||Fit the Fifth||
Though Twilight had never visited a rock farm, it was not hard to identify. The dullness of the cloudy sky was matched only by the brittle dirt beneath her hooves. Dark, dying trees grew between the thousands of rocks sprouting from the flattened field for miles in all directions. Round hills made wavy lines of the horizon, and a single, thatch-roof homestead surrounded by a wooden fence stood at the far end of the field.
All was dim and quiet as Twilight soaked in her new surroundings, but the moment her eyes fell upon the bluish stallion frozen in place a dozen meters from where she stood, a sharp gasp passed between her lips. The stallion whirled around with wild eyes—
||PP||
—and saw nothing but more of the empty field studded with skeletal trees and various stones. Large, small, blue, grey, sharp, smooth, clustered, alone, countless rocks buried halfway into the bone-dry dirt. Another panicked spin turned him toward a distant house, where a small light shone from the windows.
“Ovens and oceans and orifice beasts…” he mumbled. “On my poor fortune has Fate had a feast.”
He covered his mouth with a hoof, stumbling backward to sit on a dull blue rock. “What bizarre magic has made it a treason to speak without rhyme at the leisure of reason?” He shuddered, squeezing his own throat. “Never have I been a pony to speak with such lengthified syntax; ‘tis silence I seek!” His breathing quickened as he glanced up at the sky. “Yet here in this undefined dome of dark cloud, I cannot but utter a couplet aloud.” He shook his head and hissed between tightly shut teeth. “To never be met with again was the curse… what Boojum could force me to speak in just verse?”
He growled and slammed a hoof into the dirt. “The Boojum, the Bellsteed, the Boots and the book with birds of dear Feather the bad bully took! Will she get it back, or was he caught as well? Will every last sailor be Boojum’d to hell?” He dropped his face into his hooves and wailed for a moment, squeezing his shoulders together in an effort to stop them from shaking.
When he looked up, the light in the distant homestead seemed to glow brighter than before. He sniffed and slid off his seat, trotting unsurely in the house’s direction. “Is this but a dream: a third part of my hex? Is that but a lonely illusion complex? Or is there a pony awaiting inside with a drink for my belly and hearth for my hide?”
Inspired by the possibility, the baker rose from his rock and stumbled forward. As he approached the house, the cloudy sky grew ever dimmer, suggesting a hidden sunset. The air chilled around him, lifting the hairs of his bluish coat and troubling his lungs. He picked up his pace, ignoring the impossible hoofsteps sounding at his back.
“Many mirages of eye and the ear,” he mumbled among short breaths, “I fear my approach makes the house disappear!”
His worry was for naught, for soon his front hooves wrapped around a post of the wooden fence. A windmill beside the house squeaked as it turned in an unfelt breeze, providing the only other noise aside from the stallion’s shuddering exhalations. “If only a dreamland,” he said, stroking the splintery wood, “I could not embrace. To where did the Boojum eject me; what place?”
Once he had steadied his breath and gathered control of his hooves, the stallion tentatively approached the house’s door and knocked upon its surface. After a heart-stopping moment of silence, the baker heard hoofsteps—real ones, he hoped—plod through the house. The lopsided door opened inward just a crack, revealing a bright blue eye. “Yes?”
Just seeing the face of another pony snapped the baker’s resolve. He collapsed into the dirt, choking on sobs from a hundred emotions.
The mare behind the door wrenched it open, scooping the stallion through the doorway in a sapphiric aura of magic. “Mason!” she called over her shoulder. “Mason, come quickly!”
A lean, muscular stallion galloped around a corner into the homestead’s antechamber. He had a golden coat dulled by fine dirt, his rosy eyes surrounded by dark circles and presently lit with worry. He stood close to his wife and draped a leg over her pink coat, gawking at the stallion sobbing just inside their door. “What happened?” he asked in a deep bass voice.
“He just… collapsed!” she breathed, tucking a lock of her indigo mane behind her ear. “I opened the door for him and he fell down.”
“What’s happenin’, Mom?” asked a tiny voice as a third pony bounded onto the scene. “Who’s that? Is he okay!?”
The baker opened one eye, calmed by the foalish voice. He tilted his head to view the newcomer: a tiny, white pegasus filly with a frizzy golden mane and glistening purple eyes stared down at him with more curiosity than concern.
“Hush now, Surprise,” her father said, shooing her away with a hoof. “Go up to your room. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“No, please, do not push the child away!” the baker yelped, struggling to stand. “I promise to stay on my hooves; let her stay.”
The adults stepped away from the bony, bluish baker as he wobbled to a weak standing position. He dropped his head to clear his throat and sheepishly looked up at them. “I’m sorry to startle, I’m simply confused: where are we, and for what are all the rocks used?”
The filly—Surprise—scrunched up her shoulders and giggled. “Mommy, he talks funny!”
“Are you from Trottingham?” the father, Mason, asked, pulling his wife closer.
The baker blinked. “Trottingham? No, I’ve not heard of the place. Before our great union, ‘t’was under which race?”
“Excuse me?”
Surprise laughed again. “He’s funny, Dad! I like him!”
“Go to your room, Surprise,” her mother said with a stern glare. The filly shrunk on the spot, backing up toward a set of stairs.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I mean you no harm!” the baker said, tugging at his mud-brown mane. “This strange way of speaking must carry no charm, but here I do promise and now I do swear: I only want answers, beginning with… ‘Where?’”
Surprise immediately brightened. “He sounds like a Hearth’s Warming carol!”
The older pink mare squinted at the poor, slender stallion. “Can you speak without rhyming?” she asked.
The baker shook his heavy head.
Mason spoke next. “And… you don’t know where you are?” Another negative response encouraged the dirty earth pony to ask, “Well, where did you come from?”
A shiver, and the baker’s vision glazed over with distant terror. “An island of secrets too somber to share. A dark sort of magic rules everything there.” He shook his head clear and focused on the family. “I sailed with a crew as their voyage’s chef. I warned them of Boojums, to which they were deaf!”
He gnashed his teeth and pressed his ears against his skull, frightening the small family. Seeing their fear, he smacked his own forehead with a hoof, slouching even further. “Again, I’m so sorry for bringing you grief; if only you’ll answer, my stay will be brief. Where is this strange field full of sediment gems? To where have I vanished, ne’er met with again?”
The parents looked thoroughly puzzled, but little Surprise took a bold step forward, extending her miniature wings. “What do you mean? We’re meeting you right now!”
He faced her with wide eyes. “Dear child, did you understand what I said despite the poor manner it reaches your head?”
“Of course!” she chirped, beaming. “I think you talk just fine!”
“Then tell me please, filly of pure alabaster, how far am I from Butch, Feather, and Caster?”
“I don’t know where your friends are,” she said with an apologetic frown, “but you’re in Equestria!”
The stallion’s jaw dropped. “Equestria? Really? It just… sent me back?” He laughed and reared into the air, wiggling his forelegs with joy. “What sweet serendipity life does not lack!”
“Yay!” Surprise shouted, bouncing in place.
Mason rubbed his eyes. “So, wait… you’re not lost, or you are?”
“If truly this country is our new Equestria, ruled by the six alicorns… dear Celestia! Here I was dreading a dark, endless hell; the beast merely skipped the intense ocean’s swell!”
“Did you say six alicorns?” the mother asked.
“Yes, all six siblings: the mighty Celestia, quiet Alula and happy Piedra, Beatrix sweetest and Calupan fair, and dear little Luna with stars in her hair!”
Even Surprise gave him a quizzical look.
“There is only one princess of Equestria,” said Mason’s wife with an anxious tilt of her brow. “Princess Celestia, Bringer of Night and Day.”
The baker’s smile faltered. “One princess? Ha! What a preposterous notion. Who, then, guides the winds, and all life, and the ocean?”
“There really is just one, Mister,” Surprise said. “There’s always been just one.”
The bluish pony’s heart rate quickened again. “Oh, dear… what a mimsy discovery, this. Perhaps, though I’ve not been confined to abyss, Equestria here is a much different land than the country I saw formed of three pony clans.”
“Three pony clans? Like Hearth’s Warming Eve!?” Surprise gasped. “You were there?”
“Of course I was there, back when I was a colt.” He nodded at Mason and added, “I’m sure that your father remembers the jolt.”
The large stallion’s brow furrowed. “What jolt?”
“The shock of the missive from Puddinghat’s court declaring all ponies were of the same sort! My parents had taught me that unicorns cheat and pegasi took from the earth all the heat!”
He laughed heartily at that, even as the adult ponies cringed, insulted. Surprise cackled along with him, swishing her frizzy tail back and forth in childish delight.
“I remember no such thing!” Mason cried out over the laughter. The crossness of the shout silenced the baker immediately. “There hasn’t been division among pony tribes in well over a thousand years!”
A slow, cold gasp filled the baker’s innards with icy realization. “Oh, goodness… that’s it, then: along with my rhyme, the Boojum has thrown me far forward in time.”
||PP||
Twilight’s head rose involuntarily with yet another gasp. Pinkie’s hoof was quick to grab her by the horn and pull her below the windowsill. Her violent hooves impressed small craters into the dirt outside the homestead.
“Be careful, Twilight!” Pinkie hissed. “We can’t let them see us! I already had to tackle you once!”
“I still can’t believe we both fit behind that tree…” Twilight mumbled, shaking her head clear. “Pinkie, I get it! Bluish Carol sailed to the Wabe in the days of Star Swirl the Bearded and lived only hundreds of years before us because he traveled through time!”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Pinkie triple-hoof-pumped, squeezing her eyes shut with glee.
Wearing a wide smile of her own, Twilight peeked into the house again where Bluish had dropped to his flank in terror. The little white pegasus flapped to his side, trying to comfort him with gentle nuzzles. Twilight noticed a set of three periwinkle balloons adorning the filly’s flank. “Pinkie,” she whispered with widening eyes, “is this your family?”
Pinkie’s grin morphed into one of nostalgic pride. “It sure is! That cutie-patootie pony with the fluffy, golden mane is my Grammy Pie, Twilight! Surprise!”
Twilight laughed through her nose. “That sure is a surprise…”
“No, silly! That’s her name! Surprise!”
Something flashed behind Twilight’s eyes. “Oh my gosh… Pinkie, that book! The one Bluish Carol wrote!” She finally looked away from the window, staring into Pinkie’s clear blue eyes. “Through the Looking-glass and What Surprise Found There. That was about your grandmother—who he’s meeting right now.”
“You got it, you big smarty-smart pants!” Pinkie said, bumping Twilight on the end of her snout. “Heehee! Bluish ended up staying here and working on the farm for five years. He and my grammy became really good friends. Then he moved to Canterlot where he became a famous author, basing his stories and poems off of stuff that really happened to him!”
A small, bewildered smile hovered on Twilight’s lips. “Just like Daring…”
Pinkie tilted her head to one side. “Huh?”
“Daring Do’s books,” Twilight said, leaning against the wall under the window. “Remember meeting her the other day? Her books are based on the adventures she really had with her sister, Ditzy.”
“Awww, that’s cute!”
Twilight snorted. “Not as much as it should be. But that’s not important right now.” She bit her lip. “Now that we’ve seen all this and I understand… how do we get back home?”
“We can’t go home yet, silly!” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes. “We have to go back to the Wabe first and see the rest of the story!”
Twilight waved around a hoof. “Yes, well, wherever we go, how will we get there? The Boojum’s portal brought us back to future Equestria. Or… past Equestria, for us, I guess… oh, dear.” She rubbed a throbbing vein on the side of her head as Pinkie tip-hoofed to the front door.
“It’s easy to get back to the Wabe, Twilight,” Pinkie whispered. “All we have to do is find a mirror.”
The family of three had led the poor baker into an adjacent room where he tried to tell his story. As the stealthy snuck into the house and made for a bathroom Pinkie said was upstairs, Twilight caught bits and pieces of the future Bluish Carol’s tale. His constant poetry delighted young Surprise, who had to translate every few stanzas for her parents’ sake, and Twilight couldn’t help but smile at how much sense it all made.
A mirror was located without their detection, and with a bit of practiced curiosity, both Elements of Harmony found themselves back in the center of the Wabe at the foot of the Sundial’s swirly hill.
“Pinkie,” Twilight began, “was it your grandmother who told you about the Wabe?”
“She gave me the book that helped me figure it out,” Pinkie said, shrugging, “so yeah, I guess so!”
“It’s amazing,” Twilight breathed, looking around the island with new eyes. “It’s… it’s real. It’s so bizarre and ridiculous and completely nonsensical, but…” She laughed. “I like it. It’s really here.”
“Of course it is!” Pinkie cooed, shaking Twilight with a hoof around her shoulder. “I wouldn’t take my bestest friend somewhere that didn't exist, would I?”
“No wonder you’re so happy, Pinkie Pie,” Twilight noted. “If I was the only pony who knew about a parallel world that tied together every point in equine history, I’d probably be bouncing off the walls, too.”
“Now we can bounce off the walls together!” Pinkie chirped, bounding in circles around the giggling unicorn.
“I don’t think so,” Twilight said, brushing down part of her mane. “You have far more endorphins than I’ll ever be able to produce.”
“Okie dokie lokie, whatever that means!” Pinkie said, freezing mid-bounce with a jaw-dropped gasp. “Oh, shoot! We have to hurry! They’re probably leaving right now!”
Twilight blanched. “Who’s leaving?”
“The crew of the Lutwidge!” Pinkie squealed, grabbing Twilight around the middle and sprinting for the shore on her hind legs alone.
Blinking against the speedy wind, Twilight asked, “Wait, they’re still here? When are we!?”
“See… for… yourself!” Pinkie said, reaching the top of a tree-covered cliff and holding Twilight over the edge. The ocean lapped the sharp rocks far below, making Twilight squirm in Pinkie’s grasp.
“Gaaah! What are you doing?”
“Look! Down there, to your right!”
Twilight glanced as directed, noticing the Lutwidge’s minimized crew gathered on a briny beach. The ship itself was anchored at sea, and the ponies were waiting for the Bellsteed to return with a smaller boat to carry them all back to the ship.
Squinting, Twilight recognized Feather, Butch, and Caster, huddled in a tight circle away from the rest of the group. From their weary slouches, Twilight guessed they had been searching for Bluish for some time. “They’re going back?”
“Yes,” Pinkie sighed as she stood at the edge of the cliff.
Twilight frowned. “Did they catch a Snark?”
“Noooo,” Pinkie moaned, shaking her head. A trail of tears slid down her face.
“So…” Twilight shifted in Pinkie’s outstretched forelegs. “They lost two of their crew…”
“Three,” Pinkie corrected. “They never found the Boots.”
“And they didn’t do what they came here to do.”
“Nope.”
Her violet eyes narrowed. “Then… what was the point of coming back here? Just to watch them mourn?”
“Well, that would make for good closure if this was a tragedy,” Pinkie allowed, nodding at the sky, “but since it’s a comedy, it has a happy ending!”
Twilight groaned. “Pinkie, what are you talking about? What else is there for us to see?”
“Do you remember why the Bellsteed brought his crew to the Wabe, Twilight?”
“Sure. Clover the Clever commissioned them to…. Oh!” She kicked her legs in open air, trying to escape Pinkie’s frightening position. “Star Swirl the Bearded! Did they ever find him?”
Pinkie smirked at the pony hanging over the cliff. “Nope… but I know where he is.”