The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Many

No water dripped from above as Maple strolled leisurely through the streets of Riverfall, Starlight stalking warily at her side. They were, for the most part, ignored... but every now and then, a clearly curious mare would turn and stare at them as they passed, and Starlight deliberately avoided making eye contact. They could stare at her as much as they wanted, for all she cared, but she wouldn't give them the pleasure of knowing they got a response.

"I bet they'd be less interested if you walked normally and weren't acting like they were doing something wrong," Maple whispered, leaning down to meet Starlight's ear amid the hubbub of the streets. "You kind of are making yourself stick out right now."

Starlight folded her ears. Was she? To be fair, it wasn't like most of the mares had anything better to look at. Aside from the ponies in it, the street looked the same as any other in Riverfall: brown dirt floor, randomly placed house towers, and thick bases of tree trunks. The ponies were probably the only thing that really changed from day to day, if that. How many of them knew each other already? Were they neighbors, or just passing through? Maybe being new was all it took to make her stand out.

One of the nice features of the town was that there were no sudden bends, making it nearly impossible to accidentally walk into anyone. A cherry-coated mare with a foal on her back strolled around a house ahead, neatly hugging the wall yet still so visible they had ample time to get out of the way. Starlight walked by her, eyes lingering for some reason on the infant the mare carried.

She surveyed the crowd again, suddenly taking interest in the ages of the ponies present. Adults were everywhere, young and old, and she saw several in their later teens. There were also a surprising number of foals young enough to be carried... yet very few who looked to be near her age, and none who were slightly younger. "Maple?" She prodded the mare. "Why are their ages so split?"

"Because between when the boats stopped and the colts who were stuck here grew up, there were very few stallions old enough to have children in Riverfall, and almost all of them were married," Maple hummed, not taking her eyes off the path. "Now, there's enough of them that foals are everywhere again. More foals have actually been born in the last three or four years than... well, in a long time. And it's probably not going to change any time soon..."

"Really?" Starlight tilted her head, noting that Maple's pace had reflexively quickened and adjusting hers to match. "There are that many stallions?"

Maple deadpanned, "It doesn't take that many stallions to..." She cut off, eyes focusing. "You know what? You can learn about this at home. Or from Willow. Or not at all."

Starlight squinted at her. "Okayyyy..."

"Sometimes, I wish you were a few years older," Maple sighed. "I'm curious how this works in... well... never mind."

Respectfully, Starlight didn't press. Instead, she took another quick scan of the crowd, realizing with a spike of resentment that a decent number of them were still watching her. Hardly all, or even a majority... but enough to be unusual. "They're still looking at me," she complained.

"That's not really a crime," Maple pointed out. "I mean, aren't you looking at them? Besides, you just said how rare ponies your age are here, and don't forget that you are a unicorn. Maybe they're interested in you because of that, and not because of what you did at the docks. And if anything, that's closer to what you were talking about earlier, with circumstances you have no control over."

"Yeah. Maybe," Starlight said, trying her best to appear normal and boring. "I just don't like it, okay? I just want to be a normal pony who never makes anyone do anything they don't want to or makes them better or worse than anyone else and have them do the same to me! Why is that so hard?"

Maple bit her lip, then sighed. "When you put it that way, it sounds impossible. You think influencing someone's decisions is bad?" She stopped walking, rounding on the filly. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have made those biscuits last night, and everyone enjoyed them. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have joined Amber at the bathhouse the other day, and we had a ton of fun there! Speaking of Amber, it sounds like she finally got her revenge on Hemlock because of you. And Starlight... these are all good things that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made them." She hung her head. "I know if you hadn't come into my life, I would still be living day by day, not letting myself hope things would get better. You made that change just by existing here."

Starlight shrank, not knowing what to say.

"I know what happened to you was horrible," Maple said, "and I'm not saying it wasn't. But I think you're too busy blaming things that can be both good and bad, like unexpected change..." She leaned down and hugged the filly. "Rather than appreciating the good things that do happen. Like meeting me. That's good, right?" She held the hug for a minute longer, before nervously breaking. "Oh! Sorry. If ponies weren't staring before, they definitely are now..."

"Never mind," Starlight muttered, resuming her pace. "I'll think about it. Let's keep going."

---

"So if there are more and more ponies," Starlight suddenly asked in the middle of a busy plaza, "wouldn't you run out of houses? Where do they stay when they move out?"

"Well, nopony knows for sure," Maple answered, weaving her way between a pack of chatting mares and a broken couch someone had seen fit to leave on the roadway. "It's actually slightly worrying. They've converted a bunch of old industrial buildings used for storage when the docks were active into houses. Those are the tall ones in the north side of town, like where Arambai lives, and where we watched from when we went to see Gerardo. But they won't be enough. Once this new wave grows up..." She brightened. "Well, they're thinking of expanding town to the southwest, and building more."

"Huh." Starlight sidestepped a mudhole that apparently hadn't had enough time yet to dry. "Wouldn't that take a ton of work? Who would make it?"

Maple smirked. "Does this town look like it has anything better to do? There are plenty of volunteers. Most of the stallions help out, too. Which is good, because it's their fault we need it..." She sighed. "Before, we never needed to worry about growing or shrinking. When it got hard to find space, ponies would be more inclined to leave. When it got easier, they'd stay. But now, there's no way out..."

"What do they look like?" Starlight asked.

"I don't know." Maple shook her head. "They only started a year or so ago. And I've... well... that's where Amber found my former husband. I haven't wanted to go there since then."

"Oh." Starlight shrugged, and didn't press. Together, the pair walked onward, the streets becoming still busier as they drew nearer to the heart of town.

Comments

[Chara Undertale]

I love my new avatar so much I want to post more comments just to see it, but I can't think of anything worthwhile to say.
It seems i've made it to chapter 50 already.
Who the hell downvoted this?
I think those where good enough.

[Czar_Yoshi]

8727070 People who find the intro boring. People who get triggered by seeing it in the updated column each and every day and think I'm fishing for views. People who don't like the "Inspired by Austraeoh" in the description. Maaaybe someone who got sufficiently triggered by my new story, which is no-regrets mode and I knew would trigger people... but I doubt it.

[mustangdrew4]

I can't remember if that cleared space our griffon adventurer found was to the southwest or not. Foreshadowing or coincidental timing.

[StormLuna]

8728147

I'm 50 chapters in and I'm loving this. Sometimes people downvote stories for the most ridiculous reasons. I upvoted it after chapter 1 and added it to a bookshelf not long after that. With this chapter, I have decided to give it a fave.

[Czar_Yoshi]

10981030
Thanks! Looking back, the downvotes were even more heavily coming from the daily updates than I thought; my up/down ratio got much higher after I finished publishing and stopped showing up in the feature box.

[Merula]

And there we go, that population dynamic rears its ugly head