//------------------------------// // Chapter 25 // Story: Ghost Lights // by Winston //------------------------------// Ghost Lights Chapter 25 Thermals are one of the best friends of a pegasus, and I'll say that in no uncertain terms. The free ride on warm rising air can keep a good flier aloft all day without any effort. For good reason, I considered this an essential technique to teach Azure once she was ready to start moving into more advanced areas of flight. I wanted to dedicate at least a few entire flight training days to it and be sure that she had it mastered. The tricky part was finding suitable training conditions. Thermals form over open ground that's been heated by the sun, which means that the general area of the Seawall, with its continuous cloud cover, wasn't useful. I had to aim the patrol flights she flew with me eastward and take her inland to where the clouds finally break up and let the sun through directly to the earth. Once we did find one, I showed her how to catch it under her wings, holding them still and gliding slowly, banking slightly to circle around the thermal and ride it in an upward spiral. After we'd ridden one to the top, I pointed out to her the way that the land underneath a thermal looks like it shimmers a little bit from the heated air rising off it, and by looking for this effect, it was possible to use our height to glide along to the next thermal, then the next, chaining them together to cover a lot of distance without spending the energy it took to power a flight by flapping. This isn't as fast as flying directly, of course, but sometimes energy economy is more important than speed. Just don't try to tell that to Captain Dash. After our third day of practicing at this, I was fully satisfied that Azure was as proficient with thermals as she needed to be. We'd worked at it for several hours on that last day just for some technique refinement and final skill polishing before we finally started winding down and began to glide toward the ground. I planned to take a short break before we called it done for afternoon and flew the rest of the way back to the wall. On the way down, as we were passing over a field, I saw plants with clustered umbrels of tiny white flowers in lacelike patterns and thin, thready leaves that resembled parsley. They triggered an immediate recognition in my mind. Back in Equestria I'd have probably just passed these by, but out here, they were very much worthy of attention. I flapped in the air to brake and hover for a moment, and I signaled to Azure to set down in the field. She followed me and we landed. "What is it?" she asked. I hooked my forehoof around one of the clustered white flowers and showed it to her. "You know what these are?" I asked with a smile. "You mean what kind of flowers? Ummm... Platinum's Lace? Named after the ancient unicorn princess?" Azure ventured. "I read that somewhere." "Yes, that's one common name for them," I said. "What you're really going to care about is what's underneath, though." I leaned down and grabbed the base of one of the plants in my teeth, then pulled up on it, yanking it from the ground. The whole plant came easily out of the loose soil, revealing a long, thick taproot with a dirty pale color. "Here. Check it out," I told Azure through clenched teeth, holding the plant up. I broke the root of it open to expose the scent. She stepped closer and sniffed at the plant I'd just pulled. Her eyes widened a little bit in pleasant surprise. "That smell... is that what I think it is?" she asked. "If you think it's a wild carrot, then you're right on," I said, "and from the looks of it, this field is full of them." "Oh, thank Celestia!" Azure said. "Couldn't be better timed. I'm at the point where I could just about kill for some carrots. Anything other than the grass I've been eating for months." I could understand where she was coming from. Monotony had started to wear down my own patience, too. "Fortunately, it won't come to that," I said. "All we have to do is pull 'em up." I grabbed another one and yanked it from the earth. I gave it a quick shake to knock most of the dirt off it, then tossed it down next to the other one. Azure joined me, picking carrots from the field one by one and tossing them on the pile that started to form. We kept working at it until we'd gathered up enough to completely fill my saddlebags to the brim on both sides. As we packed them I knew it would be a heavy load to carry, but I didn't mind at all. These were very much worth their own weight and then some. After that was done, we took off again for the rest of the return flight to the wall. I was careful to remember the location, looking around and memorizing the landmarks and features of the ground and horizon. These carrots would go fast, I was sure, and I wanted to be able to come back here for more. After we arrived back at the wall and cleaned ourselves up, Azure and I washed the vegetables we'd picked in the small waterfall to the north, carefully scrubbing off all the dirt. These wild carrots were an off-white color, not the familiar orange. They were also smaller and thinner than the normal domesticated garden type, with a lot of small stringy roots growing off their sides, but none of that really mattered to us at all. It was good enough that they were just something different than what we'd been eating. We even decided to go the extra mile and cook them, boiling them using an old iron kettle that somepony had left behind long ago and until now had just sat collecting dust in one unused corner of the barracks. By the time we were ready to start working on dinner, Azure's spell had worn off and she'd turned back into a unicorn, so she used her telekinetic magic to rig up a makeshift stand for the kettle on the beach using pieces of rock and sticks. While she did, I flew around and gathered up driftwood to build a fire with. After the fire was started and the carrots thrown in the water, Azure and I sat on the beach snacking on some of the raw carrot greens. They had an herbaceous flavor a bit like parsley, which was nice. We watched the pieces of driftwood in the fire burn in their strange and somewhat ghostly hues, flames dancing in blue and lavender. I've read that it's not usually a good idea to burn driftwood because of some of the chemicals that can sometimes be given off, but I think we can get a pass on it just this once. We weren't trying to breathe the smoke, and there's really no other conveniently close source of easy firewood by the Seawall. The carrots turned out pretty good, anyway. After they boiled for a few minutes, Azure levitated the kettle off the fire and drained them out. I used the now empty kettle to scoop up some seawater and douse the fire once we no longer needed it burning to cook with. We could have just let it burn out on its own, but I wasn't pleased with the column of smoke it sent up into the sky. It wasn't that I thought there was any specific unwanted attention it would attract, it was just the general principle of not having it out there unnecessarily. It also seemed like a shame to contribute even the smallest bit to smogging up such a completely wild and unspoiled area without a good reason. As a finishing touch, we sprinkled the carrots with salt that we'd made a while ago by evaporating off seawater in a glass container and then scraping out and crushing the resulting crystals. So it was that we had a picnic on the beach and feasted on those carrots in the last dying light of the day. I admit that I stuffed myself possibly more than I should have, but this was easily the most delicious thing I'd eaten in over a month. When the carrots were finally gone, we sat on the beach for a while watching the waves, feeling very satisfied with the excellent meal. "Lucky thing we flew over that field, huh?" I asked. "Wha...? Oh. Yeah." Azure's response was distracted. When I looked up at her to see why, she looked back at me and nodded. "That was really good. Some variety for once is nice." It was plain that her attention had been elsewhere. I turned my head and traced where her gaze had been a moment ago. It was out on the ocean, looking into the west. The sun was mostly behind clouds, painting them a pastel rosy color. Silhouetted by that pinkish glow, standing out in dark contrast to the clouds, were the two small shapes of the distant islet towers. Those lonely little outposts side by side in the sea were the most prominent feature on the water at the moment. Azure saw me looking at where she'd been gazing. She didn't look back at them and didn't say anything. I knew, though. I just knew. It wasn't going away. I thought about the eerie colors of the driftwood fire, burning in strange ghostly blue and pale violet flames. I looked at the ashes and cold embers of charcoal left from it, inert now after being quenched with seawater. If only I could extinguish this just as easily, I lamented. Clearly, though, that was not to be. I don't think anything could have truly put it out now that it was burning inside her. It would smolder forever until it was allowed to come to completion on its own. Nothing else would do. Nothing else ever did it for me, after all. I looked back out at the towers. "Are you still on about those?" I asked, sighing. "On about what?" she asked in turn. Her voice feigned innocence perfectly. "You know what." I kept looking at the watchtowers. She was quiet for a few moments. Her gaze finally slowly turned off of me and drifted back out, following mine, to those lonely little dark twin spots on the sea. "I guess so," she finally said softly. "It's a bad idea," I said. "Unnecessary risk." "Probably." Azure nodded. Her casual agreement was, like her previous feint, flawless but completely hollow. I couldn't cast blame. I had no ground to because I didn't even really mean it myself. I realized I wasn't sure why I'd bothered to say what I did, other than to put on an empty show of fulfilling the expectation of being responsible in the way the civilized world would want me to. Beneath it, though, I knew that look she wore, that state of mind. Under the surface of the pointless words, I felt it just as much. It was the whole reason I was here at the Seawall. No, there wasn't a shred of truth to my statement. The truth was, there was nothing more necessary. Without these things, there's no reason to live. There's no deeper thirst, no stronger hunger, no more powerful drive. I saw it stated in a book about psychology I once read that the strongest instinct on a basic level is sex. I suppose that it's an easy impression to get by watching some ponies, but when it comes down to it, I don't believe it. In moments like these, it becomes clear that it doesn't hold a candle, not even a dim and distant one. Call my sex drive weak (I know it is), but it doesn't matter, I know this to be true beyond any doubt. The will to truly be alive is immeasurably stronger. What was I so afraid of, anyway? I wondered that for a moment, and realized I couldn't come up with anything. After all, we both knew. There was no one here to pretend for. It would be better if we tore down the lie on the surface and approached the heart of the matter with honesty and openness, I could suddenly see, so I decided to just get it over with while I had bravery enough to do so. After the last few times I suppose I was beginning to learn that it's like taking off a band-aid. Don't think too much, just do it, quick, one fast pull before I can flinch and chicken out. "It's gonna happen anyway, though, isn't it?" I asked. "Yes, I suppose it is," Azure responded, nodding once again in exactly the same way she had before - except that now, just that easily, there was nothing false about it. So that was that. It wasn't a decision made, so much as inevitability revealed. I felt like we were two moths in the night circling in our erratic flight around a lantern. What else could we do but answer the call of the ghostly, pale light flickering in the dark, the ghost that called to us? How could I stop her if I couldn't hope to stop myself? How could I when deep down in my heart I knew I didn't even want to stop myself? I sighed and shook my head. "We're gonna need to train for it, then," I said, after a long silence. "It's gonna be a lot of work." "What do I need to do?" Azure asked. "Endurance workouts," I said. "A whole lot of distance flying and running. You'll have to work at it hard, every day. Won't be easy." "I can do anything it takes," Azure responded. I didn't doubt she could. I also wasn't sure whether to be excited or deeply worried. Both were probably appropriately applicable. "We'll start tomorrow," I told her.