Act II: Fire in Teawater, part 1
Consciousness returned in a slow ebb, like the gentle lapping of the tide gradually devouring the beach until all that remained was waves. Vermilion drifted between waking and sleeping, aware of the return of dawn, of the gray light seeping in beneath the tent flap becoming brighter with every thought. But the desert air was chilly and the cot was warm, particularly the parts where he and Rose pressed loosely into each other. One of his forelegs draped over her shoulders, and her breath stirred the fine hair of his fetlock. Still asleep, he surmised.
She would wake soon. All around them, the camp was stirring back to life. The sweet, acrid scent of smoke from the campfires drifted in, momentarily overpowering the stale sweat and other reminders of their evening activities.
A bath would be a good idea. Before the others woke, preferably. While he had no intention of keeping any secrets from his friends, there were better ways of breaking the news of his relationship with Rose to them than simply stumbling out of their shared bed, reeking of sex and her scent. He focused on the sounds coming from outside, decided they were mostly earth pony early-risers like himself, and gently unwrapped himself from Rose’s warm, slumbering form.
The cot creaked as he stood, and Rose stirred. She turned her head, paused, then kept rolling onto her back until she could see him with her good eye. Laid out like that she filled nearly the whole cot, from the tip of her horn to her hooves. She stretched, let out a little sound halfway between a yawn and a grunt, then peered up at him. “Morning.”
“Hey.” He leaned down for a kiss and froze. Was that right? Too forward, too early? He wavered, then settled for a gentle brush of his lips against hers. “You can keep sleeping. It’s still early.”
“Mm. Maybe a few more minutes.” She yawned again. “You can too, you know. They don’t need you to cook breakfast anymore.”
“I know. Gonna wash up.”
“Ah.” She stretched up to sniff at his neck, then at her own shoulder. A little smile bent up the corners of her lips. “Embarrassed?”
He blushed. “No. Of course not.”
She rolled onto her side and sat up. Half her coat was matted flat; the other half jutted off at odd angles in disordered tufts. She spent a moment trying to brush them into some semblance of order, then gave up with a little snort. “I think you are. But that’s fine. It’s one of the reasons we love you.”
Love you. A casual claim of team affinity, or something deeper? Amazing how much one night could change things. He bobbed his head in a sort of half-nod, then escaped out the tent flap. The quiet titter of Rose’s laughter chased him into the camp and the morning.
And straight into Quicklime. The little unicorn sat on a log by their campfire, a steaming tin cup held in her hooves. She gazed at him over the rim and took a slow sip.
“Morning,” she said. After a pause, “Sleep well?”
“Y-yes.” Smooth. He stepped around a pile of tent stakes already uprooted by some industrious quartermaster and sat down across from her. The fire popped, spitting out a spray of embers that landed on the dust and quickly cooled into dark, smoking specks. “You’re up early.”
She shrugged. “Felt like some tea. I’d say you’re up early too, but aren’t you always?”
“Mornings are the best part of the day.” So earth ponies always said, but after last night he might have to revise his opinions. He carefully lifted the steaming pot from its cradle over the fire, poured out a bit of near-boiling water for his own cup, and added a bag of tea to steep.
They were silent after that, content to warm up by the fire and watch the camp come alive around them. Already the tents were coming down, their tips vanishing like felled trees in a rapidly disassembling forest. The same earth pony colt who’d attended them last night appeared, his saddlebags stuffed with the rich scent of breakfast. He ducked carefully around Vermilion and began laying out loaves of bread on the flat stones around the fire to warm. A knapsack filled with apples and a good-sized brick of alfalfa followed.
The rustle of a tent flap caught his ear, and he turned to see Rose blinking out at the dawn. She sniffed, caught the scent of the warming bread, and trotted over, taking a seat just a few hooves away from Vermilion. “Morning, Quicklime. You’re up—”
“Yup. Early. Tea.” Quicklime tapped her hoof against the tin cup. “So, when do we leave?”
“Whenever we want, I suppose,” Vermilion said. For once they didn’t have to pack – aside from the few personal belongings they took out each evening, they’d barely unpacked any of their gear, relying instead on the hospitality of the Company. Their tents, bedrolls, pots, pans, weapons, blankets, coats and everything else were all still bundled up, just as they had been when they left the apartment in the Osage District. All Vermilion needed was to pick up his rucksack, tuck Canopy’s journal into its special pocket, and he’d be ready for the trail.
“Was afraid you’d say that.” Quicklime set her cup back in the coals and slowly stood. She made a show of stretching, groaned, and peered up at the massive silhouette of Simoom overhead. “Just a few more hours walking, right? That’s what you said yesterday.”
“Not even one,” the colt piped up. He froze as the three of them turned in his direction, but at Vermilion’s nod he continued. “Sergeant said the river’s jus’ two leagues yonder. Gonna start a train for water af’er breakfast.”
“Well, there you go,” Rose said. “And it sounds like you’ll get that bath you were after too, Quicklime.”
“Better than a dust bath!” Her horn glowed, and that old yarn scarf floated out of her bags to settle around her neck. It wasn’t windy enough yet to drive the sand around them into the air, but once the sun got a bit higher in the sky, it would start. “Speaking of, you two might wanna wash up real quick. I’m gonna get my stuff ready!” She grinned at Rose and ducked back into her tent.
“Cheeky,” Rose mumbled. She tilted her head up, and Vermilion saw the ghost of a blush on her face. It vanished as quickly as it came, and she stood, stretched, and bumped Vermilion with her shoulder. “Still, she’s not wrong. I’ll be right back.”
That left him alone with the colt. Or, as alone as anypony could be, surrounded by over a thousand souls separated only by the thin fabric of tent walls. Already the clamour of the camp was rising to a din, and it wouldn’t be long before the shouts of pegasi and the rumble of marching hooves joined the chorus. He looked up at Simoom, where tiny, colorful dots leapt out from the clouded ramparts to soar in widening gyres through thermals rising from the desert floor. Just a few minutes of staring at the flying city left him dizzy, and he brought his gaze back to the earth, to the western horizon, and the faint suggestion of a town beyond.
The edge of Equestria lay just beyond his sight. And like Hollow Shades, and Maple Bridge, and Hazelnight, something there haunted the growing shadows, an emissary of the new darkness that lapped at the margins of the world like the rising waters of a storm-flooded river. It was waiting for them – for him – and then it would make its play.
He stood with a quiet grunt and went to wake the rest of his friends. He didn’t want to wait any longer.
* * *
“You’d think they’d have built a bridge, you know?” Cloud Fire said.
They stood at the banks of the river separating Equestria from the world beyond. Across the stream, a hundred-yards or so of dry bed and cobblestones and a mild trickle of water that doubtlessly grew during the spring rains into a torrent, rose a bluff of thirty or forty feet. Short oaks with tiny leaves populated the edge of the cliff and stood firm against the desert winds. Sage and clary bushes filled in the gaps between their crooked trunks, scenting the air with the memory of greener lands. A long, sloping path cut its way up the bluff, anchored with timbers to keep from washing or blowing away. And there, just as they’d been promised, Vermilion saw the steepled tips of clapboard cottages poking above branches. The faint sound of hammers echoed over the bluff, tangled with the unmistakable steady creak of a windmill.
“Prolly not worth the effort,” Zephyr said. She squinted at the bluff, then tilted her head to look back at Simoom. Distance had shrunk the cloud city only slightly – it still towered over them and dominated half the sky. “They mostly trade with Simoom, right? Not like pegasi need bridges.”
“River’s dry most of the year, anyway,” Vermilion said. He stepped off the parched, sandy bank down into the river bed. The bare, round cobbles rattled beneath his hooves, and for a moment his mind and thoughts flew back almost a full year, to that riverbed in the woods near Hollow Shades, when he and Zephyr and Cloudy went to get water for the Company. Reflex jerked his head toward the bank and the shadows beneath it, filled with a curtain of slender roots and tendrils. But they were empty; if any spiders hid in there, they were the small, normal variety. He blinked, shook his head to banish the memory, and turned back toward the far bank. The clatter of his friends’ hooves followed behind him.
For all the riverbed’s size, the only water he saw was a faint stream a few feet wide, seeping through the interstices of the stones halfway between the banks. Curious, he leaned down and lapped at the trickle, letting it wash the dust off his lips and soothe his parched throat. It tasted like rocks and the desert and strangely astringent, almost like the bark of a tree. He took another drink and let it sit in his mouth for a fuller dose of the flavor.
Rose came up beside him and leaned down to take a drink for herself. Her muzzle wrinkled at the taste. “Tannic.”
“Hm?”
“The flavor. Tannic. Like cheap wine or acorns. Or tea.” She peered up at the bluffs and the town beyond. “Makes sense, I guess.”
The trail led slantwise up the bluffs and cut through the line of oaks. Vermilion turned at the top, and though the modest cliffs were only a few dozen feet above the river and far bank, it nevertheless afforded a sweeping view of the arid scrubland that wasn’t quite a desert behind them. Simoom’s shadow floated like a bruise on the faded dusty world, and if he squinted he could faintly make out the colored pennants of the Company’s tents in the distance. The sun painted little glittering sparks where it struck bits of steel and brass on marching ponies.
Quicklime stopped beside him. She huffed for breath, and leaned out so far over the edge Vermilion started to reach for her. But she just sat there, squinting up at Simoom, humming some quiet tune under her breath.
“Neat, isn’t it?” Zephyr said. She stood aside to let Rose pass, and peered up at Simoom. “Not used to seeing cloud cities from the ground.”
“I’d rather see them from the ground than the ground from them,” Quicklime said. She looked between the cloud city and its shadow a few times, as if comparing them, then shrugged and turned back to the path.
The town was waiting for them just beyond the oaks. The river must’ve marked the edge of the desert, because rather than parched dirt or sand, the ground beneath them was covered with short, hearty grass, mostly seared by the summer but bearing a hint of green near the roots. It felt as soft as a cloud beneath Vermilion’s hooves, and for a moment he felt an overwhelming urge to toss off his rucksack and flop down and roll around in it until every itch in his dusty, sweaty coat was scratched.
Teawater was as modest as he expected. A few dozen well-built cottages dotted the grassland, separated by pasture and rows of short, scrubby pomegranate and olive trees. Further out, at the end of the trail between the farms, a cluster of shops and houses formed what must’ve been the center of the town. A tall windmill stood to the side, its arms gently rotating in the breeze.
No ponies appeared to be working the fields. Or in the town beyond. Memories of Maple Bridge bubbled to the surface of his mind, and he realized he’d already undone the strap binding his saber in its sheath. The others were all silent, staring at the rows of trees or the houses beyond, as though waiting for something to leap out and attack.
But there was only the sun, and the wind, and the rustle of the leaves in the trees both before and behind them. Vermilion swallowed his doubts and started down the trail. The others followed, as he knew they would.
“Want us to scout from above?” Zephyr asked. She’d already started to undo her pack, and set it down with a quiet grunt.
“Yeah,” Vermilion said. “Stay together. Keep us in sight.”
“Always.” She plucked her spear – that ancient, twisted thing Luna had graced her with – and jumped into the air, wings buzzing for lift. Cloudy ran forward a few steps, wings outstretched, and climbed more slowly after her.
They took the path slowly. The faint echo of hammers on wood reached out from the orchards, and here and there Vermilion saw ponies tending to the trees. Earth ponies, like him, wearing saddlebags modified to hold fruit baskets, sometimes carrying little step ladders that they placed to reach up into the trees, nuzzling at the branches like lovers and returning with fruit held carefully in their teeth.
It looked a lot more pleasant than carrot farming. He imagined himself a farmer again, doing the same work as these ponies, baking in the sun all day while tending to the trees. No monsters, no long marches, no getting smacked with a training sword all the day long or living in tents or—
“Well, they don’t seem like they’re worried about monsters,” Rose said. She squinted down the rows as they passed.
“Could be like the dreamoras?” Quicklime suggested. “Subtle monsters?”
“‘Subtle monsters’?” Rose chuckled. “Only you, Quicklime. Only you.”
Zephyr and Cloudy were waiting for them when they reached the town, perched like eagles atop the peak of a stately brick-and-timber home. Cloudy jumped down to join them while Zephyr kept her post.
“Looks normal.” He shrugged. “Not many ponies around, but it’s the middle of the day. If they’re smart they’re inside.”
“Well, let’s find out.”
The town didn’t so much have a road as a series of wide spaces between the buildings, all of it flattened by generations of hooves. A few earth ponies stood beneath overhangs or in the shade of trees, working with hammers and saws on the various mending tasks of farmlife – a wainwright knocked a cotter pin out of a wagon’s axle and pried the wheel off as Vermilion passed. A filly sat beside him with a spanner in her mouth, and she occasionally leaned in to twist at something on the wagon’s underbelly.
“Hello!” Quicklime bounced toward the pair, her pack rattling with each step. The stallion – the father, Vermilion presumed – set the wheel down and peered at the unicorn with all the interest Vermilion gave to passing clouds. The filly scampered around behind the stallion’s legs.
“Hi,” Quicklime continued. “We’re from Equestria, and we’re here to help!”
“Mm.” The stallion squinted at her, then at Vermilion and Rose. “Help with what?”
Vermilion took a half-step forward, taking care not to startle the filly. She probably wasn’t used to seeing strangers. “We heard there was trouble out past Simoom, in Teawater. Is this—”
“Monsters!” Quicklime blurted. She bounced with the word and nearly tipped over beneath her wobbling pack. “Have you seen any monsters? Have any ponies gone missing? Strange sounds at night? Dogs barking at empty fields, as though they can sense something malignant just beyond the realm of—”
Vermilion tugged her back toward the team and gave her a gentle push in Rose’s direction. “Sorry. What she means is, we’re here to help with any trouble you might be having, which we’ve heard could include monsters. So, uh,” he paused, then finished lamely, “have you seen any?”
The wainwright seemed to ponder that for a while. He glanced between Vermilion and the others, then turned back to the wagon. A quick knock from his hooves loosened the axle hub, and he pulled it off with an easy twist. The filly grabbed it and ran with it back into a tool shed connected to the house. Minutes passed while the stallion inspected the exposed axle in silence.
Zephyr fanned her wings. Rose and Quicklime glanced at each other, then at Vermilion.
Cloudy leaned against his shoulder and spoke quietly into his ear. “Just once, I’d like to visit an earth pony town and not be reminded how crazy you all are.”
Celestia’s teats, it was true. Vermilion held in a groan and tried again. “Sir? Have you seen any?”
“Any what?”
“Any monsters?”
“Ah.” The stallion considered that again. He brushed a few flakes of rust away from the axle. “Nah.”
Right. “Okay. Well, uh, thank you. We’ll just go on then. But, you know, if you see anything odd, let us know?”
No response. The stallion peered at the axle as though it were the most interesting thing he’d seen all day. Perhaps it was. After a few moments of unbroken silence, when it was clear nothing more was forthcoming, Vermilion turned back to the path.
Nopony spoke until they rounded the corner on the dwelling. Ahead, more homes clustered together around an open green. Two mares stood beside a well, raising buckets from it with a winch. The slow clatter of the mechanism was the loudest sound in the town.
“Did that seem odd to you?” Quicklime asked. “It seemed odd to me.”
“As I keep saying in all of these towns—” Cloudy started.
Vermilion didn’t let him finish. “He was probably just preoccupied. Or distracted.”
“Or unfriendly,” Zephyr offered.
“Or enchanted,” from Quicklime. “You know, like I said. Like the dreamora.”
“Dreamora put their victims to sleep,” Rose said. “Everypony here’s awake.”
“They appear to be awake, but remember why we came.” Quicklime loosened the scarf covering her face and let it hang around her neck. The wind here was no longer gritty with flying sand, invading their eyes and plastering their teeth. “Things don’t feel solid anymore. Reality is changing. Like it’s all a dream.”
Was that stallion really awake? Or was he dreaming of repairing a wagon and talking to strangers? Vermilion licked his lips. The others glanced around at the town, as if seeing it anew. Only Rose was unfazed.
“So, what should we do?” Quicklime asked. As one, as he knew would happen, they all looked at him.
That was fine. He was getting used to the idea of being in charge. “Just look around for now. I’m going to see if I can find us a place to stay. Split up into pairs if you want, but nopony goes alone.”
“Won’t that leave you alone?” Rose asked.
“Yeah, but I’m not looking for monsters.” He looked up at the sun, squinting. It was about halfway between noon and sunset. “Let’s meet back here in an hour.”
* * *
Teawater had no inn. It wasn’t that sort of town. It didn’t even have a tavern to speak of. But the mayor’s house had extra rooms for travelers like themselves, and although the mayor was not home, a kindly old mare with nothing better to do than snooze on the porch insisted that he should help himself. None of the doors in Teawater were ever locked, she confided. Then she went back to dozing.
He tried the latch – sure enough, the door swung open, revealing a bare room with a lone bed and bag of linens at its feet. A door in the far wall led to what looked like a similar bedroom. The scent of dry dust and mothballs swirled out from them both, sticking in his nostrils, and he sneezed several times. By the time he got his nose back under control the air in the room had livened up a bit and didn’t carry the same oppressive weight. A few spiders scurried away from the light spilling in from the doorway, and he gave them a leery glance to make sure they weren’t hiding any larger kin in the spaces behind the wardrobe. Just dust and shadows back there, the same as any other home.
So, not bad. He unstrapped his pack and set it down on the floor beside the bed with a grunt. Most of the gear inside would keep, but he spent a few minutes unloading the most important items – canteens, rations, the coin purse Starry Night gave them before every mission, his saddlebags, and of course Canopy’s journal. Everything else in his pack was replaceable except for that little book. He slipped the slender volume into his bags, strapped them on, and practically floated out the door, feeling like he weighed half as much as before.
The others were waiting beside the well in the town green. Dozens of townsfolk lounged on the grass, catching the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. Almost all were earth ponies, but here and there he saw a pegasus pony, apparently content to live off the soil, and there was even a scarlet unicorn mare unfolding a wagon filled with pumpkins, squash and other gourds for display. They seemed affable, unfazed by the strangers in their midst, and certainly not overwhelmed with the fear of monsters. If anything, it reminded Vermilion of his own home.
He joined his friends at the well. It was an ambitious thing, fully twice as wide as a pony from nose to tail, crafted from carefully carved stone blocks, and deep enough that he couldn’t see the water in its depths. A cool wind blew up from the darkness, ruffling his mane. The old fear of heights nibbled at the base of his brain, and he stepped away just as quickly.
“So, find a place for us?” Cloudy asked. He and Zephyr had made a pile of their gear, and now perched beside each other atop it. “Don’t wanna haul this crap around all night.”
“The mayor’s house has guest rooms for us. We’ll have to figure out meals still.” He paused to look around at the slowly crowding green. A few ponies smiled and waved as his gaze drifted over them. “Find anything?”
“Found a buncha nada,” Quicklime said. “No monsters, no disappearances, just a lot of weird ponies.”
He frowned. “Weird?”
“Like that stallion,” Rose said. She kept her voice low, just for them. “The wainwright. They all seem distracted by something. Forgetful, too. Watch this.” She stood, dusted her rump off with her tail, and trotted over to a young couple reclining on a wool blanket in a nice, sun-drenched part of the green. They had a spread of cheese and bread laid out on a napkin between them, and they both took turns feeding each other little morsels from it. The mare looked up with a smile as Rose approached.
“Excuse me,” she said. “My friends and I just arrived in town, and we’re starving. Would you mind sharing a bit of that bread? We’d be happy to pay.”
The mare, a young, pepper-dappled pegasus, beamed at her. “Oh, no need! Welcome to Teawater!” She bundled up a heel of bread along with a healthy wedge of cheese and hoofed them both over. Rose mumbled her thanks and tucked them into her saddlebags, then stood there in silence.
“Uh…” Vermilion started. “What’s she—”
“Wait for it,” Zephyr said.
Wait for what? But before he could give voice to the thought, Rose was speaking again.
“Excuse me,” she said. She hadn’t moved a hoof from where she first spoke. “My friends and I just arrived in town, and we’re starving. Would you be able to part with a bit of that bread? I’d certainly be happy to pay you for it.”
“Oh, no need!” The mare was just as chipper as before. She piled together a few slices of bread and cheese and offered them up to Rose. “Welcome to Teawater!”
“She’s done that, like, seven times now,” Zephyr said. They watched as Rose forced a few coins onto the protesting pair and trotted back with her bounty. “Every time, same thing.”
“It’s the same with everypony,” Quicklime said. “I bet we could go back to that wainwright and he wouldn’t remember us either.”
Huh. He waited for Rose to join them, and accepted the bread and cheese she floated over to him. It was sharp and a bit nutty. He chewed on it for a while in thought.
“Okay, so, what’s going on with them?” He swallowed, and took a swig from the bucket beside the well. The water was cool and slightly tea flavored. Tannic. “Are they hurt?”
“Not visibly,” Rose said. She took a seat beside him – close beside him, pressing her shoulder against his – and nibbled on her own slice of cheese. “The village isn’t breaking down, and they all seem healthy. They’re eating and drinking and maintaining hygiene. So whatever’s clouding their minds isn’t hurting them directly indirectly. It’s just… well, I don’t even know what it’s doing, or why.”
“Magic?”
“Almost certainly. If it were a physical agent, like a drug, different ponies would feel it to different extents. Some would be untouched, others would be comatose.” She glanced at the bucket beside the well. “And before you ask, I tested the water already. It’s fine.”
Vermilion hadn’t been about to ask that, but suddenly the tannic taste on his tongue felt stronger. He took another bite of the bread to clear it away. “Have you asked them about it?”
Rose nodded. “I tried, anyway. They didn’t understand, and of course none of them feel any different. You don’t remember not remembering something, after all.”
That was a worrisome thought. Cloudy apparently came to the same conclusion – he jerked upright, his feathers standing on end. “Are we under the same spell?”
“Probably not.” Rose shook her head. “Not yet, at least. Quicklime?”
“The mere fact that we recognize the effect in other ponies suggests we’re safe.” Quicklime flipped through a small notebook, and for the first time Vermilion noticed the little writing quill floating in the air beside her. “Also, there’s a bunch of magical and non-magical ways to test to see if you’re under a memory-altering spell, and so far I’ve passed every one. If you guys want to play along, just keep an hourly-or-so journal of your thoughts and decisions, and reread it occasionally. If you remember writing everything in it, you’re golden.”
That was reassuring. Trust Quicklime to have a solution to almost any problem. But… “Why do you know multiple ways to test for memory-altering spells?”
“Oh, unicorns used to do that sort of thing all the time,” she said. “Why fight somepony when you can just mess with their heads, right? There’s this one spell, Catafalque’s Recollection Lathe, that’s super usef—” here she noticed Rose’s glower, “—illegal, super illegal, basically dark magic, and you should never ask any unicorns about it because they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about at all.” She paused for a moment. “Yeah.”
Right. Hourly journal, then. Beside him, Rose mumbled something under her breath. Quicklime tucked the notebook into her bags and tried to look smaller even than usual.
“So, anyone find the mayor?” he asked. “Her house was empty.”
“Not yet,” Rose said. “But they said she usually takes a nap on her porch in the afternoon. Surprised you didn’t see her there.”
Oh. He sighed. “I think I did. Maybe she can fill us in?”
* * *
The mayor, who was indeed the old mare dozing on the porch beside the guest house, was not able to fill them in. Like every other pony they’d spoken to, she welcomed them to Teawater, held up her end of a conversation for a few sentences, then promptly forgot she’d ever met Vermilion and company. Nor was the farrier, who they watched for over an hour as he slowly managed to change a single pony’s shoes. The blacksmith wasn’t even working, her fire cold, ingots of iron stacked neatly and slowly rusting where trickles of water from the overhang managed to drip onto them. The very town seemed to be drowsing, just barely awake enough to function. Judging by the way the grass grew long in the fields, and the orchard trees shaggy with untrimmed leaves, it had been this way for most of a season.
After the others dropped their bags off, they went on a quick tour of the town. A very quick tour – there were, at most, a dozen houses in the heart of the town, with perhaps that many farmsteads and fields. It was much smaller than Maplebridge, or even Hollow Shades, and if not for the fact that it was the first town past Simoom, it might not have even been drawn on the map.
Dinner was roasted pumpkins, bought from the scarlet unicorn mare in the green. The setting sun to the west painted Simoom with brilliant flames, and they watched in quiet awe as the colors flowed up the tall cloud city, yellow, then gold, then orange, and finally pink and scarlet climbing up the heights, until the very tip of the city glowed like a ruby, and then the sun set and it was gone, and only a grey, oppressive tower remained, eating half the sky.
“Pretty,” Quicklime said.
“Yeah, you should see it from the clouds, though,” Zephyr said.
“I dunno. I think I like it from the ground,” Cloudy said. “So, what’s the plan, boss?”
“Uh?” Vermilion pulled his gaze away from the clouds. “Like, for the monsters?”
“Yeah, tonight I mean. We just gonna stay here?”
That was, actually, the whole plan. Vermilion hadn’t thought out beyond that. “Is that bad?”
“It is if we wake up like these ponies,” Rose murmured. The green was still crowded with families enjoying the late-summer evening. “We don’t know what’s causing their confusion. It could occur at night.”
“Then we need to stay and see it.”
“We can place wards on the room,” Quicklime offered. “Those might help.”
“Our minds are protected by Luna,” Vermilion said. “She guards our dreams. Quicklime can place wards, and we’ll be careful. We can sleep in shifts for the first few nights, too, until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“And if there are monsters?” Rose asked. “Fight? Run away?”
He shrugged. “Depends what we find. It’s not like the town is filled with bodies, so whatever these monsters are doing, it’s not violent. It’s, more, uh…”
“Subtle?” Quicklime offered.
“Sure, subtle.” Vermilion took a final bite of his pumpkin and tossed the stem in the dirt. A cool wind had started to blow from the east, a herald of the coming night, and he leaned into its soft sigh. Soon the last light of the sun would diminish, and the world would fall into his liege’s loving touch. How odd, he marveled, that the night brought both her gentle grace and monsters as well.
No wonder monsters offended her so. Celestia could ignore them – Luna could not. He shook his head to banish the melancholy tide those troubling thoughts called up and pushed himself onto his feet. “Come on. Let’s head in.”
The mayor was gone from the porch when they arrived, presumably turned in for the night herself. Quicklime promptly got to work setting wards on their rooms, her horn glowing with a sharp yellow light that left tiny burning, sparking trails on the dusty wood. Charred marks remained when the light passed, and slowly they faded as well. Curious, Vermilion put his hoof down on them, and for a moment he thought he felt something, like the vibration of a violin’s string. Then it was gone.
“Those will keep us safe?” Cloudy asked. He leaned down to sniff at the floor.
Quicklime nodded, the tip of her horn tracing a bright arc. “More of a warning, really. They’ll wake us up if anything strange happens.”
Great. They were all set, then. Ready for everypony to choose a room and pile into one of the two available beds. The question he’d managed to avoid since the morning now demanded that he confront it – should he tell his friends about his relationship with Rose, and request their understanding when it came to appropriate sleeping arrangements? And what, exactly, were appropriate sleeping arrangements in situations like this? Obviously, he wouldn’t be doing anything with Rose in such tight quarters, when they were all only feet away and separated by a thin plaster and clapboard wall. It had been different last night in the tents, when they had the flimsy excuse of falling asleep together while studying Canopy’s journal. Surely his friends would see through such a story with ease, and did he even want to deceive them? Perhaps it was simply better to pretend that last night hadn’t happened, to put their budding relationship on hold for the rest of this mission, and find some way to resume when they returned to Everfree? Assuming Rose wouldn’t come to her senses by then and realized what a poor catch an earth pony like him—
“Vermilion and I will be sharing a bed from now on,” Rose announced. She set her saddlebags down beside his pack and climbed up on the mattress. “You three can have the other room. We’ll take the first shift, too.”
“Okay.” Quicklime pulled her pack up onto her back with a quiet ‘hup’ and toddled into the other room. “I’ll take second.”
“We’ll get third.” Zephyr snagged Cloudy’s mane with her teeth and dragged him through the door. He looked as bewildered as Vermilion felt. “Good night!”
The door glowed with Rose’s magic and swung shut with a quiet click. On the other side, Vermilion heard muffled, excited voices.
“Well.” He swallowed. “I guess they know.”
“They’re smart ponies.” Rose scooted over to make room for him. “Quicklime and Zephyr are, at least. Cloud Fire would have figured it out too, eventually.”
“Hey, Cloudy’s smart,” he protested.
“They’re all smart,” Rose acknowledged. She unwound the scarf from her neck, shook it to loosen the day’s dust, and set it on the little table beside the bed. Her eyepatch followed a moment later. “But not all ponies are perceptive in the same way. But now he knows, and everything’s still fine.”
He slid his saddlebags off and climbed up onto the mattress. There was a boar hair brush affixed to the floor, and he used it to scour the dust and dirt from his hooves before pulling them up onto the covers. It wasn’t as good as a bath would’ve been, but for most of his life he went to bed caked in mud. It was only for Rose’s sake that he cared now – if there was even a chance of touching her tonight, his hooves ought to be clean.
Rose watched all this with a little smile. Her horn glowed, and Canopy’s journal floated out of his bags to join them on the bed. “Care to read for a bit?”
“Maybe a few pages.” As much as he admired Canopy and desperately sought to understand her, reading the journal more of a labor than a pastime. Her writing was broken, illegible in places, filled with random thoughts and notes that jumped across years in time – clearly she had never intended it for other ponies to read, and if she were still alive he would never have dared crack the cover. But Canopy was dead and the dead no longer needed their privacy, and if there was any hope of emulating her to be found in the world, it was in these weathered pages. On a whim he opened the journal to a page at random near the end, set it down on the covers, and stretched out alongside Rose, his shoulder pressing comfortably against hers.
The page started with another list – notes from some meeting or other. She’d sketched a crude map as well, detailing the route from Everfree to Gloom’s Edge and finally to Hollow Shades. A tight scrawl in the margins guessed at how much grain the Company would need to take, and water, and where they might resupply along the—
“Mind if I light a lamp?” Rose asked. “I still can’t quite read in the dark.”
Oh. Right. The room had seemed a bit dim, but only now that Vermilion actually looked around did he realize there were no true sources of light, just the faint glow of indirect moonlight pouring in from the window. He wondered if the night would always be this way, or if, when he left her service, it would grow dark and frightening again.
Unlikely. Though he would never say it out loud, he knew how his service to Luna would end. He could only hope it wasn’t the same for his friends.
“Of course. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Rose’s horn glowed, and the lantern on the bedside table sprang to life. Though it was small, and the flame turned down until it was barely more than a candle’s glow, it filled the room with a light like noon. “I wonder if your eyes will always be better than mine, or if I’ll catch up.”
Your eye. He shook himself. “They say some of her servants, the pegasi, turn into bats.”
“Pretty sure that’s a myth,” Rose mumbled. She dug in closer against his side, and leaned her muzzle over the journal. “What have you found for us?”
“Notes on Hollow Shades.” He turned the page and found something that looked more like narrative, like a true journal entry, and he slid the book over so Rose could read as well.
—not so different from what Nacre wrote about pride, all those centuries ago. Tried telling E that, but of course he didn’t listen. Don’t blame him – when you were young you were just as headstrong, eager for glory, wanting praise like a flower wants sunlight. Perhaps he will be a better student than you were. Luna would laugh.
He was smart enough to wait until we were alone to argue. Can’t quarrel in front of the troops. Sound military advice, but is it sound philosophy? The root of knowledge is in discourse, not strict obedience. Celestia never minded when I questioned her orders. Luna did, but you know Luna. Perhaps set time aside for open discussion with the soldiers? Something to consider.
Oh, poor E. Of course you want the princesses to say out loud what they said to us in private. Tell all the kingdom that the company will ride out and do wonderful things for Equestria. Expand our borders to include Hollow Shades. But it is not virtuous to receive praise, or demand it. It is virtuous to carry out our duty as best we can, and our reward is the good that we accomplish when we succeed. And if we fail, that is our reward too – to have been granted the chance to try. And if we are forgotten and our efforts bring praise and laurels to others, why should we care? Will flattering words make you happy?
Remember what matters.
“Virtue,” Rose mumbled. “Did she ever mention that before?”
“I… maybe?” Vermilion frowned. But it was that other word that he circled back to. Happy. How many times had he dreamed of Canopy asking him what happiness was? Was the answer on this page? Suddenly he was wide awake again, his heart pounding, eyes scanning the page as though searching for gold.
But there was no gold. As ever, Canopy’s writing changed topics like a leaf dancing in the wind. He sighed quietly and moved on.
Now? Now he wants to ask, the night before we depart? Or is it merely that he wishes to argue, and this is an ever-flowing spring from which to draw quarrelsome water? Would laugh, but know it would wound him more than any stinging words. Oh, E. I laugh not because I find you silly, but because I remember all my own faults. Does he know I once thought him weak, unsoldierly? And now I see in him the officer who might one day take my place. Perhaps we will still be arguing then.
But for now he is wrong. The night before a campaign is not the time to talk of foals, much less create one. I say so, and he rejoins: is it not the nature of ponies to make new ponies? Should difficult times be an excuse to ignore our natures?
Using my own philosophy against me! How sharper than a serpent’s tooth! I laughed, because he was not wrong, though I am not wrong either. A puzzle. A tangle in my philosophy that I must solve. But it was not fair to E to leave him in such discomfort while I pondered silly mysteries. So I finished him with my mouth.
Must argue that way more often.
The next line was illegible, crossed out. Beneath it were a few names and errata from some meeting or other. He ignored it, went back to the top of the page, and read again, willing the blush to fade from his cheeks.
“Well,” Rose said. “Good for her.”
“I think I’ll leave that part out when I reorganize this.” Or find a better way to phrase it. “So, who do you think ‘E’ is?”
“Oh, Electrum, of course.” Rose flipped the page and scanned it briefly. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Electrum. That made sense. But… Vermilion remembered the night, most of a year gone now, when Canopy had ordered Electrum to lead the Company out of Hollow Shades while she stayed behind. He must’ve realized they would never see each other again. That the mare he had asked – several times, it seemed – about foals was walking away from him to her death.
We’ll catch up. That’s what she’d said. But only Vermilion had returned. What must Electrum have felt, during the retreat? What must he have felt, speaking to Vermilion a day ago when they shared a drink? He never showed any anger or remorse. Only an everlasting commitment to duty, just like Canopy.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked. She leaned her head down to press her nose against his cheek.
“Yeah.” His eyes were tearing, in danger of overflowing. He blinked as carefully as he could. “Just remembering something.”
“You do that too much, I think.” The little journal flipped itself closed and floated over to the bedside table. “Want to talk?”
“Sure.” He took a slow breath. “Sorry, I just—”
A deafening, piercing whistle split the night. The sound shot through him like an arrow, and he might have screamed. He and Rose both jumped up, their hooves tangling in the covers, and they nearly tumbled over each other out of the bed. The whistle faded for a moment, but rather than giving way to silence it ended in a shocking, hammering boom like thunder had struck just outside the house. The walls rattled in sympathy.
The door to the other room burst open. Zephyr flowed out, her spear already gripped in her forelegs. Cloudy was a second behind. Quicklime stumbled out last, after he and Rose were already at the front door.
“It’s monsters! I knew it!” Zephyr yelled. A wild grin filled her face. “Let’s go!”
“Carefully!” he shouted. He fumbled with his saber’s hilt and managed to get his teeth around it. “Zephyr, Cloudy, stay above us. Don’t fly too far. Rose, Quicklime, behind me. Got it?”
The others all nodded. A bright glow surrounded Quicklime’s horn, as though she already had a spell ready to fly. Outside, he heard screams and shouts – dozens of ponies, it sounded like. The entire town must be out there.
“On three!” Vermilion took a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a rush. “One, two, THREE!” He didn’t bother with the handle; he just ran toward the door, put his shoulder against it, and kept running like it wasn’t there. A shocking, bright light greeted him, like the sun had risen over the town, and—
“Welcome! There you are, welcome!” An earth pony stallion appeared just feet away. He held a huge tankard in each hoof, and pressed one toward Vermilion. “Look, everyone! They’re here!”
A rousing cheer filled the town, as loud as an avalanche. Another piercing whistle punctured the night, followed by a crackling boom as an enormous firework burst over the town, showering them with tiny stars. Sparkling pinwheels spun in crazed circles, scattering embers all over. Trails of acrid, gray smoke twisted in the wind, lit from below by enormous bonfires burning in the green.
But it was not the fireworks or the sparkles or the bonfires that drew Vermilion’s eye. Nor was it the lavish feast spread out on tables across the center of the green: piles of roasted squash and steaming vegetables and florid, fluffy pastries of a dozen kinds, and cakes and pies and sweets all piled on trays, one atop another, and kegs of beer already tapped and flowing like fountains. Nor was it the balloons or pennants or dancing flags that caught him. All these he ignored, because they were the least amazing things in the night.
What he saw was the ponies. The maybe-ponies. The monsters.
The stallion offering him a flagon of beer was not, on closer inspection, an earth pony at all. His coat was the coat of a wolf, peppered with silver, and the teeth flashing in his muzzle were fangs. Tiny, ethereal wings fluttered from his shoulders. A snake’s tail, dappled with emeralds whipped around his body. And all about him sparkled little stars, appearing and vanishing like lightning bugs in the summer night.
A mare appeared beside them. The scarlet unicorn who’d sold them pumpkins for dinner. But her horn was forked and branched, an antler, and scales covered her breast. She smothered Cloudy with a hug, giggled, and danced away before Zephyr could bring her spear around. Cloudy gawked after her.
“Oh, you’re awake!” It was the mayor. Just as old as before, but rather than wrinkles she had grown toadstools all over her back. Lichen ridges burst from her cheeks like fans. The ground beneath her hooves seethed with shoots and vines, all bursting from the soil in a frantic paroxysm of blossoming life. She walked toward them slowly, with a bit of a limp, and took one of the flaggons from the stallion. Hummingbirds circled around her, dipping in for an occasional drink.
Beyond her, in the green, dozens of other monsters, or ponies, or ponies that were monsters gathered to celebrate. Sprites, goblins, dragons, chimaera, wolves and stygians and even what looked like a true dreamora. They raised drinks and scarfed down food and danced with abandon. In the air above pegasi and other things with wings set off more fireworks, filling the air with flashing light.
It was too much. Vermilion fell back onto his haunches. The saber tumbled from his lips onto the ground. Beside him, Rose gawked at the festival, at the monsters’ bacchanal.
“We’re so glad you could join us!” The mayor pressed the flagon against Vermilion’s chest. The heady scent of citrusy ale punched him in the nose. She leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek, then turned to do the same with Rose.
Her next words were filled with more joy than Vermilion had ever heard. “Welcome to Teawater!”
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How many chapters long will this story be?
This story does scale and tension like few others.
Interesting
10663013
Act II will be wrapping up in just a few more chapters. Act III is the final act, and won't be nearly as long as Act II.
Beware of eating food in the realm of the Fair Folk, Vermillion.
If only he knew...
Anyway, looks like we have ourselves a rather curious village here.
Quickrun! The government is here
10664209
Who needs rescuing who from which monsters now?
It's nice to see Rose getting to the point while Vermilion worries. She's a good balance for him in that way.
Also, this is definitely not what I was expecting of this sleepy, forgetful little village, and clearly none of the crew did, either. Is that scarlet mare a kirin, or just something that looks like one?
I'm so glad that this story is back. It's one of my all-time favorites right now.
This seemed very much reminds me of the Danse Macabre, from the Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. It has that same Whimsical, ethereal feel to it. That kind of, fey Folk, other-worldly feel.
Like chapters like these. Where there just characters interacting with each other. It's a lot of character development can happen. I am also very happy with Rose and Vermilion relationship progress.
Fascinating and disturbing. At least the group cleared out the interpersonal drama before confronting whatever the crap is going on here. Definitely looking forward to seeing where this leads.
10663159 Yep, it's Fae.
Time to stab things with cold iron. Which is meteoric nickel-iron alloy, by the way. It's born from the heart of exploding stars, forged within the very core and imbued with the primal forces of the cosmos. Only this has the power to cut the threads of magic of otherworldly things. It can also absorb immense amounts of magic before becoming saturated, the amount dependent upon the size of the cold iron object. A great sword of cold iron could capture enough to drain Starlight for a day.
There's also neutronium from neutron stars... but a teaspoon's worth of the stuff weighs as much as Mt. Everest, not the easiest thing to lug around... and it's very unstable outside of an immense gravitational field. Undergoes countless rounds of spontaneous fission almost at once, INCREDIBLE radiation! But it can actually kill many of the lesser Fae as it severely distorts their thaumatic structure. Of course, you'll also die from the radiation, like, INSTANTLY... so it's really a last-ditch thing against really evil Fae.
Ooo, and you can imprison most Fae in a black hole. But it's tough to trick them into one. I only managed it by stabbing a Fae with TONS of cold iron spears, then stuffed the Fae onto a Starship sent straight into 1A 0620-00 at warp 10!
10664209 The only thing capable of terrifying the Fae... government bureaucracy.
Not what I expected at all! I'm glad it wasn't what I thought it would be, too.
So glad to see another update for this story.
Huh. This should be interesting.
Well, as long as they don't eat the food or make binding agreements they should probably be fine.
I want to see this from the perspective of Celestia's troops: fireworks and huge booms going off in the middle of the night should make for a true WTF moment : )
Well... masterful blindside. And evil evil cliff hanger!
SO fucking good. I have a lot of favorite stories and authors on this site and other fandoms, but your straight up prose? It's tops. Write a theme I don't get, a character I don't like, a plot I don't have interest in, doesn't matter, go off, your writing is real damn good, and always so satisfying to sink my teeth into.
I'm going to use that little dry spell since this update to re-read this thing.
Just back from re-reading. I think reading it all in one sweep gave me a better appreciation for the overall arc in Vermillion’s growth and the tone of the story.
For example, it struck me as odd how little time Vermillion actually spent with Canopy, and how aside from her last night in Hollow Shades, we are not shown much example of her skill or command. It sunk in better how much Vermillion has completely mythologized her. The real Canopy, flesh and blood, is but a blip in her own narrative.
I love the theming between Luna and Celestia. Luna the hoarder, who in some way seeks to return to her past glory fighting alongside Celestia against outer threats (maybe because then they were equals in the populace’s eyes, because she was worshipped and feared appropriately, or because she misses her sister). A patron of the arts, of stories, of archetypes and dead heros. Celestia instead seems to focus instead on the future, on building anew. Understanding that one cannot pour from an empty cup.
You see some shades of this in Vermillion’s waxing and waning naïveté regarding heroism, in his near constant pigeon-holing of others, even his friends, into boxes based on how they do or do not exemplify the stereotypes of their tribes. He mentally comments on Cloudy and Zephyr being lazy or irresponsible because they are pegasi, that those characteristics justify assuming the same about all pegasi, while ignoring that they behave that way during downtime and not in battle, that Canopy was not all that way. He at times struggles to see ponies and situations in all their at times contrary complexity. Tribalism, heroism, worship of Luna as a God and not a fallible pony with pony needs, all are ways to avoid dealing with that.