//------------------------------// // The Pony By the Window // Story: The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era // by PatchworkPoltergeist //------------------------------// “There, now. That wasn’t so terrible, was it?” The farrier lay down her hammer, wiped back her sweaty green mane, and stepped back to check her handiwork. Heartstrings grimaced at the foreign feel of the silver horseshoe in the space between her hooves and the granite floor. “Fine enough for you to say, wearin’ shoes all the time anyhow.” “You ought to stay indoors for the next few days. Go gentle and let those soles heal proper. The likes of those bruises are nothing to scoff at.”         The minstrel looked up at the earth mare and sighed. “Thank you, Topsoil.” Regardless of how much she despised the feel and clang of shoes, it was immensely kind of her to open up her home to them. Kinder still to offer shoes at no charge (just the first set, not the next, and in the Caulkins there would be new sets). “But I still cannae see why they’re needing t’be this fancy.” Topsoil sniffed. “It’s not a matter of fanciness, it’s a matter of practicality. Silver agrees with unicorns, ‘tis a metal that responds well to magic. You’ll need that here.” She spared a glance at the window, wavy with rain and hazy with dust. “I’m not a pegasus so I can’t truly say what weather magic is like in the Caulkins but I know enough to tell you it’s not working right.” In the back of the room the farrier’s companion, a white unicorn with a blue and yellow mane, looked up with a wry grin. “Or it just means the pegasi won’t do their jobs.” She leaned back on the bench and took a long sip of stale, watery cider and hiccuped. “I wonder sometimes if their Empire does it on purpose, just to make the earth ponies miserable. Why, in the six months we’ve been here I’ve never seen either of them even try to wrangle those clouds. And before you say it Topsoil, I know they’re but two ponies and there’s only so much they can do, but honestly they could at least try!” She waved her tin mug at Heartstrings, splashing a few drops of cider. “But they don’t do anything at all, not in the hours decent ponies are awake. Haven’t seen the elder one hardly at all, now that I think on it. You don’t suppose that he died? (Goodness, I hope not. I’d feel a little badly for being so cross.) When the yellow one came in last week for a touch up she didn’t seem to be in mourning, but you can never really tell with—” “Lightheart, the point still stands. It is not normal weather. Whoever heard of hail in a firestorm? It cannot be laziness alone. Left on its own weather does strange things but it doesn’t do that. Magic’s not right here.” Topsoil turned back to Heartstrings and tapped one of the silver shoes. “The last thing a pony needs is to be iron shod.” “Oh. Well, alright then. My thanks again for the shoes.” Heartstrings blinked, still unsure why the difference between the metals mattered. She had the feeling the farrier was over-thinking things. Or it was because silver horseshoes needed more replacements. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be taking a moment on the porch and waiting for the lads to show.” Topsoil nodded and let her go. To Lightheart, but more to herself, she said, “This house is too big. I still don’t know what manner of pony needs two levels and ten rooms, and on such unstable land. What if a rockslide happens? I would never have made us a house like this.” “Mayhap we could rearrange it. Make it into a tavern or an inn. You’ve already made the stable into a smithy. I’d like for us to have an inn.” Lightheart leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. “I’m glad you invited the old lowlander. I’ve missed the company of other unicorns. There’s just no real conversation to be had with earth ponies. No offense, dear.” “None taken.” Topsoil looked at the high, high slate roof. This couldn’t be an inn. A tavern, perhaps. Taverns are always popular and The Plague Water’s closed now that Wet Wassail’s died. There’s an open spot for a new one. But never an inn. Inns were warm places that welcomed passersby, and the Caulkins had none of those. Ponies got caught in the peaks like trout in a fish trap. Nopony intended to come here and nopony intended to stay, but come and stay they did and set to tasks their marks were never meant for. Topsoil wondered, not for the first time, if she ought to grab Lightheart and run from this bent grey place before it was too late. But she did not know where else they could go. She watched Lightheart curled up upon the bench. Her white coat had dulled these past months, the brightness of her laughter dimmed. The local ponies did not stare at her here—at least stared less than the bakers of Conemara did—and there was no gossip to bother her. There was not much of anything, really. Outside, there was the sound of hoofbeats, and the rise and fall of a new voice; male, terse, and exhausted. The farrier shook herself out of her slump and made for the door. ‘Twill be good for the both of us to have company. All this time to ourselves makes a mare think too much.  The front door creaked on its hinge, letting in the misty drizzle and dank twilight. The stallion in the sopping oilskin did not walk in so much as he stumbled and collapsed. He rested on his haunches, breathing hard and shivering. Heartstrings peeked her head in behind him. “Well, alright, then. Don’t blame ye for wantin’ a roof o’er your head.” With a glow of her horn, she lifted the sopping cloak from his shoulders and onto a peg, exchanging it for a waiting blanket. “You just make yourself comfortable, Cinquefoil. We’ll be in soon.” The pony called Cinquefoil had a Mustangian’s lean build and long face, and didn’t seem to register the blanket or the fact that he was indoors. The confines of the room did not seem to bother him or had not hit him yet. He might have been too downhearted or exhausted to notice. The poor colt’s neck bent like a broken sunflower stem in the snow. He’d fit right in. Topsoil grabbed a rag to dry off his mane and went to meet him. He shifted under the blanket—a lift of the hoof or a twitch in his withers or the blink of his flat, dark eyes, Topsoil wasn’t sure—and the mare stopped in her tracks. She flicked her tail and hummed. She’d felt something odd. As if she’d accidentally stumbled into somepony’s funeral and knocked over the casket by accident. A little like how she felt in the ruins last spring or when the wind sometimes blew through the mountains stronger than usual. A little, but not quite. Topsoil shrugged it off. “Hello there. Cinquefoil, was it?” He nodded. “Nice to be out of the rain, isn’t it? I expect you’re worn from that trek up Sill. You’re blessed to get up and down without incident, and in the dark no less.” She ruffled the rag through his sopping mane and over his withers. He squirmed when it ran over his ears. She waited for him to say something: an observation on the house, a complaint that she was being too rough on his ears, a comment on Sill or the weather, but he said nothing. The water clock in the corner dripped the minutes and Topsoil heard the ripples of every one. It was so quiet she heard the low murmur of voices outside the door. One of them spiked high and fell again. She glanced up a moment to see the blurry outline of a unicorn bobbing up and down like a dinghy on the water. “Heartstrings said you went to go see the general?” “Yes.” “Good idea, that. The sooner you get out of the way, the better. But you know, there was no need to rush. You have easily stayed without his sayso, a few weeks at least. ‘Tis on his word who stays or goes, but to tell you true, I don’t think he cares either way. He doesn’t brood o’er us or hound ponies the way some pegasi do further north. We do our part and give up metals and ores when the Empire comes to collect, but we may as well just be part of the Nation for all Yarak puts in the Caulkins.” Lightheart snorted. Her eyes were still closed and might have looked peaceful if not for the tartness in her voice. “Brutes an’ bullies, the lot of them. Thinking they’ve a right to goods and done nothing for it. Been known for years t’kill their own children, you know.” “Dearest...” “Have you never wondered how rainbows are made?” Topsoil sighed. “Lightheart, please.” “Well, it’s true.” The unicorn opened her eyes and swung her mug as though it were a gavel. “I heard it my own self from Firebrand, Tinder Box, councilmare Flash Point and Lady Sundance and whyever would a lady of the Sun Circle lie?”   Topsoil sighed again and gave Cinquefoil an apologetic glance as she finished drying his mane. The stallion took the blanket in his teeth and higher on his shoulders. He glanced up at the white unicorn nursing her cider and his eyes widened, then widened further looking between her and Topsoil. He seemed to see them for the first time. “What?” Lightheart followed Cinquefoil’s gaze. She fiddled with the edges of her skirt, voice guarded and piping.“It isn’t odd at all to keep company with earth ponies. I mean, you yourself travel a pair of unicorns after all a-and anyway, ‘tisn’t even your business to start with.” The stallion just blinked at that, a bit confused. He swiveled his ears shyly, then looked away. “I don’t think he meant anything by it, Lightheart.” A spot of déjà vu nipped at Topsoil’s ankles. She looked closely at the stallion again. “Have… we met before? Perhaps your herd went through Conemara a long time ago? Or we passed on the road?”  “Met?” The stallion shook his head. “No, we’ve never met. You must be thinking of somebody else.” He shuffled again in his strange way and examined the walls around him, taking in the scale of tables, height of the ceiling, and crackling of the hearth. “Have you ever slept indoors before?” Topsoil gently asked. “A little different from open fields and thickets, isn’t it?” Cinquefoil’s ears twitched in thought. A nostalgic shadow passed over his face as he began to answer, “Actually, I…” Then he closed his mouth and reconsidered. His pale hooves ran over themselves anxiously as the soft skin around his eyes wrinkled and pinched. Was he confused by the question? Topsoil flinched guiltily. Maybe he wasn’t actually a nomad or she’d accidentally offended him with her blind assumptions. “I usually sleep outside”, he said, more to himself than the farrier, the way ponies tell themselves to buy eggs later. “But I’ve done it indoors before. I stayed in a barn once. I liked that.” “That’s fine to hear.” The last thing she wanted was him throwing into a claustrophobic panic and wrecking the place. “I don’t think you’d care much to sleep out in the rain.” “Still don’t see why anypony need to give up wares when they don’t even offer fair weather”, Lightheart muttered. “We can’t use that argument here. There’s no need for efficient weather when nopony here grows food.” Topsoil’s ears sank into her mane and she tried not to remember the beautiful smell of fresh sod or the shine of sun upon feathergrass. “ Nothing grows here.” “Nonsense!” Lightheart swept an animated hoof towards the window. “What of that green patch ‘round back of the house? Is that not your garden? Who made that? Not a rock farmer. Not I. Not a pegasus. Who’s the one with grass blades upon their flank? A Talent is not packed off that easily.” “It’s hardly a garden.” “I know marks and I know Talents and I know they don’t just vanish just because somepony moves away. A diver is a diver even if they live in the desert. Besides, marks are more than the Talents that forge them. ‘Tis the whole of who a pony is, ‘tis their reason to be. Why, without one you may as well not be a pony at all!” Cinquefoil straightened his neck and pricked his ears. There was movement just outside the door. He stood as the door creaked open with hoofbeats and the jingle of bells. As the unicorns entered, he looked to Topsoil. “Excuse me, which room is mine?” “Everything aside from the first and the last door on the left is unoccupied, take your pick. I make breakfast half past dawn, so prepare to be here then or make your own.”  “Thank you.” The earth stallion politely dipped his head to the three mares, took up his soggy cloak, and went on up the stairs. He brushed by the blue unicorn without a glance.   Heartstrings watched him until the shadows of the stairwell ate his body. She shared a look with the blue unicorn, who only shrugged. “Nevermind,” he said. In the firelight, the circles under his eyes made his young face old. “I’m used to it. ‘Twould be wise to bed down early anyhow, we’ve had a long day. I ought to do the same, just a soon as I get a meal in—” “Star Swirl!” The unicorn went taut from nose to hoof. His teeth ground together as his eyes bounced about for an escape route. Lightheart’s mug clinked on the slate as she shot to her feet. “By the beams of the sun, I don’t believe it! However did—where’ve you—” She skittered forward for a better look, bobbing her head up and down like an anxious squirrel as she took him in. The yellow in her mane fuzzed and flared out at her neck from leaning upon the wall for so long. “...Gracious. You look terrible.” Topsoil lifted her eyebrows and took another look at the haggard stallion. The wet dirt made his bright, noble coat a dull, diluted blue. His tail was a frayed snarl of knots. He was skinny as any common Trottingham wastrel. He’d let his cute, fashionable beard grow to an absurd length, so that the ends of it curled in the hollow of his throat as he breathed. The embroidered silk cape was in tatters, the tiny emeralds sewn into the collar and silver swirls in the hem were long gone. Looking closely, she could see little starburst indents where they used to be. It was hard to tell if Star Swirl was taller or if he’d simply outgrown his vulture skulk and learned how to carry himself. He still carried his belongings in his mouth, not with magic. That tacky old brass bell was still there, now joined by two more: one cute and silver, the other ratty and iron. His high, ambling gait was the same, if not a bit slower. The long, tapered horn was bare. He was not wearing his moonstone ring. Lightheart jumped the dining table, swiftly cutting off his stairwell retreat and knocking over a bowl of thistle salad in the process. “Star Swirl, what in the wide, whirling cosmos are you doing here?” The unicorn rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sighed as if Lightheart asked him to bash his own horn with a sledgehammer. Topsoil couldn’t help but smile. She’d only seen the fellow a few times before, back when she still played at being Lightheart’s expert gardener, but there was no mistaking that pretentious, world-weary, why-must-you-plague-me-with-your-existence sigh. It was Star Swirl, without a doubt. “I was about to eat my dinner and go to bed.” He frowned at the pile of oats and thistles scattered at his hooves. “But it appears that plan has changed.” “What are you doing here?” Lightheart asked again. “Everypony thinks you’re dead! Do you know that? I took a trip all the way from Conemara to east Trottingham to offer my condolences to Twinkleshine! Oh, the poor mare cried into my skirts for hours and wouldn’t let anypony take away the wedding decorations or move the feathergrass cake. She was so worried you’d been abducted by rogue diamond dogs or eaten by the barghest.” Star Swirl’s ears flattened under every word, until they vanished into his filthy pink mane. The frown calcified into a scowl. Lightheart glanced down at his cape. “Were you accosted by diamond dogs? Are you alright? Does Twinkleshine know you still live? Does your mother know? Or your sisters? Starburst and Starbeam were absolutely beside themselves, worse than even Twinkleshine was.” He softened at the mention of his sisters. When he realized Heartstrings was looking at him, he chose to carefully examine some hairline cracks in the table.  “Why are you traveling with an old lowlander and an earth pony? Are you hurt? Where is your engagement ring? Star Swirl, what happened to you?”   Star Swirl sighed again, this time sounding more spent. “Listen, Brightspark.” “Lightheart.” “I have walked half the length of the Caulkins, up Mount Sill and down it again. I am wet, I am exhausted, and I have not eaten since sunrise. My day has been long enough. I will not do this now.” He sniffed at her breath. A callous thought lurked behind his eyes, but he kept it to himself. “If not now, when?”  “Later.” Lightheart twisted her lips into a hard little line. "Later, then." She said nothing else as Star Swirl pulled himself up the stairs but kept a tight grip on him with hard, bright eyes. "Hm. We actually got more than two words out of him." Topsoil went to work cleaning the dirty dishes. Her laughter was younger than her face. "I wonder when he got so genteel." Sleeping in a bed was strange. For months he’d slept in a high cradle of branches or scratchy mattresses of grass and dirt with his cloak as a blanket. Before that, there was a simple nest of quilts and pillows in the southeast corner of the library where the walls were heavily insulated against the elements and the roof never leaked, next to the tall window and hidden from sight behind bookcases. It was cozy and he’d always considered that a proper bed, and it was still nothing like this. Why did it need a metal frame and why was it so high off the ground? Why were there curtains around it? What if there was an emergency in the middle of the night? You’d likely get tangled up in the curtains and waste precious time just trying to get out of bed. The mattress was too soft and felt like it was trying to swallow him up. The first night Cinquefoil did not know how to position himself—was he supposed to curl up or lay out flat on his back or on the side?— and fluffing pillows and wrapping himself in the quilt was harder than it looked. In the end, he took his quilt and pillow and curled up on the floor instead. It was much better there. He’d been walking for a very long time and could use sleep. He was quite tired. The ache of his legs was the least of it. Down there he heard every lull, groan, and creak of the floorboards, felt the soft jostle of hooves in the hallway or the other rooms and the rough rumble of hooves as they rushed down the stairs. For a long time, he studied the intricate whorls in the woodwork, the subtle chaos of the pockmarked ceiling. Every now and again, the gentle smell of apples or the simmering smithy smoke wafted through the walls. The hissing chatter of rainfall on the roof drowned out troubling thoughts. Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he did not. Sometimes, in the hours when he did not sleep, Cinquefoil looked out the window. It took up about a third of the wall, wide and round like a porthole and framed with hard, riveted steel that didn’t match the rest of the building. The latch rusted over years ago and squealed at him when the window swiveled open. (Of course, it was always raining in the Caulkins, so there was no need to open the window anyway.) Cinquefoil didn’t want to get wet, so he kept it closed as he watched. He watched the rock farmers trailing off toward the sharp curved mountains in the morning and watched them slog back just before sunset. He watched the jackdaws fight each other in the trees. He watched the comings and goings of Topsoil and Star Swirl and all the ponies that arrived with bad shoes and went away with newer, better ones. The pale blue curtain had horseshoes sewn along the hem and it hid the grey and orange light of the sun whenever he wanted. (It was hard to sleep with the sun shining in his eyes.) Sometimes, around midday, the swirling grey drained from the sky and all the clouds turned white as he felt the stone roof bend in. Felt the floorboards rumble, the walls tremble. Cinquefoil soon learned to keep the curtain closed at midday. There were days the curtain never opened, even when the sky was grey or orange or blue and not white at all. Sometimes Cinquefoil slept. Sometimes he did not. He knew the comings and the goings of the days by the meals Heartstrings left by the table. On Tuesday evenings she brought dandelion treacle and on Saturday mornings there was oatmeal with honey in it. The daylight hours were full of the clang of hammer against anvil. The dark hours began in waves of chatter amongst ponies he did not know coming up from the floorboards. Then they went away, hooves creaked down the hallway and the house grew quiet. Rarely, in these quiet hours Cinquefoil would nudge his door open and go down the stairs. He sat upon the bench in the dark, listened to the clatter of hail or rain or dust or whatever weather it was outside that night, and sipped some lemon cordial. Then he’d go back up to the room and curl into his quilt. Once, Topsoil found him down there and they scared the living daylight out of each other. But that only happened once. Some days Cinquefoil did not sleep at all. Other days, he spent sundown to sundown asleep. And sometimes his sleep was flat, empty, and peaceful. More often it was not. He kept a rag near the vase of marigolds for the cold sweats. In the early mornings he felt the shadow of thorns digging into his flesh and reminded himself that the sounds outside were only Topsoil. No towers screamed. Nothing was falling. The sound of metal on metal was only Topsoil the farrier and Cinquefoil was safe, watching from the window of her house. Some mornings, if he was already awake (or had never gone to sleep), Heartstrings stayed after she brought breakfast and played her lyre for him. She played outside every day for the earth ponies waiting on their horseshoes and played downstairs in the early evenings when they drank their bad cider and warm cordial. This second group was new and still in small numbers and they were not always kind. They complained of Heartstrings’ song choices and did not like jigs, reels, shanties, waltzes, or hornpipes. The ponies of Caulkin only wanted ballads, not of great deeds or great ponies, but ballads about places. City anthems and ten verse dedications to some old, beautiful street. At least, that’s what he was told. Cinquefoil did not go downstairs when the lights were on, so he did not know for certain. But there was no reason to doubt Heartstrings. She could light her horn and Cinquefoil could look directly at her without heavy breathing or his heart banging in his tight chest. She played music for him every morning, sometimes for just a few minutes and sometimes for hours. Some with lyrics and some without lyrics. He preferred the ones without lyrics, because some days when Heartstrings played she looked at him as if waiting for him to sing along. He did not know the words, so he did not know how. Yet she looked at him as if he ought to. Heartstrings tried to start conversations and at first Cinquefoil did his best to hold them with her. But he couldn’t grip the words properly and they slipped out of his hooves and rolled away from him and he found himself with nothing to say. The few words he managed to find were small, pale, and pointless and usually left him awkward or confused. So instead Heartstrings would do enough talking for the both of them. She told him what was happening below his hooves and the names of the regular patrons and neighbors, she mused about the odd weather, if Lightheart had managed to catch Star Swirl yet and all lengths the stargazer went to avoid speaking to her. She told him about dead ponies she knew in foalhood and the misadventures of all the sweet harts she lived with in the Wildwood. Cinquefoil recalled a time when he’d been quite surprised that harts knew how to talk. He must have been very young when that happened, for it was common knowledge that deerfolk could spoke clear and clean as anypony. He wondered why such a stale memory came back to him now. He wondered why it nagged at him long after Heartstrings left. He looked forward to her visits. It was lonely sometimes in this cozy little room. Star Swirl visited him sometimes as well, though not nearly as often. Thankfully. In the first few days of living in Topsoil’s house (perhaps a week? the collection of days seemed at least a week), he would knock upon Cinquefoil’s door and wait. When the door did not open he’d try to speak to him a few times, eventually give up and let him alone. In the second week living in Topsoil’s house, Star Swirl would knock upon his door, wait a few minutes, and eventually come into the room. He’d tiptoe in so as not to alarm Cinquefoil, just in case he was sleeping. The unicorn never looked him in the eye. He’d glance about the room, looking at the vase of marigolds or the whorls in the floor as he talked to him about the Caulkin Mountains. The arrangement and topography of Sill and the other four peaks. Potential hiding places. If he’d noticed General Yarak or his daughter was watching him that day. (He spoke of the mountains nearly as often as Heartstrings played music, though Cinquefoil was sure mountains had nothing to do with Star Swirl’s Talent.) Then, three weeks after living in Topsoil’s house, something changed. Star Swirl stopped dithering and he stopped avoiding his eye. He watched Cinquefoil very closely. He’d wait for Cinquefoil to speak first instead of telling him about the mountain. His eyes took a strange, steadfast shine and hard lines of frustration forked at his mouth. Star Swirl wanted something and he stared at the back of Cinquefoil’s head as if Cinquefoil ought to know what he wanted. But he had nothing to give. All he owned in the world was an oversized oilskin cloak and half a bowl of oatmeal, but he didn’t think that was what Star Swirl was after. The whole affair unnerved him.   “This is not like you,” Star Swirl told him one evening.  Cinquefoil lifted his head from his little nest of quilt in the corner and blinked at him, twitching his long brown ears. What a strange thing to say. What else could Cinquefoil possibly be besides himself?  Star Swirl seemed determined not to leave until Cinquefoil responded. So he said, “You’ve not known me all that long. How do you know what I’m like?” “Perhaps. But I’ve at least known you long enough to know when something is wrong.” “Nothing is wrong.” “Is it that you’re frightened of the White Roc? Or Yarak?” “No.” “You’ve been sleeping a lot. Are you feeling ill? Is your body hurting you? You seemed to be getting used to it, but...” He ran his tongue over his muzzle nervously, then took a step towards him. “I will get your old one back, you know. I do not go back on my word. I...I’ve not found anything on Sill or the other mountains yet, I’m afraid. ‘Tis slow going, especially in this wretched weather and the general’s eye on me. I must be careful of it. But I gave you my word, Cinquefoil. I will keep it.” The earth pony lowered his ears and pulled his legs close to himself. He wished he’d been more attentive instead of looking out the window. Then he’d have felt the light hoofbeats against the floor, he’d have heard the bells jingling before they got to the door and he could have pretended to sleep when the stargazer came in. Star Swirl made him very nervous, almost as nervous as the long, white clouds that came in the morning, and he did not know why. In the first few days Cinquefoil started staying in this room, Star Swirl made Cinquefoil irritated, bitter, and hurt. (Right now, he wasn’t sure why that was, either.) “I will,” Star Swirl repeated. Something in his determined eyes, the jingle of his cape, the stir of his bright beard in the stale air made Cinquefoil’s mouth go dry. A blurred, half-dead memory roused and stormed between his ears. He stared at the long horn thrusting from the soft, pink puddle of hair, sharp at the end and unlit. Cinquefoil’s ears could not be seen through the thick black curl of his mane. His comfortable room was suddenly very small.   “And I believe you.” He’d have proclaimed Star Swirl his mother if it would just get the unicorn out of his room. “You’re looking very hard, I can tell.” Star Swirl tilted his head and took a step forward. Cinquefoil pressed against the wall.   “What?” Alarmed, the unicorn looked about the room, behind him, and out the door. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing.” “But—” “Nothing is wrong. I just want to be let alone for a little while and don’t feel like talking to anypony.” “Oh. Well, uh. Alright then.” He stopped at the doorway and looked back at him. “Are you quite sure you’re alright? Your new bones aren’t hurting you or anything of that sort?” “No. No, I’m fine.” Star Swirl thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you angry with me?” “No.” “Because you’ve all the right to. I know that I—” “I am not angry with you, Star Swirl.” “Are—” “I’m sure.” “Well, alright then. Good evening, Cinquefoil.” “Good evening, Star Swirl.” He waited until the latch clicked and he did not hear the stargazer’s hooves upon the floorboards. Then Cinquefoil bolted the door shut. “Hey. Are ye feelin’ alright, lad?” A lantern flickered next to the vase of marigolds. It was morning, but all that said so was the clock and the cockerel. Thick clouds and a raging dust storm hoarded the sun and made the day a steady, brown eventine. Cinquefoil glanced up in surprise, his cheeks round with a chunk of hard cheese. “Yes, I’m alright.” Why did everypony keep asking him that? It was starting to become irritating. Before Heartstrings finished opening her mouth, he added, “And yes, I am sure.” He ate a bit of bread and smiled at her to prove it. Heartstring’s tail swished and curled along the floor like trails of white smoke in stormy skies.“It’s just that it’s November, as of three days ago.” “Is there something the matter with November?” “We’ve been here for a month, now. More to the point, you’ve been up here in this room for a month. This room and nowhere else.” When Cinquefoil just ate his breakfast and did not respond, Heartstrings took up her lyre. She gave it some short, light plucks and dove into a rollicking song that was too bright for the room and too bright for her mood. Her voice lilted light and casual. Forcefully so. “‘Not very much space up here. ‘Tis but ten full steps from one wall to the other and that’s all.” “Twelve, actually. Fourteen if it’s corner to corner.” “Don’t ye feel cramped up here all on your own? Don’t ye be gettin’ bored at all? Cannae be much t’do in just these four walls. Do ye never get lonely?” “I suppose sometimes. But you still visit me plenty,” said Cinquefoil. He shrugged. “I feel the way the way I always feel.” “And what way’s that?” “Not like much at all. Not good, not bad. I feel okay.” Heartstrings’ golden eyes flicked up from her lyre. The glow of her horn sent shadows running down her face, curved and delicate and sharp as the edge of an ax. The little shadows burrowed in the little lines under her eyes and the new wrinkles forming at her jawline. She wagged her head as she hummed the words of the song to herself. She did not believe him. He flicked his tail a couple of times, then sighed in defeat. “Tired. I’ve just felt… tired.” Cinquefoil put his chin on the windowsill. Watched orange dots trail into the clawline mountains as the miners went to work, watched yellow dots stay where they were as the rock farmers stayed home. Heard the scratch of dust and the angry pat of raindrops. The curtains fluttered over his withers and ears, waving in a steady ebb and flow like ripples in a quiet river. He used to live by a river, once. It was a good river, smooth and strong, full of trout and ducklings and there was sunshine. It was a better place than here. But he’d decided to come here instead. What pony in their right mind would decide to live in these rainy mountains and not by the river? It made no sense at all. “I often feel very tired. That is why I sleep so much.” The room had horrible acoustics. The notes fell limp against the wallpaper, sank into the floorboards like a smell that never goes away, made pretty music dry and static. Cinquefoil twitched his ears. Static.  Static was a thing you heard, a thing you saw. Fuzzy and abrasive, like clumps of steel wool. He remembered lots of from when he was very small, though he wasn’t sure where the static came from—something small, square and black?—sitting on a very high roof with his mother. She’d listened with him, but paced back and forth instead of sitting, scowling fiercely at the little black box. His mother must have disapproved of static. Heartstrings’ voice whispered from beyond the curtain. “We’ve heard you, you know.” Cinquefoil pricked his ears and turned around to look at her. “At night. When you scream.” He blinked. “I do?” “Aye. You do.” “Oh. ...I didn’t realize I did that. I can try not to do it anymore, if you want.” Heartstrings ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth, dipped her ears, traced the wood grain with her left hoof. She tried and failed to say several things. Finally, she gave up on whatever she fought to say and asked instead, “What is it that you dream of?” “I don’t remember them after I wake up,” Cinquefoil lied. He shifted about, itchy in his own coat and skin. There was no need to talk about this. It was with him enough as it was. There had to be something else he could talk about. “I like the song you’re playing. What’s it called?” Heartstrings hit a sour note as her head jerked up. Her eyes watched his and then her eyes grew wide and wider still. “Does it have lyrics? What is it about?” “A...an apple tree. ‘Tis a song about an apple tree. You know, ‘Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me’? About a lass waiting for her lover t’come back from a war.” The ease dropped out of her voice. “You taught it to me. You taught it to me the night that I met you.” Her voice fought to steady itself, but fear cracked it like bad radio interference.   Like static. Cinquefoil twitched his nose and blinked long and hard. That’s right, static comes from a radio.   And the radio ran on old batteries and the radio came from his mother’s father. And his mother was angry because they were the last batteries they had and couldn’t get anything but static. When the static died with the batteries she kicked the radio off the roof and it bounced against the bricks and awnings before it smashed against the sidewalk. His mother was tall and her skin shone with darkness, her teeth bright and sharp. Human teeth. “Yes. Yes, I sang it to you when I combed out all those tangles in your tail. I picked out at least seven pinecones and used my hands to do it. It took hours.” The stallion’s face pinched as he stared at Heartstrings in the dim lantern light, then the dusky window behind him and the bed pristinely made because it was unslept in. He recalled that sleeping on the floor was good for his long, straight back that now bent a different way with different bones. And Cinquefoil recalled that his name was not Cinquefoil. He swallowed hard. Heartstrings’ mane ticked his withers. Her face was too grim for her face, made her look like somepony else, somepony much older who never laughed. “I want you to tell me why we are here. Why did we come to the Caulkins?” “Humans.” He closed the curtains and stepped away from the window. The dust storm raged and the world was dark, but the sky paled above it. “We’re here to confront General Yarak and find the other humans. If there are any.” “Oh, there are.” “You don’t know that for certain, Heartstrings.” “There are,” she said again. “And I do. There are things one knows and things one knows. And this is a thing that I know, the same way I knew that you were not a myth.” The little stallion smirked. “You had myths of a skinny human that raised pigeons, hated dogs, and sang badly?” “Nopony likes a wiseacre, you know what I mean. I knew your folk were real, even when Megan or someone like her did not appear on the heel of a rainbow, even in the thick smoke of griffon fires. Even when I realized that if ponies were t’be saved they’d have to save their own selves, I still knew.” She shrugged with a little smile. “I’m a wee bit foalish that way, I suppose.” Cinquefoil blinked at her, unsure of how he ought to respond. “‘Tis but only one Megan and she’s surely long gone. Only one Dream Valley and one San Francisco, and the both of them are gone, too. They will be missed. Nopony will force ye t’do anything ye don’t want to do—don’t think it’s even possible for humans—so rest if you’re still tired.” Her little silver horseshoe clicked against Cinquefoil’s forehoof. “But heed me, lad: know that what is gone is gone. You are not. I am not. Not yet. And I’m not wantin’ you to go anyplace yet, I’ve known you too short a time to start missin’ you.” “Has Star Swirl found anything yet?” “Well, he sure found a pound of trouble in Lightheart’s remembering him.” Heartstrings laughed and became herself again. “Also found a few of those hubcap things and a couple other strange objects he’s no name for. But no, nothing of use yet. He’s starting to become frustrated. And I think he misses you, though he tries not to show it.” She glanced towards the door. “I don’t think he has many friends.” “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Cinquefoil nosed the curtain open. The dust was settling down and if he looked very closely he could make out a white circle of sun in the clouds. Something bright yellow zipped through the steady rain, banking east. “Do you have to start working soon?” “Aye, in a few minutes.” Heartstrings wrinkled her nose and snorted. “Hardtack’s coming for a touch-up today and that lout always wants that bawdy song about the seapony.” “Are you sure you can’t stay a bit longer?” “No, I’m running late as is. But y’know I’m working out in the back, just below your hooves and to the right. It may be easier, I think, for you to come down instead.” “You really don’t give up, do you?” If he didn’t know better, Cinquefoil might have called Heartstrings smug. “And Topsoil’s crafted a fine set of shoes.” The brown pony sighed. “I’ll consider it.” “Good.” Cinquefoil didn’t watch her leave. He pushed his shoulder against the window until it squealed open and let the rain sink into his coat. A strong breeze sent the marigolds swirling in their vase. As he watched them twirl, the pony whispered under his breath. A clipped, one-syllable word hissed over and over and over. He could not forget it again. Sunshower alighted upon one of the high stacks of crates. Her unshod hooves tip-tap-tapped upon the wood as her green tail swished in the bellows of smoke. “A unicorn came by early this morning. Before the sun came up.” Topsoil’s eye flicked up and back down to her work through a mask of soot. The hammer wedged between her teeth muffled her words. “Yes, and this means what to me?” Were Sunshower an unseemly mare, she might have smiled at that. As earth ponies went, Topsoil was remarkably keen, surprisingly rational, and at times she possessed something like wit. It was almost like speaking to a pegasus. Not for the first time, Sunshower wondered if Topsoil’s blood mingled with another tribe’s. It would certainly explain the mare’s unusual taste in lovers. And besides all that, Topsoil knew how to keep wingblades sharp and shoes flightworthy and was thus the mare to know. “I have come into the possession of news pertaining to those of the Unicorn Kingdom and you are the only earth pony I know in the Caulkins that associates with ponies of the unicorn tribe.” “I’m the only earth pony you know at all.” “Untrue. You are the only one worth talking to, there is a difference. Regardless, where is the flippant white unicorn that shares your bed?” Topsoil reared back, braced her jaw, and slammed the hammer down. “I expect Lightheart’s lurking somewhere around here. She aims to pounce upon Star Swirl before he slips into the thick of the mountains. Heartstrings is still sleeping, I think.” Sunshower rubbed her tongue along the edge of her teeth. She knew that name. “Do you mean the lanky scholar who does not shave and dresses in a raggedy, belled cape?” The past month he’d been seen skulking along the crevice of the Caulkins, poking his nose in places and annoying the miners. “What business does he have here? Is he in perpetual loss of shoes? Is he a lush?” “Tenant.” “In the company of two other ponies?” “Yes. In an hour or so Heartstrings will be down to play. You could wait and tell her then, if you like.” Sunshower peered around the corner and upwards at the house face. Pale blue curtains fluttered in a circular window with a steel frame. “Not surprised you’re surprised. Between the Mustangian and Star Swirl’s sneaking about you’d hardly know any other ponies lived here at all.” Topsoil rested her hammer and lay back to rub the soot from her cheeks. “May as well be housing ghosts. Ghosts that eat up our food and scare ponies out of their skin all hours of the night.” The curtains fluttered and Sunshower caught a brown blur between them. She’d flown past that window but ten minutes ago. The pegasus’ wings fiddled at her sides. She wished that she’d worn her helmet and wondered if she ought to get her blades back and tell Topsoil to hone them another day. Here. A month scouring the Caulkins peek to pit, delving in canyons and concaves and all the time he lounged a few feet above her head as Sunshower waited on horseshoes and made clipped conversation. The entire time he was right here. Conniving little courser. The pegasus narrowed her eyes. “Tell me what he does.” “Who? Star Swirl?” “The Mustangian.” “You know as well as I. Save once, I never see him out of his room, though he surely comes out.” Topsoil shrugged her shoulders. “He’s not there when Lightheart cleans the room, not that there’s much to clean. Keeps the bed quite tidy. Of late he’s taken to walks in the afternoon and at night, when most of us are working or asleep. I only know because I saw his shadow wavering on the wall as he put the lantern back. Odd colt’s a perfect tenant, if not a little…” She rubbed the back of her head in thought. “A little what? Suspicious? Unnerving? Murderous? Speak mare, speak!” “I was going to say quiet. Although, now that you mention it his face is a bit unnerving at times. Very tense. I think the cramped room is finally wearing him down. His sort aren’t accustomed to walls.”  The muddy wind splattered Sunshower’s mane across her face, getting hair and grit in her mouth. When she looked at the window again the curtain was still and the brown figure was gone. “You called him odd. Why?” “For one, he’s no clue how seasons work. He overheard us comparing how unicorns and the earth ponies go about Summer Surcease and had no idea what we were talking about. And the night before last he fell out of a tree.” “Sunshower twitched her tail and made a scoff that was almost a laugh. “Speak sense.” “I am. That’s just what happened, he fell right on out of that hackberry o’er yonder. Colt’s lucky he didn’t snap his legs.” Sunshower looked across the rocks to a wide limbed tree tipped to the side, missing branches all along its left half, a carpet of twigs and dead leaves scatted around the trunk. It looked lightning-struck. It was not a short tree either. “How does that even happen?” “He told me that he climbed up.” “Ponies do not climb.” Earth ponies were said to be dim, but surely they were not that dim. And while Cinquefoil was many things, dim was not one of them. Perhaps he was mad. “Guess nopony told him that. He was surprised to find himself on the ground, that’s the strange part. The way he looked at that hackberry it was like he expected to scale his way to the top, like a squirrel or a monkey. When I asked him about it, he told me that it seemed a hardier tree.” A hornless silhouette hovered at the little window inside the door that led to the smithy. Sunshower pricked her ears. It was too early for anypony to visit the tavern. The front door was still locked. Topsoil nosed through the rest of her tools, eventually pulling out a long pair of tongs. “Had a blanket with him too. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he aimed to sleep in it.” Behind smoked glass, the earth pony shifted his shoulders and moved away. Sunshower heard hooves on the floorboards. Lightheart peeked around the corner of the front entrance and rushed across the floor in a rustle of skirts. She crouched under one of the larger tables, pinching the edge of her calico skirt with her magic so that it wouldn’t rub against the dingy stone. The unicorn met Sunshower’s eye and put a hoof to her lips for silence. The tavern door creaked open and Lightheart grinned at the sound of bells. Topsoil went on at the edge of Sunshower’s attention. “…understand his situation…need to start charging…over a month, that seems a fair time to wait. …Must be something he’s skilled at…can do around here. That seems fair, doesn’t it Sunshower?” The pegasus blinked back at her at the sound of her name. She plucked the most logical response and tossed it over her shoulder like an old apple core. “Yes, that does sound reasonable.” A blue muzzle poked out of the doorway and sniffed. Star Swirl risked a tentative step outside, then another. When nopony sprang at him, he exhaled and wished Topsoil good morning. He paused a moment when he saw Sunshower, then inclined his head politely and hustled across the smithy, holding himself like a misbehaved hound all the while. He was halfway there when a white hoof pressed upon his tail and Lightheart’s fishhook voice dug into his shoulders. “It’s later,” she said.  Star Swirl stretched his neck backwards and made an ugly face when he discovered how far he was from the door. “We’re going to talk about this whether you want to or not, Star Swirl.” It took several tugs for Star Swirl to get his tail out from under Lightheart’s hoof. He tossed his overgrown mane and sniffed, “There is nothing to talk about.” “Allow me to disagree, but there seems to be plenty said of letting my cousin linger at the altar.” Lightheart angled her ears and pressed her lips together. “I mean, if it was just a matter of cold hooves, that is still no reason to—” “I did not have cold hooves. I simply had no interest in Miss Twinkleshine, not then and not ever. That is all there is to it.” Star Swirl gnashed his teeth in frustration and kicked a bit of coal across the floor. “And I do not have time to reminisce of things that have already passed and can do nothing about.” Lightheart prepared to fire off a counterargument when she glanced at the bulging saddlebags at Star Swirl’s sides. Sunshower could see the drive to needle Star Swirl further into conversation at odds with the question burning at the tip of her tongue. “What are you doing in the mountains anyway?” “Research.” The stargazer swished his tail protectively around his ankles. “Of the local fauna and geology of the Caulkins.” He looked at Sunshower as he said it, though he tried not to. Sunshower smirked. The stargazer had to do better than that to pull one over on her. He was the Mustangian’s accomplice and that alone made him suspicious, even without his constant sneaking in the summit cracks.   Something bumped the back of Sunshower’s hock and she spared a glance behind. A familiar set of pale hooves brightly contrasted the sooty floor. The pegasus sprang back in a flurry of wings and legs, knocking over a can of nails in the process. The clatter and commotion thankfully hid the undisciplined noise she made. Cinquefoil watched the unicorns as he leaned against a support beam, his posture deceptively easy. He must have crept in under the cover of the unicorns’ noise, his coat blending into the easy browns and blacks of the smithy. He did not wear his green oilskin and at first Sunshower didn’t recognize him, but there was no mistaking the gaunt face or waterfire eyes. He was so close she could see the arteries twitch in his tightening neck. Sunshower crouched beside the kiln, unarmed wings splayed at her sides, the edge of her feathers glinting orange in the light. It was a hideously embarrassing stance, bladeless and practically armorless at ground level, staring out at the world like some simple line-eyed goat.   He turned and twitched his long ears at her. “Oh, it’s you. Hello again.” When Sunshower did not respond, he mused, “I didn’t think the pegasus ponies dipped this low.”   “I am here on business. And to authorize the adjustment and sharpening of wingblades.” Sunshower shook off her alarm the way cats shake off bathwater. “Not that it is any business of yours.”   Cinquefoil shrugged. He shrugged and just stood there with his hooves staked into the dirt like foreigner flagpoles. There was nothing abnormal in the way he stood or bent his neck or twitched his tail. The build of his bones was unremarkable and the curve of his back was standard. And yet...   Star Swirl caught the Mustangian’s eye. Cinquefoil nodded to him politely and turned away, pretending to suddenly have an interest in how Topsoil’s furnace worked. His muscles tightened as if to run.   Then Sunshower saw it. His flanks were bare, nothing on them but dirt and fur.   She narrowed her eyes. What sort of full-grown pony had no mark? Was it another result of his wild heritage? Yarak told her once of Arabians, elegantly boned and impossibly tall; they had no marks either. But Cinquefoil was too small to be even half of their kind. Could he be hiding it somehow? The only other explanation was that the stallion was talentless and Sunshower didn’t entertain that notion for a second.     And she still couldn’t look him in the eye.   “Didn’t you have news?”   Sunshower angled an ear in Topsoil’s direction. She didn’t dare move her eye away from the Mustangian, lest he vanish again. “What was that?”   “You said you wanted to speak to the unicorns of news.”   “A herald bearing the Kingdom’s colors came by this morning.” She flitted an eye over the unicorns and back to the quiet earth pony. “Your king is dead.”   Perhaps the unicorns dropped their quarrel when they heard the news. Perhaps they gaped in shock. Perhaps they cried. Perhaps they said something else to her. Sunshower did not know and she did not care. It was not her kingdom and not her business. He was looking at her again.   Cinquefoil’s silent stare rang in her ears. Sunshower’s primary feathers twitched as if under a soggy updraft.   How dare he. How dare he have the audacity to stare at her with those bizarre, infuriating eyes of his, as if he were completely ignorant of it all. As if he were an ordinary stallion rolling rocks down a canyon. How dare his silence be so damn loud and how dare an earth pony—a common dirt-pushing earth pony—disconcert her in this way? He wasn’t even ugly like he was supposed to be. If she split his skull with her back hoof it would serve him right.   Sunshower’s heart sank when he went back inside.   She wondered if the round window with blue curtains was his. She wondered if he pulled the curtains back and watched the world, his face gentle and quiet and charged as the breeze before a storm. He’d had circles around his eyes. She wondered if he slept poorly. It was unhealthy and unwise to neglect sleep. Cinquefoil was tense around frail, lank-legged Star Swirl, yet did not fear her father at all. Everypony with sense was frightened of Yarak.   Nothing made sense about that accursed pony and Sunshower wished he would come back outside.   “Sunshower?” Lightheart’s big blue eyes and frilly bonnet peered at her.   “What is it?”   “Are you alright?” The unicorn was alone. Topsoil’s whetstone screeched against wingblades at the far end of the smithy. Star Swirl had stolen away while Lightheart wasn’t looking.   “I am perfectly alright.”   “If you say so…”   “I do say so.”   “Sunshower, did… did the herald say anything else to you? Anything at all? Do you know how King Mohs passed?” Lightheart’s eyes were large and wavering.   Sunshower took a step back from her. She was unused to emotions laying themselves out in plain sight where everypony could see them and did not know the correct way to respond.   “No, the herald did not say. However, it is my presumption that he died of being old. He was your king for a long time and rulers do not last forever. Nothing does, except for the sky.” Sunshower thought a moment. If the loss of Lightheart’s king inspired such a response, then it would be polite to offer consolation. “Do not worry, I am sure that your new monarch will be quite sufficient.”   “Do you know who it is?”   “Somepony called Argentum.”   Sunshower glanced behind her. Her wings felt the wind slacken and recline. The day dimmed and brightened all at once and the rain fell in fat drops that never touched. The support beams groaned as Topsoil’s house leaned to the left. The Roc was going out.   It pulled up its claws and lifted from Sill every few days now, instead of every few years. The White Roc often returned late, tapping its claws against the mountainside when it ought to be resting. It was out of sorts. Or Yarak was out of sorts. It was the same thing, really.   Lightheart cringed, pulling her shawl tight around her shoulders.   Sunshower tilted her head, perplexed. “I don’t see why you cower so. It is only the Roc. It feeds on water vapor and nimbus clouds, with an occasional elephant in the summer. It does not eat ponies and could not care less about you.” The beams leaned and snapped back into their natural position. “I expect that it fidgets because it overslept. I am that way sometimes; my wings are anxious and want to make up for all the time that I did not spend productively.”   The pegasus tapped her hooves on the dirt floor and tossed her short little tail about. “Topsoil said that in the Kingdom your job was to interpret marks. Do you know what it means when a pony has no mark at all?”   “Depends on the pony.” The unicorn gave her a sidelong glance and sucked her teeth. “But experience tells me that the pony is not lacking in Talent, just the discovery of one. Talents are always there, a mark are just the culmination.”     “Have you encountered a pony that was full-grown and still without one?”   “Oh.” Lightheart’s ears shot into the air and flicked as if somepony called her name. Her eyes glittered and a tiny, ladylike grin teased at her muzzle. “You mean Cinquefoil.”   Topsoil’s voice rose from the back. “Lightheart, be nice.”   “I am being nice.” The unicorn twirled the tip of her tail in a way that was almost too careless. “T’was but an innocent question.”   Sunshower kept her face and ears neutral. “I said nothing of the sort.”   “I’m not blind. And I’m not dim either, despite the opinions of certain bearded bachelors.” The little grin was back on Lightheart’s face. It had teeth this time. “I could talk to him if you like.”   “That will not be necessary.” Sunshower tapped her hoof and snorted. “Wealth of Welkin, all I had was a simple question. I did not put in a request for vulgar implications.”   “Who’s implying? You see a mare staring after another pony like that, there’s a fair chance she’s interested one way or another.” The yellow strands in her tail curled over her flank in little scimitar crescents. “But I never said how.”   “The stallion is suspicious and thus I am keeping an eye on him. He is a strange pony and he is up to something and his eyes are creepy and he stares all the time and it is strange and I do not like him. It would not surprise me in the least to discover he was a red-hooved brigand on the run from justice.”   “If you say so.”   “And I do say so.”   “In any case, he’s still young yet. Perhaps nomadic ponies do not lock into Talent the way town fairing folk do. I’ve not met any before now, so I wouldn’t know.” Lightheart shrugged. “When the day comes he’s six and two score years and still bare-flanked, then come find me and bring the record book with you.”   Sunshower sighed. “It is not only the mark. As I told you, he is a peculiar pony. And I am not the only one that thinks so. Topsoil called him odd as well. Said he was climbing trees.” The pegasus rolled her shoulders and leaned her back against the wall. “I cannot unriddle him.” The unicorn laughed at that. “What mare can? Don’t you know? He’s a stallion and all stallions are strange, a fair number of them mad, besides.” She waved her tail again. “Glad I’ve never had a taste for them.”