The Inconveniencing Adventures of a Washout Kicker

by IC1s5

5

“So,” Pinion said, “this mare?”

“Yeah?’

“Plot like...” Pinion gestured to indicate it’s length. Mace smiled.

“I swear...made me feel like I was the one in heat.”

“I gotta hit that place up next leave,” Pinion said.

The two ponies laughed. Some of the gear began to spill out of their saddlebags. Spray shook his head. West Hoof freshpony chuckleheads. Give us your stallions and we’ll give you back foals. Velvet was looking uncomfortable. Her favourite hat, purple and white, matching her mane, dwarfed her head, making her seem out of place amongst these stallions. A full day with these two was looking less desirable by the minute.

“I was on my eighth cider,” Pinion continued. “Otherwise...me and her...”

“Would part, your carnal desires unfulfilled,” Spray replied. He did not look up from packing his saddlebags.

Pinion frowned. “Who asked you?”

“Well,” Spray said, “you’re not exactly keeping your opinions private.”

“I’m not going to be lectured by a guard washout,” Pinion huffed.

Bright Star stuck his head between the two. “I’m not. Want to talk about it?”

The two ponies began to throw their gear into their sacks. Bright Star called over to Thunder: “These two are going to be fun, right?”

“They’ve been brained by the idiot ball, but otherwise have a sense of self preservation to them,” Thunder replied.

Mace and Pinion looked sadly at their commanding officer. After several who days of warm soda and warm to the touch chocolate, they had gotten desperate. Gathering several apples at mess, bruised and almost pulpy, and secreting whatever other ingredients they had needed, they made a brew that they hoped would be transformed into serviceable alcohol.

Which, itself, would not be a problem, if they had not decided Thunder’s office met the ideal conditions for a place for their mixture to ferment. His desk specifically, his top drawer especially. He got odd looks from his secretary over that. Well, Discord finds work for idle hooves.

“Good,” Bright Star said, gesturing with his neck in the direction of Spray and Velvet. “I’ve already got a couple of foals to worry about.”

It would be an hour before Celestia raised the sun. If there was one thing Celestia could do to guarantee Velvet’s undying loyalty as a subject, it would be to keep the sun well below the horizon. Three hours march to the Beam, three or four three, three hours back...her back and hooves were aching already.

For Spray, the opportunity to get into the wild was highly tempting. The red and orange rocks, scoured by winds for centuries into unique shapes. He was practically drooling over the chance to see the interplay between shape and colour up close. Just a shame he had to pack light. He would have lugged a whole easel if he could have gotten away with it.

The San Paolomino was a tremendous opportunity for the young artist. It was as gorgeous as it was friendless. The only thing that he believed he lacked was Coral. She was an unequaled landscape artists, and would have died of joy to have been out here.

He had tucked Coral’s photo into the brim of his hat. Bright Star shook his head. Whoever had gotten it for him had misjudged the smallness of Spray’s head, so it looked like a saucer of fabric was nesting on his head.

“How do I look?” Spray asked, finally giving Bright Star to come out and say it.

“Like a twit. It’ll work, though.”

Velvet had just to laugh. She’d feel ashamed of herself later.

Two other guard ponies rounded out the expedition. Velvet and Spray looked out of place, with her broad hat and Spray’s civilian saddlebags. They stuck out like a sore hoof. They needed one last piece of advice before they set off. Otherwise the experience would be a lot more uncomfortable than it already was.

“Look,” Thunder explained, “just pretend you’re on a real weird nature hike.”

“We’re going on a tiger hunt, we’re going to catch a big one...” Spray began.

“At least it will be cloudy,” Velvet said, smiling when she remembered the tune from family vacations. It took being threatened with permanent cancellation of his birthday and deprivation of sweets forever to get Shiny to shut up.

“It won’t make a difference. Hopefully, we’ll have some phantom rain,” Bright Star said. “It evaporates before it hits the ground---quite fun to see.”

Phantom Rain. Spray imagined the distant hills being captured in the morning haze, the long even sand stretching up to them, making them appear both easily reachable and impossibly distant at the same time. He would have dropped everything and started painting right there if he could get away with it. It would make a good watercolour.

Bright Star glanced back to see how fast the patrol was coming together. The remaining patrol ponies lifted their burdened backs straight. The civilians looked a little shaky, but they were ready. He glanced back up at the sky, a uniform grey with dark blue in places.

“We really ought to have kicked it to the Silver’s way. They would need it more,” Bright Star said.

Thunder huffed in agreement. It would make things a lot easier around here.

Bright Star rose to his hooves and gave a shake, the various accoutrements attached to pouches and belches jangling. Nothing left behind. Good. He was ready. Therefore, they were ready.

“Patrol! Move out!”

Mace and Pinion groaned as they, standing on wobbly legs, took position at the rear of the patrol. When they had formed a reasonably straight line, Bright Star nodded and the imperfect shuffle began.

Clanking, shuffling, the line of ponies walked towards the path to the beam and, lamentably, the direction of the rising sun.

#

“There, my little ponies,” Bright Star said, pointing with his hoof, “is the West Desert Beam.”

They had come over a small rise. After the sun came out the temperature exploded and every second they marched seemed magnified tenfold. They broke for water and food twice. Spray remembered being with the scouts when he was younger and, were it not for the monotonous scenery and blistering heat, he could feel those old days. Trying to ignore the scoutmaster’s bellowings to keep up, fooling around in the trees instead.

It had been not as bad as he had feared. Bright Star fearlessly answered every question posed to him. A few smaller outposts had been left to fall into ruin, wood supports now lying in a brittle heap. Back in the day the area around Fort Lancer had been difficult to patrol and ambushes were common. Now, with the beam in place, he walked with an arrogance not found outside of Canterlot palace gardens.

Spray came to the edge of the rise. The beam was functional, purposeful---it was ugly. Hideous, designed with rulers and straight edges. It did not blend in well with the warped and twisted landscape one bit, like order was unsuccessfully trying to assert itself over the chaos of the desert, and the desert cared not one wit. There was a drawing in that.

The beam stretched ahead, all twenty miles of it. Along the top, sixty feet off the desert floor, and the bottom ran fences that ran perpendicular to it. Half a mile thick, they were not high enough to see over it’s top from this point. Bright Star pulled out a set of binoculars, scouting along the top of the beam to see if anypony had gotten brave and tried to break through.

As always, the fence appeared unbroken. It was like checking on a relative you were half afraid was going to pass away in minutes if you didn’t see them, and, relieved they were still with you, wondering what the point was in coming all this way just to make sure he was still alive.

So far the only things of note where the birds circling overhead on long broad wings. Something scampered from the shade of one rock to another. Other than that a pony could be forgiven for thinking themselves as the only creature for miles and miles. Quite a liberating feeling, as terrifying as it was at the same time.

“Take a moment,” Bright Star said. “We’re going to take a few minutes ourselves.”

The Long Patrol ponies fanned out, binoculars at the ready. They enjoyed an excellent view of this length of the beam. They muttered to themselves, making notes on log books and maps. They muttered a bizarre creole of numbers and acronyms to each other. Mace and Pinion found a boulder large enough to offer a tiny speck of shadow and monopolized it. Three hours of marching had been murder on their precious hooves.

“What are you looking for?” Velvet asked.

Bright Star shrugged. “Any sign of attempted breaches, like poles being ripped out or gaps in the fence. The beam is steeper on the opposing side, making it harder for any hypothetical intruder to break through to our side.”

“If you see any?”

“Check to make sure it’s the result of external intrusion. If not, patch as required and move on.”

Spray sat and fished out his sketchbook. He wished had the opportunity to bring his watercolours. A shame he couldn’t linger and watch it during twilight, when it might even become picturesque. Velvet stood in place, staring at the beam and trying to imagine what lay beyond. On the other side of that beam was another world. A world where ponies ruled themselves and endured what nature blindly threw at them willingly. Unwilling to let Equestria infringe upon them.

Goodness knew how many books had been written (Velvet knew: she read them all) about the relationship between Equestria and the Silver nation, which family of nobles was responsible for what events that led to the present arrangement. In nice cool libraries it was palatable to pour through old books looking for clues; out here, it just was.

An indigestible lump of the time before Harmony! Distrustful of anypony other themselves, unbowed to alicorns or anything else, wedded to their stubborn pride. After the beam was leagues and leagues of burning sand, same as on this side, but beyond that, what was there? Every account she had heard was secondhoof.

“Ever been?” asked Bright Star.

Velvet shook her head. “When I was a student the domestic situation there was too unstable. Sometimes I had hoped to be more of a Daring Do and just venture out there, but I was not that brave a pony.”

She could remember what her mother told her when she half-heartedly proposed an expedition: You want to get thrown into slavery? They’re worse than Diamond Dogs there! Night Light had seemed game for it. He always seemed game for their nights out, too, and he always carried her out of the tavern singing her head off. Twilight not taking after her mother in that respect was definitely a good thing.

Bright Star chuckled. “Well, we can pretend to make it across when we get up close to the innermost fence.”

“We’re going down there?” Spray asked. The rise overlooked a knotty region of smooth stone, spilling up to the base of the beam.

Bright Star nodded. “Of course. We need to check how badly the wind has mangled the wire. Replace it where applicable.”

“Get rid of the dead things,” one of the other guard ponies called.

“That too!” Bright Star laughed.

A couple of ponies were carrying the wheel of wire between them. It was a delicate process descending the path with the wheel dancing in the air. Each hooffall was carefully measured so neither the ponies or the wire would fall.

Bright Star guided them down to where the ridge began to slope down, becoming less sandy and more rocky. “Can you believe this was carved by water?” he asked.

“Not quite,” Spray said. He could understand it but not believe it. Clearly, the stone was smooth, as if a giant cloth had gently brushed it into it’s current shape. Spray had never gotten the hang of working with clay, but it looked like a pony had shaped the landscape into a twisting nest of rock.

“Check the pebbles.”

They were round and smooth. Spray kicked some down the slope. If there was a lake nearby he would have tried to skip one. A fine film of dust obscured their natural green-black shade.

Spray nodded. “That’s out of place.”

“Well, this was a riverbed at one point,” he explained. “Long ago. Before Celestia even.”

That was inconceivable. Celestia was ancient, eternal. Nothing happened that she did not control or was at least privy to. Anything beyond their knowledge or control was blasphemous.

“That sounds so incredible,” Spray said.

“The San Paolomino,” Bright Star said, “does things only one way: it’s way.”

They reached the wire fence lining the bottom of the beam. Much of it had been turned red by the air and the dust. Other than that, as promised, it was unbroken. The ponies started to spread out. The ponies assigned to replacing the wire set the wheel of fresh grey wire down, got out the appropriate tools and began to work.

It made Spray feel a little foolish for having relatively little to do. Making small talk with whoever wanted to make it seemed like the only logical thing to do.

“Coral and I have been talking about an outdoorsy honeymoon,” Spray said, throwing it out there.

“Come again?” Bright Star asked.

“My fiancee,” Spray explained.

“Really now? Where?”

“Vanhoover, we’ve been talking.”

“Not Canterlot?” Bright Star asked.

Spray shook his head. “Too many childhood memories of long, boring family events in the tackiest city in Equestria.”

Bright Star laughed. “The first great disappointment of being married,” he said.

From this vantage point the beam seemed to run to the horizon, where it met where the ground rose again. The uniform metal tangle of the fence, like some absurd plant, stretched with it. Spray nodded, beginning to capture the sight on paper.

He noticed a tiny wet drop had formed at the upper right of the page. Spray paused for a moment and hummed in confusion. It was cool and almost shady here. He wasn’t that sweaty, was he? Then another appeared. Another. He felt another strike his hoof.

The ground had been pitted by a drop. Another joined it, and then another. It took a minute for the realization to set in. Rain.

For the first time in two centuries, nature had rolled the clock back to zero.


Comments

[IC1s5]

2818466

I'll go back and smooth out that wrinkle when I've wrapped everything up. Right now I believe the best direction to go is forwards.

[terrycloth]

Uh oh. Goodbye sandcastle?

[Web of Hope]

three or four three, three hours back

Umm? =cannot parse=