Lullaby heard the noon bell ring in the distance. She turned to the young fillies in her class.
“Okay, thirty minutes for lunch,” she clapped her hooves to get attention. “No wandering too far this time.”
The fillies proceeded out of the small classroom with their lunchboxes into the small field by the forest. Lullaby lingered for a moment in the classroom, a mirror on the wall catching her eye.
She brushed a hoof through her blue streaked mane. The lighter stripes had become slightly whiter over the years, but she still didn’t look a day over thirty. She gave her reflection a melancholy smile and sighed, following her students out to the field.
“Lullaby!” a female voice called to her as she exited the schoolhouse. She turned to the street into town and smiled genuinely as she saw her friend trot toward her. Honey didn’t seem to have changed much in all these years as well, the only difference being her orange hair in a tight bun giving her the aura of authority she needed so much now.
“Well, well, well,” Lullaby cooed. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Madame Mayor?”
Honey stopped in front of her. “It’s not like I really get to do anything,” she sighed.
“Are you kidding?” Lullaby asked. “You built this whole city from the ground up!”
“Lullaby, that was like the first six years of my term,” Honey protested. “Ever since Commander Javelin declared a state of unrest in the mountains, he put a hold on all elections. Really I’m just Mayor in name only.”
“You still get some cushy digs,” Lullaby offered.
“True.”
The two mares gave each other a look and laughed. Lullaby was the first to stop.
“So what are you doing here?”
Honey rubbed her hoof tentatively, a distressed look on her face that immediately dissolved into a motherly worry. “I’m worried about Crisp. I mean, it’s his first day of something that might be his life’s work. I really want him to be happy.”
Lullaby knew when her friend was being evasive. She also knew when not to prod the matter since the green mare could get pretty agitated when provoked. “Even if he’s not going to be a civil engineer?” She joked.
“He can accomplish many things as a blacksmith,” Honey said defensively. “I just want what’s best for him. What about you?”
“Me?”
Honey nodded. “Yeah. Beddy is having his first day, too. How are you reacting?”
To be honest, Lullaby didn’t know what to think. When Bedim had asked if he could apprentice at the bank, she was hesitant. Bedim had never shown any interest toward finance. In fact, he never showed much interest toward anything. The colt had spent his entire life trying different things, crusading around town trying to find what he was best at. Finally, when everyone his age was choosing jobs, he decided to go to the bank. “I don’t know why,” he’d said. “I just feel this calling.” Lullaby had left it at that, but a strange malaise still affected her mind about the whole situation.
“I want what’s best for him too,” was all she could say.
The two sat on an overturned log and continued to chat and catch up. Honey going on about daily life in the town hall and the vast amounts of nothing she would do while Commander Javelin took everything under his horn. Lullaby was just happy to see her dear friend, she really hadn’t seen enough of her the past couple of months.
Their chatting stopped when the children playing around them began to ooh and ah, pointing toward the sky. Lullaby raised her head as well and spotted the Wonderbolts flying above past them. At the forefront of the perfect V-formation flew a large red stallion with a crimson mane, his face the only one shown as the rest were covered by leather helms. On the crimson pegasus’ belt glinted two long pieces of metal that rustled underneath him as he flew past.
Honey noticed her friends’ sad expression as the team passed. “Do you ever miss it?”
Lullaby returned her attention to her friend and gave her a sad smile and reluctant sigh. “No, but I can’t say it doesn’t bother me. Truth be told I really did consider it when the commanders travelled here to offer me Cloud Catcher’s position. But you know what stopped me?” Honey gave her friend a knowing grin. “Of course you do.”
Lullaby rubbed her hooves together before her and stared at the ground. “After the race I really just wanted to be as close to Bedim as I could. Something… Something just felt lost after that.”
“It was a pretty big loss,” Honey added pointing toward the center of town. “Affected everyone.”
Lullaby frowned. “Yeah, only because Javelin made it such a big deal. Sure Cloud Catcher was liked, but Javelin made his death sound like it was entirely the yaks and griffins faults.”
“In a way it kind of was.”
The statement left Lullaby cut to the quick. Her frown deepened further. The memory of that day, the picture of him turning away and abandoning them all. Lullaby closed her eyes, stifling back her sadness. “I don’t want to believe that.”
Honey simply accepted her words and leaned back on the log, gazing at the sky. “I do miss Bulba somedays.”
Lullaby chuckled. “She was an… interesting individual. I really hope she’s alright with those yaks in the eastern mountains. Y’know if she’s still alive.”
“Do you even know how old she was?”
“Do you?”
They shared a laugh once more, the sound of a bell cutting through.
“Sounds like I’ve got to get back to teaching these kids,” Lullaby moaned.
“And I have to get back to Town Hall. That chair behind the mayor’s desk won’t sit in itself.”
The two mares shared one more laugh and hugged before parting ways, Honey lingering a little longer on the hug than normal. When Honey was out of sight Lullaby began to clap her hooves to get the fillies attention. “Alright, everyone! Back in the classroom, lunch is over!”
As the fillies proceeded into the small school house, a shout was heard. Lullaby stopped and glanced down the street where it was coming from. More shouts, all coming from one pony. A yellow mare in a nurse’s outfit came barreling down the street, her face pale and scared. She was coming from the town square, probably the hospital judging by her clothes. She kept bumping into ponies trying to pass. She was screaming something incoherent that made everyone around her look at her like she was insane.
She tripped over her own hooves as she passed the school house. Lullaby rushed out to help her up, lending her a hoof. The yellow nurse mare grabbed it and looked into her eyes. Lullaby could see panic and hysteria in them. Here words were clear now that she was mere inches away. “Cursed! We’re all cursed!”
“I- I’m sorry I don’t understand,” Lullaby tried to console the hysterical mare.
A pair of unicorn guards in silver armor rushed through the crowd to their location. They took the mare from her and restrained her.
“Hey,” Lullaby shouted in protest. “What are you doing to her?”
“This mare is ill,” One of the silver clad unicorns replied sternly. “She will be taken care of.”
“But-“
“She will be taken care of,” the stallion repeated harshly.
Lullaby stamped a hoof into the ground angrily but acquiesced. The two stallions pulled the mare away, still rattling off scared ramblings. “Cursed! Cursed! We’re all cursed! Cursed in stone!”
Lullaby frowned and returned to her classroom. Cursed in stone?
----------
Honey opened the double doors to the town hall and entered a whirlwind of ponies running to and from different spots in the enormous two floored hall. Two staircases mirrored on either side of the large atrium between the double doors. Above, along a wooden balcony sat the doors to her office and other important workplaces. Below, just in front of her past the staircases, were the rows of desks that many municipal workers operated. These were stations for reviewing permits and approving small decisions that came from the constantly growing bureaucracy. The room was in a frenzy, ponies shouting over each other about something.
Honey knew what it probably was. She passed the crazed mare in the street just a few minutes ago. She was just thankful that not too many ponies knew about the current situation. Not that she didn’t want to tell Lullaby. The fact that she was keeping such a dark secret from her friend stabbed at her heart, but she was still a mayor. She had a civic duty. Honey looked back up at the window to her offices. A tall gray unicorn stood behind the paned glass and talked calmly to a light blue mare Honey recognized as her secretary. Of course he was here. She let out a small sigh of frustration.
A mailmare loaded down with letters crawled past her, her back seeming to buckle from the weight of the basket of letters on it. She gave the mayor a trembling smile as she struggled to hold herself upright and grabbed a letter from the top of the pile. “For you,” the mare squealed.
Honey took the letter with another sigh and began to march up the stairs, a brownish yellow stallion with a short red mane and visor popped his head up from a desk where he had been talking to another and ran after her. “Chief! Chief!” he yelled.
“Don’t call me chief, Rumor Mill,” she replied curtly not paying attention to the stallion.
“You see the nurse out in the streets? Brutal stuff. What’s this word about a curse?” Rumor Mill said all this as quickly as possible, his voice never faltering. A grin playing across his face.
“No comment,” Honey replied.
“Then what’s the Commander doing here? How long have his men been secretly sending away nurses? Just what’s in the hospital’s wing C?”
“No comment,” Honey repeated just as enthusiastically as last time.
“No comment just means I’ll have to guess,” the stallion’s grin grew wider and his eyes narrowed mischievously. “Perhaps our intrepid Commander is here for a little afternoon delight with our beloved chief.”
Honey reached the doors to her office and turned around to face the stallion before opening them. Her face was red and flushed with rage. “NO COMMENT!”
She slammed the door in the stallion’s face, soliciting the entire room to turn toward her. The room was quite spacious with two desks. One was hers, where Commander Javelin now stood before. The other belonged to her secretary, Minty Joy. Javelin and Minty seemed to have been in the middle of a heated argument. Clear from the red in Minty’s face and the frown on Javelin, though that was pretty standard for the older stallion.
The years had aged the unicorn considerably. His muzzle now sported a short goatee and small moustache. While he did not wear his armor wherever he went anymore he did plaster his Commander’s pin on his chest prominently and had tied his mane back into a professional pony tail. He now had the stature most would see in a larger horse than a pony, his yellow hooves clearly visible beneath his gray fur. He glared at Honey.
“I’m sure you’re aware by now,” he said solemnly. “Another one has been born.”
Honey crossed over to her desk and sat in her chair. The papers before her were ones she’d laid out previously, they were construction orders for the hospital that Javelin had wanted her to sign. “I suppose you want to make another addition to the C wing?” she asked with a straight face.
“On the contrary,” the stallion let slip a smile, an omen honey never found good, “I’ve already called for support from the triumvirate regarding this outbreak. They are sending a ‘specialist.’”
“The nurses are calling it a curse,” Honey did not bring her head up from her desk but she did raise her eyes to meet Javelin’s. “You realize we can’t keep this hidden. This is going to get out. In some circles it already has.”
“Those that have evidence have already been dealt with,” Javelin smiled, Honey felt her body shiver at the words “dealt with.” “I can’t let something as simple as this jeopardize everything we’ve worked to build. The western expansion of the mines, our scouting into the far northern territories-“
“All your work!” Honey slammed her hooves down on her desk. Minty gasped in surprise and tried to return to writing. “We were fine before the mines expanded. We don’t need more northern settlements right now. This city should be our priority, but while you seem fixated on making it bigger, I’m the one trying to hold it all together!”
A silence passed between the two, their eyes connecting. Javelin was the first to turn away, another grin playing across his face.
“I have a dream for this place,” he admitted. “A dream that one day it will stand as tall as the mountains. Every street and house will shine like the sun and not even Canterlot itself will compare to its beauty and majesty.” The stallion paused for dramatic effect, returning his gaze to Honey. “I have vision.”
Honey let out a long breath of air and slumped back in her chair. No matter how much she despised the commander, she had to admit that they shared the same ideals. She, too, wanted to see this place become better than any other. It was what drove her to continue. However, she didn’t want to abandon her scruples to do it. It was at times like these that she missed her husband.
When Javelin expanded operations of the mines, the call came in for more workers. Everypony was expected to step up and play their part, especially those that already lived in the mining camps. Her husband had died from black lung nearly ten years ago, his memory still giving her strength.
She lifted her head and glared with purpose at the stallion. “We need to put this out before it becomes a problem. Tell me about the ‘specialist’ from Canterlot.”
Javelin smiled showing a fierce row of teeth. “They call her the ‘Angel in White.’ At just sixteen years of age she’s safely delivered close to two hundred healthy foals. The best record of any nurse in combined Equestrian history to date.”
Honey frowned. “And you think she can stop this?”
“It’s worth a try,” the stallion shrugged and turned around to leave. “And if it doesn’t work, there’s always a scapegoat or two.” The last bit was muttered under his breath but Honey could still hear perfectly. She waited until Javelin closed the door behind him and looked down at the papers on her desk. With an angry cry she pushed them all to the side and they tumbled to the floor.
“Yeah,” Minty spoke up. “That guy’s a bit of a flank hole.”
“No,” Honey replied breathing heavily and turning to look at the doorway once more. “He’s just a dick.”
----------
“Pardon me,” the Old Mare asked, “have you seen the young lady?”
The two soldiers had just sat down to dinner by the fire, the light of the moon illuminating more around them than the flames. One of them, a Pegasus in silver armor, pointed to an outcropping of rocks that reached above the tree line of the forest surrounding them.
“Thank you,” the Old Mare said and walked off toward the rocks. “I swear that girl does this every night. We go somewhere new and she just has to get as high as she can to see it all.”
The old mare reached the base of the outcropping, the fire still within sight behind her. She looked up at the top of the rocks and spotted a silhouetted figure against the moon, she almost appeared to be dancing on the top of the uneven boulders.
“Just what do you think you are doing?!” the Old Mare shouted.
The silhouetted figure stopped and climbed down to a lower set of rocks, her face finally coming into view.
“Sorry, Mother Superior,” she shouted back. “I just… couldn’t help myself. There’s so much beauty here. Especially at night.” The young earth pony mare finally reached the base and trotted over to her guardian. Her mane was white as snow, the same color as her coat. Her eyes were a dazzling shade of pink. She continued to hold her smile and the Old Mare succumbed.
“Oh, I can’t stay mad at you,” she chuckled. “Just come sit by the fire. We should arrive in Crystal Falls tomorrow evening.”
“Yes, Mother Superior,” the young mare replied and followed her.
“And Pristine?”
“Yes?”
“No more climbing on rocks, my heart is too fragile.”
Pristine smiled and nodded, the two of them sitting down around the campfire to eat.