Keeper of the Crystal Heart

by Cerulean Voice

Hurricanes, Holidays And Horticulture

"Are you for real?"

Cirrus' cornflower face lit up like the moon in the night sky. He'd always wished for this, since hearing the stories. Such a beautiful place to be described: every pegasi who'd ever been to Neighagra Falls claimed it was a second paradise in Equestria. The cool, crisp air. The cascading flow of the world's largest falls, producing the most gorgeous rainbows. The exotic wildlife who called such a place home. He'd always dreamed of seeing that place...

Cumulus nodded, suppressing a grin of his own. He’d wanted to go since his parents had come home from an excursion with the first pegasus brigade long ago. While the place was indeed gorgeous enough for a relaxing holiday, the dense amount of mist and clouds generated rendered it not ideal for living in close proximity to. He could feel his own forced, flat expression beginning to crack at the thought.

"Awww yeah! Finally!"

Cirrus celebrated with a loop-the-loop in the air, flying through the cloud he was supposed to be bucking and consequently drenching himself. "I can't believe it! We're really going to Neighagra Falls!" He laughed as he shook himself free of most of the offending substance. "When do we leave, Cumulus? Are we going right now? Are we?"

"Whoa, hold your horses there, kiddo. We're not leaving until tomorrow. We have to keep the weather all right for tonight before we can set out tomorrow morning. We've had far too little rain lately and the Earth ponies are complaining again about the lack of water for their crops." Cumulus frowned. "Problem is, they're right. We're running out of water in our cloud reservoirs to keep supplying it. That's why we're going—we're gonna push the reservoir across the sky and harvest the water from the pool that the falls cascade into."

The young colt blinked at his brother. "How are we gonna do that? It'd take days of everypony working together to fill that reservoir! You playing more pranks on me, Cume?"

Cirrus narrowed his eyes at his brother, not without good reason. The previous day, Cumulus had tricked Cirrus into bucking a thundercloud hidden inside a regular cloud. Although pegasus down naturally resisted lightning, he had still received quite a jolt for his effort. Cumulus just laughed at this and gave his brother a sly wink.

"We're not the only ones going, Cirrus. Nearly every pegasus is going to help out. The trip will take a couple of days, and only a fraction of our number will be staying behind, to ensure that what few clouds do form in the sky rain in the most efficient places."

Once, perhaps, he could have blamed the unicorns for over-compensating after the winter and trying to make the days warmer. Cumulus refused to take that train of thought again, though. He was glad the pegasi were in harmony with their other relatives again—after all, everypony needed food and water to survive. No, they all truly had themselves to blame. The windigoes would never have come without incitement.

Cumulus would have sighed there at the thought, but he kept it inside. Cirrus, on the other hoof, continued to zip around erratically at the prospect of seeing his foalhood dream destination. Finally, the famous Neighagra Falls! Cirrus cared not about the work involved when they got there—seeing it at all was going to be just perfect!

* * * * *

"Really, Clover? A field trip?"

Little Aura could hardly contain her own excitement. She loved getting outside away from the castle. Her elder sister Platinum may have enjoyed spending all day inside with her servants at her beck and call, but Aura was a curious little filly. It was all Clover could do at times to keep Aura's focus upon her during their lessons. Often, Clover would have scrawled her magical words onto one of her study's walls, only to turn and find Aura staring out the window at the birds. A smile to herself and a clearing of the throat would jerk Aura back sheepishly every time.

"Yes, Aura. You've been progressing well with your studies. Far better than I thought you could have at your age, certainly. So I thought you might like to accompany me on an excursion to Neighagra Falls. There's a species of plant life there that might hold secrets of healing magic, if we can produce the potions. I've been sent there to analyse the plant and record my findings. So, I ran it by King Levitatus that you've been an extra smart and well-behaved little filly lately—" Clover grabbed Aura and ruffled her mane up "—and he agreed to let you accompany me."

"Oh, Clover! You're the best teacher ever in the history of teachers! Yaaay!" Aura galloped around the study. "When are we leaving? What should I pack? Should I bring any books? How about my mmmmmmppph—"

Aura found her mouth immobile as Clover sealed it briefly with her magic. Not something she enjoyed, but sometimes Aura could just not be silenced.

Releasing her after a moment, Clover resumed explaining. "Just pack lightly, bring a toy or something if you like, but as far as food or books are concerned, the king has our trip covered. We'll have everything we need. It'll be a half-day's chariot ride away, but you'll finally get to see the true countryside and smell the fresh air other than in the castle gardens. Who knows? We may even get to go for a swim in the falls, or have a little picnic in the mist!"

Clover gave Aura's mane another affectionate ruffle. My little niece is growing in leaps and bounds. I'd honestly rather she was the first-born over her spoiled sister.

Aura could hardly believe her good fortune. Her father never let her beyond the castle walls. The gardens sure were nice, and the birds and other critters were definitely friendly, but she never felt close to true freedom. She wanted to see the world, not simply read about it. Especially that Everfree forest. It sounded so dark, evil... exciting. She ought not to have known about it, but Clover had accidentally let it slip in a separation spell lesson. Realising that Aura wouldn't drop the subject, Clover had divulged simply that her father had nearly been killed there, and the more distance kept between it and themselves, the better.

Aura wasn't a silly filly. She knew that if something was declared dangerous, she was to stay away from it. Nevertheless, the forest filled her with curiosity. Still, an outing was an outing. Aura was perfectly happy to go anywhere with Clover. It would do both of them good. Clover was a great teacher, but she could become even as kooky as Chancellor Puddinghead if she remained cooped up for too long. Clover may not have been the most social pony in the kingdom, but even she had a select few friends outside of the castle.

"Could I help you look at the plants, Clover? Hey! I just realised, clover's a plant too! Isn't that funny? You're a plant, Clover!" As Aura rolled on the floor cackling at her own silly joke, Clover rolled her eyes but joined in with the filly.

"Be careful, young Aura, or I might just grow all over you!" Clover mock-threatened her student. How ironic that you'd be the one growing on me.

* * * * *

"Are you serious, Mulberry? You want me to go on a holiday, when there's still a whole lotta farming to do? No can do—we need everypony helping if we're gonna outlast the next winter."

Valencia stood resolute, arguing with her dark-coated messenger. Why would she suggest a holiday? Valencia loved her work, she considered it no chore at all. "You know I'm much more useful here tending the saplings than off gallivanting across the country."

Mulberry sighed. She'd anticipated this reaction from Valencia. The mare was far too stubborn for her own good. She could say what she liked, farming the land was hard work and Valencia was one of the—if not the hardest—workers in the whole family. The mare would always be the first to rise with the sun and the last to leave her saplings when the moon rose. Mulberry could tell that Valencia was lacking on sleep, day by day falling a little further behind in debt to the necessary body function. If only she'd see reason...

"Look, V, you just can't keep pushing yourself like you are. I can see you're beginning to slow down. You may not recognise the signs, but I can see it yards away. You're struggling a little more every day carrying the water over from the stream. Sometimes you pile a bit too much dirt around the saplings and they begin to suffocate. Other times you simply water them too darn much. You need to take a breather, cousin."

"I don't need a breather, what I need is to get back to work."

"It's been decided already. By the family. You're taking a break and that's final."

Valencia paused. The whole family was making her take a break? Didn't they understand the importance of what she was trying to do? Darn it, she thought. There was no way she'd be allowed to keep working while everypony knew she wasn't supposed to be. Her shoulders slumped as she sighed.

"What's my destination?"

Mulberry relaxed. Finally. "Okay, then. As you know, we're beginning to run low on water supplies. The pegasi have come up with a plan to harvest a few seasons worth of water from a new source. You're going to follow them and witness how they do it. There's not a whole lot we can do with a water shortage anyway. And you're going to relax and enjoy yourself when you get there, or so help me, I won't let you work these fields again. You got that?"

Valencia opened her mouth to object again, but then a different thought made itself known. It sure would be nice to see a few of my other cousins again.

"All right, Mulberry. You win. I'll go and try to enjoy myself doing nothing. But if I find any stray plants along my path that we haven't come across yet, you can bet I'll be bringing a lot more seeds back. Now, you didn't answer my question before. Where am I going, exactly?"

The dark blue mare gave her sister a light smile with her response. "Neighagra Falls."

* * * * *

Night passed at a snail's pace as Cirrus tossed and turned in his plush, cloudy bed. He was just so darn excited! Periodically glancing at the moon gained him nothing, for it seemed to be frozen in place, taunting him. It was a cool night, a mostly comfortable one with only the lightest of breezes, but the conditions held no sway over his mind or his body's ability to fall asleep. Usually, anyway. I can't wait to fly with the birds; to dive off the top of the falls; to sample the different fruits in the nearby bushland. Ugh, why does night have to move so slow? The wait was driving him bonkers. Hurry up already, sun!

Just as he'd finally given up willing the moon across the face of the sky, Cirrus felt a hoof at his foreleg.

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

Cirrus' eyes shot open from their melancholy droop and turned to face the culprit. There was Cumulus, periwinkle coat and silver mane gleaming in the moonlight.

"Let's go, Cirrus. We've decided to fly now instead of at the sunrise, while it's still cool. I hope you got plenty of sleep." Cumulus winked at his brother, whose full attention he now commanded.

"We're leaving now? Really? Yes! Brohoof!" Cirrus held up a hoof to Cumulus, who rewarded the gesture with a hard knock from his own. "I'm all ready to go right now!"

As he zipped away, Cumulus caught Cirrus' tail in his teeth, jerking him to a halt. Cirrus fell down a little before regaining his composure. "Hey! What was that for?" He glared at his brother.

"Hold up, Cirrus, you don't even know why I woke you up this early. I would have let you keep sleeping, but Hurricane said we need every pegasus with weather experience—veteran or rookie—to aid with pushing the reservoir. Clouds may be almost weightless for the most part, but the reservoir is huge, in case you forgot. And it's only going to be far heavier on the return trip when it's full. We'll be rotating the task around. Half of us will push the reservoir to the falls, the other half will circle around as we go and add any stray clouds we come across to it. That's where you come in. We're on cloud duty, bro. Now come on, we've gotta get a move on."

* * * * *

By the time the sunrise had blanketed the land in a gentle, golden glow, a sleep-deprived Cirrus was regretting the journey. The cloud harvesting had started off fun, as he zoomed around with other pegasi, collecting every small puff he could lay hooves on. But it hadn't been long before the novelty wore off. After collecting his hundredth-or-so cloud, his task began to feel like a mundane chore. It had also been a while since he'd flown for so long without resting. His wings developed a small ache in his mantle.

It was a mercy when Hurricane made his announcement. "Break time, everypony! Find a cloud to rest on and catch yourselves up. We'll have a small recess before we switch tasks." Yet it had hardly felt like a break at all to Cirrus before Hurricane declared the recess over. As he lined up against the cloud next to Cumulus and prepared to push, he groaned internally.

This is not as fun as I thought it would be. Neighagra Falls had better be worth it...

Author's Note:

Image by Wacky, entitled Pretale to Convergence.

Comments

[Jioplip]

This review is brought to you on behalf of the group:Authors Helping Authors
Name of Story: Keeper of the Crystal Heart- Hurricanes, Holidays and Horticulture.
Grammar Score: 9
Pros: - Aura and Clover are adorable, especially Aura.
- Cirrus and Cumulus are a pretty fascinating bunch in their own right, they made for an enjoyable read.
- Valencia's personality is endearing and I look forward to seeing more of her.
Cons: - Not much of one, but the way each 'group' is revealed, one after another, to be going to Neighagara just feels unnatural.
- Blurf?
- Guh?
Notes Section: My consciousness is waning, but I assure you my reviewing is still nearly at the top notch.

Regarding the one con, I'm not really sure what it is that bugs me, perhaps it's the influence of other media on me.

Anyway, chapter three cleared!

This is Type Cast, signing off to get some shut-eye, but I'll be back for the next chapter.

[Valen]

Bloop, I'm liking Cumulus and Cirrus a bunch so far! Aura is cute, and Clover is... well... Twilight-y? Valencia, well I'm not sure what I think of her yet, so we'll see when we come to it, eh? I like how they all actually have genuine reasosnto be at the neighagra falls, many stories fall because they give half-assed reasons for characters being at a plot location, so it's nice to see the appropriate amount of thought put into it.

~DeepShift

[devas]

We've had far too little rain lately and the Earth ponies are complaining again about the lack of Earth water for their crops

Casual racism is best racism :-P

He was glad the pegasi were in harmony with their other relatives again—after all, everypony needed food and water to survive. No, they all truly had themselves to blame. The windigoes would never have come without incitement.

Suure, just keep on telling yourself that, buddy.

Anyway, on to the review itself:

This review is brought to you on behalf of the group:Authors Helping Authors

Name of Story: Keeper of the Crystal Heart- Hurricanes, Holidays and Horticulture.

Grammar Score: 10

Pros: - Those two quotes I put in at the start qualify all by themselves; doing subtle, believable characterization like that isn't easy, and I believe it's very powerful.

- We manage to "get" the feeling that this is a different time, not only from the characters themselves, but also thanks to their subtle mannerisms and so on.

Cons:

-Changing completely time, place and focus is...risky. Again. Not bad by itself, but if this were poker, I'd do it only if I had a good guess the other person was bluffing.

-Too many characters, managed to not give a damn about even one of them. With the fact that there's six of them, with six different names, relations, and so on, it's very hard to keep them straight (as a matter of fact, I've already forgotten half their names or what they do), and you manage to give engaging characterization (although it IS engaging, I'll give you that) to only half of them.

-Throughout this chapter I had no idea where the story was going to go, and not in a good way :-/ If this is part of the introduction, splitting it in two parts (previous chapter and this one) lessens its impact very much

[XSomeGuyX]

Again, this is me travelling off the beaten path. I'll be using the same type of format as my last review.

Alrighty! Let's start with a little grammar review. Unfortunately, your grammar's quality fell a little since last chapter. With that said, it did not fall that much, but definitely enough for me to take notice. The stylistic errors I pointed out in my previous review still hold up in this chapter as well. Organization can be improved and word formatting is a little misused. The dialogue seemed pretty good throughout until it came to the farmers. I'm not sure if you're going for more of a southern accent or not. If not, you can dismiss most of this next comment. However, if you were, it wasn't very convincing. I know how hard it could be writing this type of accent, but you can try to emulate the way other authors write dialogue for similar characters. If you want me to elaborate on any of the issues I've listed, again, feel free to PM me and I'll happily reply as soon as possible.

Now for the positive! As I said above, I thought the dialogue was pretty engaging and believable. Now I can't comment on the characters themselves because I don't have a complete idea of their personalities yet (it is only the first chapter that they are introduced). However, I can see some parallels between them and the Mane 6. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing remains to be seen. It can be good because, as I see it, it does a good job at foreshadowing future events and I'll just leave at that (don't want to go on a rant). Lastly, and again, I applaud on resisting over detailing the setting.

Anyways, I'll stop hear and continue tomorrow with another chapter or two. Overall, I have to say you're doing a good job. Hopefully, the rest will be just as good!

[JustAnotherTimeLord]

Hmm, interesting. I like where this is going, but I am not going to lie how contrived things are. I suppose it is lessened by the fact that they do have a reason to be there, at Neighagra Falls, but it is still contrived nonetheless. Also, you are taking a risky move with so many characters in one place at one time. You will need to balance out things to make character development happen and everything fit. So far, their individual importance is yet to be seen, and that is fine.

But let's hope it is seen in due time.

[PaulAsaran]

So we have our three young ponies. I find myself curious about their ages, though I gather V is by far the eldest. And I wonder what's so important about Neighagra Falls that they're going to end up working together with something relating to the Crystal Empire.

Nothing strikes my curiosity more, however, than the fact that somehow an entire pony civilization – complete with three tribes, advanced farming knowledge, masonry, woodcraft, (presumably) pottery and all the other things that required thousands of years of human evolution and development – was devised in a period of 60 years from the species' creation. 20 if you exclude the events of Flowers. That is some insane cultural and technological development. Hell, it's downright unbelievable. Dimiourgia knew what she was doing in this case.

[Ice Star]

King Levitatus

Should I remember this name? Also, I cannot understand why this and Flowers has so few upvotes. They need more.

[Cerulean Voice]

7075305
Wow. I haven't had a comment on this story in a very long time. Glad to see it's still attracting reads!

I have a little soft spot for this story. At the time of writing, I thought it was honestly the best thing I could have ever written. I've improved a lot since writing this, of course, but I can still look fondly back here and know it was where I began to learn how to build worlds.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the story. Just please, take into account that it was written only with up to season 3's completion as canon and that it's been AU'ed pretty hardcore by both the show and the comics multiple times over since then.