“I’m still not sure that you should.” Heartstrings set her lantern down and yawned. Not even the sun was up this early. An oil lamp flickered in the back corners of the room, but even with both lights working together the room was still quite dark. “Maybe you should wait a little bit.”
Star Swirl twisted his neck, bracing himself against the bed as he pulled the saddlebag straps snug against his barrel. “Why not? The Roc won’t be out for at least three more hours and now is about the time the general’s daughter goes to sleep. It is the ideal time to scale the mountain.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” She lifted Star Swirl’s back hoof in a golden aura. “This shoe’s near worn out and it’s the third set you’ve had.” Heartstrings squinted at the hoof in the dim light. “Has this sole even fully healed yet? I don’t think it has.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore and I had the poultice on it half the night. I know how to watch my step, I’ll be fine.”
Heartstrings rolled her eyes. “Oh, aye, just like how ye watched your step before?”
“That was before and this is today. Sill’s not that hard once a pony’s used to it. Besides, if I stay in I’ll be confined to my room all day and there’s no more research to be done there.” Star Swirl took back his foot and glanced behind him. There was a little birch table in the corner, hidden somewhere under the mighty heap of notebook pages and inkwells and quills sticking out in every direction. It looked as if a bird had flown into his room and exploded in a burst of black-ink blood.
Lined along the walls, organized to the best of Star Swirl’s ability (that is, in slightly smaller heaps instead of a great mass), was the fruit of his month-long labor in the Caulkins. From the curved claws of the mountains where the miners delved came a stack of crumpled sheets of colorful metal and a collection of little glass orbs clinking against each other as they rolled in their box. From the streams adorning the round, rolling mounds he’d pulled out three and a half hubcaps, a mysterious strip of black rubber, and a bright purple kite with lime green words boldly painted across it in a language unknown to ponykind.
Star Swirl discovered just one thing in the bitter heights of Sill. It conquered the back of the room, awkwardly angled to allow room for the bed. An incredible bulk of browning iron welded into the shape of a fin or a sail, though the unicorn wondered how such an object could catch the wind. It was possible it was meant for the water or land, but his instincts told him different. The thick scent of rust overran his incense and gave Star Swirl headaches when slept under it for too long. The iron fin ate nearly all of the window, thin rectangles of pre-dawn light snuck around its edges to filter across the floorboards. When asked how he managed to sneak it into the house without anypony’s knowledge, Star Swirl just preened and pointed at the fourth bell jingling on his cape.
Star Swirl looked back at Heartstrings with a sideways smile. “’Tis a bit crowded in there now. And since the discovery of the iron fin, I can’t seem to focus on my magic. I can study and research my findings just fine, but before I’m done focusing my horn or reading my runes I’m tired and get headaches.” He twitched his nose at the stink of iron and peeked over Heartstrings’ shoulder at the open door. “And besides, if I leave now, I can work in peace for sure. Lightheart never wakes up this early and she never goes five feet from the house. I don’t think she even has shoes.”
The minstrel followed his gaze. “You’ll have to talk to her eventually.”
“Feh. I’ve worthier worries than Lightheart’s mismanaged guilt. Betwixt a tryst with an earth mare and an absconded groom, the degradation of House Sparkler lies not with the latter.” Star Swirl’s features curdled into a sneer. “Let her stew. Each of her distractions bills another night of screams. I shan’t have it. ”
Heartstrings only frowned at that. Neither of them had gone back to bed after Cinquefoil woke them, though she suspected Star Swirl was already awake for he’d smelled of ink in the hallway. She wondered when he slept.
Star Swirl’s voice brought her attention back. “But if you’re so worried about the state of my hooves, you are welcome to accompany me.” He thought a second and added, “Presuming you’re not busy entertaining, of course.”
“Topsoil told me she’s not working today, so neither am I.” The mare tossed her white mane over her shoulders and smiled. “Been a while since I’ve had a decent walk. I can see for meself how silver shoes stand against Sill.”
Heartstrings left her lyre in the center of her bed as a sign she’d be back for anypony looking for her. After packing a lunch of oat and apple salad, she met Star Swirl at the door and together they made to scale the mountain.
Last night’s storm clouds had rained themselves out. The only clouds to be seen in the Caulkins was the murky film of fog that lapped over their backs and the drizzle was so thin it was as if it wasn’t raining at all. A good omen.
Two hours into the trek, as they carefully tread above the rooftops, the sun came out. Heartstrings craned back her neck to see the tip of Sill, frowning when she found her view still obscured by full, fluffy cumulus. The light made the wet ground glisten like an oil slick. The rocks sheened pale purple, not the usual grey. Her eye trailed up to where the clouds lingered. The color built and condensed with height; the top of Sill was glossy with stripes of violet either frighteningly iridescent or hopelessly dull, depending on the light. The color swirled in manic, whirling directions, like mist dripping from a cauldron.
“Star Swirl, does it always look like this?”
The stargazer’s pink beard floated in the wind. “No. I’ve never been here while this much sun was out.” He squinted at the violet streaks. He wondered if Sill had opal deposits or if the innards were brightly colored like a geode. But the path of color seemed more like spilt ink than ore or rock. “Hmm.”
The wind kicked up, tickling the fur in Star Swirl’s pricked ears. The bells twitched and tinkled as his cape flapped across his back. He swiveled his ears, pivoting on his heels mid-step. “Heartstrings…” he whispered without looking back at her. “D’you hear that?”
The minstrel hopped over a jagged strip of stones and turned her ears about. “Don’t know. What am I supposed to be hearin’?”
“Not clear enough t’tell. But I thought that…” Star Swirl relaxed his ears. “Never mind. Whatever it was, I can’t hear it now.”
“Oh. Well, if ye canna tell me what you’re listening for, can ye at least tell me what we’re looking for?”
“I…I’m not sure yet.” Star Swirl laid his ears back. “Something that’s more substantial than that hoard built up in my room. All that collection proves is humans were here once, but who’s to say that ‘once’ was a day or a thousand years ago? We’ll know what we’re looking for when we find it.”
Heartstrings glanced over her shoulder and blinked in surprise. Topsoil’s roof was a tiny white triangle in the distance, one of many dollhouses in an organized jumble at Sill’s foot. “We’re this high already?”
“The mountain looks worse than it is,” Star Swirl said. “Weather permitting, I can be up and down it between breakfast and supper time. It is far slower going down. But Sill’s height is no illusion, ‘tis miles high. It ought to take an athletic unicorn at least two days to scale, yet I arrive at my door before sunset with time to spare. And I am certainly no athlete. ‘Tis a curiosity.”
“So ye seen the top of the mountain, then?”
He nodded. “Twice. The first time I did it I was so excited. My bells jingled in my ears as my nose touched the clouds and in the depths of myself I knew—Heartstrings, I knew—I was so close. The clouds of Sill are so thick nopony can see the tip, not from air or sky, so surely that was how Yarak hid them. Above the spongy cumulus I’d surely find a door, a suspended cage in the sky, perhaps a hidden stair leading to a secret village.”
Star Swirl brushed back his mane and closed his eyes with a sigh. “All I found was thin air and the sky. I stood there a long time with my bells tinkling in the wind, waiting for something to happen. I came home well after dark that night. Do you remember?”
Heartstrings thought, then nodded. “After the end of my set. Bumped into that lush Hardtack as he was leaving and nearly started a fight.”
“Did I?” Star Swirl shrugged. “I don’t recall, that was a distracting night. Anyhow, just before sunset I looked down. Yarak lay several feet under me, curled up in a crook of rock like a dog at the fireplace. He was looking up at me. ‘Twas hard to see through the clouds, but I think he smiled at me. He smiled and I… I never felt so tired.”
Heartstrings leaned against him sympathetically. “I suppose that was when ye made the way back down?”
“Actually, no. Something did happen: the sun went down. And as I looked, the stars came out. More stars than I’d ever, ever seen, even with my spyglass, even in the observatory I’ve never seen so many. So close I could taste the cold burn of them on my tongue. I found the constellations and watched the moon come up. And I wasn’t tired anymore.” Star Swirl’s smile waxed and waned. “I was supposed to learn how to do that, you know.”
“Do what?”
“The moon. After my mother retired, I mean. I was to take the moon after the tenth hour, move it on its path, then turn it over to the unicorn who had it for the twelfth hour. Da was so excited. Mother, too. Of course, that was before my mark came and I still couldn’t levitate a quill.”
“Still can’t.”
Star Swirl pursed his lips.
“Well, ye can’t!” Heartstrings swished her tail. “If it helps, I cannae write at all.”
The stargazer angled his head to watch a jackdaw land overhead. It beat its wings, cawing as it tried to crack a nut on the rocks. “I was first in my class for histories and theorem. But theory is nothing without magic to back it up. Especially in House Galaxy.”
“But you’re not hollow, though.” The minstrel hummed in thought. “If ye truly traveled through time as you say—”
“And I did.”
Heartstrings held up a calming, defensive hoof. “Then shouldn’t have somepony have been able to tell? It sounds like a grand spell, there must’ve been some trace or sign or—”
Star Swirl laughed mirthlessly. “Not without reproducing the spell. Besides that, even now the spells I cast leave me spent and frail. When it comes, it is strong, and always it is remarkably strong, but when it is gone, it truly is gone. No more magic in my horn than in our Cinquefoil’s hooves.” He looked back at Heartstrings’ sympathetic expression and snorted. “Ah, but never fear. House Galaxy always has use for its sons. Even if that use only comes in the springtime.”
“...oh.” The mare’s ears dipped. “Twinkleshine.”
“My fiance was beautiful as morning dew sparkling upon the cobwebs that stretched across the inside of her skull. Magnificent green eyes wide and empty as my future.” He laughed again, cruelly earnest this time. “I told her that once. She actually took it as a complimen—ouch!”
Star Swirl stumbled, catching himself at the last moment before he fell. His back leg was hock-deep in an ugly rift in the rock. He waved Heartstrings off as she looked him over. “No, I’m alright. Think I cut my hoof on something, but I’m fine, merely just surPRISED!”
He yanked his leg back to him, but it got stuck at the lip of the hole. “Something’s got my leg!” Star Swirl cringed with a rather undignified whine. “Ohh, it’s all small and cold and-and-and with fingers!”
Heartstrings flicked her ears. “Fingers? D’ye mean like—”
“No, no, nothing like those. These are too small and they have no nails and they’re all furry and cold and wiggly oh get it off get it off, it feels all weird!” Star Swirl cringed again and yanked his leg harder.
A raspy yelp rang out from under the rocks.
Heartstrings lit her horn and lifted away the stones cluttering the hole. Star Swirl lifted his leg out. A red ball of undulating fuzz filthy with dust covered his hoof. It blinked up at them with big blue eyes.
“Hi,” it said. “You stepped on me.”
Star Swirl blinked back at it. “Sorry?”
“It’s okay,” said the fuzz. “I know you didn’t mean to. ...Still hurt.”
Heartstrings squinted, trying to let more sunlight into the rift. “I think there are more!” She lit her horn and lifted up two more balls of blinking fur, one bright green and the other pumpkin orange.
The red creature grinned and dropped from Star Swirl’s hoof. He (for the voice sounded male) outstretched his arms, tripped and fell over his own feet as he rushed forward on unseen legs. The furry things met each other with joyous cries and did a waddling little dance on the rock, bouncing and clapping their furry little hands.
“We’re out!” Their voices were identical, save for a minuscule difference in pitch if a pony listened close. “We’re out, we’re out, we’re out! We’re out, hooray!”
Heartstrings smiled as she watched them celebrate. “Oh, wee darlings. Aren’t they just the sweetest wee fellows, Star Swirl?”
Star Swirl’s nose wrinkled like a withered rose. “What are they?”
The furballs turned as one to beam at him and lifted their joined hands. Absolutely elated with themselves they crowed, “We’re bushwoolies!”
“We were stuck in that jar!” cried the red bushwoolie.
“Oh, yeah. Yep, yeah, real small jar,” said the green one.
“Small and dark!” the orange one added.
“Small and dark and smelly,” finished the red. “Not fun, nope, nuh-uh. Not fun at all.”
The unicorns looked at each other, then back down.
“Bushwoolies?” Star Swirl squinted skeptically. “Surely not the same bushwoolies of Dream Valley.”
“D’ye know of any other sort?” Heartstrings held out her hoof. “They fit the description well enough: merry, talkative bits of fluff.” She poked one with her hoof and giggled when the bushwoolie did.
“But the bushwoolies are supposed to be extinct. Nopony’s seen one in years.”
“Bushwoolies aren’t extinct,” the orange one said. He rubbed his belly with his hands, then rubbed the bushwoolie beside him. “We’re right here, see?”
“Yep.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, here. Right here, yup.”
The red bushwoolie waddled up to Star Swirl and tugged on his mane. “You’re little ponies, right? We don’t know you yet. Are you visiting?”
“Maybe he’s a big brother,” suggested the orange bushwoolie. “Do you know where Paradise Estate is? Magic Star’s gonna wonder where we went.”
“She’s gonna be worried.”
“Yeah, worried.”
Star Swirl just gaped at them. The red bushwoolie tapped a stubby finger against his mouth. “Do you know Magic Star? Or Shady?”
“Maybe you know Ribbon?” the green bushwoolie offered. “Or Galaxy or Buttons? Oh, or Glory? They’re unicorn ponies, just like you!”
“Yeah! Long horns on their head,” said the red. He looked at the horn spiraling from Star Swirl’s forehead. “Yours is longer, maybe.”
Star Swirl opened and shut his mouth wordlessly. He took a closer look at the rift the bushwoolies came from. The sun glinted off a black jar, little gold runes he couldn’t read embossed along the top and bottom. There was a jagged hole where Star Swirl’s hoof stomped into it. “How long have you all been in that jar?”
The bushwoolies blinked, looked at each other, and shrugged. “Uh. A while?”
“What is the last thing ye remember?” asked Heartstrings.
The orange bushwoolie rubbed his nonexistent chin. “We were going home.”
The green one smiled. “For a tea party!”
“There’s gonna be ice cream there.” The orange bushwoolie held up a studious finger. “That’s a thing for eating and not a thing for playing in. Sweet Stuff taught us that us. Ice cream’s tasty.”
“Oh, yeah,” the others agreed. “Very tasty, yup.”
“You can put peanuts on it!”
“And chocolate!”
“And bananas!”
“And—”
“Focus, bushwoolies,” said Heartstrings. “Ye were going to the Estate and then what happened?”
“We were walking and then we ran into the witch,” said the green bushwoolie.
“Ohhh, she got mad,” sighed the red. “Real mad. Bushwoolies got too close to her house. Said a lot of mean stuff.”
“Not nice.”
“Made me drop the sprinkles.” The green bushwoolie pouted and crossed his arms. “Ice cream’s not the same without sprinkles.”
“She yelled,” said the red.
“A lot,” sulked the green. “She hit me with a spoon and then she chased us in that jar.”
“And closed the jar,” said the red.
“But then you opened the jar!” yelled the orange one. “And now bushwoolies are free! Hooray!”
“Free!” cried the others. “Hooray! Hooray for being free!” They leapt upon Star Swirl, clutching at his withers and cuddling his legs. “Hooray!”
Star Swirl was quite distressed.
“What’s your name?” asked the orange bushwoolie.
“He’s Star Swirl! And I’m Heartstrings,” chirped Heartstrings.
“Ohhhh, okay. Hooray for Star Swirl!”
“Our hero!”
“Yay! Thank you, Star Swirl!”
“Yeah, thanks a lot.”
“We love you!”
“You’re the best!”
“Yeah, yeah, the best. That’s you, alright!”
“Wouldn’t mind you coming sooner...”
Star Swirl looked as if he’d eaten a crate of thumbtacks. “Don’t mention it.”
Heartstrings gently lifted the orange bushwoolie from Star Swirl’s neck and set him down on the rock. “Bushwoolies, I don’t know how t’tell ye this, but ye’ve been in that jar for… oh, my, it be hundreds of years.”
The bushwoolies just blinked at her.
“D’ye know how long that is, dears? ‘Tis a very long time.” She smiled sadly at them. “Magic Star and Buttons aren’t waiting on ye, I’m afraid. There is no more Paradise Estate.”
“Not even a Dream Valley,” said Star Swirl.
The red bushwoolie plopped himself sidesaddle on Star Swirl’s back. “We missed the party?”
“Aye,” Heartstrings sighed. “By quite a bit.”
“Oh.” The bushwoolies looked at each other, lost for a moment. They frowned, shuffled, and whispered amongst themselves in overlapping voices. Then they shrugged.
“That’s okay,” the red one said.
The orange one nodded. “We’ll catch the next one!”
“Yeah, the next one.”
The green bushwoolie murmured, “Maybe we shoulda come from the Moochick’s house a different way...”
The red one waved his legs. “It was faster though the witches’ house, though.”
“Yeah,” the green agreed. “Much, much faster.”
Star Swirl frowned and tried to shake them off. They both just patted his mane and smiled. The stargazer sighed and resigned himself to fuzzy misery. “You keep mentioning a witch. Do you mean Katrina?”
The bushwoolies laughed.
“Katrina’s nice now,” said the orange.
“Super nice,” the red agreed.
The green smiled. “Yeah, nice, real nice. Lots of cuddles.”
“Gave up the witchweed. Plays badminton now!” The red bushwoolie waved a stubby little arm. “These witches were mean. Three of them.”
“Made lots of Smooze,” sighed the green. He frowned. “I don’t like Smooze, nope. It made our friends act grumpy and sad. No good times.”
“No good. Nuh-uh. Yech,” the others mumbled.
Star Swirl’s neck yanked back to stare at the fuzzy things on his back. His mouth fell open as understanding crept over him. The red bushwoolie petted his beard.
The unicorn took another look at Sill. A long, long, look. At the gabbro near Topsoil’s house, at the andesite they’d tripped over, the obsidian shards that cut his hoof the day before. He hadn’t thought much of the obsidian at the time, just presumed it more flotsam of human tools. Star Swirl’s eyes widened at the violet streaking the cusp of Sill, iridescent in the sunlight, with a distinct gloominess. Sill was no mountain.
“Gloom,” he whispered. His mouth was dry. “The Volcano of Gloom.”
“Imagine, scores of little ponies working and sleeping below the house of old Hydia herself.” Heartstrings chuckled with wonder. “Cannae imagine the fits the old hag would have. But shouldn’t a volcano have lava?”
“It must have died. Or…” Star Swirl looked out at the rest of the Caulkins, disjointed and unmatched against each other. “Or this range somehow joined with the humans’ Old World mountains.”
“Oh, yeah.” The red bushwoolie nodded solemnly. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it alright.”
“Lots of mountains, yup,” hummed the green.
He stroked his beard in thought. “Or the witches did something to it so that it doesn’t behave like a volcano. They were able to live in the middle of one without burning to a crisp, so they must have done something.”
“Uh-huh,” the bushwoolie said. “Yup, yup, you got it.” The others nodded in agreement.
Star Swirl gave them a sideways look. “Or maybe the White Roc is made of lemonade.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah.”
“Absolutely, yeah.”
“Lots and lots of lemonade, yup.”
Heartstrings nudged Star Swirl’s shoulder. “Look who’s up.”
They could easily see from this height: a brown unmarked stallion coming away from Sill, a bag bouncing upon his flank. He was going at a brisk trot, a bit of a spring in his step. He paused a moment to look back at the mountain, looking up and down it. Then he turned and went on his way.
“I wonder where it is he’s headed to,” Heartstrings said quietly. “I’ve never known him to take walks this early.”
The red bushwoolie crawled his way atop Star Swirl’s head, ignoring the stallion’s insistent protests. He gripped the horn to keep his balance as he held a fuzzy hand over his eyes and squinted. “Is that your friend? I remember him.”
“He stepped on our jar,” added the orange bushwoolie. He twiddled his fingers in his hair thoughtfully. “Does he know Megan?”
“Oh yeah, sure.” The red nodded to himself. “Sure, all the humans gotta know Megan.”
“And humans are friends with little ponies,” put in the green bushwoolie. He scratched his head in puzzlement. “Must like ponies a lot if he decided to be one.” The other bushwoolies nodded and hummed in agreement.
“How’d ye know that?” Heartstrings lifted the red bushwoolie in a gold aura and hovered him between the unicorns. “How do ye know he’s not really a pony?”
The green bushwoolie fiddled his hands. In a voice too soft to hear over Heartstrings, he mumbled, “Almost not a pony…”
“He stepped on our jar, too.” The red one waved his unseen legs as he floated and put his hands in the empty air around him. He was very impressed. “We felt him.”
“We always feel ‘em,” said the green one. “The others too. Volcano twitches when they come.”
“Yeah, yeah. Grumbles and tumbles, yeah.” The orange bushwoolie tugged on Heartstrings’ foreleg. “Can I have a ride too, please?”
“Oooh!” The green one gasped. “Oooh, yeah, yeah, me too?”
“And me!” cried the red, though he was still in the air.
“Others?” Star Swirl plucked the orange bushwoolie from the ground and lightly shook him in his hooves. “Other humans? Do you know where they are? Do you know where they are? Do you know how we can get them out?” His voice built into a frenzy. “Are they here?!”
“Y-yeah. Yeah!” The orange bushwoolie pouted and squirmed in Star Swirl’s hooves. This was not the ride he wanted at all.
“Where?!”
“Here!”
Star Swirl clenched his jaw and stared at the fuzzy thing for a silent minute. Then shook the bushwoolie until Heartstrings lifted him out of his reach.
“Hey now, that’s enough of that. That’ll do nothing but make him sad an’ simple. Here, let me try.” She gently nosed the creature’s back. “No, dear. What we’re wantin’ to know is where they are exactly.”
The bushwoolie peered at her, confused. “Exactly?”
“Yes. Can they be found atop Sill? Or will we be findin’ them below it?”
“Yes,” said the orange bushwoolie.
"Are they far away or very close?” asked Star Swirl.
The green bushwoolie smiled. “Yes.”
“Are they well?” asked Heartstrings.
Star Swirl loomed with his cape fluttering at his sides. “Or do they fair poorly?”
“Yes.” The red bushwoolie sulked at Heartstrings’ hooves. He didn’t think his ride should have been over yet.
Star Swirl groaned and took a long, steadying breath. “But which question are you agreeing to?”
The bushwoolies blinked at him. “All of them.” Then they hugged him again, for Star Swirl was not making a happy face and hugs had a long, proud history of turning frowns upside down.
“Never have I so sympathized with a witch’s desire to shove small animals into jars.”
“Hm. Let’s have another try at this.” Heartstrings knelt beside the red bushwoolie. It smiled and touched her nose. “Bushwoolies, can ye tell us how we can get to the humans?”
He yawned. “Uh-huh.”
“Lovely. Now, how can we do that?”
The red bushwoolie looked back at his friends, who stared back at him. As one, they turned and said, “Forget-Me-Not.”
The green one rubbed his eyes. “Forget-Me-Not's in the glass.”
“Yeah,” sighed the red. He cuddled Heartstrings’ hoof and yawned again. “Forget-me-not when the clouds shrink.”
“Grows with love and sunshine,” said the green.
“Just love might do,” finished the orange.
“Volcano mountain’s deep.” The red bushwoolie struggled to keep his eyes open. “Bushwoolies know. Bushwoolies was in it for a long time.”
“Yeah, long time.” The orange bushwoolie curled up next to his friend. “Real, real long time.”
The green one just nodded, cuddled next to the orange, and went to sleep.
Heartstrings and Star Swirl tried to ask again of the humans’ location and what they’d meant by all that talk of flowers in vases and love. But if the bushwoolies even managed to rouse from their slumber, all the unicorns got was a yawn and a blink.
The mare began piling them into her saddlebag. “Even if we don’t get anything else out of them, I’m not leavin’ them to get down this peak all by…” her voice grew quiet. “All by themselves.”
The clouds of Sill twisted in on themselves, sloshing like broth at the bottom of a bowl. A great eye blinked and a dishwater claw gripped the rock face.
“It’s awake,” Heartstrings whispered.
“We must fetch them after dark.” Star Swirl made himself small amongst the rocks as he watched the cloudy wings smother the sky. “That much I can figure out. The clouds get smaller after the Roc goes to bed. The Roc, too.”
The White Roc angled its great neck down. General Yarak stepped from the caves in his unhurried, unbreakable way. He and the Roc looked at each other and the pegasus lifted his wing to touch the massive talon. Together, they looked at the round mountain at the Caulkins’ edge and the little brown dot traveling towards it.
Yarak watched the round mountain several minutes more. Then he tucked in his wing and continued on up Sill. The Roc fidgeted, making a creaking, sandy noise deep in its throat. It brought its wings down and let the sky back in, then closed its eyes and settled.
Heartstrings kept her eye on the sky, squinting to suss out which parts were feathers and which parts were clouds. If there was a difference between the two at all. “Such a big creature,” she whispered. “I wonder what it eats…”
A sleepy voice mumbled at her side, muffled in the saddlebag. “Hearts,” the bushwoolie said.
Three fillies stared on the far side of the fence, whispering to each other in their bows and grass-stained dresses. When Cinquefoil looked back at them they cantered off, giggling at each other.
Cinquefoil twitched his ears and looked to Topsoil, who was hoof-deep in a patch of dirt.
“Pay them no mind,” Topsoil said. “It can be unnerving to see an unmarked stallion. They just don’t know what peg to hang you on. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I’m not worrying about it.” Cinquefoil lightly smiled. “I’ve figured that out already, trust me. I was just wondering about the weather. The sun is out.”
“Enjoy it while you can. Doesn’t happen often.”
“I noticed.” He peered over the brown mare’s shoulder. Light green fuzz dusted the dirt at her hooves. Thin, crooked shoots bent at the edge of a wire enclosure nearby. When the breeze blew they rattled against each other with a crinkling, wrinkling sound. “I… like your garden.”
Topsoil lifted an eyebrow. “Are you being nice or sarcastic?”
“Neither. It’s not amazing, but I do like it better than no garden at all.” He nosed at the green fuzz. “Is that feathergrass?”
“It’s trying to be.” Topsoil covered her seeds and shook her head. “The poor shoots have tried their best since midsummer, but I never get anything taller than two inches. Every time I get something close to green there’s a cold snap or a shot of hail or a dust storm blocks out the sun. The tomatoes are all dead already.”
“Not all. The stem’s only just yellowing and look, those two leaves on the far right still have green in them.”
“Good as dead, then.” Topsoil dusted off her hooves and looked the stallion over. “So! What can you do?”
“Do?”
“Yes, what is it you like to do? What are you good at? You didn’t hope to stay in your room for the rest of time, I hope.” She grinned at him. “Don’t know what your scholar friend told you, but most ponies work for a living. What did you do with your own folk?”
Cinquefoil’s ears dipped a bit. “I’m not sure. It’s been a while. I gardened some and took care of pigeons. Messenger pigeons, I think.” His ears pricked. “Oh! I also know how to set traps to catch things.”
“I thought you Mustangians grazed and traded for food. Since when do nomads garden?” Topsoil paused and screwed up her face. “...Set traps?”
“Yes, for pests. Look, you don’t need to keep a garden in one place. You can put plants in little boxes and take them around with you, water them just the same as flowers in a pot. The tomatoes may do better if you take them inside where the cold can’t kill it.”
Topsoil swished her tail skeptically. “There’s no sun indoors.”
“What, you don’t have windows?”
“There won’t be room for the roots to grow.”
“True,” said Cinquefoil. “The plants will be smaller and they probably won’t taste as good. But they’ll live. Probably do better than they would outside in the rock and eroding soil. I’m impressed you even managed this much.”
She shrugged. “It’s my talent.”
“I’m not saying that it will work. There was a lot more sunshine where I was from, and I have no idea how the grass will take. But I still think it’s worth trying.”
Topsoil clicked her tongue. “Well, it couldn’t hurt. And I do hate those overpriced imports.” She rubbed her chin and clicked her tongue again. “Listen, how’s about you go head on up to Hardtack’s place and see if he’s got any spare seeds? The colt still owes me for last month.”
“Who is Hardtack?”
“Tall green fellow who’s got all those spots on his rump and legs. He sailed ships once upon a time and now he spends his weekends making your friend play that filthy song about the seapony. He lives out far from Sill on the wide dome mountains. See it?”
Cinquefoil stretched his neck as he squinted. He could just barely make out a trail of white smoke. “On the far right side of the mount?”
“Yup. It’s a bit of a walk but you leave now, you’ll be back well before dinner. Maybe earlier, since it’s such a nice day out. You can use Lightheart’s saddlebag.”
He nodded and went on his way to prepare. When Cinquefoil went to tell Heartstrings goodbye, he was startled to discover the mare wasn’t asleep. Nor was she in the smithy, or downstairs, for he’d passed through there already. He glanced at the bed. Her saddlebag was gone, but she’d left her lyre. Odd.
Cinquefoil peered into the room next door. There were piles of papers and assorted oddities of all kinds, including a great iron fin whose proper name he knew but could not remember (he knew it flew, but that was all), but no Star Swirl.
Cinquefoil rubbed the back of his head and frowned. “Hm.” The two stallions rarely spoke to each other, but it still didn’t seem right to leave for the day without telling the unicorns where he was going. They had been with him for so long, Cinquefoil wasn’t sure what to do with the space they left behind.
What would they do if they returned and he wasn’t there? Would they be worried? They seemed to worry a lot. Perhaps they would go looking for him, or become cross or curious. That was the trouble of knowing other ponies; it created obligations as he learned the grimoire of their habits, the bridle of their names in his mouth.
He settled for saying goodbye to Lightheart instead.
Cinquefoil left with his iron shoes clinking and the morning mist upon his back. The drizzle was so light he hadn’t even needed to take his oilskin along. He tilted his head to feel the full embrace of the sun. Cinquefoil stopped to trace his eye up the mountain. He smiled, wondering if he might see a splash of yellow in the grey. He knew he wouldn’t, for it was still very early in the morning, but he looked anyway. It seemed such a shame to sleep through such a nice morning. Even Sill itself seemed glad of the light and glistened in the sunshine.
“Ah, well.” He flicked his tail and went on.
The Mustangian eased his pace as he approached the round mountain, remembering the taxing climb up Sill. The dome softly loped down to meet him and the flat paths were easy on the hooves. It lacked the unforgiving rock of the other mountains, covered in a dusky coat of soft, infertile soil and haphazard patches of dead grass.
Cinquefoil went at a trot. Not a trifling amble or an exerted power walk, but a nice and sensible trot. It kept him on task but allowed him space to admire the jackdaws quilting the sky and hopping in stubby trees. A weasel looked back at him as it scurried to its burrow, a limp animal in its mouth. And he’d have never guessed there were so many goats.
He’d seen a few of them from his window. In the early morning, they lingered around the claw-like peaks, nosing around the mines until somepony shooed them away. This must be where they went. They were scattered all about him, dozing under dead trees, bounding along the mountainside on stiff legs, or just sitting out in the open doing nothing in particular.
Cinquefoil approached an older buck relaxing on the side of the road. He was a large fellow, short-bearded, the long crescent of horns curved over his back.
“Good morning,” said Cinquefoil.
The buck yawned and scratched his rump with his horns.
“Do you know Hardtack? Or how far his house is from here?”
The pony glanced at his surroundings, rolling and tan and full of wild things. The chimney smoke had gone away and he could not recall if he was to go east or west or upwards to the top of the mount. Cinquefoil was starting to worry he’d gone to the wrong mountain and would have to walk across the range again. “Have you seen any house at all?”
The goat blinked one horizontal eye, then the other. He nodded his arched horns to the left. “Bah,” he said.
“…Okay. Is it very far?”
The buck sniffed, he had a bit of a runny nose. “Beeeh-baaah.” Then he flicked his little tail and wandered off. Cinquefoil tried speaking to some of the other goats but had no better luck. The kids bleated and giggled at each other and tried to use Cinquefoil as a climbing rock. The other bucks were more concerned with sleeping and the nannies did not acknowledge him at all.
Cinquefoil sighed and went on, wondering if there was a language barrier or if goats were dull creatures and he’d wasted his time. He glanced behind him and hummed in puzzlement. The goats were all full fluffy coats and full bellies, in perfect health save for a runny nose or two.
The stallion eyed the dirt and the yellow patches around him. “What have they been eating?” he asked the air. As far as he knew, goats could eat just about anything, but surely they needed more than bark and dead grass.
“I should ask somepony about that later. Topsoil might know something. Or Star Swirl, he knows about other creatures and cultures.”
Even as he said it, he knew he wouldn’t ask. Star Swirl didn’t like talking in public and Cinquefoil didn’t like being in small rooms with him. He didn’t like being in small rooms at all, really. This morning he’d come downstairs not five minutes after he awoke. The wide dining hall was nice at first, but over the course of an hour, it became tolerable and then excruciating. It was nicer outside.
Cinquefoil slowed to a stop and pricked his ears. Something didn’t feel right. A cloud of jackdaws surged into the sky, cracking the air with their calls.
In the distance, the mass of goats swelled against each other like the tide. Cinquefoil’s hooves fidgeted as his muscles bunched tight. He heard the wet flap of a tongue rolling over teeth. A low, anticipatory growl.
The wind changed. The stallion’s nose flared at the distinct scent of wet fur and meaty breath. A scent he knew very well. Slowly, easily, with no sudden moves, Cinquefoil angled his head to the side.
The dog was piebald and thin, with tall ears and a pointed muzzle, tail coiled tight over its back. The fur was prickled and brown from the mud and Cinquefoil saw the flash of teeth in the dark mouth. It was nearly as tall as he was. There was no collar.
Cinquefoil nickered and took a step back.
Another dog loped over the horizon, sandy-colored and thinner than the first. Three more followed. They lowered their heads, tails rigid. The chuff of their breath made little clouds in the air.
No trees in sight. Not that they’d do him any good. He longed to search for a spare branch to wield, a loose stone to throw, but he dared not move his eye. Cinquefoil’s legs fidgeted. He couldn’t outrun a dog. Certainly not a pack of them. Especially not when they had hunger to spur them on.
The piebald dog was so close he could see tartar on its teeth. Cinquefoil’s legs danced and paced beneath him. His ankles bore scars from the first and only time he’d tried to outrun dogs, his legs should have known better.
The piebald watched him and did not move. The sandy one raised its hackles. The others were out of his line of sight and the wind changed again. Claws scraped across the dirt and Cinquefoil caught a blur of motion as he jumped to the side and struck out with his hooves. A wire-haired dog ducked and circled away, yapping. The piebald sprang. The stallion felt the snort of breath as its teeth clacked on empty air. The pack bared their teeth and surged.
Cinquefoil ran.
There was no build from stillness to sprint; the little pony stumbled in the dirt trying to keep up with himself. The piebald dog snapped at his barrel as the wirehair and two others came at his left. Cinquefoil reared and kicked the piebald, regaining his footing as the dog yelped. He snorted, untangled his legs, and ran on.
The furor of snarls straightened his back. His neck stretched out, his ears tucked in, and he kicked into a full gallop. Cinquefoil shivered at the full shock of his hooves on packed earth. The wind bit at his nose, his mane lashed along his neck as the ground, the sky, and the trees mashed together in a blur. He knew he’d cut from the path when he felt the hard skip of rock on iron. He felt no burning effort in his lungs, no ache in his muscles. His chest filled like a mainsail to push him until he flew.
It was then he realized: the world was quiet except for the sound of himself. The pony spared a glance behind him, sure that teeth were inches from his hock. There was a mouse scurrying across a leaf pile and his own hoofprints. And that was all.
Cinquefoil slowed to a trot. He saw a waddling badger to his left, a flat boulder to his right, but no lolling tongues or piebald fur. He twitched his ears, perplexed. They’d looked too hungry to simply give up. Were they frightened away, the same as the wyverns when the Roc arrived?
He looked to the jackdaws mulling in the trees, cawing and chaffing and making a merry racket. The sky was peaceful: a drizzly blue-grey striped in slivers of light. Cinquefoil squinted down the long slope of land behind him.
Five small figures stared up at him, pink tongues hanging from their mouths. Three dogs wobbled on their paws, spent and hunched as the other two sullenly paced back and forth. The piebald one yapped at him half-heartedly.
Farther down, little flecks of goat pranced and bleated along the thin dirt path. There was no more mountain to climb. He’d reached the top.
The brown pony nickered in wonder and a smile wobbled across his face. “What? That’s not all, is it?” His voice shook, giddy with disbelief. “I guess you’re not that hungry after all.” He chuckled and tossed his head at them.
The piebald dog yapped at him again, then raised its tail and lumbered off to find an easier meal, the pack trailing close behind.
Cinquefoil shook the drizzle from his mane. “Suit yourselves.”
The wind rustled Cinquefoil’s mane. He spun on his heels and ran on until the dirt caked his hooves black.
The nightmares and sleepless nights faded into the distance. No clouds of moth-eaten memories, no dogs, no lonely little rooms, no chime of bells or white skies or thorns or fear. Cinquefoil was too fast for fear. He knew they would be back. On another sunless winter’s day, they’d come lumbering back. When he slept or ate or stood a bit too still for a bit too long, they’d catch up. But for now, it was all Cinquefoil and the sky and the wide, welcoming, wonderful ground.
He slowed and stopped at the sound of water. A little ways away, a creek rushed down the mountainside. It ran swift in the little trench it carved for itself in the rock and it was framed with green. Lots of green and little bursts of white and yellow flowers. Cinquefoil smiled to himself. It seemed a nice place to eat his lunch, for the run had made him hungry and he realized he was a little tired after all.
The stallion knelt and laid out his apple and seedcakes. He drank a bit of creek water and rubbed his nose against one of the yellow blossoms. Their stiff stems jutted from a pinwheel of spiky leaves. The yellow blossoms were plush and flexible. The white ones were all fragile fluff that shuddered and broke apart when the wind brushed them.
Dandelions. A long stretch of dandelions sprouting up in the crags. Cinquefoil supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. The Caulkins were grassless, but nopony said anything about flowers. And of all flowers, the one that loved spitting in the face of harsh locations was the dandelion. They sprang from sidewalk cracks and cracked the asphalt like foals split sunflower seeds.
Cinquefoil recalled several books in his library dedicated only to killing dandelions. He wasn’t sure why there was such a vendetta against them, but he knew that the weeding and poisons hadn’t worked. Not for long, at least. Dandelions just kept coming. Breaking their fluff just scattered the seeds, made them stronger. Destruction encouraged them.
The stallion ate his apple and gnawed on his seedcakes, watching the stems sway in the breeze. He sniffed the dandelion a little, then snapped up the flower in his mouth, leaves and stem and all. They were better in a proper salad, but he liked the novelty of eating them fresh. The spicy bitterness of the greens gelled quite nicely with the cakes. He smiled as the petals brushed against his cheeks.
A bit of dandelion fluff tickled his nose. Cinquefoil sneezed and set off a minor explosion of seeds. They tossed and turned in the high wind and got caught in his mane and fetlocks.
The stallion sniffed and stretched his neck for a good look around. White smoke trailed into the sky. He followed the smoke down, down, down, to a green roof on a white-bricked house. He was close enough to see the brass knocker and a red cat sleeping by the window.
It was a short walk to Hardtack’s house. Cinquefoil grinned. It would be an even shorter run.
Hardtack chewed his pipe, squinting through his spectacles at the stallion at his doorstep. “Yeah?”
The lad’s right eye hid in a mess of sweaty mane and he panted lightly. That wasn’t too strange. He lived on the far side of the mountain and the Caulkins had their way of exhausting ponies. The few visitors he got always looked like they’d just run a marathon. But none of them smiled about it.
“Hello. Topsoil sent me up to ask if you had any seeds. Tomato or grass if you have it, but I think any seeds would be fine.” He rolled the saddlebag off his shoulder and pulled out a little tin flask. “Oh, and she said you can have the last of this strawberry cordial for compensation.”
“Got some turnip bulbs an’ lemongrass. Might have some tomatoes in back.” The green stallion sniffed and looked the pony over again. “Topsoil startin’ up some kinda nudist colony?”
“No.” The pony blinked at him. “I didn’t think it was cold or wet enough for a cloak and I didn’t have anything else to wear.”
Hardtack just harrumphed and motioned the stallion inside. “I’ll return in a moment. Don’t break nothin’.”
He returned with the seeds to find the brown stallion by the wall. He was under the seascape paintings, looking at the model schooner upon the dining table. “Is this a model of your ship? Topsoil told me you used to sail.”
“The Shadowed Selkie? Oh, if only. No, she was my great uncle’s. Mine was a fine little ship, but she wasn’t a shade this pretty. Why? D’you like her?”
The stallion smiled. “It’s very nice. But I was wondering why it—”
Hardtack flattened his ears. “Ship’s not an it, son.”
“I was wondering why she was named this.”
“Great Uncle Steamer thought it fit well enough. Nothing can keep a selkie from the sea forever, no matter how hard you try. Not chains, not distance, not even love. Same with ships. Same with sailors.” Hardtack studied the delicate rigging and the little canvas sails. The great mast’s reflection skimmed along the waxed deck. “Though I s’pose a plains pony wouldn’t know nothin’ of that.”
The stallion blinked slowly at him and said nothing.
Hardtack tossed the satchel over. “Hope you liked the walk over, ‘cause that’s all you’re gonna get from your trip up here. Those seeds won’t take up here. Nothin’ does.”
“If you say so.” The brown pony put the seeds away and rolled his saddlebag back over his shoulder. “But I’m not sure if I believe that yet. Either way, thank you Hardtack.”
“Mm. You’re welcome, uh…”
“Cinquefoil.”
“You’re welcome Cinquefoil.”
Hardtack stepped out on his porch and watched the stallion race down the mountain. The red cat mewed at him and rubbed against the sailor pony’s legs. He chewed his pipe and blew a trail of smoke.
“I swear. Nopony from the Topsoil place makes a damn lick of sense,” he told the cat. “Hmph. Cinquefoil, indeed. Name don’t match the mark at all.”