here, how was she going to help Luna? Heedless of whatever her little sister was saying to her, Celestia began to dart from home to home, her mind spiraling into a frantic haze. “They can’t be gone!” she thought, her breath starting to come in heaving gasps as she tore down the streets. “There has to be somepony left! Anypony! Luna needs help!” But there was nopony to be seen. Every single home she looked into was empty. Devoid of life and light. The ponies who once called this town home hadn’t even had the courtesy to leave behind any supplies. The only silver lining she could think of was that there were no bodies. And that meant that the ponies were still alive. They just weren’t here right now. ...Right? Her frantic search eventually drew her into the center of the village. A well stood at the heart of a plain circular plaza. Several roads branched out from this point, each one curving in a different direction. Even here, in what must have been the bustling core of the settlement, all was still and silent. Celestia stopped by the well, spinning in place, her ears folded back. “No… no, no no!” she babbled, terror ripping into her heart. “Tia, what do we do?” Luna asked in a choked whisper. Her voice was so tiny and weak, it sent all of Celestia’s protective instincts flaring into overdrive. With careful movements, Celestia lifted Luna off her back and set her down by the well, clearing some of the snow with her magic. She saw the raw fear and despair in Luna’s face, and she knew the smaller filly must have realized just how bad their situation was. Celestia hesitated. “I… I don’t know,” she confessed, looking down at the ground. “I don’t know what to do! I thought we’d get help here, but… but…” She wished Sprout and Honey were here. They would know what to do. They always had, right up until the very end. But now… She shook her head. “One thing at a time, Tia,” she told herself, focusing on Luna again. “...But I will figure something out.” Luna didn’t say anything. She just nodded quietly and pulled her blanket tighter around herself. A move she quickly came to regret, wincing as the fabric rubbed against her smashed ribs and sucking in an agonized breath through tightly clenched teeth. Celestia quickly reached out, steadying Luna and keeping her from falling. “Woah, there. Easy. Easy…” “It hurts,” Luna gasped, tears leaking out of her eyes. “It h-hurts really bad…” “I know, I know it does,” Celestia soothed her as well as she could. She wished she could pull Luna into a hug or something, but too much intimacy would only make it hurt worse. She had to resist the urge to growl in frustration as she remembered that but forced herself to stay calm. A few seconds passed while Luna calmed down, affording Celestia a chance to think. She sat back on her haunches and looked around again. “Okay… okay, uh… we… we can’t stay out in the open,” she eventually concluded. “We need to find shelter. Lotta houses around here… we can use any of them, I guess.” “But… w-wouldn’t that be stealing?” Luna asked quietly. “These homes belong to other ponies, don’t they?” Celestia was quiet for a second, but she didn’t even spare a thought on the moral question. “...They aren’t here. And I’m not letting you freeze,” she decided, her expression hardening. “If they don’t like it, tough.” Luna shied back somewhat from the harshness in her sister’s tone, but Celestia was too focused to notice right now. She looked around again, assessing each building she saw, looking for what might be the warmest one. Eventually, her eyes settled on a one at the edge of the clearing, a simple thing no bigger than most of the others, but at least it didn’t have any holes in it. “Come on. Let’s get inside,” Celestia instructed, guiding Luna towards her choice. They moved slowly and carefully, so as to not agitate Luna’s injury any more. Soon they were stepping into the building, Celestia pushing the door open with her magic.  It gave off a low, ponderous creak, and a cold whistling sound swept through the abandoned interior. It was much like the other houses she had looked into. There was a single bed in the back, a counter against the wall on the left, a firepit in the middle of the room, and what looked like a storage room off to the right. The floor was hard, compact dirt, and it was bitterly cold. Every step was a shock to Celestia’s system, reminding her that she was woefully underdressed for the weather. She forced herself to ignore her own shivers, however and guided Luna toward the bed in the back. At least there was a mattress on it… Celestia gently set Luna down on the mattress so her injured side was facing up. She winced with every sound Luna made on the way down, and her heart withered in her chest at every hiss of pain, but soon, Luna was settled down and as comfortable as Celestia could make her. Celestia forced herself to smile as she ran her hoof through Luna’s mane. “We made it,” she told her in a whisper. “We made it to Flatstone… w-we… w-we’ll be okay, now.” Luna looked at Celestia for a few seconds, her eyes glistening. She then screwed her eyes shut and sniffled. “I wanna go home…” Celestia didn’t answer at first. After a moment, though, an idea came to her, and she reached into their saddlebags with her magic. Luna cracked open an eye, watching curiously as Celestia rummaged around for a few moments. “Come on, where are they…?” Celestia whispered to herself, starting to grow worried. Had they lost them in all of the chaos with the ghosts? Or even the river? She chased such notions away as quickly as they came. They couldn’t have lost them! They were all she had left of him! Finally, with a wave of relief, she found what she was looking for, and delicately retrieved a small collection of wooden figurines from their bags. Luna’s eyes locked onto them immediately, lighting up with nostalgia. She reached out to them with a barely audible squeak. Celestia smiled, passing the toys into Luna’s outstretched hooves. “Here… I know it’s not much, but we brought a bit of home with us,” she said gently. Luna took the toys into her hooves and held them close to her chest. At first, she was smiling with fond remembrance. But then, as the moments dragged on, her expression changed, and soon she was screwing her eyes shut. Tears began to leak out of the corners again, and Celestia had to look away when she heard Luna’s quiet sobs echoing in that lonely room. “Dad…” Luna cried quietly, sniffling and hiding her face behind her mane. “Come back… please come back…” Celestia didn’t say anything. Inside, she wondered if that had been the right thing to do. The wound was still fresh, and the last thing Celestia wanted was to pour salt on the wound… but it was too late now. Too tired to address the matter right now, Celestia took a few minutes to take stock of their supplies. They had lost both Sprout and Honey’s saddlebags at the river, and those two had been carrying most of the important stuff. They had lost their clothes during their flight from the ghosts. That left them with a small collection of old blankets and the toys their father had given them in their saddlebags. In the house, there wasn’t much else. If they broke down some of the shelves, maybe they could get a fire going, but it wouldn’t last for long, and they didn’t have anything to ignite it with. Searching the storage room, Celestia found an assortment of pots, but they were all empty, too. Celestia grimaced as she closed the door to the storage room. They were not in a good place. The fact they had a roof over their heads didn’t amount to much. Luna was still injured, and Celestia had no idea how to help her… A low gurgling sound echoed through the room. Celestia turned around to look back at Luna, her eyes wide. The smaller filly opened her eyes again, still fighting back her weeping, to look at Celestia. “Uhm… - sniff - I’m h-hungry…” she mumbled. Celestia cursed under her breath, only now realizing just how hungry she was, too. They had gone for days without any meaningful food, and basically no water. She had just been so focused on taking care of Luna that she hadn’t even noticed how bad the pain in her stomach was getting. They needed food. “Um… I’ll look around town,” Celestia suggested, glancing over at the door. “I’ll see what I can find…” In truth, she didn’t even want to let Luna leave her line of sight. A sentiment shared by her little sister, as evidenced by her anxious whimpering. “B-but… I don’t wanna be alone,” she said. “I’ll be back soon,” Celestia assured more to herself than her sister, walking over and placing a hoof gently on Luna’s shoulder. “You just stay here and rest. You’re hurt, and you need time to heal.” “What about you?” Luna asked, lifting her head somewhat. “You flew me all the way here after fighting those… t-things. You’re even more tired than I am.” “But I’m not hurt,” Celestia pointed out. “I’ll rest once you’re fed, okay?” Luna looked like she wanted to argue more, but another growl from her stomach forced her into begrudging compliance. She offered a stiff nod of her head and pulled the toys closer to her chest. “...Come back,” she finally said. “Please come back.” Celestia leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on Luna’s temple, offering her little sister a gentle smile. “I will.” It was painful to leave Luna like that, and every moment away from her little sister hurt Celestia more and more. Anxiety and fear ate at her heart like a legion of ravenous ants at a mountain of sugar. What if the ghosts came back while she was gone? What if the roof suddenly collapsed? What if this town wasn’t as abandoned as it looked, and the ponies who lived in that hut suddenly came back to find Luna in its sole bed? Celestia shook her head every time such terrors manifested in the back of her mind. Whether or not any of them were even possible was irrelevant. The sooner she found food and brought it back, the better. Alas, food was proving to be a frustratingly difficult commodity to come by. Celestia tried to limit her search to the exteriors at first, only trying to find any patches of grass or shrubbery that had survived the snow. Raw plants and grass didn’t exactly taste good, but they were edible, and that was all Celestia cared about right now. Yet, there was nothing. The grass under the snow was frozen, brittle, and dead. Celestia doubted it would make for good sustenance. Other forms of plantlife fared little better, with shrubs having shriveled up, and what few crops there were around the outside of the town suffering the same inglorious end as Sprout’s had back in the mountains. Not that Celestia would want to eat these. The dead husks of old crops were overgrown with the corpses of a veritable abundance of weeds.  Strangely, though, most of the plantations were utterly empty. Celestia could distinguish them from the surrounding landscape from her position high the air, finding that the bulk of the crops had seemingly been harvested some time ago, but not replanted. Finally, as the freezing day crept along, the cold began to get to Celestia, and she started exploring inside the homes, if only for an excuse to get out of the cold. Unfortunately, there was very little to be had in them, either. She did find an old box full of fruit… but all of them had gone bad and decayed into a mound of mush in their pot, leaving a rancid, sickly sweet odor to permeate the house she found them in. As her fruitless search dragged on, Celestia began to feel a creeping numbness seeping into her legs. A haze settled gradually over her eyes, and her thoughts became dull and clouded. She was exhausted, and it was starting to take its toll. Even her burning desire to feed Luna was barely able to keep her focused on the task at hoof. One more building. She would search one more building, and if she didn’t find anything there, she’d head back. Her target was a two-story building at the edge of town. It was built noticeably different from the other structures in the abandoned village, and it was significantly larger. A deck extended out from the front door and wrapped around the entire front of the building, while a sign hung over the entrance, though whatever was written on it was completely obscured by layers of frost. It swayed in the breeze, its metal hinges shrieking with every tiny movement, like the last cries of a dying elk. It was the biggest building Celestia had seen so far. If there was food to be found anywhere, it would be here. With a tired sigh, she stepped up to one of the windows and peered inside, lighting up her horn so she could see. The interior was dark, and in her tired state, her horn provided little more than a narrow beam of dull illumination. Slowly moving her light around, she saw various circular tables scattered about a sizable room, each one surrounded by wooden chairs. There was a counter in the back of the room. Behind it, on the wall, a series of long shelves held a collection of old jars and bottles. There was a closed door behind the counter as well, off to the side. “Worth a shot,” Celestia muttered before struggling to push open and clamber through the window. It took some doing, and her wings got stuck in the frame for a moment, but soon she was in and making her way for the counter. The floor was made of wooden planks, and each one creaked loudly as she stepped on it. For a brief moment, she slowed down, remembering how she had heard Sprout and Honey moving around upstairs from time to time back home. Shaking away the memory of better times, she focused on the task at hoof. As she stepped around the counter, she spotted numerous empty bottles on the floor, each without its cork. She winced and shuffled back slightly, her nose wrinkling as a powerful stench hit her nostrils. She didn’t know what it was, but it made her stomach churn. Resisting the urge to gag, she decided to skip the shelves. Whatever was in the remaining bottles was probably not something she wanted in her system. With nothing else for it, Celestia made her way to the door in the back. It squealed loudly when she pushed it open, making her cringe. Taking a look around, Celestia spotted a series of counters against the walls and running through the center of the room, along with stoves that were similar to the one Honey had used back home to make bread. This must have once been a kitchen, Celestia realized as she worked her way through it. Maybe this place had been a restaurant or a tavern or something? Celestia didn’t know much about such places, other than that ponies would gather in them sometimes to drink and eat with friends.  And if this was a tavern, then that meant… With a spark of hope, Celestia quickly scanned the room for any sign of food. While she didn’t spot any right away, she did see another door on the far side of the room. Now giddy with hope, she made her way over to it as quickly as she could and threw it open. A stale draft blew into her face from the old room, carrying with it a cloud of dust that made her cough and back away. Once the dust settled, however, she got a good look inside. The room was stuffed to the brim with large clay pots, crates, barrels, and thick sacks stacked atop each other. A single, narrow window was set high into the wall in the back of the room, allowing a stripe of icy light to illuminate the interior. Beneath it, Celestia spotted an old wooden trapdoor. Maybe it went into a storage cellar? Either way, Celestia decided not to linger on it for too long. She made her way to the first pot she saw and pulled it open with her magic. At long last, her efforts were rewarded when she saw something within. A collection of small, but no-less-edible-looking carrots stared back at her from the bottom of the pot, and her stomach immediately growled. “Food…” she whispered, taking one of the carrots out with her magic. It was speckled with streaks of some kind of white powder, but aside from that, it looked fine enough. And to her food-deprived eyes, it looked downright delicious. Before she could stop herself, Celestia brought the carrot into her mouth and bit down. It was hard as a rock, but even that wasn’t enough to stop Celestia. A satisfying crack echoed through the room as the end of the carrot snapped off into her mouth. The white powder lent the vegetable an unusually powerful taste, but she didn’t care. She was just happy to have something in her mouth. She devoured the remainder of the carrot in a ravenous haze, and before she knew it she had eaten three. She quickly stopped herself, remembering that Luna needed food more than she did. She took a few deep breaths before starting to load carrots into her saddlebags. She was so focused on this task, however, that she didn’t even notice that something was coming her way. “HEY!” Celestia almost jumped out of her skin as a voice she did not recognize suddenly shouted from the kitchen behind her. Alarmed, she spun around to face the new arrival, her wings flaring out in reflex. He was an older stallion. His fur was old and matted down, with numerous graying streaks marked all over. She could see old marks and stains in his coat, blemishing the dark brown hairs. His mane and tail were wiry, thin, and colored a deep silver indicative of his age, while his eyes were a brighter shade of brown. And they were now locked on her wings, wide with surprise. “What in the world…?” he breathed, taking a fearful step back. “Wings… and a horn?!” Celestia swallowed heavily. She could hear the raw fear in this stallion’s voice, and it made her heart shrivel up in her chest at the thought that she could make anypony feel that way. His eyes drifted back down to the pot, and the few carrots still hovering in the air around her. A few seconds passed before he shook himself, set his jaw, and narrowed his eyes. “That’s not for you.” Celestia shrank back and away from him, her ears folding down to rest flat against her head. Her mind was spinning, searching in a frantic haze for what to do or say, but somehow came up with nothing. She had never met anypony outside of her family before. She had no idea what to do, what to say, how to act; and she had just been caught stealing. However, just as she was afraid she might have no words for him, a memory tickled the back of her mind. “Find Flatstone. Tell them what happened, who you are… They’ll… they’ll dislike you, but… they’ll take care of you, once they hear about us…” Celestia swallowed heavily, briefly closing her eyes. “Thank you, mom…” “M-m-my name is Celestia,” she said, stuttering slightly in fear. “And I’m Sprout and Honeydrop’s d-daughter. I need your help...”