• Published 16th Aug 2015
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Land of the Blind - Cold in Gardez



A prince and a young mare go in search of a legendary cure. Finding it is the least of their challenges.

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Chapter 3: Down the River

Foxglove woke with the first light of dawn. Given that it was the height of summer, she suspected the rest of the palace wouldn’t rise for several more hours. Only guards and servants would be up this early. Guards, servants, and those rare earth ponies like her, used to life in a farming village but transplanted into the capitol, where things moved at an altogether different tempo. Slower to start in the morning, but frantic and heartless when they finally got going.

At least her bed was nice. It was easily four times the size of hers in Rivervale, and she didn’t know what to do with all the space. Sleep in the center? Sleep near the edge? She spent half the night rolling restlessly between spots.

The dawn came as a relief, and she could stop pretending to sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Memories plagued her through the night, of her panicked search for Anise and the brutal, sickening fight with Hyperion and his guards. But most of all she dreamed of the queen. She dreamed she shared her bed with a dark, screaming form, all alight with azure flames. Those lovely sparks entranced her, and she lay beside them in fascination, even as the covers and bed and room caught fire and burned, and her along with them.

The weak gray light of morning peeked around the embroidered curtains like a rescuer’s lantern. She let out a shaking sigh when it greeted her, and she crawled out of bed. This took some time and effort, as she had migrated to the center of the mattress in her restless slumber, and getting to the edge required her to stand up and walk across the covers.

She skipped over the cold floor and sat on a nice thick rug in front of an ornate mirror as tall as she. The damage from yesterday seemed even worse now: both her eyes were bruised and swollen, an empty socket took a tooth’s place in her lower jaw, and her left ear felt stiff whenever she moved it. A ragged white scar ran across its base.

Just how bad was that fight? She didn’t remember much, just a frenzied blur of heat and hate and pain. And joy – above all joy burned in her heart when she heard the prince scream. She focused on that memory and doubled over as a wave of nausea burbled up from her stomach. She concentrated on her breathing until the urge to vomit on the silk rug passed.

Getting back to sleep didn’t seem likely, so Foxglove meandered into the suite’s attached bathroom. She’d washed in there the previous night, and the bloody residue of her shower still speckled the porcelain tub. She frowned at the pink smears and twisted the faucet to wash them away.

If the rest of the palace wasn’t awake yet, it meant she had plenty of time to soak. She used the time to think about her sister and whether Anise was soaking in a similar tub somewhere in the labyrinthian palace. Perhaps she had already adapted to the city’s timetable, and was still happily asleep. It occurred to Foxglove that she would never see her sister’s face again, or marvel at the combination of her green mane and peach coat. She would never see her smile.

But she would hear her laugh, and hold her, and drink in her scent. They would be together. The Panacea would not take that away.

“Don’t worry, Anise. I’ll find you.” She mouthed the words to herself, over and over.

In time she drained the tub and dried herself off with one of the dozens of enormous towels piled on the racks, any of which could have mummified her from snout to tail. When her coat was dry and didn’t smell like soap, she gave her mane a casual brush and stepped out the door.

A pair of guards awaited her. They seemed attentive and curious, but not hostile. As far as she could see they had no weapons. If Hyperion was true to his word, she could walk past them out the doors of the palace and be on her way.

And the result would be the same. She would never see her sister again. She closed her eyes.

“Please tell Prince Hyperion that I accept his offer.”

That said, she turned and went back into her room.

* * *

It took less than twenty minutes for Prince Hyperion to come knocking at her door. The fact that he bothered to knock surprised her, seeing as how she had just indentured herself into his service. But knock he did, and a second later the door swung open on oiled hinges.

He stepped in and stopped just past the threshold. A tan cotton cloak accented his blue coat nicely and wouldn’t have seemed out of place in most town markets. Some thin sword hung from his saddlebags, and if it weren’t for the dappled spots running up his chest and neck she might have mistaken him for some rich merchant or minor noble rather than a prince.

But then she saw his eyes and the arch of his neck and the haughty expression on his face, and nopony could deny the royal blood in his veins. He could be naked, chained, in mud, and still he would wear that imperious mein.

He cleared his throat, and she realized she was staring. She snorted and shook her head. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you were ready to go.”

“Already? The sun’s barely up. I thought unicorns preferred to sleep in.”

“I’m a light sleeper.” His horn glowed, and her saddlebags, stuffed with provisions for the trip, floated over to her.“And we have a long way to go and not much time.”

She followed him out into the corridor. The palace was starting to wake, and she could smell the scent of baking bread drifting from one of the kitchens. The two guards stationed outside her room stood straighter as the prince walked past, but to her surprise they stayed in place.

“Wait… we?”

“Well, I can hardly send you to the Wildlands by yourself.” The prince’s mouth twisted, as if biting a lemon. “You’d never make it back after crafting the Panacea.”

“Your concern is touching. But why you? The Wildlands are dangerous, and you have an entire army.”

“The army is busy. I sent some ponies on ahead. We’ll meet with them on the way.”

“Fair enough. But why you, specifically? Why not send me with that guard from yesterday?”

They took several more steps down the hall before he answered. “I’m the one forcing you to do this. It’s only fair that I accompany you.”

“Ah. How noble.”

She must not have sounded sincere, for he gave her a small frown. They didn’t speak for the rest of the walk through the palace.

The city was already awake. Merchants busied themselves in the endless rows of storefronts and crowded markets. The entire town of Rivervale could vanish inside a single city block here, and no one would know it had arrived except for the sudden intrusion of earth ponies’ particular scent. All her life it had been the scent of hard work and effort, but in her experience most unicorns turned up their noses at it. They liked to pretend their sweat didn’t stink.

But the capital certainly did. Nearly a million ponies lived within its walls or spilled out onto the floodplain beyond. It was the largest city in the world, or at least as far as she knew, and it stank with the effluent of a million bodies flowing through its ancient, creaking sewers. It stank with the rubbish of the markets and the massive piles of garbage waiting to be carted out to the landfill. But most off all it stank of the river, the bloated, muddy flow that split the land in two. Even from here, miles away, she smelled the peculiar mix of mud and decaying vegetation and swamp gas the river carried with it across a thousand-mile run.

It reminded her of Rivervale. She let out a quiet breath and hurried to catch up with the prince, who pulled away while she woolgathered.

The area around the palace housed the richest of the city’s residents – virtually all unicorns. She thought she saw an earth pony once, but a second glance revealed a servant following his master, a load of bags heaped on his back. In fact, few ponies they passed seemed to give her any thought. They likely assumed she was a creature of the prince’s. She scowled and stepped ahead, making sure to bump his shoulder with hers.

His step stuttered, more in surprise than anything else, and he arched an eyebrow in her direction. “Everything alright?”

“Peachy. Where are we going? The road to Rivervale is out the south gate.” While most the ingredients for the Panacea could be found within the Wildlands, she still needed some from her own stores, along with specialized tools. Hopefully the prince hadn’t forgotten that.

“Yes, and if we were walking, that is the path we would take. However, as I am a pony of some means, I have managed to secure actual transportation for us.”

She sniffed at the air again. One stink had risen above the others, and she wrinkled her muzzle. “We’re taking a boat?”

“Yes. It’ll get us to Rivervale and then onward to the Wildlands in three days or so. We’d need a week to walk that far.”

She frowned. “I don’t like boats.”

“You’d rather walk?”

“Can we?”

“No, it was a rhetorical question. Now come on, they’re waiting for us.”

The trekked the rest of the way in silence. The prince, accustomed to the flow of the crowded streets, stepped between and around the thousands of ponies like a dancer. It helped that many recognized him, or realized he was some sort of nobility, and gave him space to pass.

She received no such deference. They pushed past her, bumped into her, or worst of all ignored her. They turned up their noses, and when she brushed against them they wiped at their coats in disgust.

And to think, she could live here too, if she accepted the prince’s reward. The thought left a sneer on her face as she bulled through the morass to keep pace with him.

The boat waiting on the pier had pretensions to shiphood, but for all its graceful lines and soaring bridge high above the water line it remained a river boat, driven by a pair of huge paddlewheels on either side of the hull. Unity was printed in flowing script across the bow just above the royal crest. It seemed they were taking the pride of the Equestrian navy for this voyage.

A unicorn waited for them atop the gangplank. He wore a dark-blue jacket studded with brass buttons and made a show of bowing as the prince set hoof onto the deck. Beside him, a grizzled earth pony with a raindrop cutie mark ducked his head as his only show of respect.

“My lord!” The unicorn cried. “Welcome aboard. It’s a pleasure to host you again so soon.”

“You’re too kind, captain,” the prince replied. Gone was the moody, serious air she associated with him. He seemed a different pony, bright and chipper, a smile on his face. “Thank you for making room for us on your schedule. I know this is a busy time of the year.”

“We serve the crown, your highness. Please, let me show you to your quarters.” He glanced at Foxglove, as if noticing her for the first time. “We’ll clear a space for your servant in the galley. Quite comfortable bunks there.”

Hyperion stepped in front of her before she could fling the captain over the edge of his own boat. “That’s quite kind of you, captain, but Miss Foxglove is my guest. If you would be so kind as to deliver another bunk to my quarters, she’ll be staying with me.”

The captain blinked at this, but after a moment a wide smile broke out on his face. “Oh, I understand sir. Very good, of course. I won’t say a word to the others.” He ended with a showy wink, and waved the earth pony at his side off to do the prince’s bidding.

She could throw them both overboard, Foxglove reasoned. But that would only delay their trip, and probably result in her sleeping on the deck, so instead she merely glared at the back of the captain’s skull and tried to set his mane on fire with her gaze.

* * *

The Unity floated on the murky river with the ponderous grace of a dead log. Even with both her boilers steaming at full power to spin her massive wheels she sailed no faster than a pony moving at an ambling walk. It took more than an hour for the boat to escape the city limits, and that was moving with the current. Smaller boats, crewed by earth ponies trawling with nets or pushing at the river bottom with long poles, darted around them like insects on a pond.

The prince vanished as they got underway, but Foxglove opted for the deck. It was hard enough to tolerate the swaying of the boat beneath her, but to do so from inside a cabin, with a tiny porthole her only window on the world, twisted her stomach and threatened to spill her breakfast all over the neatly washed planks. Instead she leaned over the railing, where the ghostly breeze offered some relief from the churn of the river.

Sailors scurried around her, their coats stained black with soot from engines, darkest on their faces except for shocking rings of color around their eyes. Earth ponies, all of them, and they laughed and cursed and spat over the side as they worked. They stank of coal and sweat, even above the fetid river, and every single one worked with a smile. Foxglove glanced back at the receding docks, the last bit of the capital that clung to the river like a fungus as it wormed its way south. The unicorns there, the millions of them, how many smiles did they wear? She barely saw any during her short stay in the city.

Short, and never again repeated. She turned back to the countryside drifting by at the river’s languid pace. Plantations, the rich pony’s version of a farm, sprawled out over the land south of the capital, interrupted by towns that straddled the water every mile or so. Stately manors, whitewashed and drizzled with ivy, glowered down at her from the high hills. The city’s riches leaked out from the seams and were gobbled up here before they could reach the distant villages.

The sun was halfway to noon, and already the daylight sizzled on her back. The tar slathered on the Unity’s hull dripped in rivulets to the deck. Ravens cawed at the passing boat from the shady boughs of the trees, and even the insects seemed cowed by the blazing heat. The cicadas’ buzz barely reached her ears above the weak breeze.

It was nice. She took a deep breath, letting the hot air sear her lungs, and then slowly exhaled.

The background murmur of the sailors faded, leaving only the engine’s chug and the lap of the river. She turned to see the prince standing a few feet away, leaning against the railing like her. The crew detoured around them.

She nodded. “Prince Hyperion.”

He returned the nod. So very polite. “Miss Foxglove. Are you feeling any better?”

“Who said I was feeling bad?”

“Forgive the observation, but you’re still a bit bruised from yesterday’s tussle.” He turned to watch the riverbank sliding by. “To be fair, so am I. Your potion was rather effective.”

She snorted. “Not effective enough.”

“It gave you the strength to take on four stallions, all of them trained for combat. If Champron hadn’t been there, I think you would have killed us all.” He raised a hoof and tilted it back and forth. “Of course, that wouldn’t have ended well for you either.”

“I wouldn’t have killed you.” She tasted bile in the back of her throat and tried to swallow it. What else would she have done? The joy she felt when she crushed the prince’s ribs, the way each one popped lit her brain with a euphoric spike, better than sex. No, she would have killed him, and it would have been the greatest ecstasy she’d ever felt.

She pondered that. Prince Hyperion was politely silent while she vomited over the railing.

“Seasick? It happens to some ponies,” he finally said.

“Yeah, sure.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof. “Seasick. What brings you out into the sun, prince? Shouldn’t you be lounging in your cabin?”

“You know, I feel like I haven’t seen the sun enough, lately. Too much time in dark rooms.” He closed his eyes and turned his head up to the sky, letting the sun wash over his face. The shadow of his horn ran down his muzzle.

“You’ll bleach your coat if you stay out here too long. Turn drab and colorless as an earth pony.”

His turn to snort. “Now you’re just being difficult. You have this image of unicorns as selfish bigots. That we rule without even noticing the earth ponies who toil to feed us.”

“Am I wrong?”

“I won’t lie. There are many unicorns who think that way, some of them in my own family. But there are plenty who don’t, who see the common thread that binds us. I don’t believe earth ponies are brutes only good for hard labor. I’ve encountered many who are masters of their craft, as skilled with their hooves as any unicorn could be with their horn. Earth ponies who can work magic.”

“Like me?” She spat into the river to clear the last of the sick from her mouth.

“Yes. You, or Wheat Husk, or any of the great alchemists.”

“Mm. You said, when we met, that I was the greatest alchemist alive. Do you remember that, prince?”

His ear flicked. “I do.”

“And when you found this great earth pony alchemist, the mare who had something you wanted, what did you decide to do to her, prince? When you weighed her life against your wants, which did you find more valuable?”

He scrunched his eyes shut. “Can we not have this conversation every time we speak, Foxglove? I can’t explain myself any further than I have, and you cannot change my mind. Let us, at least, speak of other things.”

“Fine. This trip, then. We’re stopping in Rivervale?”

“You said you had some of the ingredients for the Panacea. I assume they’re at your home.”

“My workshop,” she correct. They were the same thing, of course, but she had some professional pride. “There are tools I’ll need as well. And supplies for the Wildlands.”

“Hm.” He was quiet for a few breaths. “You’ve done this before? Trips to the Wildlands?”

“Yeah. They’re not too dangerous if you’re careful. Three days should be enough for us to…” She paused, her mouth twisting. To get what we want, she was about to say. Hardly accurate under the circumstances. “To find the remaining ingredients.”

“And then a few days to get back out.”

She shook her head. “Just one, since we won’t be searching for anything on the way out. It would be even faster if you left me.”

He flinched, followed by a severe frown. “I thought we agreed to speak civilly with each—”

“I’m not trying to provoke you, prince. I am being serious – if you need to get the Panacea back to your mother as quickly as possible, it would make sense to leave me behind. Leading a blind mare through the Wildlands is not a quick proposition.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll not leave a pony to die because of my actions.”

It took all her will not to fire back at his smug self-assurance. “If you say so, prince.”

She knew a lie when she heard one.

* * *

The Unity arrived in Rivervale in the late afternoon. Fishers and river trawlers rushed to maneuver their tiny boats away from the pier as it pulled up, its wake nearly swamping them as it passed. A crowd of earth ponies gathered at the end of the dock and watched the crew fasten the boat to the mooring posts. Overhead, the town’s few pegasi swooped in lazy arcs or stooped over the river to dangle their hooves in the water.

“Making a bit of a scene,” Foxglove observed. She gazed at the crowd, picking out the faces of her friends and neighbors. “Perhaps a smaller boat would have been wise?”

“And deny these ponies an exciting story to tell their foals? I think not,” Hyperion said. He stood beside her, his cloak fastened around his neck and the hood covering his mane. It must have been roastingly hot, but aside from a sheen of sweat on his exposed coat he seemed unbothered.

The crew was quick. The boat bumped up against the dock once, twice, and they had it secure. The gangplank went down, and a scrum of sailors descended onto the pier with boxes and bags lashed to their backs. Hyperion waited for the initial buzz of activity to fade, then led the way down the plank. The villagers kept a curious distance from him but shied away as she stepped onto the hard-packed dirt. Within moments the wharf was deserted. Ponies peeked at them from windows and dark doorways.

“Friendly bunch,” Hyperion said. “Are they always so skittish?”

“Well, two days ago my sister was arrested for practicing dark magic, and suddenly I arrive in town with a unicorn prince,” Foxglove said. “I can’t imagine why they would be wary.”

“Hm.” Hyperion gave the town a little frown. “No matter. The sooner we collect your things, the sooner we can be gone.”

“How exciting.” Foxglove pushed past him a bit more force than necessary. He stumbled and looked ready to retort, but by then she was already several steps down the road. She heard him snort and hurry to catch up.

The village was not just a collection of houses and shops bunched around the main road – farms spilled out for miles, dotted by ranches and homesteads like Foxglove’s home. Fields and rows of trees hid them from view, and only the low buzz of the town’s market reached them as Foxglove pushed open her door.

“I need to mix some ingredients,” she said. She pulled off her saddlebags and dropped them on the salesroom counter. “Grab all the healing potions. They’re the red ones with the gold foil on the stoppers.”

“What about these others? Do we need them?” Hyperion stopped beside the shelves, scanning them with the light of his horn. None were labelled, and the murky, shifting fluids within gave no hint to their purpose.

She shook her head. “Those are all for household use. Nothing we need where we’re going.”

“You hide the stronger potions elsewhere, I take it?”

“I keep them somewhere safe.” She walked over to the bookshelf, searching for the collection of loose-leaf pages containing the Panacea recipe. Somepony had moved it, and when she found it she could smell Anise’s scent on the pages. The foolish filly’s curiosity had no doubt overcome Foxglove’s warnings. She scowled as she pulled them out, and then took them into the next room.

The workshop was a mess. The stills, bowls, mortars and flasks she’d used to craft the Stoneskin and Ogre’s Strength elixirs lay strewn atop the stone table in the room’s center. She hadn’t even bothered to clean after brewing them, just poured them into a bottle and ran out the door with murder on her mind.

So foolish. She stared at the filthy tools, their insides black with dried fluids, and for a moment the heat she’d felt, the hate, flooded her chest. It bubbled up from her heart, into her throat, choking her. Her hoof lashed out, sweeping the instruments off the table with a clatter, and she slapped the recipe onto the stone. The fragile binding tore, and they fluttered apart, coming to rest scattered every which way.

It didn’t matter. She memorized the formula years ago.

She collected a clean set of beakers and the few ingredients she needed from the root cellar beneath her yard. When she returned, Hyperion stood near the doorway. He made no move to approach the table, and his eyes darted up from the mess on the floor.

“Is there a problem?”

“Of course not.” She set an earthenware bowl on the table, gently this time, and carefully laid out a series of small pouches beside it. “Start a fire, would you?” She flicked an ear toward the hearth behind them.

He hesitated, and his lips parted, but whatever he planned to say died within him. He shrugged and trotted over to the hearth with a spark on the tip of his horn.

In addition to its exotic ingredients, the Panacea required an odd mix of common plants and refined compounds. She opened the first pouch and poured a half-dozen dried thistles into the bowl. They skittered on their spines, dancing around like spiders. Next she added the crow’s bones, and the sea salt and the snake’s shed skin and the bark of a willow tree. Then she grasped a heavy stone pestle in her hooves and crushed them all together. She smashed and smashed at them until her breath came in ragged gasps and sweat streaked her coat and half the ingredients spilled out onto the table.

Hyperion was staring at her. She could feel his gaze. Focusing on her breath, she set the pestle down and peered into the bowl. A sickly yellow paste flaked with spots of green filled the bottom and smeared the sides. She rubbed a bit on the tip of her hoof and tested its flavor with her tongue. Greasy, meaty, foul.

Perfect. Hyperion gagged.

“You’re going to see much worse on this trip, prince,” she said. She wiped her hoof clean on her chest and used a spoon to measure the residue into a pair of small vials. It was far more than she needed for a single Panacea potion, but experience had taught her to bring extra on excursions into the Wildlands.

She put one vial in her saddlebags and passed the other to the prince. “You keep this one. Try not to lose it.”

“I’ll do my best.” He made an effort to sound civil. “Anything else?”

“Let me grab a few things. A few personal things. I’ll meet you outside.”

If the dismissal offended the prince, he didn’t show it. Instead he gave her a curt nod and retreated into the storefront. A moment later Foxglove heard the chime of the bell above her door.

She waited to make sure he was really gone. When he didn’t return, she collected the scattered pages of the Panacea recipe and tossed them into the fire. The old parchment caught instantly, and within seconds nothing remained but embers. She watched them burn to make sure.

She would never see her workshop again. Another item on the list. And in a few minutes they would walk through the town, board the prince’s boat, and she would never see Rivervale again. She would never see the river, or the sun, or the trees, or the way the wind blew through the tall grass outside her home, making it dance like the ocean’s waves. She would see the prince, her last pony, and then darkness.

The ember in her heart seethed. She let the breath hiss out between her clenched teeth.

She spun away from the fire and stormed out the workshop, shattering an errant flask with a stomp of her hoof.

* * *

She settled on the stern of the boat as it pulled away from Rivervale. The Unity’s wake turned the muddy river into a bubbling froth that trailed into the distance behind them. From her vantage point she saw the hovels grow smaller, indistinct in the summer haze, until a bend in the river finally hid them from view. A lonesome, rickety pier, jutting out into the water, was the last shred of Rivervale to vanish. Crows perched on its moorings, and she heard their cawing long after the village passed out of sight.

And that was it. She would never see Rivervale again, or her neighbors or friends or second cousins or old lovers. She closed her eyes and pictured their faces, but found them already indistinct, generic, blurred.

“Already lost,” she mumbled.

It was twilight when the prince rejoined her. He’d shed his cloak and leaned against the railing, eyes closed, head back, letting the wind tease his mane. The setting sun’s orange glow complemented the dappled spots that ran up his chest and neck. She imagined many mares would kill to be in her spot, spending time with a bachelor prince.

“Is there a particular reason you keep chasing me down?” she asked.

“We’re going to be spending quite a bit of time together soon,” he said. “May as well get used to it.”

“Or enjoy being alone while we can.”

He cracked an eye open. “Do you want me to go?”

She frowned and held her tongue. Lately every moment with the prince had descended into a verbal sparring match, and while that was better than actual fighting, it wasn’t conducive to the sort of partnership they would need to survive in the Wildlands. They had to trust each other.

So, civility. “I don’t mind.”

He nodded and closed his eyes again. She followed his gaze toward the setting sun, now brushing against the tips of the trees lining the distant river bank. It was warm on her face, despite the late hour, and she closed her eyes as well, letting the heat seep into her muscles. The churn of the boat’s wake drowned out other sounds, even the grumble of the engine, and it was easy to imagine herself back in the village on some nameless summer night, waiting for the day to end and the fun to begin.

A faint jolt shook the boat, waking her from the dream, and a moment later a bobbing log drifted past. She gave it a small frown and turned back to the sun, now half-eclipsed by the horizon.

“In ancient times, ponies thought the sun and moon and stars needed magic to move,” Hyperion said quietly. “That without it, they would stick in the sky. Forever day or forever night.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad. Sun always high, forever summer.”

“Every earth pony I tell that story to says the same thing. Why?”

“It’s perfect.” She stretched her neck, trying to catch the last of the sun’s rays on her face. “The summer is when we live, prince. Everything is at its greatest in summer. Our crops choke the fields. The forests burst. The day seems to last forever, and at night, our blood boils for each other. How could you want anything else?”

“The pegasi do. They tell me of endless nights, brilliant with the moon, the earth swaddled in snow. They say the air is so heavy in winter they can glide for days without flapping their wings. They lick the frost from each others feathers and say it tastes like diamonds.”

“Hm.” Foxglove puffed out her cheeks in a huff. She hated winter, it’s chill, its darkness. The weak sun that rose and set in the span of a few hours. Ice that clawed at her hooves. “And what about unicorns, prince?”

“Just like this, I think. Forever twilight. The sun warm but not burning. The moon awake but not alone.” He flicked an ear up at the waxing gibbous moon. It had risen hours before and stood near the top of the sky, a bright oval against the dark-blue vault of heaven. “Some unicorns say magic is strongest at times like this. I don’t know if they’re right, but it feels more powerful. Like everything is aligned in the world. Earth, sun and moon.”

“And stars.” Foxglove turned to the east, the darkest part of the sky. It was nearly black now, and speckled with faint twinkling lights.

“And stars,” he added, turning to the east. “They’ll be out soon, too, and the sky will be complete.”

Foxglove turned that sentence over in her mind, her tongue carefully still. She glanced at the prince out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring into the east.

“Soon indeed,” she said.

They fell into silence after that. In time, the sun set, and sailors set lanterns on the lines running abreast the ship. They chased away the darkness, and a spotlight on the prow illuminated the river’s easy bends. The ship never slowed.

“Well, I think I’m going to retire,” Hyperion said. “Staying up?”

She should be with Anise, getting her ready for bed. Or perhaps escorting her sister to the night’s bonfires, whispering in her ear to have fun, but above all to make smart choices. And then she herself might seek out a different sort of company, one to make the night memorable.

She sighed. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

The prince’s cabin was luxurious by nautical standards, but would barely qualify for a closet back at the palace. Foxglove’s own bedroom in Rivervale was larger. A tiny desk huddled against the bulkhead beside a sturdy bunk that folded down from the wall, and a sailor had stashed a small cot for her in the remaining floorspace.

So much for privacy. She pulled the blankets off and shoved them under the cot – it was too hot for them anyway. Her saddlebags were already on the desk, and she nosed through them quickly to make sure the crew hadn’t misplaced anything. Satisfied, she slumped onto the cot, her back toward the prince’s bunk.

“Goodnight, Hyperion.”

“Goodnight, Foxglove.” The wood squeaked as Hyperion climbed into his bed, and the room fell into darkness as he snuffed the lantern.

It was a long while before she found any sleep.

* * *

They spent three days on the river.

It grew as they steamed south. Tributaries spilled in from the sides, adding their muddy waters to the great flow, until the banks stretched so far apart that at night the ship's lanterns could no longer reach them. They may as well have been floating on calm, brown sea.

With each morning's light the banks returned, overflowing with towering sycamores and honeysuckles dipping their leaves in the froth. Birds warbled in the branches, stretching their wings to catch the ray, and as the mists vanished they took flight, often circling over the boat for hours, waiting for sailors to toss last night’s leavings overboar.

Towns and villages dotted the banks, and ponies worked the fields stretching into the distance. But the spaces between towns grew, and the fallow land expanded between the farms and orchards. They were coming, Foxglove knew, to the edge of the world.

The world didn't actually end, of course. Even after the last pony town and the cobbled road vanished beneath the dirt, the world extended on infinitely. But outside Equestria the world was a wild place, lawless, overrun with chaos and nature. Out there lived gryphons and dragons maybe even zebras, if the old legends were true. She'd never met any of them, but sometimes, on lonely winter nights, pegasi wanderers would stop by in Rivervale to warm their bones, and they would share tales of the wonders they saw in the greater world. Floating cities, basilisks, dreamoras, glaciers so large they seemed like oceans. Compared with those explorers, ponies like the prince lived in tiny, circumscribed worlds, little fish swimming in a puddle, unaware of the forest around them.

And she wasn't much different, Foxglove conceded. Her trips to the Wildlands aside, she was a creature of Rivervale and the sprawling demesne of the earth ponies. Even her apprenticeship with Wheat Husk had taken her no more than twenty leagues from home.

A change in the engine's timbre woke Foxglove on the morning of the third day. She lifted her head, befuddled, and saw that Hyperion was already gone, his bunk folded against the wall and his saddlebags missing from their cubby hole.

She scowled at the sight. Some perverse bit of earth pony pride insisted that she be the first of them to wake, but every morning he somehow ruined it. It was as if he never actually slept, just laid down in his bunk for a few hours. She shook her head, snagged her saddlebags in her teeth, and stomped out the door to find him.

The ship buzzed with activity. Half the crew raced around the deck, hauling ropes or baskets or odd nautical instruments she had no hope of identifying. She spotted Hyperion standing near the prow with the captain, and past them, at the edge of the river, was a town she recognized immediately, though she had never seen it from this angle.

Precipice was the last town in the kingdom. It grew up the side of tall, earthen bluffs that towered over the river like cliffs. Stairs wound their way down to the river and its network of piers, all crowded with boats. Pegasi ignored the stairs, flitting up and down from the river to the high town, dangling fish-filled nets from their legs or pushing clouds between the homes like Foxglove would push a cart. A small herd of fillies shrieked and giggled as they danced over the water like dragonflies, zipping past the Unity and racing each other to the dockside. A few alighted on the ship's smokestacks, sticking their faces in the belching smoke until it turned them black, and then laughing as they dove into the river to wash the soot away.

As far as Foxglove knew, Precipice was the only ground-bound town dominated by pegasi. Most of their kind preferred the drifting cloud cities of their ancestors, or roosted in the mountains overlooking the capital. But out here, on the edge of the kingdom, the weather was an unruly thing, even for pegasi, and clouds could not be trusted for permanent habitation. They might dissolve in the summer heat, or break apart like frozen cotton in the depths of winter. And so the pegasi of Precipice built their homes into the cliffside over the river, which was tall enough to suite their needs. Flat plains extended past the cliffs, giving the pegasi a wide view of the far marches.

Foxglove smiled – it was impossible not to smile around pegasi. They always seemed so light hearted, as if the troubles of the world could not tangle them. They were free in a way that other ponies could never be. And for all that they lived high above, they never looked down on earth ponies in the same way unicorns did.

“Good morning,” Hyperion said as she approached the rail. “Sleep well?”

Her smile vanished.

“Not as well as you, it seems,” she said. “Are we stopping here?”

“We are.” He motioned with his hoof down the river. “This is the last port before the river becomes unnavigable.”

“Rapids and waterfalls,” the captain said. “Can’t challenge them with a ship this large.” He peered over the rail as the Unity drew closer to the pier. When they were within a few yards he shouted back at a sailor, and the crew tossed lines down to the dockworkers below.

“We’re on hoof from here,” Hyperion said. His horn glowed, adjusting his saddlebags on his back. “Have everything you need?”

“Ah.” She swallowed soundlessly. The past three days, stuck on the swaying boat with only the prince and the crew for company, had grated on her, but now she found herself suddenly wishing for more time. Anything to delay the journey through the Wildlands and its inevitable end. “I suppose I do.”

The air beneath the cliffs was still cool as they ascended the stairs to Precipice. Banks of mist floated across the river, occasionally enveloping the Unity and the ponies scuttling around it and turning them into faint dots of color swimming in the gray. Pegasi foals tore through the fog with their wings, shredding it into strips that slowly sank to the water and dissolved.

The town was built on wood platforms jutting from the cliffside over the water. Thick cypress struts held the entire affair aloft, and the stairs wound around and and up them. The mists beaded on the wood and fell like rain around them.

Finally, they reached the top of the cliff, and the world spread out before them. The sun, fat and red, floated just above the horizon, slowly burning away the mists that covered the vast plains to the west. Faintly, at the edge of her sight, Foxglove saw a green line lying beyond the plains.

The Wildlands. A day’s walk, if they started now. Her legs, cramped and stiff from their confinement on the boat, longed to break into a run.

A rustle of wings caught her ear, and she looked up to see a gaggle of pegasi perched on the rooftops, their wings spread wide to catch the sun’s first light. Precipice’s houses were tall and thin, the opposite of the earth pony ranches Foxglove knew so well, but they had an odd grace to them. They seemed to reach for the sky in a way that the unicorn cities, for all their spires and towers, could not.

“Last chance,” Hyperion said. He’d strapped a canteen around his saddlebags, and his rapier in its sheath. “Anything else you need from the town? I’m sure I can requisition it.”

“Just…” She stopped and frowned. “Wait, it’s just us?”

“Yes. The boat will wait here for our return. If we’re not back within two weeks, they’ll send a party out to search for us.”

“You said there’d be more. You can’t go by yourself!”

“I’m not. I’ll have you.” Hyperion started walking down the road away from Precipice. Overhead, a few pegasi soared in lazy spirals, but they seemed more concerned with finding early thermals than the two ponies beneath them. “And the situation changed. It’s not… necessary to have anypony else with us.”

“But—” She darted forward and stopped in front of him, blocking the road. “Why? There are monsters in there, prince. I know my way around. I can avoid them, but not with you tagging along. Why can’t we bring help?”

He stepped around her. “Are you sure you just don’t want to be alone with me?”

She fought back the urge to snap at him as he passed. He must have sensed her intent, for his ears folded and his muscles tensed, but he kept walking nevertheless.

“Coming?” he asked, after a few steps. “I’ll tell you more later.”

The cobblestone road faded into a dirt path barely wide enough for a cart just outside Precipice. Pegasi had little need for roads, and this far from the capital most travel was by the river. The miles passed quickly beneath their hooves, and though Foxglove kept pestering him over the lack of an escort or guard, he only commented on the surrounding prairie in reply. Frustrating, but hardly the worst she’d dealt with from the prince, and by the time the sun reached its zenith she resolved to let the topic lie for now.

They saw no other ponies, not even pegasi. Precipice marked the furthest edge of the kingdom, and they were officially beyond Equestria’s borders. For all that, the endless grasslands around them smelled the same, and the sun beating down on their backs felt just like it did in Rivervale. If anything, the heat here was drier, less oppressive. It dried her lips and parched her tongue, but she could breath without feeling like she was drowning.

It was nice. She glanced over to see how Hyperion fared. He had the thin cotton hood of his tunic pulled over his horn, shading his face, but aside from a few sweat stains along his barrel he seemed unbothered by the heat. Not so soft as she’d feared, then.

The green line on the horizon slowly grew. It swept out to either side, crawling up the distant mountains which barely contained it. Giant thunderheads churned overhead, white as cotton on top and dark as slate beneath. They roiled the sky like waves. As the day wore on and the afternoon faded to dusk, the clouds flashed with heat lightning. Muffled thunder, distant and uncertain, rolled across the plains toward them.

“Those are… clouds? They’re huge,” Hyperion ventured during one of their short watering breaks. He squinted at the bright sky. “They’re larger than the mountains.”

“Real clouds are, yeah.” Foxglove took a sip from her canteen. “Pegasi keep them away from the kingdom. Say they’re dangerous.”

“I believe it. Think it’s going to rain on us?”

Foxglove glanced at the grass around them. It was dry and yellow and showed no signs of recent watering. “I doubt it.”

“Huh.” He stared at the blazing clouds for another moment, then resumed his walk.

In time, the prairie gave way to stands of short birch trees braced against the winds. As they drew closer to the Wildlands, the dry grass began to green, growing taller with each mile until it brushed against their bellies where the trail narrowed. Other trees – dusty poplars and olives – joined the birch in woods that stretched across acres before giving way once again to the grasses. Swallows darted between the islands, twisting in flight to snap up invisible insects.

They made camp for the night in a dusty bowl beside the path. Long ago it might have been a pond, but years in the baking sun had reduced it to cracked dirt and stones. They spoke little and only on practical matters. She resolved to stay up later than him, and wake earlier, but at some point while staring at the stars, waiting for him to fall asleep on his pile of blankets, sleep stole her away.

He was already up when she woke. She scowled at the empty bundle of blankets across the dead fire pit.

* * *

They walked for nearly an hour before the sun finally broke over the horizon. The land around them could no longer credibly be called a prairie, but neither yet a forest. The trees were too short, their crowns disconnected from any inkling of a canopy. Ahead of them, the green line that signified their destination had long since grown into a brooding shadow over the horizon. The rising sun seemed unable to touch it.

“How much further, do you think?” Hyperion asked after they forded a small brook that cut across the path. They were the first words he’d spoken since they broke camp.

Foxglove shook a bit of mud off her rear leg. “Not much. An hour, maybe.”

“How will we know when we’re actually in them?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. A quick bark, without humor. “Trust me, prince. We’ll know.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“It is.” Foxglove looked up. The thunderheads had fled, but the taste of ozone remained in the air. “It’s unmistakable. My first time here, with Wheat Husk… I’d heard his stories, but nothing prepares you for it.”

Silence, except for the crunch of leaves beneath their hooves. The path shrank to little more than a dirt trail, broken by washes and littered with fallen branches. No one came out to tend it, she guessed.

“It’s free,” she continued. “That’s the best way to explain it. None of our order or harmony or laws apply inside. Magic runs wild, touching everything. It has no day or night or seasons, just a perpetual twilight, whether the sun or the moon is overhead. You might like that part, I suppose.”

He cleared his throat. “I might have misspoken on that.”

“Mhm.”

The trail passed through a copse of black cherries and willow, and when they emerged a wall of trees, tall as titans, greeted them.. Their crowns rose hundreds of feet overhead, woven all together and forming a canopy like night. Within the forest beyond, spears of sunlight broke through, forming golden pillars in the fog. Dark, verdant shadows, rimmed with shoots and vines and thorns, spilled out from between the trees, grasping the earth like claws.

They stopped. Hyperion tilted his head back, back, back to see the highest branches above.

“This… this is the Wildlands?”

“Yes.” Foxglove swallowed. The world swam, and fifteen years vanished, and she stood in this same spot with Wheat Husk’s giant form by her side. He laid a reassuring hoof on her back as she trembled.

She blinked, and the vision vanished. Hyperion stood by her side, and she was a grown mare, and Wheat Husk dead in his grave. But the forest was the same. Not a leaf seemed different from her memories.

“Okay, listen.” She waited for his attention. “I need you to stay with me in there. Assume everything is dangerous unless I say otherwise. Don’t eat anything, even if you think you know what it is.”

He nodded. “Very well.”

“That’s it? No arguments?”

“You’re the expert here, Foxglove. I’m not so foolish to pretend I know this place.”

“Huh. Well, good.” She licked her lips. “Ready?”

“No. Does it matter?”

“Not really. Come on.”

They followed the path between the trees into the Wildlands. Into the mad, bleeding heart of nature.

They stepped into the land of night.

Comments ( 19 )

There is only one thing that might cure her – a mystical, half-forgotten potion known as the Panacea. It can cure any curse, any disease, any poison.

but can it cure the curse that is... my existence
but can it cure the disease that is... love
btu cna it cure the psoison thats is .,, thoughts of my ex

rachel

come back to me please

please

Be wary, travelers.

It's been a while since I've read something else of yours for a control point, but the huge amount of rich, evocative, visual scenery seems to implicitly highlight the sacrifice of the eyes almost as much as bringing it up directly does. And perhaps it's just an unjustified bit of optimism on my part, but at this point, given him going off alone with her and that weird blank line before the one scene break make me wonder if he might not end up trying to give the offering himself, as much as it seems likely not to be the way alchemy works.

Couple editing points:

“My lord!” The unicorn cried.

"The" probably shouldn't be capitalized

She hated winter, it’s chill, its darkness.

"its chill"

which was tall enough to suite their needs.

"suit their needs"

“In ancient times, ponies thought the sun and moon and stars needed magic to move,”

Foxglove knew, to the edge of the world. The world didn't actually end, of course.

Interesting...Is this a different Queen Platinum than the one we're thinking of?
Or maybe...
*in headcanon*
Celestia: lol hey woona what if we told everyone we controlled the sun and the moon
Luna: lol dats stupid all the nobles no that isnt tru
Celestia: dats okay just execute all of them and everyone will forget *under breath* dat i betray u and send u to da mun betch

So, the Everfree was apparently even worse in the past/future. Fun.

Calling it right now: Hyperion and Foxglove wind up being such good friends - or maybe more - that by the time it's time to brew the Pancea he'll end up sacrificing his eyes instead of hers, or at least try to. She'll be sent back to cure his mother as a sign of his trust, and he'll end up dying out in the Wildlands. Or, if the author wishes to go a less dark route, they'll find some way to do it without either of them losing their eyes. As this lacks the tragedy or sad tags, I will call that under no circumstances will Foxglove wind up permanently losing her sight.

“I’m not trying to provoke you, prince. I am being serious – if you need to get the Panacea back to your mother as quickly as possible, it would make sense to leave me behind. Leading a blind mare through the Wildlands is not a quick proposition.”




She knew a lie when she heard one.

Something seems to be missing here.

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

I had hoped Foxglove would refuse our young prince everything he asked, but there would be no story then. Now I can only hope that she does not meekly brew his miracle for him, martyring herself for the sake of her enemy. Her sister is innocent, yes, but this Prince is a devil, and it is right to refuse him.
How noble he thinks himself, as he lowers his hooves to the troubling business of extortion and fraud. No one else would sully themselves so, in the pursuit of what is necessary. How steadfast he is, to besmirch himself thus. He is simply doing what must be done, after all. How restrained he is, to merely threaten imprisonment instead of death. How kind, to offer her recompense for her sight.

A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely.

Not forever. Not in the end. Not for long.

I need more, please, I beg of you! :raritydespair:
Holy buck this is good.

Comment posted by Nekonyancer deleted Dec 23rd, 2015

6757011

Are you seriously going to do this for all my stories?

Comment posted by Nekonyancer deleted Dec 23rd, 2015

6757570

Well, you're basically highlighting my mistakes at the top of the comment stack for every story you do this to, so it's the first thing new readers see.

Or is there some hidden benefit to this I'm not getting?

6757596 I didn't realize you felt that way. I considered using PMs for that reason when I started randomly doing this for people, but went with comments for the most part because I noticed other people doing the same thing. And it's been going pretty well - until now, the worst response I ever received was indifference. Most were grateful, and fixed the mistakes I pointed out. Some authors have asked me to continue doing so for stories they hadn't released yet. A couple times, other readers noticed my comments and asked me to read their fics as well.

Regardless, I understand where you're coming from. I'll delete the comments if you want me to.

6757665 PMs work much better for corrections, because once the corrections are corrected, they don't just stick out there in the comment section for the rest of the life of the story. Although I once had somebody leave me a comment about a correction that he thought I needed to make, which turned out to be right in the first place AND the comment had three different errors in it. I corrected his comment in good humor and we all had a laugh about it. :pinkiehappy:

Slowly but surely I've been reading my way through your numerous works and haven't yet found one that I've not thoroughly enjoyed, either though heart felt laughter or heart clenching sadness, and I just want to thank you for creating such amazing works of art, and for painting pictures through words.

Specifically for this story, I love the emphasis put on the descriptions paining a picture of the world for the readers all to show what a shock the loss of eye sight would be. Also just cause I'm that type of person, the consistency of the taste of the healing potions between The Wind Thief and this story just makes me shiver in delight. Would love to see this story continued when you have time!

Do you have any plans to conclude this piece, or have you lost interest in it?

I ask only because I've really enjoyed what's here so far.

9618236

Eh, I'm torn. I was reading through it the other day and felt like I wanted to finish it, but I've got other projects higher in the priority queue. We'll have to see.

9618293 I read these chapters again, and then re-read the writeoff story. And As good as the writeoff entry is, this story is far more alive and fleshed out—the characters, the scenes, and the story itself are deeper and more interesting. Maybe your muse will demand it be finished, some day. I can hope!

“It’s not that easy, my lord. If it were, I’d be rich, and the world would be filled with immortal unicorns and blind earth ponies.”

Still a fantastic line, horrifying and prophetic if the downhill slope of the civilization gets any steeper.

I need to stop reading stories that are un-updated for so long. The meh ones don't really linger in my thoughts like the good ones do, and I think this is a really good one. I haven't read a fanfiction that was able to paint such a vivid picture in my head in years, and I think its because you utilized touch, scent, taste and sight from the characters perspectives so well.

Great story, hope to see more in this vein even if you don't touch this one again.

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