Previous Chapters Next
Close
Chapter 1: A Break in the Routine1,098 words
Chapter 2: Acrophobiagenesis2,715 words
Chapter 3: Horizon's Scope4,189 words
Chapter 4: Of Aliens (and Alienation) on the Mend7,373 words
Chapter 5: Culture Shock and Awe6,780 words
Chapter 6: Sweep Away4,981 words
Chapter 7: Histories and Herstories4,388 words
Chapter 8: Definitely Maybe Not a Mirage2,591 words
Chapter 9: Can't Go Chasing Fairy Tails3,052 words

Chapter 4: Of Aliens (and Alienation) on the Mend

Silver Lining

“Hey Silver! Did you see that pony Horizon was flying in a few hours ago?” my bestest friend ever asks.

“Sure did, Dusty!” I chirp back. “Didn’t she look weird? She was really hairy, and she didn’t even have wings or anything!”

“Feathers, Silver! I told you to stop calling me that,” he grumbles as he flutters down to the ground in front of me. “My name is Dust Devil, and don’t you forget it!” he says as he sweeps his mane back with a foreleg and strikes a pose.

Ugh. Ever since he got his cutie mark, he’s been trying to act all “grown-up.” Me? I’m totally fine being a little blank flank colt for now. And when I do find my special talent and get my mark, that still won’t be an excuse to be a serious Grumpy Gus all the time.

“Okay Dust Devil,” I say as I roll my eyes, “I saw the weird pony. I think just about everybody else in the caravan did, too.”

“Did you see the horn sticking out of her head?”

That’s new.

“No way! How’d you see that?”

“I was doing some high altitude flight practice with my sister at the time,” he says, trying to sound like it was no big deal being able to fly that well. I’ll get there, someday.

“What could it mean?” I ask, my eyes lighting up in wonder. “Do you think she’s a wish-granting djinn? Or maybe she’s a leprecorn, and she’ll show us to her pot of gold!”

“Nah, Aegie wouldn’t have let her anywhere near us if she were some monster from the sands. You want to know what I think? I think she’s an alien from the stars. You know, like the kind that took Fairy Tails away last year.”

‘You still call your sister Aegie, and I can't call you Dusty?’ I think with a slightly raised eyebrow.

Anyway, I don’t think that’s what the grown-ups meant when they said she’d been abducted. Personally, I think it was changelings. Still, maybe Dusty is right on this one.

“And you think she could tell us where they’re keeping her?”

“I bet she can.”

That would be great! It’d mean getting his big sister and our favorite storyteller back, and it’d let Horizon stop being all sad and sulky. I’ll let this idea stay here a little while longer.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” I ask. “I just know you have one.”

He preens a little before he opens his mouth to start telling me his awesome plan, when suddenly a blazing red and blue meteor slams into the ground beside us. Once the dust settles and and we stop coughing, Dive Bomber climbs out of her crater to join us while a couple of nearby camels give her an annoyed look.

“Hey guys,” she says as she pulls off some kind of… What’s the word… goggles? She pulls some kind of goggles off of her eyes. I wish my mom was cool enough to work with new tech like that. “Looked like you guys were planning something. I want in.”

Dusty spits out the last of his mouthful of sand and says, “Who says we’re planning anything? For all you know, we’re just a couple of honest colts chatting about the weather.” He smirks and waves a hoof and a wing at the clear blue sky.

“Dust Devil, the day you’re not planning something is the day that I clip my wings and grow a hump,” she says with a mischievous grin, then blows him a raspberry. Raspberry is such a weird word.

“Dust Devil was talking about that funny-looking mare Mister Horizon was flying in. He thinks she’s an alien, like the kind that took Fairy Tails away.”

Bomber shoots Dusty a flat look. “I don’t think that’s what they meant when they said she was abducted,” she says.

“I know, but what if it’s true? We could get Fairy Tails back!” My eyes get a little misty. I miss her a lot.

“I…” she says as I put on my fourth-best hopeful face. “I don’t think that’s too likely. Still, she’s got to be something cool. I mean, did you hear her on her way in? I bet she’s some kind of banshee!”

“Aren’t banshees ghosts? She looked pretty alive to me,” I say.

“Yeah, and they don’t take dead things to the healers, either,” Dusty says.

Huh. So that’s where she’s being kept.

“Well yeah, but maybe she’s whatever banshees are before they die,” she says.

“Like a pony?” I say helpfully.

She levels a glare at me and says “You’re impossible. You know that, right?”

Ponies keep telling me that, and yet I’m still here, being me. It’s kinda confusing, really.

“Anyway, Dust Devil,” she continues, “you still haven’t told me about this amazing plan of yours.”

—_(\\_/\_//)_—

Amber Spice

Nngh. Why does it feel like somepony hired an entire percussion section to play under my horn?

I guess under my horn is just their most recent venue: Most of my rest of me feels like it’s been tenderized by their previous performances. I wriggle a bit to probe for injuries, and discover that I’m miraculously unharmed, aside from a bruise shaped like my entire left side. I’m not even very thirsty, and I’m not presently being roasted alive in the desert sun. Maybe they decided not to kill me after all? Was this all part of some bizarre pegasus initiation ritual?

As I gradually awaken, I become aware of a parade of crashes and clangs coming from behind me, making my ears twitch. Sounds like that percussion section didn’t feel like staying confined to metaphor.

Swiveling my ears to listen closer, I can hear some poorly-hushed whispering coming from the “percussion section.”

“What’s this thing?”

“I got nothing. It sure has a lot of metal in it, though.”

*clangshk*

That’s the sound of a triple beam balance being tossed into a pile. I’d almost forgotten what that sounded like. Wait, where did somepony get a triple beam balance?

“Hey Bomber!” a third voice shout-whispers. “These goggles look even nicer than yours!”

“Okay, I’ll admit these are well-crafted,” the second voice grudgingly acknowledges. “It still doesn’t scream ‘Alien Supertech’ to me, though.”

“Are you sure?” the first voice asks. “Most of our metal comes from the stars, anyway. No way somepony would put this much metal in everything unless they were an alien.”

“I don’t know. I just thought alien stuff would be, y’know, flashier,” voice number two whispers with obvious disappointment.

I feel vaguely offended, but I’m not sure why. Sun above, I wish I was better at waking up.

“Hey, look at this!” *piff* “This flashy enough for ya, Bomber?”

“Wow, Bomber,” the first voice I heard squeaks. “That huge gem is even redder than your mane!”

“Triple beam balance, fancy goggles, large, egregiously red gem…”

My eyes slam open in realization as my waking mind finally catches up with my subconscious.

‘Tartarus’s own mead of madness, they’re rifling through my bags!’

This is not even slightly okay.

I creakily roll off of my cushion onto my hooves and stand up, getting a good look at a silver-maned dark gray colt and a grayish-blue filly with a blazing red mane standing next to my saddlebags of holding. Oh, and the piles filled with my supplies, too, not to mention my torch ruby that they’re currently ogling. Dear Lanthanum, don’t let it all be broken.

“It’s… beautiful,” the filly, aka voice number two, whispers reverently.

A dusty-brown colt with a pale orange mane, the apparent owner of the third voice, pokes his head out from one of my bags to say, “Aww, does the tough wittle filly think it’s pwetty? Maybe I can find you some ribbons to tie in your hair, too, while I’m down there.”

“Do you know what perfect gems of this size could mean for my mom’s optics work?” the filly said, perfectly ignoring the brown colt’s comment.

“I can’t say I know exactly what it would mean to you,” I chime in with as much menace as I can manage, “but I can say it means much more to me. That gem was a gift from a close friend, and I would appreciate it if you three would put it back and leave the rest of my things alone.”

Apparently I’m about as menacing as a wet, sedated puppy to these savages at the moment, because as soon as I finish saying that I get slammed to the ground by two tiny tandem flying tackles. Of course they’d both slam into my left side… Thank goodness for that cushion, at least. I look up to see the gray colt staring into my eyes, screwing up the courage to ask a question.

“Are you from the stars?” he asks in wonder, about two inches from my face.

What an odd question.

“Not really. We’re only distantly related, at best. An insufferable lot of ponies, if you ask me.”

The gray colt takes a step back, looking positively bewildered. “Wait, so you’re saying that all the lights in the night sky are ponies?”

“No, you featherbrain,” the brown colt says in exasperation, “It’s just an alien trick to confuse you. Looks like it’s working pretty well.”

“Hey!”

Alien, huh? And the way they’re talking about stars makes me think they don’t think I’m just a funny foreigner. Y’know what? This could be fun! Let it never be said that Amber Spice never tries to make the best of a crummy situation.

“Heh. Alien. I guess you could say I’m not from around here. You could even say,” I say with a smirk, “that I’m not even from your world.”

What? It’s technically true. It’s not my fault if they’re bent on misinterpreting everything I say.

“See? I told you she was an alien,” the brown colt whispers.

Isn’t it adorable when foals think they’re being sneaky? Well, I’ll have to subtract a couple cuteness points for stomping around on my bruised and battered frame, but I imagine this would be super adorable if it were happening to somepony else. Preferably somepony like Pierce the Omnipotent…

Speaking of Captain Sneaky, he chooses this moment to stomp his way up my barrel to stare spikes of suspicion directly into my eyes. “So,” he says in a surprisingly authoritative tone of voice, “what do you know about Fairy Tails?”

Um… what?

“Well, I know enough to tell a tale or two…”

“Don’t play dumb with me, alien!” he says, a fire igniting in his eyes. “You know exactly who we’re talking about. You’re the ones who took her away!”

Oh right. Names. Never have been too good with those. At least most unicorns have the sense to not name their foals after common things. I suppose there was that one filly I knew named Morrow Wine, but she changed it to Tea Total the first chance she got.

Where was I? Oh yes, the brown colt had just accused me of being complicit in…

“What in the name of Australian saffron. Are you, a pegasus, accusing unicorns of–of kidnapping?! Can you even imagine the stir that would cause if anypony even saw a pegasus near—”

‘No, Spicy. No he can’t.’

And now I’ve yelled at a child. Today’s just going swell so far.

The brown colt’s face turns red and he begins trembling, giving the impression of a soon-to-erupt volcano. Lo and behold, he does just that.

“OF COURSE IT WAS YOU! I don’t care how ‘unique’ your orns are,” he shouts, articulating his wingtips to emphasize his disdain, “it had to be aliens like you orns who took her away! Pegasi have honor.” *Stomp.* “Pegasi are honest.” *Stomp.* “Pegasi are loyal.” *Stomp.* “Pegasi are a family.” *Stomp.* “And family don't hurt or steal from each other!”

Well, that got out of horn’s reach in a hurry.

The blue filly with the fiery mane steps off of me and comes around front to face the brown colt.

“Dusty?” she says in a neutral tone of voice, “She’s telling the truth. She has no idea what happened to your sister.”

Then the trembling brown colt, the bombastic, self-assured one she’d called “Dusty,” breaks down in loud sobbing and buries his face in my coat. I wonder when I’ll get a chance to wash it out.

The filly gives me a quick apologetic glance, then shoots the gray colt a look and goes behind my neck (ow) to comfort Dusty. It kinda reminds me of taking care of my little brother Sepia Tone after a bad day, except I’m standing next to myself comforting the colt in front of me who is also on my back… Actually, let’s forget that analogy for now. The gray one just walked up to my face to start talking again.

“I’m sorry, Miss Orn. Dusty lost his sister Fairy Tails about a year and a half ago. He really misses her, and so do we. She used to tell really good stories…”

‘Lanthanum’s honored mother, what have I gotten myself into? These foals have the emotional stability of nitroglycerin, and their outbursts are about as loud and violent. At least they can’t turn me into a potted plant.’

I take a look back at the colt crying into my no-longer-quite-so-luxurious coat and the filly trying to comfort him by hugging him with a wing, and my heart melts a little. Cute little devils… I think I have an idea.

“I might not be as good of a storyteller as your sister, Dusty, but I do know a few good ones. Would you like to hear one?”

Dusty’s only response is to keep sobbing a little softer, but the filly gives me a small smile of encouragement. I turn to the gray colt for confirmation, only to see him nodding enthusiastically. I guess that settles it, then.

“I’ll tell you a tale,” I say in as theatrical a voice I can sustain right now. “A tale from when the world was young. A tale of Terra the Dreaming Goddess, before she began to dream. I’ll tell you the tale of how she came to Tartarus, the great prison, and found it without a warden. I’ll tell you the tale… of the Taming of Cerberus.”

The gray one has his ears perked up attentively. The filly on my back seems to have settled in properly, and Dusty seems to have at least calmed down a bit, so this idea seems to be working. I’m glad; this is one of my favorite stories.

—_(\\_/\_//)_—

Blue Aegis

‘Don’t you wish you had more time to spend with Dust Devil?’

That colt really needs more of my attention. I’m his mother, his father, and his big sister all wrapped up in one. It’s enough of a job for two ponies. And yet here I am, still going after a year-and-a-half.

‘And yet here you are, doing the same kind of work that robbed him of his father.’

That’s not even true. Daddy was a vanguard on the front lines. I’m on one of the last lines of defense in case anypony breaks through the others.

‘You’d be on the front lines, too, if you really cared about these people.’

I shake my head to get the critical voices to shut up.

Ugh. There’s just no winning these mental arguments. Got plenty of time for them, though. One of the perks of being on the back lines, I guess.

Now that it’s a bit quieter between my ears, I think I can hear… sobbing? Yep, that’s Dust Devil, and he’s crying pretty hard. No amount of outside noise could hide that from me for long. Hold on, Dusty, Sister’s coming!

I rush towards the sound of his sobs, and they seem to be coming from a part of the infirmary. But what would he be doing there, unless— No. Please don’t let this have anything to do with that creature Horizon brought in. Or maybe he’s just upset from seeing some really bad injuries?

Once I get there about a minute later, my suspicion is confirmed. The noise is coming from below the cloud awning they’re keeping that thing under. Now I just need to fly lower so I can actually see what’s going on.

I swear, if that creature has hurt one hair in his mane, it won’t even make it out of the caravan.

There he is! Nestled into the fluff on its… back? That looks a bit more comfortable than I’m comfortable with him being around strange creatures. And there’s the rest of the Tornado Trio next to him, looking attentively at the creature’s face, enthralled… spellbound, even. It seems to be looking over its shoulder at them, too.

I do a quick, stealthy loop over them and come down on the other side for a better view. She is looking at them, and her lips are moving. Is she casting a spell? I fly a little closer to get within earshot, ready to close off my ears and rush in for the rescue if I need to.

“But Miss Orn, in all the other stories Terra was a big pegasus with a magical wish-granting horn, not a unique orn like you,” says the gray colt next to its back. Silver Lining, I think?

The creature replies in a female-sounding voice, “You must be thinking of some other Terra. Now do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Yes, Miss Orn.”

“Okay. So Terra, seeing Tartarus woefully unguarded, set out into the wilds in search of a guardian. She knew the Guardian of Tartarus would have to be brave, loyal, and clever…”

She keeps talking, but I’m flying back to my post and fall out of earshot. I’ve heard all I need to know, anyway.

No threats. No fear. No magic. She hadn’t needed any to make the crying stop.

—_(\\_/\_//)_—

Amber Spice

“—And that’s why, when you’re guarding the gates of Tartarus, three heads are better than one.”

*Snorrk*

And now there’s a snoring colt nestled into my coat under his friend’s wing. They’re kinda cute, really, when they aren’t charging at you or accusing you of bizarre crimes against equinity. I guess emotional outbursts are about as draining for Dusty as they are for a unicorn. Maybe even a little more-so. I mean, it can’t even be that late in the—

I swear the sun was a lot higher the last time I looked at it. Then again, last time I looked at the sky I wasn’t under some kind of cloudy canopy. Just how long have I been out, today?

“Thank you for the story, Miss Orn. It was very nice,” the polite gray colt says. Well, polite for a colt. He had just rooted through my things like a hog chasing truffles, after all. Sharpened sunspikes that’s going to be a pain to clean up.

“Yeah, the story was nice enough, I guess,” the less polite Bomber says as she withdraws her wing from her snoring compatriot and hops from my back to the ground (ow).

“I’m not ‘Miss Orn,’” I say with a chuckle once I finish wincing. “My name is Amber Spice, and I’m a unicorn. It’s pronounced you-na-corn, though I suppose I am rather unique.”

Sometimes I’m so clever it hurts.

I look at the gray colt expectantly for a couple seconds until a magelight clicks on in his head.

“Oh! We were so busy asking you questions” – ‘and rummaging through my stuff,’ – “that we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Silver Lining,” he says, standing a little taller.

“She’s Dive Bomber,” he says as he points with a wing at the blue filly with the red mane and the goggles on her forehead.

“And the colt sleeping on your back is Dust Devil, but we mostly call him Dusty,” he says with a mischievous smirk. “I’d say that we come in peace, but we sort of already tackled you,” he finishes with a sheepish grin.

Huh. Silver Lining sounds more like a unicorn name than what I was expecting. Then again, what kind of pegasus names was I expecting? Throat Ripper? Sky Raider? Slashy McBurnburn? Come to think of it, I’ve seen far more menacing maws on many of my clients back in Unicornia than I’ve seen out here in the desert so far. It’s such a far cry from the mouths full of needles the Unicornia Day pageants had led me to expect that I’m wondering if they even eat meat at all.

“Well, peaceful or not, it’s good to know somepony when you’re in an unfamiliar place. It’s *YEEAHWN* nice to meet you,” I say, really starting to feel the hours I hadn’t exactly been sleeping. “Say, can any of you kids tell me what time it is?”

The filly, Dive Bomber, whips a miniature sundial out of a belt pouch, aligns it with what I can only assume is north, and says “It’s about… camel crap o’clock. Silver, we gotta get going. Dusty’s sister will make our skins into saddles if she doesn’t have him back by sundown. Here: You carry him on your back, I’ll help carry him from above.”

As they set about arranging this curious mode of transport, Silver Lining says “Sorry Miss Spice, but we have to go. Dusty’s sister can be a bit *oof* overprotective. Bye!”

And with that, they take off. Dive Bomber’s wings buzz like a saw in a lumber mill as Silver Lining gallops for all he’s worth.

Surveying the wreckage of my saddlebags, I still can’t quite bring myself to be mad at those three little pegasi. They may not be unicorns, but they’re still kids, and I am a sucker for kids. As wild and destructive as they can be, foals just have this creative spark to them that I find endlessly endearing. Maybe it reminds me a bit of myself. It helps that the little balls of chaos tend to be pretty adorable, too.

Speaking of balls of chaos, it seems like the crowd surrounding my cloudy pavilion is starting to thin out.

Not long after I notice that, a couple of familiar faces descend from the skies in front of me, carrying a waterskin. I guess I am starting to feel a little thirsty after telling that story. I think their names were Meddy Vac and Soothing… Balm… Oh-in-the-name-of-Topaz’s-yapping-dog, no.

“Please not her! I’ll do anything you want. Give you anything you want! I DON’T WANT TO BE DROPPED FROM THE SKY AGAIN!” I scream before covering my eyes with my legs and attempting to withdraw into my fluffy coat in a completely dignified fashion.

“Blistered frogs! I knew I should have swapped you for somepony competent before tending to her again,” I hear Meddy Vac say. “Figures she’d pick now to be awake.”

“While I still say I’m not at fault, I’ll admit it was not the wisest choice to bring me along,” the living bane of my existence says.

The calming breath Meddy takes as she walks up to me is easily audible.

“Hey,” she says in a softer tone, “Amber Spice? We’re not going to drop you through any more clouds.

“Here: We figured you’d be thirsty, so we brought some water for you.”

A little bit reassured, and a little more thirsty, I pull my pasterns away from my face to see a waterskin’s uncorked spigot hanging in front of my snout. I stretch my neck forward, latch onto the spout, and suck down water like a greedy piglet, my terror momentarily forgotten.

“Thanks,” I say a little weakly as my eyes pan the area to keep track of the pegasus who nearly killed me earlier. I spot her poking through the pile of my things those foals from earlier left behind.

“Looks like the Tornado Trio blew through here,” she says, only without any of the energy I’d expect from a natural disaster report.

“Augh! Those rambunctious ne’er-do-wells. What did they do this time?” Meddy whips her head toward Eerie Calm.

“The who now?” I butt in.

She snaps her head back to me.

“The Tornado Trio! Who else would it— Oh right, you’re new here…” she says, bringing a hoof to her face. “The Tornado Trio is what we call a certain group of foals. They’re made up of a grayish-brown colt, a silver colt, and a blue filly with a fiery red mane. They’re curious, they’re full of energy, and they’re about as destructive as their namesake.”

“Sounds about right,” I reply with a sigh. “They don’t seem to have much respect for personal space, either. Little hooves dancing on bruises can be pretty painful, turns out. Heh heh.”

“Speaking of bruises, part of our reason for coming right now is to check up on how you’re doing. As you’ve mentioned, you had quite the fall thanks to Balmy here, and you had been suffering from heat exhaustion besides. Luckily that insufferable ladies’ camel Carlyle broke your fall, so nothing important was damaged, but I still need to physically examine you to see if any problems developed while you were out. Now, how are you feeling?”

“Well,” I say, taking stock of myself, “I’m feeling a lot better than the first few times I woke up today. I was a little thirsty earlier, but I just emptied that waterskin so now that’s fine. My entire left side feels like one massive bruise, though.”

“Hmm. It makes sense that a fall like that would leave a mark, but I can’t see where the bruises are through your thick coat. You may want to get that sheared soon, by the way, unless it’s actually more like a camel’s coat and it’s helping you keep cool. We can figure that out later. Right now, though, I’m going to have to poke through your coat and gauge your reactions visually. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure. Go right ahead.”

This will not be fun.

“Okay. Now if you would please keep your eyes on my face so I can get a clear idea of where the bruising is.”

I comply, and then she starts prodding my side with the tip of her wing. Aside from the occasional flare of pain, it feels weird. It’s like I’m being poked with the side of a broom, but it’s being held there by a system of springs. And the broom is fuzzy.

“Well,” she says, “it’s not a single large bruise; it’s a collection of medium-sized ones. You’re in little danger of dying from internal bleeding, and they should all be healed within three weeks provided nopony does anything to make them worse.” Meddy snipes the other healer with a quick glare.

Knowing my luck, I’ll be sporting this contusion collection for years to come and I’ll be the only one to notice.

“I also checked your eyes and your body temperature, and you aren’t suffering from any serious aftereffects of a concussion. Your head landing on Carlyle’s hump must have absorbed a lot of the shock there.”

“I guess I owe that poor, hapless whatever-it-is—”

“Camel. He’s a camel.”

“That poor hapless camel a thank-you for saving my brain from gravity’s worst designs,” I say with downcast eyes as I gently kick some sand.

“Don’t thank him. He’d take you seriously, and then you’d never hear the end of it.”

Meddy fidgets her wings and taps her right hoof. “Okay, your exam is nearly complete. You’re definitely looking to be in better shape than you were right after your crash, but I still need to know if you can walk. If you can’t, that means I and Balmy will have to carry you again, and none of us want that.”

Did she just call me fat? Or maybe she just doesn't want to deal with a panicky passenger. I mean, I’m not that far off standard unicorn build.

Why’s she looking at me expectantly? Oh, right. Standing up now.

With some creaking and popping of joints long left unused, I cautiously rise to my hooves. “Okay, I’m up. Now what?”

“Now I want you to walk in a circle around your cushion three times.”

I do so, becoming less shaky with each lap.

“Looks like you can move under your own power. That’s good,” she says, looking a little relieved. “Now you may not have noticed from under your cloud canopy, but it’s getting a little late. Not late enough for most people to be asleep, but definitely late enough for them to start thinking about it. I’m not willing to release you from our care with a clean bill of health just yet, so we’re going to keep you under observation for the night. Since you can’t sleep on a cloud bed, this means going to a camel healing tent. It’ll be smelly, but it’ll be warm and it’ll be safe. Let’s get moving.”

“Wait!” I shout as she starts walking. “What about my things?”

A quick chuckle escapes her as she turns her head back to me and says, “They’ve already been taken care of,” gesturing behind me with a wing.

I turn to look, and she’s right. While I had been distracted by Meddy’s examination, Soothing Balm had apparently been putting my bags back in order. She had put them on her back beneath her wings, and there’s not a single trinket still lying in the sand. At least she’s efficient. Maybe a little too efficient.

I walk up alongside Meddy and start following her to the camel healing tents. Speaking of which…

“So, what’s a camel? I’ve seen a lot of them walking past today, and there was the one I crashed into, but that didn’t really tell me much about them.”

“There’s not really much to know about camels,” Meddy says. “They’re big, they’re hairy, they’re kind of smelly, they have toes instead of hooves, they can’t fly or cloudwalk, but they cut through the sands like a pony cuts through the skies. Ponies who aren’t you, at least.

“They don’t need much water between oases, their dung is so dry they can crap into a fire to keep it burning, and their urine comes out as a syrup thick enough to confuse for agave nectar, if you somehow missed the smell. Their coats range between offwhite and dark brown. Aside from that, they’re just folk like me and you. Maybe a bit more like you.”

“Also,” Soothing Balm the Pony Dropper says in her creepily emotionless voice, “camels are known for having cooler heads than the average pony. ‘Pegasi charge in where camels fear to tread,’ as they say. The Commander shouts an order, and you’re in the air, but if the Sheikh whispers a suggestion, you stop and listen.”

“So, the Sheikh is a camel and the Commander is a pegasus?” I ask, checking to see if I’m getting an idea of their social structure.

“Well, yes,” Meddy answers. “The rest of your questions will have to wait, though. We’re here.”

And so, after what appears to have been several minutes of walking and looking over my shoulder, we stop in front of a tent that’s a lot different from what I was expecting. I was expecting your typical triangular prism-shaped green cloth tent with four stakes, and maybe a couple of posts since there aren’t any trees around. You know, the kind a family might take camping in the woods. That’s… not what I’m seeing right now.

The best thing I can compare it to is a ginormous blanket fort, but that doesn’t really do the structure justice. For one thing, it’s huge. It’s about as big as an actual building. For another, it’s white with a big, slightly brownish red cross above its door flap.

“Right where it’s scheduled to be,” Meddy says with satisfaction. “Since we’ve gotten here right as they finished resetting it, we shouldn’t have any trouble snagging a good spot.”

“We?” I ask her as she opens the flap to let us all inside and I cast a nervous glance at Deadpan Murderdrop.

“Well, it’s hard to keep you under observation if we don’t come with you. Unless you mean…” She pauses a bit as her rolling eyes settle on my nervous expression and she smacks her face with a wing. “Soothing Balm, would you please find yourself a replacement and take the rest of the night off? You’re making the patient nervous.”

Zooming Bomb takes off my saddlebags and lazily, yet efficiently, salutes Meddy with a wing before flapping off into the darkening sky. Come to think of it, laziness and efficiency aren’t exactly mutually exclusive. Whatever the case, I’m breathing easier with Balmy the Butcher being elsewhere.

“As I was saying, let’s go inside and get us situated,” Meddy says before stepping back up to the tent flap to hold it open for me.

I could swear this tent is bigger on the inside. It very well might be, for all I know of pegasus magic, but I’ve never seen that kind of enchantment applied to anything much larger than my saddlebags. The first thing I notice after that is the floor: It’s made out of some kind of soft material that feels nice on my frogs. It’s fibrous, like fur, but the fibers seem too densely packed for that. That, and it has an intricate pattern of reds, browns, whites, and tans. I’ve never even seen a creature with that many colors in its coat at once, for that matter.

Actually, no. The first thing I notice is that Meddy wasn’t kidding about the place having an odor to it. It smells like someone tried to set up a distillery inside an outhouse, and I’m suddenly very glad I haven’t eaten all day. It’s also why I happen to be looking so closely at the floor right now. The smell drove me to instantly develop a keen interest in culture and decór, and most definitely did not nearly make me collapse in abject terror. Okay, I may have whinnied a little.

“Go ahead. Pick any cushion you like that’s not already taken and set yourself down,” Meddy says from behind me. “You’ll find they’re a bit oversized for you, but I think you can live with that. That is, unless you want to spend all night admiring the carpet.”

I walk up to a cushion near the entrance and the promise of fresh air and flop down on it. The cushions here are actually pretty nice: they’re even softer than the linen cushions I’ve had stuffed with hair from my own coat. I’ll have to ask them about it later… And speaking of asking questions, Meddy’s dancing from hoof to hoof like she has to use the little filly’s room.

“What?” I ask, wondering what could make her look anxious as Crunch working up the courage to ask me how to start the oven… again.

“So, about Soothing Balm. It seems like you and she got off on the wrong hoof with what happened this morning.”

You could say that. Being dropped nearly to my death by somepony in what I can only guess was an attempt to tenderize me for later consumption can do that to a relationship.

“As her coworker and her friend, though, I have to ask you to give her another chance,” she says, giving off an aura of wounded pride. “I know Soothing Balm comes off as a bit… odd, but she’s not a bad pony. I really don’t think she meant to drop you out of the sky like that. I mean really, who ever heard of a pony that couldn’t walk on clouds? Uh…” she says before noticing the sour look I’m giving her. “Except you, I guess.”

Huh. So pegasi can walk on clouds. As in literally walk on condensed water vapor. That seems like a pretty big thing to miss. It does explain some things, though.

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll give you that this situation is new and weird for everypony involved. Just please, for the love of Terra, ask me before doing something that might only work for pegasi.”

“I’ll try to do that,” she says, back to being professional.

“And one more thing,” I say as my eyes start to fall closed. “What are these cushions stuffed with?”

Meddy blinks a couple of times before answering. “Wool. Woollen batting.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I drift off to sleep surrounded by strange smells, idly wondering what clouds would feel like if I could touch them.

—_(\\_/\_//)_—

Horizon

“I swear, Rize. These double shifts of yours will be the end of me.”

“Then stop taking them, Sweep. Noone is asking you to go beyond the call of duty.”

“You first. Noone’s asking you, either.”

“Heh, fair enough. Let’s get some chow.”

A pair of guards had come to alert us a couple minutes ago that the caravan had stopped, so we could stop working for the night. There isn’t much use for a vanguard when nobody’s going forward, after all.

We swoop down to enter the chow tent. We’re pretty late, so there isn’t much of a line. I grab a pita and spoon some yogurt onto it along with some dates and seat myself on a cushion.

“Hey Rize, wanna split this with me?” Sweep asks, holding up a glass jar of milk in one wing. Before I can even properly nod yes, he’s already grabbed two mugs and started pouring. After that, he grabs a more generous portion of food for himself than what I’d taken and lies down on a cushion near mine.

“What a day we’ve had, eh?” Sweep asks between bites of his pickle-covered pita. “Sent one idiot into Terra’s firm embrace, only to scoop another one out of it.”

“A heavy idiot. I swear she weighs almost as much as the Sheikh’s favorite wife. Hope she recovers soon so nopony has to fly her around.”

“Wait. Did Horizon, captain of seriousness and grave outlooks, just tell another joke? One that didn’t even involve someone dying? Either your stone-faced façade is slipping, or my ears are playing tricks on me,” he says, making a show of flopping his ears about.

“I’d heard somewhere that bad jokes were a good way to drive off smart alecks. How’s it working so far?”

“Not very well. You’ll have to do better than that to get rid of me.”

We eat for a while in silence before I decide I don’t want any more of my yogurt pita.

“Huh. Today must have been special: You finished eating a full three quarters of your pita this time.”

“It’s been interesting, that’s for sure. Here. You want the rest?”

“Sure. You know what they say: To eat well is to live well.”

He munches thoughtfully on the last bits of my pita as I eat the last of my dates, before he speaks again. “Y’know, Rize, it’s looking like you’re taking a turn for the better. Call me a stupid optimist—”

“I often do,” I interject.

“—but maybe a change of pace is what you need to get your head screwed back on straight.”

“So… where are you going with this?”

“Oh, nowhere. I just figure they’re going to need somepony to keep an eye on her, and who better to saddle with that responsibility than the schmuck who brought her in in the first place?”

“You can’t be serious. I’ve already got an important, not to mention dangerous job keeping our forward skies clear of bandits. I’m not about to pawn that job off to some nugget who can’t even fly straight in their armor yet so I can go play babysitter.”

“Command will figure something out; they always do. Besides, who knows how dangerous your new friend might be? For all we know, she could be some kind of shapeshifter biding her time so she can cast some kind of mind control spell to enslave us all. Who knows what fell magics she could use that horn of hers for?”

“Sweep, you said yourself that she didn’t exactly seem like the conquering type,” I retort, rolling my eyes. “Besides, her horn doesn’t look sharp enough to pierce a pita, much less a pony in armor. Her two best plans of attack would likely be to scream her foes into submission, or to sit on them. Somepony else can take care of her fine; our front line needs me more.”

“Our front line that maybe sees a couple bandits in a week. You’re not wrong, though; we’ll probably be fine if you don’t take that responsibility for yourself,” he admits, idly twirling his mostly empty mug of milk. “I’m sure Blue Aegis would be more than happy to personally deal with the dangers she represents.”

Ugh, Terra smite me with her mighty wings. Oath or not, Blue Aegis is jumpier than a shrew five feet from a fennec when it comes to xenos. One wrong twitch, and Amber Spice will be dead before you can say “Blood in the sand.” Besides, maybe keeping watch over such a “dangerous” creature myself will get Aegis off my back.

I drain the rest of my mug before saying, “Okay, okay, you manipulative pile of horse apples, I’ll volunteer first thing in the morning. See you tomorrow, Sweep.”

“Good night to you too, Rize.”

I step out of the chow tent, about as well-fed as I feel like being, and take off to locate a good place to sleep for the night. One nice thing about my job as a guard is being permanently assigned to cloud detail. The idea is supposed to be that somepony on cloud detail would wake up and help if a nearby night guard got into a fight, but I don’t see that happening. Not even I sleep in my armor and weapons, so the most I’d be able to offer in a fight would be an unarmed flying tackle.

Still, even if I do get murdered in my sleep, at least I’ll have slept well.

After finding a good cloud to “guard,” I fly back down and disrobe, storing my arms and armor in my sack.

Sweep. Sweep always knows the right feathers to tweak to steer me where he wants. On the short term, anyway. He’s great at reading people, especially ponies, and he uses that talent to get people to help themselves as he sees fit. It’s a grating habit, but it usually turns out all right. Usually. Wish he wouldn’t go at everything sideways all the time, though.

I probably would have volunteered to look after Amber Spice regardless, once I’d muscled past my objections to letting some nugget fly into harm’s way in my place. They have to get hooves-on training somehow, right? Amber showing up is easily the most interesting thing that’s happened to this caravan in a long time, and she hasn’t even really done anything yet.

The moon is bright and high in the sky, dimming the stars with its pale glory, and the night guards are out in force as I fly back up, unburdened, to the cloud I chose before. It’s a bad night to be a bandit, and a good night to be part of the caravan.

So today I ran into something out of a fairy tale. A strange mare in strange clothes with a horn growing out of her head. Those stories talked about wizards and magical creatures with horns. The older ones usually ended poorly, but the newer ones didn’t always. None of them ever mentioned how heavy those creatures were, though.

Something out of a story is unfolding, and I’m going to be in the middle of it. Isn’t that something I always wanted as a colt? To charge into the unknown and be the star of my own tale? Who knows, it might even turn out more like one of the newer ones. Fairy Tails always liked the newer ones better.

Now, properly situated atop my cloud, I start to drift off to sleep, looking forward to the stories tomorrow might bring.

969 views