“Are you sure?” Starlight asked.
“Yes,” both Sandy Line and Shore Line said.
Sandy added, “We haven’t seen him since yesterday, we’ve asked Dr. Lovejoy where our son went, and he said that all he remembers is that Finishing asked him to tell us goodbye before he left.” She wept, “We’ve been looking everywhere for him and we couldn’t find any trace of him. It’s as if he outright disappeared!”
“I’ve tried talking to everypony else in the village,” Shore added, “and even they hadn’t seen him either. We’re at lost of what to do.”
The violet unicorn leaned up against the wall with a hoof under her chin. “Something’s not right here. First Lilly, and now Finishing, what’s changed?”
“They’ve run away, didn’t they!” Sandy questioned. “Our little colt said he hated here.”
“But how would he leave?” Starlight raised an eyebrow, “I mean, we’re surrounded by desert, and the train doesn’t come but once a week. Besides, nopony told me anything was taken. Not water, food or anything. If they ran away, then someone would notice a bag of flour or a canteen of water was gone.”
“You mean you think that our colt is still in the town?” the father asked.
“Where else could they have gone to? It’s here, the opal quarry or the greenhouses, although I don’t know why they would go outside of those places since we have the only source of water for miles.”
“What about that doctor?” the mother wondered aloud. Starlight asked what she meant by that, “Think about it, ever since he came, Lilly vanished, Starting had his leg broken, and now Finishing is gone too. You don’t think that he… did something to them?”
“What does that prove?” Starlight questioned, “The doctor is an old, frail stallion, and a doctor too. The disappearances and his arrival have to be a coincidence. We can’t just jump to conclusions when we don’t know all the facts yet.”
“She’s right,” Shore Line patted his wife’s back, “We don’t know if he has anything to do with it at all.”
“Even so,” Sandy said, “I don’t want Starting anywhere near him.”
“But what could he do? He’s the only one who knows how to treat his injuries.”
Starlight looked out of her window, down towards the sleepy doctor in his rocking chair with the phonograph. “Your husband’s right. Lovejoy is the only trained doctor we have for miles. So for the time being, until your son heals or he dies, he’s still useful to this village.”
The mother sniffed, “Alright, but I’m not allowing Starting being completely alone with him for now on.”
“Sandy, he’s just an old stallion, what possible harm could he do?”
“Excuse me, Lovejoy?”
The stallion woke up with a snort, “Huh! What?” He blinked, “I wasn’t sleeping!”
He heard a giggle; he looked up to find a blue pegasus with a white mane there. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said pointing at the phonograph, “But I’m afraid your music ended a while ago.”
“Oh,” Lovejoy turned and saw the needle waving at the near center of the record. He turned the turntable off and pulled out some of the records nearby it. “I’m very sorry about that, I just dozed off for a moment and didn’t notice.”
“You’re fine, it’s my turn to check up on you,” the mare stretch a hoof to him, “Name’s Night Glider by-the-way.”
“Good afternoon,” he shook her hoof. Turning back to the small collection, he selected a record to be played. “Ah, here’s a good one.” After recoiling the spring of the phonograph and carefully placing the needle down, the drifting sounds of a piano were heard from it.
Night Glider looked at the horn of the machine, “What is it?”
“It’s by Mousier Debussy, called Reverie. In Prench, it literally means ‘Daydream.’”
“It sounds very pretty, I’ll give you that.”
Lovejoy nodded, “Is there anything you need of me?”
“No. I was told to see how you’re doing and if you need anything.”
He sat up in his rocking chair, “Not at the moment. I was resting from the whole commotion from this morning. You’ve heard what’s going on, right?”
“In a way, I think so.” She sat down next to the elderly stallion, “Finishing Line has disappeared too and the little guy’s parents are really upset.”
The old unicorn snorted, “That’s putting it kindly. I got yelled at by her, blaming me for letting him run away. Saying that I’m a bad influence or something like that, honestly, I didn’t know he was unhappy here.”
“That’s weird, nopony has ever left before.” She was given a puzzled look, “What?”
“Nopony has ever left here? How can that be?”
“Well,” she chuckled, “It’s because we really like it h-”
“No, no, no, no. That’s not what I mean. There’s something I don’t understand here.” He looked at her in the eyes and asked, “I’ve noticed this place doesn’t have a farm, or anything valuable to trade for food. Where does Starlight Glimmer find the means to pay for these things?”
The pegasus blinked, “You mean nopony told you? We have an opal quarry about half a mile from here, and we grow our own vegetables in the caves nearby.”
“Opals, you say?”
“Well, we don’t need it per-say. After all, nopony wears any jewelry, and in a place like this, it wouldn’t make sense. But since Starlight noticed that growing any food is very difficult out here, she made a deal with some outsiders that they’ll trade food, cloth, barrels, wood or whatever we needed for several buckets full of opals every week. We’ve agreed that we would take turns to go to the opal quarry to mine out the opals once a week. However, we do spend the rest of the week looking after our little gardens.”
“You don’t say? Now tell me Night, about this quarry, how long does one spend working there?”
“Oh,” she put her hoof to her chin, thinking for a moment, “Let’s see… It takes about an hour to go there and back… Then we would spend a good six hours at work, including a lunch break so… Seven hours once a week.”
“How old does one have to be to work at this quarry?”
“Well, Starlight wouldn’t allow the foals to go near that place to work until they’re fifteen years of age.”
“Fifteen you say?” Lovejoy raised an eyebrow. “How safe are the working conditions of this place?”
“They’re pretty safe, I mean, all we have to do is that we harvest them after we’ve dug the opals out, we then immediately replant a little bit of it back so it’ll grow more. We do this because opals take a long time to grow. This is why Starlight had divided the quarry into parts so that while one part is planted, another can be dug out. And we only carry on our backs a certain amount of weight so we can carry it back to Our Town to be collected.”
“Interesting, but you do realize that you’ve described to me a kind of rock farm rather than a quarry, right?”
She tilted her head, “There’s a difference?”
“Nevermind, and does Starlight Glimmer ever lend a hoof in the Quarry?”
Night Glider paused for a moment, “I think so... and I don’t see why she wouldn’t.”
“Think so? What does that mean? Have you ever seen her at that place?”
“Well… I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have just as much work like the rest of us.”
“I see, and what about the other days that you don’t work in this quarry?”
“Oh,” the mare grinned, “Then Starlight would have us check up on our little gardens in the caves over there.”
“You have a garden growing in a cave?”
Night Glider nodded, “Uh-huh. Everypony has one. The reason why it’s underground is that growing anything, especially in the summer, would wither our crops. That’s why they’re in caves. It doesn’t get too hot or cold, and in the ceiling, they’re solar stones that give the plants the light they need.”
“So like an underground greenhouse then?”
“Exactly! It gives us something to do, and that way, nopony goes hungry.”
“What do you grow?”
“Things like potatoes, carrots, radishes, onions, or any plant that grows in the dirt. I was told they tried growing grain, tomatoes, and sugar cane once... but it didn’t turn out so well.”
“So that’s why certain things like flour have to be imported. But why not sugar?”
Night Glider shrugged, “Starlight said it was too expensive for the time being. But every so often we would get honey if we’re lucky.”
Lovejoy took a mental note in the back of his mind to ask Starlight about these underground greenhouses. “A little change in subject, where are you from?”
“Cloudsdale,” she replied.
“And, how long have you stayed here?”
“Tomorrow will be my first year in Our Town.”
The stallion nodded, “And, what circumstance did you came here for?”
She rolled her shoulders a bit, “By good luck. You see, I’ve graduated high school there, and I’ve wanted to prove to my folks that I can live on my own, you know? I started out with a rented apartment and got a job at the weather reserves. Yet, I had dreams of joining the Wonderbolts, to show off all the skills I’ve learned from sports I’ve done in school. So, I quit my job, following my dream for fame and fortune to make my parents pound…”
When Night trailed off, Lovejoy’s psychological instincts kicked in, “But that’s not what happened, right?”
She shook her head, “I didn’t get in. I went to their boot camp… and… I couldn’t take it. Within three days, I left it behind me. Now, here I was, a mare with overdue rent, no job, and I couldn’t bring myself to go to my parents to ask for help, making them think that I failed. So… I ran away, I went North until I came across this place. Here, I have a home, food, some time to work, and friends on equal terms.”
“I see, now Night Glider,” the doctor stopped rocking, “I have to ask, are you happy?”
“Well,” she said, “I can say that I’m grateful,” and added a forced smile to it.
“I didn’t ask if you were grateful, I’m asking if you’re happy here.”
She leaned towards the street; making sure nopony was listening in, “As great as this place is, I… feel like something’s missing.”
Lovejoy frowned, “Missing? What’s keeping you from being happy?”
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked and he nodded. “As good as this place is to provide shelter, food and a bit of work… You’re the first one I’ve told but… I don’t exactly feel… free.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Well, living here, if there is to be any harmony among us, we have to follow a set of rules that Starlight puts down. Like we can’t venture out after sunset, we have to take turns, we can’t have anything we can’t share… those kinds of things. Tell me; is it selfish of me to want more out of this kind of life?”
He shook his head, “No ma’am. In a way, I can relate easily.”
“How so?”
“When I was younger, before I had my cutie mark, I was a colt from a wealthy family in Canterlot. At the time, I’ve fallen in love with making art out of anything. Watercolors, pencils, pens, markers, you name it. I’ve always had this drive to create something wonderful. My parent’s however, couldn’t see me having this kind of future when the time comes to support myself. ‘Artist nowadays earn next to nothing Reverie,’ my mother used to say, ‘Why not you look for something that’s more useful, like a Lawyer, or a Doctor, or even part of the Solar Guard?’ My parents, my mother especially, really pushed for me to have this kind of future to the point where she only gave me books about the pony’s body, gave me toys that were plastic doctor’s equipment, and would hide away my drawings. When I got my cutie mark that would guide me as a doctor and not an artist, you could say that I was heartbroken.”
“That’s awful,” Night said.
He shook his head, “When ponies feel robbed of what freedom they had, they want to be creative. While I studied in medical schools and read books of the workings of the pony’s body and mind, I found a way I could express my innermost thoughts. And that was from photography. I could capture moments in time of beauty to be preserved for all time. Yet, my medical practice demanded that it needed more attention, so for a while, I was completely miserable, until I’ve met a teacher that opened my… imagination let’s say, to what I could do both as a doctor, and an artist. His name was Dr. Red Cross, and from him, I’ve gained inspiration at what I could take the mundane practice of medicine and use photography to turn it into an art.”
“Wow, so you’ve figured out how to have your cake and eat it too?”
Lovejoy chuckled, “Oh you have no idea.”
“Do you think I could see these pictures sometime?”
While the doctor thought about it, he noticed that the music had died out. Turning to the phonograph, he said, “Perhaps a little later on. But for now, I should get back inside,” he yawned, “I feel a little sleepy today.”
“Okay,” she stood up to spread her wings, “Thanks for letting me visit you.”
As she took flight, she heard from behind, “Night Glider, if you need to talk to me, about anything at all, let me know so I can help you become happy again.”
Night nodded, “I’ll think it over,” she told him as she flew down the street.