//------------------------------// // XVIII - Smoke // Story: Rise and Shine // by Skijarama //------------------------------// The monsters from the snow came again, ravenous and remorseless, their arrival preceded by strange nightmares and stranger afflictions befalling the younger sister. In a desperate moment of panic and fury, the eldest was able to fight away the attacking monsters. Amid the embers of her rage, she found a spark of inspiration that might just save her and her sister both. The walk back to the shelter felt like it took eons. Every step was slow and agonizing, thanks to Celestia’s new wound. The cold did wonders to ease the pain, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Still, she pushed on, and soon enough staggered back into the small hut she shared with Luna. Celestia’s sister had yet to awaken from her slumber. She placed the foal on the bed and tucked her in, brow knit with concern. Celestia just stared at her for a while, allowing her mind to wander to those tense moments before the ghosts had arrived. “Somepony is calling us…?” she thought, recalling Luna’s cryptic, almost zombie-like words. “But who?” Alas, Luna was unable to answer, and Celestia knew she would find no answers by staring at her in the dead of night. And so, praying that there would be no more dreams or surprises, she leaped onto the bed and huddled with her sister to share their warmth. The pain in her leg returned as it warmed up, but she was able to ignore it well enough. In time, she drifted off into a mercifully dreamless sleep. There was no fog when Celestia awoke. What snowfall there was over Flatstone was gentle and thin, allowing her to see farther than she had in what felt like ages. She had almost cried out in joy and relief when she beheld the sight through the window, her jubilation dulled by her own lingering exhaustion and the recurring spikes of pain that raced up her back leg with every step she took. She gazed out into the village, her jaw set while her mind wandered.She had to work out exactly how she was going to do this.  After a while, she heard the blankets behind her shift. Celestia turned to see Luna stirring. Her eyes were bloodshot as they cracked open, and the heavy rings under them made it clear her ‘slumber’ had been anything but restful. As Luna went to rise, she winced, hissing in pain as a hoof flew up to her horn. Celestia grimaced guiltily when she spotted the dried red line running down her sister’s forehead, cursing herself for forgetting to clean that injury last night. She stood and quickly made her way over to the bedside. “Luna. You’re awake!” she said in relief. “Oh, thank goodness… are you alright? How are you feeling?” Luna blinked a few times, staring at Celestia in confusion. “Um… I feel fine. Just tired. Ow… my head.” “Try not to prod at it,” Celestia lightly chided her, guiding Luna’s hoof away from the injury. “You took a bit of a bump last night.” Luna frowned with nothing but confusion in her eyes. “I did…? What happened?” Celestia glanced at the door, her eyes narrowing as a fiery tingle built up in the base of her skull. “It was them, Lu. Those… things, those monsters came for us again. They… I don’t know, they lured you outside, somehow. You passed out, and I had to pick you up and run all over the village. Guh.” She shook her head and turned back to her sister. “In the end, I chased them away with fire, and you’re okay.” Luna was quiet for several seconds, her eyes shifting as she mulled over Celestia’s words. She looked back up at Celestia, tilting her head. “They lured me outside…?” Celestia blinked. She shifted uneasily in place, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Yeah, they did… don’t you remember? You went outside in the middle of the night.” Luna pursed her lips in thought, then shook her head. “I don’t remember anything like that. I just went to bed…” Alarm bells rang in Celestia’s mind. Could it be that the blow to Luna’s head had muddied her memories of the previous night? Celestia shuddered, a knot of gilt tying itself into her stomach at the notion. She was quick to chase it away, however. Whatever the ghosts did, maybe they had wiped Luna’s memory in the process? Or maybe she had still been sleeping when it all happened, and it had been some form of controlled sleepwalking? “Are you sure? You don’t remember anything from last night?” Luna looked away, her ears drooping. “No. I don’t. I just remember having another nightmare about…” She trailed off. Celestia felt a chill run down her spine. Again with the nightmares. And Celestia had been having a recurring dream of her own. She took an anxious step forward, her eyes narrowing in scrutiny. “About what?” she pressed in a low tone. She studied Luna’s response carefully. “...About… um… about dad,” Luna finally confessed, shaking her head. “He was holding me. He was talking to me. I don’t really remember it all… it’s fuzzy.” The knot of guilt Celestia had felt tightened into one of grief at the reminder of her dead father. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “And there’s nothing else? You’re sure?” “I’m sure.” Celestia hummed thoughtfully. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she somehow doubted that was the whole truth. Luna was hiding something. Ultimately, however, she decided not to press the matter for now. She glanced out the window and frowned. This clarity wouldn’t last forever, and she had to jump on it now. She turned back to Luna with a sigh. “We can talk about this more later. Right now, you just stay here and get some more rest.” Luna nodded, looking relieved. She curled back up into the blankets, and Celestia made sure to tuck her in nice and warm. With that, Celestia turned for the door. “I’ll be back in a while. I’ve got some things I need to do,” she stated while moving for her saddlebags. “What are you doing?” Luna asked curiously. Celestia gave her a reassuring look. “Don’t worry, nothing dangerous. But Mudflat’s food won’t last forever, and I don’t want to stay idle in case those ghosts come back. We need to leave, but without a guide, we aren’t going to make it very far. So, I’m figuring I set something on fire, throw up a bunch of smoke, and hopefully get somepony’s attention.” Luna blinked a few times, shrinking into the mattress a little. “More ponies…? What about Mudflat? Can’t he help?” Celestia’s smile faded. “He won’t help us. Not any more than he already has.” A heavy silence followed. Luna stared at Celestia for several long seconds. Her eyes lowered, and she let out a quiet sigh of disappointment.  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Celestia blinked in surprise, looking away. “I thought so…” The silence that followed was stifling. Without a word, Celestia threw on her cloak and stepped out into the biting cold. The bite of the winter air chased away whatever lingering exhaustion she had from the night before. She winced from an oncoming gust of wind and threw a hoof up to cover her eyes. The air might not have been filled with fog and snow, but the wind was still very much blowing, and it did not care for Celestia’s presence. She took to the air, struggling against the wind only briefly before gaining stability and soaring into the sky over Flatstone.  The next few hours were exceptionally unpleasant, to put it mildly. Even with the snowfall as thin as it was, the cold was supernatural, and Celestia’s tattered cloak did little and less to ward away the shivers creeping into her body. She pumped her wings extra hard as she worked, if for no other reason than to generate some additional warmth. Without any tools, Celestia was unable to gather wood from trees, save for the branches she was willing to snap away with her magic. That was probably for the best, though. The weight of the trunks, while manageable, would be tiring, and she was wearing herself out enough with all of the flying she was doing. Instead, she thought back to how she remembered Sprout building up their first campfire in the woods before the river took him away. She recalled more than just wood in the pile. There were old leaves, too, thin twigs, and various other things that, thinking about it, burned rather nicely. She didn’t know the word for it off-hoof. And so she spent the first hour of her search scrounging around through the snow for old shrubs, bushes, and fallen leaves near the skeletal trees. It was a painstaking process, but she found plenty with time, and brought them back in large clumps to her and Luna’s shelter, creating an impressive pile just inside the door. As she was working, though, her mind began to wander to grim places. What if nopony came when she made her signal? What if there was nopony left to see it? The ice was merciless and indiscriminate, and, from what she knew, Flatstone was pretty out of the way compared to other Earth Pony settlements. She shook her head to chase away the morbid notions, but they continued to linger in the back of her mind, ever-present, gnawing at her resolve and her confidence; like a tick, slowly draining the blood from its host. When at least she was done gathering what she needed, she felt almost ready to collapse from weariness. She used her magic to clear out a patch of snow a few yards outside their door and, using some stones she had found scattered around, made a loose ring inside of it. She assembled the wood, kindling, and tinder in the ring, trying to remember how Sprout had done it, and doubling down on what would make the most smoke. The end result was sloppy, to say the least, but functional. She looked off toward the mountain. It was still clearly visible, though for how long she could not say. She couldn’t afford to wait. And so, with a small grunt, she lit her horn, and a spark of fire appeared on its tip. She sent the flame into the mount of twigs, shrubs, and branches, and before long, they caught fire. The warmth that washed over her was very welcome. Celestia fell to her haunches, breathing a big sigh of relief at finally taking the weight off of her abused hooves. She stared into the flame as it grew brighter and larger. Thankfully, it seemed, she had gotten it right, as a plume of smoke began to rise into the air from the crackling flames that stood out brilliantly against the bright grey sky overhead. All that remained now was to wait. She sat there for a while, allowing herself to rest and letting her mind wander. Her thoughts drifted aimlessly from one thing to the next in a sluggish, lethargic blur. She thought back to her home in the mountains, the peaceful life she had lived there. She thought back on the day she and Luna had gotten lost in the woods. So long ago, now, and so frightening at the time. Not so much anymore. As her eyes lingered on the flickering flames, her mind wandered then to the mare that had abandoned her. Celestia’s brow furrowed at the thought of her, spite and disdain welling up in the back of her throat like bile. She forced herself to think of something else, and her mind landed next upon the sun. She hadn’t seen it properly in what felt like years now, though it had not been all that long ago. She fondly recalled the warmth of it on her face, the confidence and the joy she felt in her heart when she beheld it rising in the mornings. The flames were growing brighter in Celestia’s eyes the longer she stared, to the point they were blinding. They swirled and danced in her vision until they were all she could see, and the crackle of the fire lowered into a powerful rumble as if all the world itself were ablaze. Except… no. This flame. It was greater than the world. It was larger than the world. Somehow Celestia knew that the fire she now saw could swallow her whole world a thousand times over and not be satisfied. She felt awed by the scale of it, and might have been overwhelmed if it weren’t for just how… at home, she felt. This swirling inferno was where she belonged, and it belonged to her. Then she felt it. A need. A desperate, frantic desire. It was like something was calling out to her, begging her to reach out to it. But the call was muffled, obscure. She couldn’t discern where it might be coming from. It came from everywhere and nowhere and here and there and- “Tia?” Celestia snapped out of her trance with a jolt and a yelp of surprise. She quickly turned her head to see Luna behind her, standing in the doorway of their little hut. Her blanket was wrapped tightly around her shivering form. She leaned back in surprise from Celestia’s abrupt reaction, her own eyes wide. “Lu!” Celestia exclaimed, quickly regaining a hold on her senses as all thoughts of the flame left her mind. She stood up and quickly made her way to her sister’s side. “What are you doing up? You should be in bed, resting!” “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt as much,” Luna said, giving Celestia a reassuring look. She still looked exhausted, as if all her time in bed had done nothing for her, but the tiny smile on her face was enough to ease Celestia’s concerns, if only a little. “And I saw the firelight, but you didn’t come back in, so I came to see if you were here.” Luna’s expression darkened somewhat. “You were staring into the fire… And you didn’t hear me when I tried to talk to you.” “Ah,” Celestia said, looking off to one side. “Sorry about that. I just… I got lost in thought. Do you wanna sit with me?” Luna merely offered a smile, and the two sisters sat together before their signal fire.  The two were quiet for a long time, just enjoying one another’s company and the warmth of their fire. Their hunger could be dealt with in time. Celestia’s eyes kept wandering back to her sister, making sure she was alright. As tired as Luna still looked, she was at least able to smile. From one of Celestia’s glances, she saw that Luna was holding their father’s old figurines close to her chest. Eventually, though, Luna’s smile faded. She looked to Celestia, and the worry in her eyes was unmistakable. “Somepony’s gonna come for us… right?” Celestia looked up at the rising smoke. “I dunno, Lu. I hope so.” Luna was quiet for a moment. She shifted in place, drawing her blanket tighter around herself. “What do we do if nopony comes?” Celestia grimaced. “Well… I’m not sure. We can’t stay here too long, obviously. We’ll run out of food sooner or later, and I’m not convinced those ghosts are done trying to get at us. But you’re still hurt…” Celestia elected not to mention the fact that she was injured now, too. Her hind leg stung as if to remind her of her condition. She shook her head and pressed on. “And besides, without any idea where we’re going and without a guide, we’re not going to get anywhere if we leave…” “But what choice do we have?” Luna asked, looking down at the ground. “We can’t stay here forever. If nopony comes for us, shouldn’t we just pick a direction and go?” Celestia frowned. “Maybe… If nopony comes, we’ll hold out here a little while longer, and then I guess we’ll just have to try our luck out there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the ponies who used to live here?” A vain hope, she knew, but it was nice to fantasize about. Luna hummed quietly, but it was clear she knew how hopeless of a proposition that was as well. The two didn’t speak again for a while, just sitting together in silence. Time began to pass, though how much, Celestia was unsure. She had given up trying to keep track of the time of day at this point. Eventually, their stomachs rumbled, and they enjoyed a silent lunch of salted carrots Celestia had brought from Mudflat’s place the other day. Every so often, Celestia would drop another branch or bundle of shrubbery onto the fire to keep it going strong. As the hours ticked by, Celestia’s eyes wandered occasionally to the mountain. She growled in frustration when she saw sheets of fog creeping over it from the other side, slowly obscuring the forests and ridges. Another fog bank was closing in… either that or a powerful blizzard. Either way, their signal would be lost as soon as it reached them. So focused was Celestia on the oncoming weather, that she didn’t even notice when Luna’s ears perked up. The younger sister lifted her head, staring out past the flames and deeper into Flatstone. “Did you hear that?” she asked in a low, anxious whisper. Celestia started and turned to Luna. “Huh?” “I thought I heard something,” Luna whispered, squinting off into the distance. Celestia frowned and perked up her ears, listening carefully. It only took a moment for the sound to reach her. A distant muffled call, echoing between the buildings. For a beat of her heart, she thought it was the cry of the ghosts, but it didn’t sound right. Still, Celestia wasn’t about to take any chances. She quickly stood and pried a large branch from the fire, holding it in front of her protectively. “Luna, stay behind me,” she ordered. “B-but-” “No buts!” Celestia cuut her off, keeping her eyes locked firmly on the street ahead of her. “I'm not taking any chances, so you stay behind me. Are we clear?”  She heard Luna giving off a quiet whimper, but the smaller pony offered up no further protests. Several seconds passed, the only sound being the low groaning of the wind and the crackling of the fire. Then, the call came again: louder, closer, more distinct. It was a voice. “Hello?! Is somepony here?!” It was a mare’s voice, carrying a thin accent that Celestia was unfamiliar with. A wave of relief washed over Celestia, and she had to resist the urge to jump for joy. She cast the branch back into the fire, but it was Luna who raised her voice in answer. “Over here! We’re over here!” she hollered at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing around them for several moments. She followed it up with a joyous laugh and threw herself against Celestia with a bone-crushing hug. “It worked!” she cheered. “It worked, it worked, it WORKED! Somepony came for us! We’re gonna be okay!” Celestia managed to offer a smile of her own, draping a wing over Luna’s shoulders. “Yeah… we are,” she said, taking a deep breath. She cast her eyes back up to the heavens, watching the spiraling smoke signal for a moment. Her smile widened. “...Thank you, dad,” she whispered quietly before lowering her gaze to behold the pony who had come to their rescue. She could only hope that they were friendly.