The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Reconsidering? Nope

Starlight's pace was slow, constantly sticking by Maple, who was the group's main bottleneck. Part of her wished she could do something to help, as a means of repaying all the time the mare had spent carrying her when she could have walked perfectly fine... but her headache was only just clearing, and she knew it was favor enough to be able to take care of herself. So she spent the walk staring at Redshift, who was vehemently disinclined to stare or even glance back.

The filly was her equal in height... nearly, because Starlight had a horn and that made a difference. She walked with a righteousness born of having absolute trust in something bigger than herself, despite knowing that she was just as absolutely outclassed on her own; something Valey's constant presence made sure of. Her eyes still burned, in the few times Starlight managed to catch glimpses of them, and she found her gaze wandering to Redshift's cutie mark.

It was a ladder. Before, she had suspected the filly might be a carpenter, or window-washer, or pony who specialized in working with roofs. But after their debate in the bar, Starlight wondered if its meaning might have been far less literal: her mark was the social ladder, and her passion was for taking as many ponies up it as possible. Fitting, for someone so driven by the state of their home.

That drew Starlight's gaze to her own, blank flank, and with it came a slight pang of shame. When her own home had proved rotten, did she dedicate her life to changing it? Far from it; she did everything in her power and more to avoid letting it change her.

She took a deep breath, Willow's parting words swimming through her mind. The world wasn't fair, and she wouldn't find a paradise suited to her ideals just by looking. Riverfall had been impossibly close, yet proven far enough away that Maple's dream and a single boat had been enough to make her abandon it like sand, dry and useless. Swallowing, she wondered if she would still make the same decision, if it came to it then and there and with everything she had seen. Would she?

With a tremble, Starlight realized she would. Committing to building a perfect world would mean admitting that it didn't already exist, and while she knew that on a factual level, facts had nothing to do with hope. Keeping faith in an impossible goal was the kind of challenge she felt like doing, just because she could.

Faith and goals and hopes and dreams... Starlight mentally slapped herself. Her other goal was to keep her flank clean in the first place, and those were exactly the kinds of words talked about by ponies who had theirs. In the long run, it might not have mattered: whether she found or made a place where marks changed nothing, being blank and having a mark would mean exactly the same thing. The only difference would be before she reached there, where it was a choice between being an outcast, a rejected nonconformist who constantly earned strange stares, or giving up her morals and changing who she was.

...She blinked. If, hypothetically, she got a cutie mark in making a place where cutie marks didn't matter, that wouldn't change her goals at all. And if it came with a power that would be useful for-

Stop. She slapped herself again; that it would be beneficial to gain a mark was an outcome given to be false, so her logic had to be flawed. She had to have messed up somewhere. Her face scrunched, thinking... until she found it.

She wasn't being rejected for her lack of a mark. Not in Riverfall, not in Ironridge. She earned stares, but always for different reasons: having a horn, keeping the company of a griffon, doing feats others deemed heroic and getting mixed up on the wrong side of law enforcement, as well as looking like a total wreck and wielding powerful, exotic magic.

That brought up a completely different question. In Equestria, cutie marks were an integral part of society, because everyone could be expected to have one. In Ironridge, they were apparently rare, a sign of exceptional ambition and motivation, and when useful powers were involved... why didn't society care? Valey had yelled at her a few times about it, sure, but only after she had insulted the mare's obsession with her talent. For everything logic suggested, the ponies would have divided themselves into castes, if for no other reason than the ponies with marks having enough drive to go about making a point of being the best. It was how equines worked.

She had no idea. And so, she asked.

"If... brands are so rare here," she began, choosing her words carefully, "why aren't the ponies who have them far more important than the ones who don't?"

Maple looked at her like she had just asked why trees grew leaves, and then realized she didn't actually know. Valey, on the other hoof, stopped in her tracks. Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a hissing breath as if having collided with an invisible wall. "That," she exhaled, "is not a story for kids like you."

Starlight frowned. Of all the possible answers, being told she wasn't allowed to know wasn't high on her list of expectations. Fortunately, Redshift chimed in.

"Our society evolved past that," the filly bragged, adding extra emphasis to her marked rump as she walked. "My father said so. Being branded gives us an extra burden as public servants."

"Yyyyyou know what?" Valey grinned uneasily. "That's a totally correct answer. Let's go with that." Her eyes narrowed, and her tone hastened. "So, change of subject. You sure hold your dad in high regard, kiddo. What is he, a lumberjack?"

Redshift smirked haughtily, leaving Starlight no time to parse Valey's unfiltered unwillingness to discuss an apparently important segment to Ironridge's past. "The mayor," she gloated.

"Pfft. No, really?" Valey snorted. "And let me guess, your mom is Braen? Or wait!" Her emerald eyes lit up. "Better yet: your mom is that creepy dude from the bar who apparently wants me to take Braen on in a fight? Nailed it, didn't I?"

"I was being serious," Redshift muttered, frowning. "Not that it would matter to you. I still can't wait to see the Spirit give you what you deserve."

"Neither can I!" Valey grinned, flexing her forelimbs as she hovered. "I sure do deserve a good workout after all I've been putting up with. Wanna make another bet on how long they'll last? Starting at ten seconds..."

Starlight sighed, tuning out their bickering, and turned to Maple. The mare was biting her lip, either thinking about what Valey had clumsily avoided saying, trying to press herself to keep going, or both. It was easy to feel sorry for her; Starlight's hooves were sore and legs tired after the previous day's lengthy hikes around the Stone and Water Districts, and she had the advantage of being in shape from a recent month-long cross-mountain trek. Not to mention Maple's heavy load...

Hopefully, helpfully, she drew a little closer, and Maple responded warmly. "Hi, Starlight," she puffed, slightly apologetic for not perking up more. "How are you... holding up?"

"I don't know how we'll reach Sosa today," Starlight answered with a shake of her head. "We need to stop and rest. For real, not that bar. And for more than an hour."

Maple nodded. "Redshift said her father was the mayor. Of Blueleaf, do you think she meant?"

"Mmph." Starlight slouched, pouting. "Yes."

"Well..." Maple looked overhead, scanning the further gloom of Blueleaf's lower levels. "I hope she warms up to us, because that sounds like someone who would have a very nice, safe house. But I can't see how that will happen, unless we manage to get inside the generator and then actually fix it..."

Starlight frowned again as they continued their walk through the shadows.

Comments

[RoboRed]

"If... brands are so rare here," she began, choosing her words carefully, "why aren't the ponies who have them far more important than the ones who don't?"

Maple looked at her like she had just asked why trees grew leaves, and then realized she didn't actually know. Valey, on the other hoof, stopped in her tracks. Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a hissing breath as if having collided with an invisible wall. "That," she exhaled, "is not a story for kids like you."

That's...not a reaction that I expected. At all.

[Alchemik]

Huh. That's a story I'd love to hear. If Valey is shying away from telling it, it must be messy.

Also, can I just mention I love that Ironridge is a big enough city to have suburbs that form microcosms of Ironridge as a whole? It feels fitting somehow.

[bronyheat]

I wonder if something really nasty involving cutiemarks/brands and some form of classism and discrimination happened in Ironridge's past? Seems an odd topic to avoid when they're such a normal part of their world.

"The mayor," she gloated.

Kid just pulled the my daddy's the X, card!
Also... Uh-oh.