Ghost Lights
Chapter 11
On mid-morning of our seventh day, the Seawall came into view. The mountains in the distance had been steadily approaching for a long time. Cloud cover had also been growing thicker and more frequent overhead, and I knew that those were the clouds that form from the moisture evaporated into the air by the ocean we were closing in on. Rain fell occasionally in a light drizzle, usually just barely enough to notice but sometimes in brief heavier bursts. The wetness allowed for the growth of thick and lush grasses and other plant life.
The land also changed a little bit as we got closer. It broke up more, folding up into foothills and small rocky outcroppings and cliffs marking the beginnings of those coastal mountains. There's a particular kind of plane that extends inland from the Seawall, where there's the gap between the mountain ranges. Wind coming in from the ocean sweeps across it and makes it hard for plants to get too tall, so it's filled with scatterings of low-growing scrub and bushes instead. I recognized this area as we started coming into it, the consistency of the soil underhoof becoming finer and more sandy.
Then finally we came around the side of a steep hill that sheltered a few small stunted trees, and... there it was.
It was about two kilometers away. I could see it pretty clearly, with the sharp pegasus eyes I have. I doubt Azure had much difficulty either, though. Something like the Seawall isn't very challenging to spot at that kind of distance, being a thousand meters long and six meters high. After days of walking around in nature, seeing something artificial like that tends to jump out in a pretty obvious way.
I found there was an almost strange anticlimax to finally getting within sight of it. To hike out this far is a real endurance challenge, and it had been a very long week. For however badly I'd wanted to be here and see it again, I think we were both really just sort of tired and numb by that point - too much so to react strongly. We saw it, but we didn't say anything, just kept walking like nothing had changed. I suppose nothing really had. We weren't there yet, we still had to cover that last little bit of distance before any of the effort would finally really mean anything... so we just kept on our steady pace toward it.
After a little while longer, we finally arrived, close enough to the wall to touch it. Azure did exactly that. She reached up with one forehoof and tapped a couple times on the great big dark colored stone blocks, as if verifying it was really there and not just some kind of illusion. She stared down its length in one direction, then the other, and then up at its height for a moment. Finally she sat down and just studied the stone surface in front of her.
For a long time she was quiet. So was I. I sat down next to her, glad to get off my hooves for a moment.
"So this is it," she finally said.
"Yep." I nodded. "This is it."
I breathed in, taking up the scent of the place. I could already smell the faint saltiness of the air from the ocean. A quiet and distant slow rhythmic sound of waves could be heard when I listened closely. These things hit me and an electric tingling thrill ran down my back. I felt... I felt suddenly like I was on the doorstep of home.
"It's kind of funny..." Azure said softly, running one hoof along the wall's hard smooth surface. "It's pretty much what was advertised. It's a big wall. But it's different somehow than I'd imagined, and I don't know why. I don't know what I was expecting."
"I hope you're not disappointed," I replied.
"No..." She shook her head. "It's just... I guess I kind of built it up too much in my mind. Now there's just a feeling of, well, okay, so what does it mean? What do I do now that I'm here? You know?"
"Well, the first thing we should probably do is find the other two ponies that are waiting for us," I said. "They've been out here for six months. I'm sure they're very ready to be sent home."
In spite of my words, I still sat there for a little while longer, reveling, soaking in the feel of the place. A few more moments passed before I slowly got back up on my hooves, setting out to do what I'd said. I motioned for Azure to follow me. She stood, and I led us north along the wall. After a short distance there was a small, low-roofed building, made from the same kind of stone blocks in the same style as the wall itself.
"What's that?" Azure asked, looking it over.
"Pretty much where we'll be living," I answered her. "It's an old garrison barracks, I think, from when the unicorn empire had soldiers permanently stationed here. It's not much to look at but it's the only shelter around. It's also probably where we'll find the current watchers we'll be replacing."
I walked up to the building. It was about how I remembered it from the first two tours I'd done here thirteen years ago. Now, as back then, there was no actual door in the doorway. Presumably it had originally been made of wood, but had probably rotted away or fallen apart an extremely long time ago and was never replaced. There was no particular need, and nopony out here with the tools or resources to really bother anyway. Now there was just a heavy piece of thick cloth hanging to cover up the opening. I couldn't hear anything, but I did see what looked like a few fresh hoofprints in the sand just outside, both coming and going.
I knocked on the stone door frame, just outside the hanging cloth. "Hello?" I called in. "Anypony home?"
A few seconds after I'd spoken, the cloth was abruptly pulled aside to reveal a light mint-green colored unicorn mare staring out at me with wide vivid blue-green eyes. Her long mane, so light green it was almost white, was ragged with split ends and in rough condition in contrast to the pretty face that it framed. The condition of her hair was something I really couldn't hold against her, though. I knew that in six months from now, Azure and I would look about the same. There isn't exactly a salon around here to stop into for a trim and good deep conditioning.
"Oh, thank Celestia. You're the relief, right?" The unicorn asked. "Please, please, please tell me you're the relief."
"Yes," I answered her. "That is why we came all this way. I'm Sunburst. This is Azure Sky."
"Great to meet ya!" The unicorn said. "My name's Meadow. Silver Star is around here somewhere. Out flyin', I guess. She's probably not too far, though. I'll send a signal. Hopefully she sees it."
Meadow walked outside a short distance, and her horn began to glow with a pale green magic aura. Some sort of magical flare shot up into the sky, producing a bright highly visible glow. We waited for a minute or two.
Before long it had the intended effect and a pegasus landed nearby. It's very rare for pegasi, but I think she must have had a bit of zebra ancestry, giving her a slightly exotic appearance. Her coat was mostly white, but just barely visible all over her body were faint darker stripes. Her mane and tail were pink, and were likewise also faintly striped. She had coppery colored eyes and her cutie mark was a cluster of three bright white stars with deep black borders.
"So this is Silver Star," Meadow introduced her companion. "Silver Star, this is Sunburst and Azure Sky. Our relief."
"Hey, awesome!" Silver Star enthusiastically walked up and shook hooves with us both. "You're a little bit early. We weren't expecting you guys until late tonight or sometime tomorrow. Or later, even. Never can tell how long a hike like that's gonna take."
"We made good time on it," I said.
"Evidently. So... you wanna start turning over?" Silver Star asked, wasting not a moment. That didn't exactly surprise me.
"Yeah, let's get through it," I agreed. "I'm all about sending you two home as soon as we possibly can. Azure, you go with Meadow, she can show you the unicorn side of things," I instructed her. She nodded and the two unicorns headed inside the stone building to turn over their responsibilities.
Silver Star and I flew to the top of the wall, where we landed and stood side by side. Beyond the far side of the wall I saw the ocean, at last, for the first time in thirteen years. My breath caught in my throat. I just stood and stared. Tears started to form in my eyes and I blinked them back, hoping it wouldn't be noticed. Wave after wave rolled in onto the sand and then washed back out, in endless eternal motion.
It was like watching the heartbeat of the entire world.
I couldn't believe how small I felt. At the same time, I was connected... connected to everything, all the rhythms of the planet, everything moving in those waves. This part of me that had been asleep for years felt alive again. I don't know how else to possibly describe it.
"It's something, isn't it?" Silver Star asked quietly.
"It's exactly what I remember," I said. "Good Celestia, it's been too long."
"What do you mean, you remember?" She seemed confused. "You've... been here before?"
"Yes." I nodded. "This is my third tour here at the wall."
"Holy smokes!" she exclaimed. "I've never heard of anypony doing more than one."
"As far as I know, I'm the only one." I shrugged.
"Well, I guess you don't need much explanation of what you're doing here, then," Silver Star said.
"Fly scouting runs, keep an eye on the area, send back reports on anything not usual in the coastal environment," I said. "Send back a report not less than once a week in any case, even if there's nothing much to say - which there won't be, most likely, 'cause nothing ever happens here. But those reports will be a unicorn job, for the most part, since they have the magic. I take it we're still using a focus crystal to give the transporting process the extra power to make it easy to teleport the reports all the way back to Canterlot? Still no personal mail allowed either, right?"
"You got it." Silver Star nodded. "Easy job, just a long six months of being alone while you're doing it."
"Not really much of a problem for me," I assured her.
"Guess not, if you can stand doing it twice before," Silver Star agreed. "Your unicorn friend down there, though... she seems pretty young, and maybe with not a lot of time in the field in remote kinds of places like this. Is she gonna be okay?"
"I think she'll handle it," I said.
"Good. 'Cause, I mean, I thought I was tough, but I'm about at my limit, you know? I didn't think it'd be this hard."
"I know." I nodded. "But you made it. Time to go home and relax."
"You can say that again. Seems like that's been the only thing on my mind for months," she sighed. "First thing I'm gonna do is take a real shower. A long, hot one. With real soap and everything. Then I'm gonna go get a manecut, and a good mane, tail, and coat conditioning, and then a hooficure. Trimming, filing, buffing, polishing, the works. After I'm all cleaned up and pretty I'm gonna take my wife out to dinner at the best restaurant in the city." Silver Star grinned a little bit. "And then afterwards we'll go home and... yeah. Well, you know. It's gonna be an incredible night."
"You're married and they sent you out here?" I was a little surprised by that. I'd always thought it was something generally avoided.
"Yeah," Silver Star said quietly, looking out at the ocean. "It's been a long, long six months, believe me. I just wanna see her again so bad. I hope she doesn't resent me for being gone. We've never had to be apart for a long time before. It's kind of our first really big test like that as a couple."
"Hey, you're reporting back to Canterlot from here, right?" I asked.
"Yep."
"Alright. Well... I hope everything's alright with your wife. But if bringing back something special might help smooth things over, go to the corner of Sunrise Lane and Equinox Street. There's a flower stand there, with a pink earth pony florist working at it. Her name is Bright Bloom. Tell her that you want to get a bouquet of the best red roses she has, the same kind she sold to Sunburst once a long time ago," I directed her. "Maybe they'll help a little."
"Roses, huh?"
"Well, I'm... no relationship expert or anything. I just know that they worked miracles for the last pony I set up with them," I assured her. For a moment, I wondered about what it would have been like to see it, Rainbow Dash bringing that amazingly beautiful bouquet of intensely crimson perfect roses to Princess Twilight and declaring her love, then Twilight, at last unable to hold out, letting go of the mask of isolation and breaking through those barriers of a princess's position and admitting that underneath everything she felt the same way... and the two of them finally sharing that first kiss that had taken them so many years to reach.
I don't know if I can imagine a more truly glorious thing. The light of that love, finally piercing through the dark veils of fear and uncertainty that had hidden it away for years, must have been brighter and more beautiful than the sun itself in that shining moment.
Some part of me regretted not being there for it. I stared out at the ocean and the waves for a while longer. I guess... I had to admit I'd made my choice the only way I could have. This was where I'd needed to be at the time instead. That was the price of their kiss, of their happiness: that it wasn't for me to be there to see myself or to share in the joy of the first celebration of it. That just doesn't seem to be my fate when it comes to these kinds of things.
"If you say so... I guess roses are worth a shot." Silver Star's voice brought me back to reality. I let those thoughts fall away. "Couldn't possibly hurt anything."
"I guess if we don't really have much to turn over, we're just waiting on the unicorns," I said.
We flew down and entered the small building, where Meadow was finishing up showing Azure Sky the details to include in reports, where the supplies for writing them were stashed, and the proper use of the focus crystal that would enable reports to be sent back across the long distance easily. I'm going to guess that Azure, with her talent and education, needed little introduction to that. She probably knew more about what that thing could do at a glance than most ponies would after a whole tour here at the wall with it.
Soon enough they were finished, and all that was left was for Meadow and Silver Star to take their gear and start on the long hike back in the opposite direction. We helped them pack up and sent them on their way as quickly as we could, and believe me, they were glad to go. Azure and I saw them off, from just outside the stone building.
We watched until they disappeared into the wilds, joyfully bantering back and forth with each other about the things they were going to do and what they were going to buy and the foods only available in civilization they were going to eat when they finally got home.
When they were gone, that was it. We were alone. We would be for the next half a year.