The rainclouds returned just before Cinquefoil did. By the time he reached Topsoil’s house, the warm stripes of sunlight waned into a yellow haze and the drizzle jerked into a downpour. Lightheart sat upon a bench at the smithy’s entrance, hooves politely tucked under her, save for the one smoothing her outfit. Now and again, the pleats of her calico skirt fluttered across the damp line in the dirt made by the dripping awning.
The unicorn blinked slowly at the high-eared stallion approaching at a content-but-slightly-tired canter, a little dust storm billowing at his hooves. Grey-brown socks of mud and grit ran up to his hocks and his eyes were bright. She wasn’t entirely sure of his identity until he spoke.
“Hello, Lightheart.” He motioned towards the pince-nez on her nose. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
Lightheart pointed towards the little heap of fabric and thread beside her. “Only when I sew.” She tipped her glasses down and squinted at him. “You’re back early. Toppers said you were going to Hardtack’s. Did you forget something?”
“Oh, no, I’m finished. Just coming back from there.” He shook the saddlebag with a dry little rustle. “It’s not a long trip at all if you run.”
“You didn’t have to run.”
“I wanted to run.” The Mustangian smiled. “The sun was out, and I enjoyed the exercise. Hardtack had plenty of seeds to spare, I think we can get a lot out of them.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt, but were you always this tall?”
“Far as I can tell.”
Lightheart scratched under her chin and hummed. “Maybe ‘tis the mud or that you’ve lost that dreadful slouch, or…” She looked him over again and her eyes brightened. “Oh! Oh yes, I see now. Ha! ‘Tis no wonder you look so merry.”
Cinquefoil lifted an eyebrow, perplexed.
“Somepony’s looking for you, by the by. She says that she’s here to check Topsoil’s smithing quotas or count horseshoes or somesuch, but I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling. However how long it takes to count horseshoes, I know it’s no more than an hour. Never thought anything could get that pegasus to sit so still for so long.” Lightheart’s giggle tinkled like glass bottles. “’T’will be an interesting spring.”
Cinquefoil tilted his head and Lightheart’s smile grew. “I don’t get it.”
The unicorn laughed again and pulled her sewing back into her lap. “You will.” She squinted, wrinkling her pretty little nose as she threaded the needle. As Cinquefoil passed her and opened the kitchen door she called over her shoulder, “Congratulations, by the way. If you’d like an interpretation, I can take a gander at it when I’m done with Top’s petticoat. ‘T’will be a bit of a wait, though.”
Cinquefoil glanced over her shoulder, wondering what that meant. Sometimes Lightheart seemed to walk her own wavelength, referencing things far outside his range of understanding and never explaining them. He shrugged and went on inside.
The indoors had a warm sugary scent that flowed over Cinquefoil’s sides like a wool blanket in winter. He dried his coat, rubbed the mud from his horseshoes, and followed the smell into the kitchen. Topsoil loomed over a counter in the far corner of the kitchen, sleeves rolled to the elbow as she kneaded little wads of dough. Flour streaked across her face and hooves, and tipped her mane white.
Sunshower leered over a heap of scrolls, fidgeting upon a stool at the far end of a great longtable that ate most of the room. She was dressed in full armor, save for the white helmet sitting next to her. The sharpened wingblades shone in the candlelight as she moved.
Cinquefoil nodded as he passed her. “Good afternoon, Sunshower.”
The pegasus made a noncommittal grunt and kept her face toward the scrolls, but her eyes hadn’t left the stallion since the door swung open.
“Hello again, Topsoil.” He leaned contently against the longtable and dropped the satchel. “Turnips, tomatoes, and lemongrass, courtesy of Hardtack. I’m glad you asked me to go, it was a fine trip.”
A grin slunk across Topsoil’s face like an old cat. “I’ll bet it was. You’re looking much better than when you left.” She nodded approvingly. “A hale and hearty fellow, jaunty legged and sound as soil. Just as an earth pony should be. My utmost congratulations to you. It was a long time coming, I bet.”
Cinquefoil flicked his ears, smiling at the sentiment but still quite confused. “Thank you, but what am I being congratulated on?”
Sunshower looked up from the scrolls and looked him over. “Are you making a joke? If this is some Mustangian witticism of yours, then I do not get it.”
Cinquefoil stared back addle-eyed.
“You do not mean to tell us that you have not noticed?” Her mouth fixed in a tight little frown determined to not turn into a smile. Sunshower shook her head at him. “Look at your flank, you blind, silly pony.”
He turned his head and blinked at the mark etched upon his fur: a spray of five dandelions bending in the breeze, their yellowing leaves tossing in all directions. White seeds curled up and outwards in a pretty little spiral that rolled with his muscles. At a glance, the seeds looked very much like ashes, Cinquefoil thought. The idea made him smile, though he wasn’t sure why. The other flank was marked the same way. Cinquefoil couldn’t tell if it was etched upon his coat like a dye or if the mark went deeper, like a brand. He wondered if it would still be there if he didn’t have fur.
“Oh, that. Yes, I noticed that on my way back from Hardtack’s. I was wondering what it was but it didn’t seem harmful, so I didn’t worry about it. I like the way the white bits go with my hooves.” He blinked at the mares staring at him. “Why? Do you know what it is? Is it supposed to do something?” Cinquefoil frowned at the bafflement on their faces. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“Of course there is nothing wrong with it!” Sunshower snapped. “And never in your life allow anypony to tell you different. Not ever.”
Cinquefoil stamped in frustration. “Fine, fine, but what is it?”
“That is your mark,” Sunshower slowly said, still wary this was some sort of joke. Or worse, that he was serious. “It is your talent. Your gifted skill.”
“Your reason to be,” said Topsoil.
“It is your core.”
“Your passions.”
“Your mark is you,” both mares said together.
The stallion chuckled lightly. “It doesn’t look much like me.”
The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Fine, then it is a symbol of you. It is as I said, the core of what makes you yourself. What you are best at, what makes you happy. How broken are you to not know this?” She frowned, her eyes softened but her voice stayed stately. “Were you never happy before?”
“Of course I was. Maybe I haven’t been lately, but I was. I was very happy.”
The dough at Topsoil’s hooves bubbled. She watched it slowly rise up and up, adding a bit more oatmeal every few seconds, then trampled the dough back down. “Surely you’ve noticed the mark on the flanks of other ponies? Even if your memory’s foggy, your eyes work fine.”
“I didn’t think it was very polite to ask.” Cinquefoil shrugged. “And the subject never came up.”
In truth, he’d been curious about the odd little pictures sketched on the ponies’ sides for a long time. In the dense fog of his head he remembered wondering about it long before he came to the Caulkins. But everypony else seemed to know what he did not and thus did not question it. To question it when nobody else did made him feel unlearned and foalish
Cinquefoil pointed at the green grass shoots on Topsoil’s flank. “So, what is your talent? Grass growing?”
The farrier molded the dough into twelve little rolls and leaned towards the back of the room to check on the oven. “Grass does most of the growing itself. Just like a foal, grass’ll grow fine all on its own, but needs a little help to keep growing strong. I know how to keep lawns lush and soft, sod healthy and fertile. But yes, it’s grass growing. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Lightheart’s, but hers… well, it’s in her name. A little heart on wings because she’s light of heart. I never knew her to be sad for more than an hour.” Topsoil smiled ruefully. “Even if she doesn’t smile quite as often in the Caulkins."
The oatcakes slid into the oven and Topsoil came to join them at the longtable. “Anyhow, most ponies get their mark in foalhood and go into apprenticeship soon after. That’s how it is in the Earth Pony Nation, and I understand it’s much the same for unicorns in their Kingdom. I don’t know what it’s like for the pegasus tribe.”
The two earth ponies looked at Sunshower expectantly.
Sunshower shifted on the bench, unused to the obligation to contribute to a conversation. “Yarak has told me that the pegasus ponies shift from trade to trade before a mark is found so that the opportunity to discover a passion is not lost. After that, a pony will go into the rank where they belong. It is not dissimilar from an apprenticeship, I think, but you have many teachers instead of one. Pegasi keen in myth or playwriting go to the halls of Paradise. The navigators and the cartographers and wind scholars, to the halls of North Star. The stealthy study with The Masquerade and talented fliers join the Whizzer Cavalry or Lofty Rank. All pegasi can fight, of course, but the exceptionally bold and fierce leave to train at Butterfly Isle.”
Sunshower’s eyes were not on the table but the round window that peeped just behind Cinquefoil’s head and the red sunset in rainclouds. “Lesser minds and weaker hearts call Butterfly Island brutal. I do not think that is untrue. Foals take on training that Lofty Rank does not teach until adulthood. I have heard Butterfly Isle is full of the crash of rainbow falls and the crack of bones. The walls of the caverns wave with many colors and at sunset the black sand glints like a knife.”
“It isn’t in clouds?” asked Topsoil.
“There are more places a pony will have to fight than the clouds. The sooner a pony gets used to solid ground, the better. When their training is over, some sleep in the clouds floating above the rainbow falls. But not many. They do not want to leave their comrades. Butterfly Island is a proud place where colts and fillies preen with every bruise they earn. In no other place is a pegasus so tested. Or so loved. That is as I have heard it.”
She brought her eyes down to Cinquefoil, who blinked neutrally at her and offered a smile. She did not smile back. “I have never been. I do not know what the homeland is like now. It has been an exceptional length of time since the last time my father flew there.”
Cinquefoil found an unoccupied bench at the table corner and settled there, his forehooves splayed awkwardly in front of him. He still didn’t know what to do with his hooves when he sat. “Are marks how you choose matrons?”
“Sometimes.” Sunshower shuffled her wings. “It depends. There are scholars in Paradise Hall that follow Lofty and many warriors on Butterfly Island that follow Surprise.”
“What about ponies of Wind Whistler?”
“They are everywhere. There is never an inappropriate place for logic and reason.” She flicked her tail and sighed. “We have come off-topic. The question here is one of marks and—”
The Mustangian pricked his ears. “What’s yours, Sunshower?”
The pegasus glanced at the milky armor covering her flank. “Mine?”
“You’re the only Sunshower here.”
Sunshower lashed her tail, ready to tell the Mustangian to mind his own business. Then Cinquefoil twitched his soft brown ears and smiled at her. It was a quiet expression not meant for her or anypony else, small and warm and happy for the sake of itself. It suited him well.
So instead, she told him, “It is nothing remarkable. It is simply the sun overtaking rainclouds. Or rainclouds covering the sun; it depends on how one views it. It is for keeping the order of the sky, to assure that things are in their proper place. There is a time for sunshine, there is a time for clouds, and there is a time for both. I received it upon the cessation of a minor flood.”
Sunshower inclined a hoof towards Cinquefoil. “What does yours mean?”
The stallion shrugged.
“Well, what were you doing when it happened?” asked Topsoil. “How did you feel?”
“I don’t know when it came. I just know that I didn’t have it when I set out, nor did I have it when the feral dogs were upon me. I didn’t see it until I stopped to rest on my way back down.”
Sunshower pricked her ears and frowned at the mention of the dogs.
“As for what I was doing, it wasn’t much. I strolled along the mountain, picked up the seeds, ate lunch, and ran. I’m very fast, I discovered.”
Topsoil chuckled. “Wake the town crier, the Mustangian’s fast. Meanwhile, the pegasus can fly and frogs can hop.”
“But,” said Cinquefoil, “I don’t know what any of that that has to do with dandelions. I ate some for lunch, but that’s all.”
Sunshower tapped her hooves, patting out a marching tune upon the table. “It could still be a talent for running and it means that you are swift as the wind. And it is a flower because…earth ponies are of the earth. Or something like that.”
“The seeds are blowing,” Topsoil observed. “And the only reason you were there in the first place was to help my garden. It could be for cultivation. Did you feel a particular way while you were up there? Happy? At peace?”
“No.” The window behind Cinquefoil was a dusky indigo, the last bits of sunlight pinched at his shoulders as it faded. He rolled a salt shaker from hoof to hoof as he thought. “Something other than happiness, I think. I was glad for the exercise and a pleasant lunch, but more than that I felt... I don’t know. I felt like the person I was before I set hoof in the mountains.” His quiet smile blossomed into a grin. “Unshaken, though I am always shaking. Unfettered and... new. Dauntless, in spite of myself. I’d missed it.”
Cinquefoil was quiet for a time, listening to the drip of the water clock. “I felt like myself,” he finally said.
Topsoil nodded approvingly. “That’s fine to hear, son. But more important, there’s a thing you’re good at. Listen, we’re not much in the way of speed in these lands. Ponies are spread out wider than a taxmare’s purse and they go at a sleepy pace.”
She gestured toward the high, curving claws of the mining mountains. “Everypony’s too busy working or tending their kin to worry about sending messages along. News coming from the peaks to the houses takes half the day, if not longer. Did you see the great fuss yesterday?”
“I saw the mass of ponies,” said Cinquefoil. “I didn’t hear anything of it, save for a word now and then from somepony with a shrill voice.”
“The Empire’s envoy arrived weeks ahead of schedule.” Sunshower pulled her helmet close, running her hoof down the curve of the champron. “First snowfall was uncharacteristically early.”
“Hm, indeed. There was a grand fuss over it, sensible ponies stirring themselves into a fit from surprise and hearsay. If somepony had just warned the miners ahead of time and told the rock farmers to prepare their materials, all of it could have been avoided.”
Cinquefoil saw where this road led. “You need a courier pony.”
Topsoil nodded. “Badly. Had you any trouble coming through the mountains? Bad footing? Slips on the rocks?”
“Smooth gallop all the way.”
“Perhaps in the outer mountains, but the inner peaks are not the same. It is a long fall from the mining mountains. It is a sharp and jagged place, shorter but steeper than Sill. The miners move slowly for a reason.” Sunshower lowered her brow, lips pursed into a frown that sent wrinkles along her young face. “I do not think ponies without wings are meant to climb that high. Where would you be if your hoof slipped at such a height? In a heap of rock and shattered bones with your legs bent in all the wrong directions, that is where. Why do earth ponies insist upon being so irrational?”
Topsoil waved her off. “Oh, come. Ponies are up and down those mountains all day and I’ve never seen harm come from it, not even with the foals. It’s a little dangerous, certainly, but not a death trap.”
“And you would know? You are a blacksmith at the foot of Sill and been here less than a year. I was born in these peaks. There are landslides. There are lightning strikes. There are pitfalls and pit vipers.”
“Why, Miss Sunshower. I never knew you were so concerned with the wellbeing of us humble earth ponies.” Topsoil rested her chin on her hooves and smiled dryly.
The pegasus flattened her ears. “I have never approved of foolhardiness.”
“I know how to watch my step,” Cinquefoil put in. “There’s a safe path up there somewhere, I’m sure. It’s just a matter of getting used to it. I appreciate the concern, though.”
Sunshower flattened her ears lower and lashed her tail. She refocused on polishing her helmet, unintelligible mutterings rolling over her tongue.
Topsoil rose from the table and peeked into the oven to check on the oatcakes. “So, would you like me to speak to the townsponies about it?”
Cinquefoil couldn’t object to a job that kept him out and running. The less time indoors alone with his own thoughts, the better. “But being a courier doesn’t seem related to my mark.”
“It’s not.” Topsoil eased the oven open and sprinkled the cakes with cinnamon. “But the truth is, almost nopony keeps to their mark in these parts.”
All three ponies pricked their ears at the creaking door and the jingling of bells.
Heartstrings and Star Swirl stood together in the foyer, both of them with dusty coats and tired smiles. Cinquefoil nodded to them and Heartstrings’ smile widened as she waved back. Star Swirl raised a hoof in greeting, but his eyes were unsettled and focused. The stargazed adjusted his cape, peering warily at Sunshower, still busy polishing her helmet. The unicorns joined the others at the longtable, Heartstrings sitting next to Cinquefoil and Star Swirl standing behind as he fiddled with his beard and muttered to himself.
“Hi.” A bit of discomfort gnawed at Cinquefoil’s chest. He shook the feeling off and leaned against the table to get distance between himself and the stargazer’s horn. “Where have you two been all day?” He lightly tapped the soft bulge in Heartstrings’ saddlebag. “On a scavenger hunt?”
Star Swirl snapped out of his own thoughts and looked at him. “Wait, what? Why would we be hunting scavengers?”
Heartstrings hummed as she wrung the rainwater out of her tail. “Well, since there was no need t’be working today, we thought we’d be goin’ out for a nice, long walk. I helped Star Swirl take a gander at all the wee rocks and birds and things for his studies. Mount Sill’s quite a place when you get up… there.”
The old minstrel trailed off when she saw Star Swirl snap his eyes away from the table. The stallion took a step back, then another. The dark rings under his eyes sagged like a doomed convict, ears tall and shaking, his jaw set rigid and grim. Star Swirl cleared his throat and adjusted his cape again. He flicked his eye at her, then down, then at her again.
Heartstrings followed his gaze down to Cinquefoil’s flank. Her smile vanished. “You got your mark.” The whisper was so soft the room hardly heard. She put a hoof against her chest and looked to Star Swirl, but Star Swirl was already thundering up the stairs in a clash of bells and determined hoofbeats.
“I did! It—” Cinquefoil ducked to make room for Star Swirl as he passed. “It’s a dandelion.”
“So I see...”
“I don’t exactly know what it’s for yet. Not exactly. Do you have any ideas?”
“Uh. No, I… I’m afraid that I don’t.” The smile struggling across her face fell short of her eyes. “Congratulations, lad. I’m glad for ye.” She took a long, quavering breath. When she spoke again, her voice was a pitch too merry, bright and brittle as thin ice in morning light. “So! How was your day, then? Did ye have a good time? Ye look in…” Another pause. “Ye look t’be in fine spirits.”
“I did and I am. I went out on an errand and discovered I’m fairly fast. Topsoil tells me I can earn my keep as a courier.” Cinquefoil frowned and leaned in closer. “Heartstrings?”
“Aye?”
“Are you alright? You look unsettled.” He glanced toward the stairwell where Star Swirl vanished. He’d never seen the unicorn move that fast without Lightheart on his tail, nor had he ever seen him so alarmed. “Is anything wrong?”
“Oh. Oh, no, I’m right as rain, ‘tis no need t’be losing sleep for my sake. I’m just a wee bit tired. I’m an old mare and Sill’s a steep mount.” She licked a dry corner of her mouth. “I think… I think that I may go on up to bed early.”
Topsoil’s head popped up from the oven. “But you’ll miss dinner! ‘Tis a pepper and parsley pot pie with a side of oatcakes. I thought it was your favorite.”
“It is. But I really am feeling tired. Later, maybe.” Heartstrings gently slung her bag over her shoulder and pushed away from the table.
Cinquefoil rose and followed her out of the kitchen. “I could save you some and bring it up later?”
“Thank you, you’re a sweet lad.” Heartstrings turned with a sigh and took a long look at Cinquefoil’s concerned face. “Oh. C’mere a moment.” She wrapped a hoof around his shoulder and pulled him close. She nuzzled his shoulder, her face buried in his mane.
“Heartstrings?”
Her grip tightened and her shoulders lightly trembled. “Congratulations again.”
Cinquefoil trailed behind her. He stood at the bottom of the stairwell and watched her slow ascend until she turned the corner and vanished.
“It is likely as she says,” said Topsoil’s voice from the kitchen.
“Indeed,” agreed Sunshower. “Sill is a mighty climb, it would tire out anypony.”
Cinquefoil flicked his tail and didn’t say anything. He reached back and felt the damp spot on his shoulder.
December came on fast and muggy. The air was warm and thick and showered the Caulkins with sleet in the evenings, hail in the mornings, and occasional diamond dust in the afternoon if a pony looked close enough. Cinquefoil ran on through all of it, scrolls in his saddlebag and green cloak flaring out behind him. If the sun was up then so was he. If not running messages, then he was tending to Topsoil’s little garden under the living room windows or galloping through the mountain range to shake off the doldrums.
In the evenings he returned too late to share dinner with Heartstrings, Lightheart, and Topsoil (Star Swirl had retired to his room and not been seen since), and by the time he’d hung his cloak, the house shifted into a tavern. There was always a warm meal waiting for him, but the lack of company left him cold. Topsoil and Heartstrings were busy working and Lightheart hid upstairs when the rock farmers and miners trailed in.
The locals still gave him an odd look here or there, but the distrustful stares had all but vanished. They welcomed him into their conversations and sometimes tried to wave him over from his far corner of the kitchen. Cinquefoil joined them once or twice for politeness’ sake, but didn’t care for speaking to these earth ponies with whom he shared a tribe but did not know. Ponies in large numbers brought back that tightness in his skin and pulled the walls in close.
When the moon rose high, the lushes loomed over their ciders and cordials and bad wine and called Heartstrings to play the ballads of a sweet place. Someplace they’d come from or someplace they were going, someplace they loved and was not here. They rocked their heads and sang softly into their glasses, slurring lyrics and pungent with homesickness. Cinquefoil knew the feeling. He knew a song or two of his own, but he barely grasped the tune, couldn’t remember any of the words, and nopony could help him remember, for nopony knew of a place called San Francisco or New York. Not even Hardtack, who’d sailed almost everywhere. No, Cinquefoil didn’t enjoy dinner in the tavern at all.
But he couldn’t stand eating alone in the close quarters of his room and eating on the stairs made him feel silly. So, he ate in the smithy by the light of the moon and the little window in the door. He decided he liked it better here anyway; it was quiet and he could look out into the mountains, listening to the rain and crickets as he ate his stew in the company of himself until it was time for bed.
It was on one of these early December nights that Sunshower found him. She flew by the smithy, only to double back at the sight of somepony moving in the shadows. The pegasus landed in the lower rafters, peering down at him. Cinquefoil couldn’t read her face in the dark and her voice was neutral as she asked, “Why are you eating all alone in the dark?”
“Because,” said Cinquefoil, “the sun went down, I don’t have a candle, my friends are working, and I’m hungry.”
“Why do you not want to be with your own kind? Do you dislike them? Are the miners quarrelsome?”
Cinquefoil flinched at the steaming broth and gently blew across the bowl. “They aren’t my kind.” Even as he said it, he knew that was not the right thing to say. He also knew that it was true and felt too tired to lie. “They’re earth ponies but they’re none of mine. I don’t think I have a kind.”
“Nonsense, everything has a kind. What of your roots? What of the herd your unshaved unicorn friend spoke of?” Sunshower froze, realizing what she’d said. “I apologize. I did not intend to speak of your loss so casual—”
“There was no herd.” The stallion took a sip of his stew and swished his tail. “Star Swirl didn’t tell you true, but I can’t tell you either. There is a lot I don’t remember, but I know I never had a herd. I have no roots.”
“Untrue.” Sunshower dipped lower so that Cinquefoil could see the flinty green of her eyes. “Despite the name, earth ponies do not simply spring from the earth. You cannot recall your kin, but this does not mean you have no kindred. I cannot recall being born, but this does not disprove my birth.” The pegasus clucked her tongue and swished away the notion with her right wing. "Of course you have roots. You have simply been uprooted is all.”
Cinquefoil was unconvinced, but the light certainty of her voice lifted his drooped ears. "I suppose it’s a nice enough thought, though I don't see what makes you so sure." He gave her a flat look and a caustic smile. "I suppose you'll tell me it's in my wistful eyes?"
Sunshower returned the look twofold. “Actually, no. I will not deny that you have an…unusual character to your eyes, but no. It is in your gait. Even when you are terrified in the dead of night, every step is steadfast. You walk upon the earth not as if you live upon it, not as if you share it, but own it. You leave flags instead of footprints. I have never seen anypony of any tribe move in such a way. Cinquefoil, I do not speak untruths. No creature can move the way you do and have no roots.” She tossed her mane over her shoulder and snorted. “And I will hear no different. Persist in arguing this point and I shall be forced to kick your head until it works properly.”
Cinquefoil swallowed a mouthful of stew and lifted his head, broth dripping from the little hairs on his chin. “Well, I like to avoid head trauma when I can. Do you always threaten ponies to make them feel better?”
“Only when they are being stubborn. Your dinner is dripping off of your face.”
He tilted his head and squinted to look. “So it is.” He shook it off and dipped his muzzle back into the stew.
Sunshower fluttered above his head and watched him. “I do not like that you are eating all alone in the dark.” She flipped her tail one way, then another, then back again. She quietly added, “I could fetch you a lantern if you like.”
Cinquefoil studied her silhouette in the dim light as he chewed a dinner roll. There wasn’t much point, there was only a third of dinner left to eat at the most. He swallowed the roll, smiled, and said, “A lantern would be very nice.” He put the stew aside for a moment and waited politely.
The waning moon was just peeking over Sill when Sunshower flew back into the smithy, lantern in hoof and a tin pail in her teeth. She perched upon a nearby workbench and blinked at him. The pail squeaked as it swung from her jaws, filled with roasted corn, saltgrass, and a bright green apple.
The stallion peered at Sunshower’s small dinner, blinked back up at her, and smiled. He went back to his stew without a word.
Sunshower relaxed her shoulders and bit into her corn.
He licked up the spare carrots and potatoes stuck to the bottom of his bowl and bit a chunk from another rye roll. She savored the juices in her apple and nibbled saltgrass. He sipped his cup of water.
Together they listened to the churn of voices lift and fall within the tavern. When the voices plunged into that valley of silence that always falls upon a crowd, they heard the muffled pluck of Heartstrings’ lyre. They caught the last notes of The King’s Daughter and the opening ones of Our Own Dozing Land before the patrons’ voices snuffed them out again.
Finally, there was nothing left of dinner. Cinquefoil jumped up on the workbench next to Sunshower and sighed the contented sigh of a full stomach. The pegasus fluttered her wings in surprise but said nothing. The white sliver of moon vanished behind one of Sill’s many clouds as the wind picked up. An abandoned barrel rocked in the wind and collected rainwater. The air had a bitter little chill to it and blew the smell of Topsoil’s sooty workshop in their coats.
Cinquefoil looked to his companion, who watched him from the side of her eye.
“It is my opinion,” said Sunshower, “that it is better to take meals in the company of others than to eat by one’s self. It can be lonely. By one’s self, I mean.”
“It can be,” the Mustangian agreed. “Did you like your dinner?”
“The corn was overdone and blackened on the ends, the saltgrass was too strong, and the apple did not complement the meal at all. But I suppose I liked it. Did you enjoy your ugly collage of tubers and broth?”
“I did.”
“That is good to hear.” Sunshower rubbed the soot from her hooves. “I do not enjoy the thought of you eating all alone.”
“The same way you don’t like me running down dangerous mountains or being afraid?”
“It…” She wrapped her tail around her hooves and stared at her shadow stretching on the walls. Her feathers flared and fell. Sunshower stared up at Sill and over it into the vast eastern sky. “It is not dissimilar.” Before the comfortable silence had a chance to turn awkward she asked, “Are you still having troublesome dreams?”
“Constantly.” Cinquefoil sighed. “And often worse than before. But these days they stay in their place and don’t follow me after I wake up. That’s an improvement at least.”
The Mustangian leaned back on the bench in the most bizarre way. His back stretched upwards as his back legs dangled and his front hooves gripped the side of the bench. He appeared comfortable, though the contorted position looked anything but.
“If you don’t mind my asking, do you often eat dinner alone, Sunshower?”
The mare sighed. “Father joins me sometimes. Once or thrice in autumn. Perhaps once in midsummer, when the winds are low. Rarely more than that.”
“I was thinking.” Cinquefoil put his weight on his forehooves as he leaned forward into the night. “Instead of having lonely dinners at opposite ends of the mountain, what if we join our meals all the time and we can be lonely together instead?”
Sunshower rolled her eyes. “That is a contradiction of terms. How can we be together and lonely? You should learn to speak more precisely.”
“You’ve never felt lonely even when you weren’t alone?”
“That has no bearing on the situation you propose. I am not lonely in your company and therefore we cannot be lonely together. We are either lonely or we are together. It is a contradiction of terms still.” The sea-green of her tail gleamed in the lantern light as it swished. “This said, ignoring your irritating penchant for imprecise language, I am not averse to the idea.”
Sunshower gave him a warm side glance, then looked back out into the evening. Cinquefoil leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes. He felt the bite of sleet on his coat and listened to the low chorus behind the door.
Together, they smiled.
He didn’t know why he knocked. He hadn’t expected him to open his door. He hadn’t answered the door for him in over a month and he always seemed to know it was him without opening. So when Cinquefoil opened the door, Star Swirl had no plan, no idea what to do or say. So he said the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m sorry.” Star Swirl’s mane fizzed in tangled pink clouds and his eyes sank into his skull. His beard dangled in a limp corkscrew, his coat dull and unbrushed. He smelled distinctly of iron and ink. The unicorn leaned against the doorway as if it was the only thing propping him up. “I really am. Know that I’m still trying my very best and am closer than I was before.”
“Hmm?” Cinquefoil slowly blinked at him, his face half-hidden by uncombed curls. He opened the door wider and yawned confusedly. “Sorry for what?”
Star Swirl just stared back at him miserably.
“It’s…” The earth pony squinted at the moon and pulled his blanket over his shoulder. “It’s the middle of the night. You should go back to bed.”
“Feh, what use have I for sleep? I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Listen, I know ‘tis barely past midnight, but I just felt I had to tell you that before…” Star Swirl sighed and leaned on his haunches. “I know I’m not often around these days, and I know you’re not much for my compn’y. I just wanted you to know I’ve not forgotten you. I think I might know where they are, but I’m not sure yet how to get them out. I know ‘might’ isn’t much, but I thought I should let you know.”
“Mmhm. ‘Sgood to hear.” Cinquefoil yawned again and closed his eyes. “Hey, Star Swirl?”
“Yes?” The unicorn’s tired eyes widened.
“I really need to get back to sleep. Empire’s coming back tomorrow and I need to wake up early. I’m gonna be needed.” The stallion smiled sleepily as he turned and wandered back to his heap of blankets in the corner. “And then I’m meeting Sunshower for lunch.”
Star Swirl twitched his ears to assure they worked correctly. “Not General Yarak’s daughter Sunshower? The one who glares from Sill, full of spite and suspicion? I thought she hated you.”
“If she does, she hides it well.” Cinquefoil opened his eyes again and looked up. “You should get some sleep, you look awful. You really don’t need to worry for me so much. I know at night I’ll still have one of my turns, but I really feel fine. Better than I have in weeks.”
“I’ve noticed.” Star Swirl tried to smile politely or say that he was glad the little pony was happy or to wish him well. But he could not.
Not while he still remembered the scratch of fingernails behind his ears and a book with browning pages with pictures printed, not painted. Not when he could still sense that hole in the universe, hidden under hooves and pony coat, but not gone. Not when they’d come so far, the other humans so close.
He glanced at the flower seeds twirling on the flank of the Mustangian who was not Mustangian. Dandelions flourished in countless places. Vases were not one of them.
Star Swirl ran his tongue over his scarred lips and laid his ears back. I opened one cage. I can open another.
“Again, I am sorry. I never predicted something like this would happen. If I had, I’d…” The unicorn rubbed his neck. He’d have what? Stand back and watch the Roc take the human to his doom? Star Swirl knew himself better than that. Knowing what he knew now, in the end he’d have still done it. Hesitated, probably. Regretted it, certainly. But done it all the same.
It didn’t matter. Cinquefoil was already asleep before Star Swirl finished speaking. He quietly nudged the door shut and took up his lantern for another long night of research. He’d sleep in the morning. Star Swirl gathered up his quills and inks, carefully folded up his notes, and arranged them into his saddlebag. He adjusted his thin cape best he could, assured his bells were tightly fastened, and went into the night.
It was an ill night to scale Mount Sill (or the Volcano of Gloom, depending on one’s outlook) but what night wasn’t? He knew the peak well enough by now to climb without the aid of fair daylight. More importantly, night was the only time he knew for certain the general and the Roc would not be watching for him.
Star Swirl was more of a night pony anyhow. The wide, quiet dark of the new moon sky soothed his anxious heart and the occasional spray of stars siphoned his scattered thoughts. Not entirely, but enough.
The lower parts of Sill had been exhausted and explored weeks ago. He gripped the lantern and made a beeline for the top, only slowing as he reached the high caves that pockmarked the mountainside. Most of the caverns were little indents in the rock that went no more than a few yards, but others leaned in deeper, perhaps into the heart of the mount. The pegasi lived somewhere in these caves, but Star Swirl had no way of knowing which cave it was, nor was he eager to find out. The pegasus tribe was not famed for forgiveness and he personally preferred his throat unslit. The unicorn frowned and poked his horn into the misty cloud. Still, he’d have to look eventually. If Cinquefoil was truly on good terms with the yellow mare then perhaps he could find some way in.
He lifted the lantern high and strained his eyes. Star Swirl was in the full thick of the cloud now. Moisture beaded on his horn as the cumulus billowed and swirled, thick as brandy milk. The wind whistled through his mane and sent his cape flapping wildly at his shoulders. Blinded by the clouds and battered by the gale, Star Swirl braced himself amongst the rocks. It became difficult to breathe. The air howled and moaned and cut itself on the crags.
And then, he heard it.
Star Swirl's ear swiveled. There it was again. The quiet sound he caught but for a moment in his first trek up Sill. It’d been there and gone so quickly he’d presumed it some trick of the wind or his own imagination.
A quiet counterpoint in the squall, an underscore to the breeze that was not the breeze. An arrangement steady and strong, a pattern of notes long and low swirling in the thick mass of cloud. Not sophisticated to the point of melody, but not so chaotic as to simply be noise. Star Swirl leaned as far over the mountainside as he was able without being blown over. His ears battered in the wind as they strained to filter out the mystery sound. He listened not to the shriek of gales, but between them, to the notes not being played.
Yes. Yes, now he was sure of it.
Voices. Voices caught in the clouds, winding in and out of the Sill’s high caverns as air moves through a flute. Perhaps one or two. Perhaps forty. Perhaps forty thousand. All joined together in one wordless vocalization.
And gone again, quickly as it’d come.
The little unicorn sat and stared into the clouds. “Oh. Oh, stars,” was all that he said.
Fifteen days and ten shared dinners after their first visit, the Empire’s envoys returned. The supply of metals and ores stacked high as houses, with more crates added by the second.
Cinquefoil roused before dawn, spurred by some nameless nightmare that vanished before he opened his eyes. He curried his coat, combed his tail, then made and ate a light breakfast before Topsoil came downstairs. Together they made light work double-checking the supply of horseshoes and wingblades for errors, watering the tomatoes, and sweeping the smithy.
Midmorning had him running messages from one end of the Caulkins to the other, top to bottom and left to right. The rock farmers needed help from the miners getting the granite moving, for they were short on workers due to a sudden colic outbreak, and all fifteen members of the Sheer Shale clan put up a fuss about the Empire’s poor scheduling, but that was the extent of the day’s problems. All things considered, it was a slow morning. The earth ponies of the Caulkins, like earth ponies of most places, were thorough and well prepared, despite the grumbling. It was a rush of triple-checks and fuss from peak to peak, but by late morning everypony was already trudging back home for business as usual.
Cinquefoil trotted among the miners looking for work until the annoyed glances made it clear his services were not needed. It was still some hours before lunchtime, however, and the Mustangian itched for something to do. The indoor garden was watered and tilled, it was too crowded to go for a run, Topsoil was working, Star Swirl was finally sleeping, and Heartstrings… well, Heartstrings was awake but she hadn’t been in the mood for talking lately.
He leaned against the leaf-bare hackberry tree and watched the Empire arrive. They were close enough for him to make out all eight mares; two white, one violet, one blue, and three whose coats and faces were concealed by dark mirrored armor. The eighth, a yellow mare in white armor buzzing at the edge of the formation. Cinquefoil hoped Sunshower remembered to oil her wingblades like she meant to. Last night she’d complained her wingblades squeaked whenever she flapped too fast. The blue mare next to her swished her braided tail and let out a piercing whistle.
The other envoys drifted to the ground and busied themselves with the carts, leaving the blue mare and Sunshower in the air. Sunshower’s legs waved uncertainly beneath her as she turned her head towards him. Cinquefoil didn’t know if she was looking at him or just in his direction, but all the same, he lifted a forehoof and smiled. Sunshower quickly looked back at the visiting pegasi. He thought he heard a voice spike in anger or anxiety, but they were too far off to know for sure.
He was still squinting to purse out what was happening when a grey blur darted under his legs. A nasty little collection of fur and teeth and snarling and squealing around his hooves. Cinquefoil spooked, his back legs kicking out on instinct. At the moment he realized the terrier was only after a rat a crack of wood split the air and the hackberry moaned.
The stallion backed away moments before the trunk snapped and the tree crashed against the rock. He gawked at the splinters and broken branches at his feet. He looked at the thick, hardy trunk, then at his back hoof, and back to the tree.
He was still staring when Topsoil stormed from the smithy, the hammer in her teeth still hot. She’d the doomful stride of a mother too socially conscious to scold a child in public. She spat out the hammer and tugged Cinquefoil away from the tree.
Ears and lips flat, Topsoil hissed, ”Are you mad? Just what on earth d’you think you’re doing? I—” She glanced cautiously up towards the pegasi, then back towards the house.
Lightheart leaned out the kitchen window, frowning. “What happened? I heard a crash.”
“‘Tis nothing, love. Wind just blew down this rotted tree, never you mind.” Topsoil waited until the shutters closed, then gritted her teeth. “Blackrot and fireblight, colt! Do you not see the Pegasus Empire floating right there?”
Cinquefoil’s ears drooped. He’d never seen Topsoil in such a state before. “I… Of course I do, but..”
“But what?”
“But why does that matter? Was it an important tree?” He twitched his tail sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to knock the tree down. Cotterpin’s terrier startled me and I don’t get on well with dogs. I didn’t know that I could…” Cinquefoil looked back at the felled hackberry and slowly brought his ears up. “...That tree wasn’t rotten at all.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“But I didn’t even kick that hard.”
“I expect you didn’t, no.” Topsoil’s face softened with her sigh. “But no great harm done, I think. The pegasi were too busy to notice, thank our merry luck for that.” She sat back on her haunches and rubbed her temples. “You truly didn’t know you could buck like that? Or are you telling me a tale?”
Cinquefoil shook his head. “Can you kick like that?”
Topsoil nudged the broken branches into a pile off to the side. “Of course. And much harder than that. So can Hardtack. So can the Shales. We all can. But your legs are more for sprinting than sparring, and in your condition, I guess I can understand why you wouldn’t know…” She sighed again. “Listen: there are things the earth pony tribe keep to themselves. Only themselves.”
“So I can’t tell—”
“Absolutely not. Anypony you could tell knows already and those that don’t, well. They don’t need to.”
“But I think I can trust—”
“I’m sure you can. I’m no tribalist, I’ve no quarrel with friends or lovers outside your own kind, you know that. There’s not a pony in all the world I love or trust more than my Lightheart. But it’s better she not know so that if somepony asks her of it, she can claim ignorance honestly. Nopony that’s not of the earth knows and it’s best kept that way in case…”
Topsoil twitched her ears and flicked her eyes up towards the gleaming armor and whetted wingblades. “Well. Just in case.”
The earth ponies stood for a few moments, silent air and fallen branches between them.
“Do you understand me?” the farrier whispered.
Cinquefoil studied the bits of wood pulp smashed in his shoe. He recalled a tense moment between well-dressed unicorns and the Conemarans they refused to acknowledge, the nervous rush to have the ores well in order before the Empire arrived. The three tribes worked together, but only one had to answer to two others.
He looked to the skies above him where the envoys pulled back into the air. The blue mare with the braided tail caught his gaze. Even from this distance he felt her disdain for little wingless, hornless ponies with no way to defend themselves. As far as she knew.
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Good. Try and reign yourself in the future.” Topsoil smiled lightly. “Wouldn’t do to have you kicking holes in my house. I arranged the basket for your lunch. I didn’t know how you wanted the salad, so that part’ll be up to you. But I suggest you wait and give some time for your friend to finish up with the envoys.
“Alright,” said Cinquefoil. “Do we have any watercress left?”
Thistle Whistle nodded. “Yes. Yes, this is much better. It is a satisfactory stock, Sunshower. Though I am surprised at the surplus of battle-boots.” She gave a lopsided grin. “Since when is a mare of Wind Whistler imprecise?”
Sunshower’s neutral expression tightened. Since when is a mare of Lofty so absentminded she doesn’t realize she’s a month early? “The earth ponies insisted on it. They did not like being caught unprepared and the battle-boots were lacking last year and they mediated it thusly. It is a gesture of goodwill.”
“Overstock of normal horseshoes would be better,” Thistle Whistle humphed. “Not much to be done with fighting shoes.”
General Yarak looked up from his conversation with an armored envoy. He made no move toward them and his tone of voice never changed, but Sunshower felt the disapproval in their sisters through her barding.
“Has Commander Maelstrom elected to move more soldiers into cloud duty?”
“Not quite yet. The Senate debates it, though it is not much of a debate. Pegasi under the wings of Masquerade, Surprise, and Heart Throb lose feathers as they rail against it, but their molt is for naught if you ask me. Representatives of Lofty, North Star, Medley, Wind Whistler, and Paradise are all either for it or turning that way.” Thistle Whistle shrugged her thin shoulders. “It’s just not logical to keep our forces full in peacetime.”
Sunshower turned up her nose with a snort. “Paradise, indeed! What do playwrights and songsmiths know of soldiering? And the Medleys were always a flock of frightened fledglings, anyway. What do the representatives of Firefly say?”
“They say nothing and don’t care either way. You are just cross because your fellows are not on your side.”
Thistle Whistle sighed at Sunshower’s rumpled mood and offered her a sympathetic smile. “Little sister, know that I love you as I love all our sisters. But you must understand it has been many a decade since the war.” She at least had the decency to lower her voice to a respectful volume and her eye away from Yarak. “Times have moved on, regardless of an old warhorse’s affections.”
Sunshower’s jaw clamped tight. Time and place for emotional expression. Time and place. “Age brings wisdom, Thistle Whistle.”
“And youth bears insight. But I admit I am surprised, I have never known those of North Star and Lofty to agree on anything.” Thistle Whistle’s laugh was bright and sharp. “If the ponies of Wind Whistler and Heart Throb came to an agreement, now that would be a sight. We can expect ice cream falling from bubblegum clouds and clever earth ponies next.”
The envoy blew a red hair from her face and cocked her head towards the ground. “Speaking of which, what is that one doing?”
Sunshower followed her gaze towards Cinquefoil. “Resting, it appears.”
“The day is still fresh. Why doesn’t he make himself useful instead of sitting like a lump of mud?”
Time and place. “He is a courier pony. With nothing to deliver, I expect.”
“Homely little twig, isn’t he? Why is his face so long and weird-looking?”
“Your assessment is incorrect! There is nothing amiss in his make, nor in his appearance.”
Thistle Whistle turned and lifted an eyebrow.
Sunshower’s wings buzzed like a hornet. “There is not. It is the average and natural face of a Mustangian, there is nothing wrong with it. You will forgive my outburst, but I simply cannot excuse imprecise language.”
The envoy rolled her eyes. “Relax your standards before they strangle you. There are such things as euphemisms and opinions, you know.”
Below them, the pegasi were hitched and the wagons were on the rise. Thistle Whistle nodded to her company and took her position. “Fair skies to you, little sister. Keep your skies well as you can.”
“And to you as well.”
As she watched the train of wagons lumber into the clouds, Sunshower heard a mighty crack of sound from below. She frantically looked about the mountains, sniffing for lightning. Nothing in the clouds implied lightning today, but bolts from the blue were not unheard of here.
Finally, she found it: not a bolt at all, but a fallen tree in Topsoil’s yard. The brown mare held her hammer in her teeth as she circled the branches with Cinquefoil, the two of them stepped about the branches with purpose and efficiency.
Sunshower smiled. So! He was only waiting for Topsoil and her hammer so that they could dispose of a useless tree. There is your useless lump, Thistle Whistle!
She basked in the sweet glow of vindication as she rode an updraft towards the high caves of Sill. Full regalia was improper attire for a simple lunch, after all.
“You’re late.” Cinquefoil sat upon the fallen hackberry, a ceramic bowl at his hooves. He peered up at Sunshower, dark eyes glittering and busy with thought. “You’re never late for anything.” Before she could correct him, he clarified, “At least, I’ve never known you to be late for anything.”
“Ah, you are learning! I approve.” Sunshower alighted upon the hackberry, hooves tucking under her in a fluid motion. “There was much to speak of with my sisters and it occupied more time than previously assumed. I have not inconvenienced you, I hope?”
She wore only her breastplate and a shiny bit of metal that tied up her mane in a tall, winding coil. It made Cinquefoil think of a waterspout caught in fishing wire. He wondered if she’d freshly curried her coat; it seemed shinier than usual but it was hard to tell since he rarely saw much of her coat anyhow.
“Oh, not at all,” he said. “A little worried, perhaps.”
The pegasus’ feathers twitched as she put down her tin pail. “You were worried about me?”
“A little.”
“You worry too much, then. Of all the things an earth pony needs to worry about, the well-being of a pegasus is not one of them.” Sunshower sniffed at the bowl. “This seems different… what is in it?”
Cinquefoil lifted his head proudly. “Those are the turnip greens we grew. Topsoil used the actual turnips for a soup, but I personally like the leaves better. The rest is dried berries, some regular old greens, a bit of spiced bark. You know, the usual. I remembered you don’t care for clover, so I left it out.”
“Grew?” Sunshower lifted an eyebrow. “Nothing grows here except mold and rock crystals.”
Cinquefoil’s proud smile swelled. “You’d be surprised. With the right circumstances and the know-how, just about anything can flourish anywhere. I bet one could manage growing bananas in the middle of Alaska if they really wanted to.”
Sunshower nibbled a turnip leaf. “I am sure that was supposed to be an impressive analogy, but I do not know of this ‘Alaska’, nor of bananas. Tell me what they are.”
“Oh, well…” The earth pony slowly chewed his mouthful of greens and tapped a hoof against his chin. “A banana is a fruit—a long, soft fruit that’s protected in a peel—that’s green at first, then turns yellow when it’s time to eat them, and they grow in hot places. Alaska is a cold, snowy place full of bears and wolves and dogsled races.”
“I see. What do these bananas taste like?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”
“Oh. How cold is Alaska, then? How far away is it? Yarak has flown many places, but I do not think that is one of them.”
“I’ve never been, so I don’t know.”
Sunshower lifted her head from the bowl, a stray bit of turnip leaf sticking from her teeth. “But your herd—or whatever you once had—they ran through this place and told you of it?”
“I suppose so. I remember the descriptions clearly.”
This was not entirely true. Cinquefoil indeed remembered learning of these things, but also remembered that no one had told him about it. But what other way would a pony know of foreign things? And it was more than bananas and Alaskas. There were engines and satellites and New Yorks and Bombays and pyramids and televisions and subways and San Franciscos. Countless things he had names for, but nothing beyond names. Vague outlines in the fog rolling around him. Cinquefoil blinked up towards Sill, at the burbling clouds. He froze. Outlines in the fog. Outlines there and gone again. Falling, falling, falling through the impenetrable, eroding fog, and he so small with his tight-gripped staff—
“Cinque?” Sunshower’s voice snapped him back into Caulkins. “Are you unwell?”
“I’m…” He pulled his legs in close and lowered his head. “I don’t think so. I’m alright.”
Sunshower had considerable doubt of that. For a brief moment, she saw something in Cinquefoil’s face, something like his expression from the time she first caught him in the rain. Something like it, but worse. It was something more than fear. The firewater spark flashed in his eyes as he spoke of the Alaska, but sputtered and died as soon as his eyes set upon Sill. And Cinquefoil seemed to understand even less than Sunshower did. His pained confusion felt like a plucked blood feather.
She pushed her tin pail under Cinquefoil’s nose. “Try the stuffed mushrooms. My sisters brought them all the way from Paradise Hall; you will find nothing like it under the sky.” Sunshower tipped one of the mushrooms to the side. “See the scorch marks upon the edges? Flames did not make these. It was charred and baked with lightning wrangled from the clouds. You can taste the sky in them.”
Sunshower smiled and let her tail flop beside Cinquefoil’s. “It is a small piece of home for those that cannot presently come home. They are meant to, um… bring comfort.”
The pegasus watched Cinquefoil gently take a mushroom in his teeth, careful not to burn himself. Even after the long flight here, the dish was still quite hot. The Mustangian rolled his shoulders happily at the spiced, smoky taste and hummed approvingly.
“You can have them all, if you like.” Thistle Whistle would bring more the next time she came to the mountains. What was another year of waiting?
Cinquefoil blinked at her, surprised. “All of them? Are you sure?”
“I do not like to see you unhappy.” Sunshower stared straight ahead, studying the crooked path of bare trees in the distance. “The menace that hounds you lurks in places that I cannot follow. I would slash its throat or crush its neck under my hooves if I knew how, but I do not. If lightning-baked mushrooms make you happy, then I would prefer you have them.”
There was a terrible moment of silence. Sunshower was glad she couldn’t see his face. Whatever his expression, she did not know how she would respond. She didn’t look back until she heard him speak.
“Thank you, Sunshower.” He smiled at her. “That’s very kind of you.”
“You are welcome, Cinquefoil.” She did not smile back and busied herself eating the rest of the salad.
Cinquefoil sampled a few more lightning mushrooms, then said, “By the way, I didn’t know you had sisters.”
“Naturally. I have over ten thousand in Pegasopolis alone. And at least seven thousand brothers. Or is it nine thousand? I can never recall correctly.”
Sunshower chuckled at the stallion’s stunned expression. “All pegasi are each other’s, you silly pony. They are all my kin, as I am theirs. Our families are not so contained as the earth ponies’ and a far cry from the strict bloodlines of the unicorns. I do not understand the other tribes at all sometimes. Blood is only blood, why does it matter who shares it? The blood you spill for those you love is the only blood that matters.”
“What about General Yarak?” Cinquefoil tipped his head to the side. “Isn’t he your father?”
“Well, of course, he—” Sunshower’s eyes popped wide and her jackdaw laugh cackled loud and long. “You mean is he my sire? Cinquefoil, you cannot be serious! Yarak is of nearly five score years! Virile our tribe may be, but even we have our limits. No, my sire has been long dead, but I am not lacking in fathers. Yarak is a pegasus and I grew under his wing. This is more than enough.”
“I doubt Yarak is anypony’s sire.” The pegasus sighed and her smile shriveled. “I cannot imagine him being passionate or tender towards anything. Certainly not another pony. I am lucky to receive even a side glance from him.”
Something tickled Sunshower’s flank. She looked to discover Cinquefoil’s tail lay across her own, the black and green hairs mixing together like paint. She could feel the heat radiating from his coat and she wondered when he moved so close. Or perhaps it was she who moved close to him and she just never noticed.
And then, sudden and frightening and beautiful as a squall line: “I really like your company, Sunshower. More than any other pony’s.” Cinquefoil gave Sunshower one of his cacophonous stares and gently placed his hoof upon hers. His iron shoe was damp and chilled. “And I don’t enjoy your unhappiness either.”
Sunshower’s wings pinched at the small of her back. Her back hooves squirmed and the tips of her ears turned a trembling red. “I wish you had not said so.”
“Why?” His voice was gentle and neutral. And very sweet.
The mare ran her tongue over her teeth. It was a question with a hundred answers: Because I will disgrace my tribe, my home, my kindred and myself. Because I do not need to disappoint my father more than I already have. Because it is unlawful and immoral. Because Lightheart and Topsoil ran all the way to the Caulkins for a reason. Because I do not know what to do now.
She chose the greatest one: “Because I am not… unfond of your company either. Very much so.” Sunshower’s wings fidgeted, the feathers unable to settle. “And because you frighten me.”
“Me?” Cinquefoil inspected himself curiously. “I’ve a hard time imagining you afraid of anything, much less a scrawny Mustangian from the south.”
“I know what to expect from a griffon horde or a wild tornado. I know what would happen, should a great drake drag his belly over the Caulkin mountains. I know what to expect of the unicorn tribe, the pegasus tribe, and the earth pony tribe, save one. One gangly Mustangian that does not even have the courtesy to be ugly.”
“Ah.” Cinquefoil shifted uncomfortably and glanced down at the hackberry bark.
The iron chill lifted from Sunshower’s hoof. She held it in place.
Lightly, very lightly, Sunshower nuzzled the soft, shivering hollow under Cinquefoil’s chin. She felt the vibrations of his surprised nicker, the tickle of breath in her mane.
“But never let it be said fear stops a pegasus.” Her wing lifted and settled, a yellow shawl of primaries curling over his brown shoulder.
“Star Swirl. Star Swirl, wake up.”
“Hm? What’s the matter?”
Heartstrings moved from the window. “Look.”
The unicorn lifted his head from his desk, two lines of notes embossed on his face from where his cheek hit the page. He yawned again, smacked his mouth full of morning breath, and dragged himself to the window.
Star Swirl rubbed his eyes and looked. He was awake in an instant. “Oh.”
“Well.” He turned away from the window and the little ponies leaning into each other upon the fallen hackberry. Star Swirl clicked his tongue and chewed the nib of his quill. “That does complicate things a little, doesn’t it?”