Tales From Riversdale: Life Without Harmony

by Rare80

Chapter Four

It had been a little more than two days since Romero and the others got on the next boat leaving from a port from Vanhoover going west, a cargo ship. The other six were able to rent a small room in the deck, whereas, due to his lack of money, Romero was forced to tie his carriage down near the bow of the ship and he slept inside. The slight sliding back and forth as the rope struggles to hold his carriage in place keeps him up all night. He hasn’t got much sleep since he’s left Equestria. The trip is nearly over now, and he's trying to take a quick nap in a desperate attempt to catch up on his sleep. Suddenly, and out of the blue, he receives a soft knock on the door. It doesn’t sound like the shipyard employees coming to bother him again. He slowly gets up and answers the door. It creaks open and reveals a bright pink earth pony, her mane and tail are in a curly, unaltered perm.

“Hiya!” Her voice is high-pitched and usually cheerful. She greets him with a big cheeky grin, and suddenly pokes her head in through the door. “Ooooooh! It smells good in here.” Her eyes widen has she takes in the aroma of all of the coffee. “Can I try some? Huh? Can I, can I, can I?” She begins bouncing in place, smiling big as she eagerly awaits a favorable answer.

“Something’s telling me that’s not a good idea…”

“Puh-leeeaaaaaase?” Her face scrunges up and she sticks out her lower lip, making a pouty face. Romero is hesitant, but he’s never one to turn down a customer. He sighs and lets her inside the carriage after he steps out. It’s not big enough to fit the two of them, or at least it isn’t with all of the coffee he’s stored up. The pink mare trots into the carriage and eyes each of the bags of coffee, all of them stacked tightly together up to the ceiling. She plucks a small bag of coffee beans from a shelf near the back. “This one!”

She gives the bag to Romero, implying that she wants him to prepare it. He looks at the bag, biting his lip for a moment. “Mid-Morning Rush? This one has quite the kick to it. Uh,… I have a decaf version of the same blend, if you want to play it safe.”

She shrugs. “I guess I’ll try that. I mean, I dunno anything about coffee. I’m a hot chocolate girl myself.” The pink mare steps back out of the carriage as she does so. Even though this pony seemed overly excitable, Romero enjoyed her warm demeanor and pleasant tone. Plus, having some company on this trip was better than trying to sleep it away. “I don’t believe I caught your name. I’m Pinkie Pie, what’s yours?”

“Hmm?” Romero is only halfway paying attention to the mare as he squeezes past her into the carriage. He selects a bag of coffee and pours them into a mortar so he can begin grinding up the beans with a pestle. Their fragrance gets stronger as the grinding ensues. “Oh, I’m Romero.” He focuses solely on grinding his coffee as he speaks, not bothering to look away.

“Do all of the ponies in your country have weird names?” Romero was a little irked by the question, but he took in a deep breath. He was going to bet that this pony was simply asking an honest question, and not trying to be rude.

“Well, I think ‘weird’ is all subjective. If you ask me, I think Equestrian names like Sunlight Swirl are the weird ones.” Pinkie Pie shrugs and continues to wait patiently for her coffee. Romero reaches into a shelf and pulls out a plastic, battery-operated heating plate and places it on the countertop in front of him, and turns it on. He then trots out of the carriage and informs his visitor that he is going off to collect some water and that he will return shortly.

After a few moments, Pinkie curiously paces into the carriage. The heating plate is the first thing that catches her attention. She’d never seen such an odd contraption like this before, so she unknowingly places a hoof on top of it. It quickly scalds her; causing her to let out a loud, short, high-pitched yelp. She quickly shakes her seared hoof in attempt to cool the agony. Despite that short, painful experience, she still interested in snooping around in Romero’s carriage. However, other than the coffee, there wasn’t much to see. After a few minutes of looking, she does eventually spot a piece of laminated paper that was folded neatly and stuffed all the way near the back on a high shelf. Intrigued, she reaches her hoof in and retrieves it.

Upon leaving the carriage, she sees it in better lighting and she can clearly tell that it is a map. She scans the document of any kind of sign of what place the map is supposed to be displaying. She looks for landmarks and doesn’t recognize any. This wasn’t like any map she’s ever seen. It was dull and flat, all the land was one solid color: white, the water was all one pale shade of blue, and all of the text was written in black with a boring serif font. It lacked any sort of illustrations or coloring. Even still, nothing she read sounded remotely familiar, this clearly wasn’t Equestria. She located a map key on the bottom right corner. It’s a map of Cavalla.

Romero trots back up to the carriage carrying a large jug of water in his teeth. Pinkie politely moves out of the way, and he rushes past her, spilling trace amounts of water along his way. He sets the glass jug on the hot plate, and waits for it to boil. He rejoins Pinkie outside, and he curiously looks over her shoulder. She suddenly turns around and she immediately spins around and stuffs the map right in his muzzle. “Is this a map of your country? It’s pretty neat, not even Twilight could find a map of this place. Can ya show me where you live? Can ya?”

Romero back away a couple of steps. He kind of wishes the pink mare would’ve just simply asked before going through his things, but he’s much too afraid of scolding her in fear of scaring her off. He grabs the map from her and takes a good look at it. “I’m from Riversdale, which is almost right in the middle,” he explains. “If you’re coming from east like you’re coming from Equestria, then you’ll pass through these straights near Kingsford, and you'll enter the Northern River and continue westward until you get to The Great Lake.” His hoof traces the ship's eventual path, tilting the map towards Pinkie so she can clearly see. She pays close attention. “On the southwest corner of The Great Lake, is the mouth of the Gary River. That river will eventually lead us all the way to Riversdale.”

“If the blue lines are rivers, then what are these black dotted lines for?” she asks.

“Oh, those show the borders between our districts. Y’see, Cavalla is divided up into ten districts—”

“Twilight said there are twelve,” Pinkie interjects.

“Then her information must be outdated, because there are only ten now. The other two recently declared their independence.”

“Huh, weird…” Pinkie slowly takes the map away from Romero, and she closely studies it. Romero then turns around to check on his boiling water. Once he sees that the water is hot enough, he empties his ground coffee beans from his mortar into a fine metal strainer. He then strains the boiling water from the jar, through the coffee, and into a plastic bucket. He then strains the water in reverse going from the bucket, through the strainer and back into the jar. He repeats this process a few more times until the coffee colors the water a dark brown. As he does, steam rises from the carriage and bellows out of the open door. “Ohmygosh, that smells so delicious!” Pinkie pokes her head into the carriage, taking whiff of the aromatic smell.

Romero comes out of the carriage holding two mugs filled with coffee, and offering a cup to his companion. Pinkie kindly takes it from him, and begins to sip cautiously from it. She was surprised by the taste of it. It was a blend of sweet and bitter, but not too bitter. Even though she knew it was decaf, the bitterness implied that it was supposed to be an espresso. It was a very thin coffee, about the same consistency as the water itself. It had a hint of caramel in its flavor. Pinkie looks up from her cup and offers a thankful smile to the stallion, and he eventually returns it.

Suddenly, a loud clap of thunder rang from above, the skies had turned a dark gray. Menacing clouds hovered above them. They quickly whisp and churn, heavy with the rain they plan on dumping onto the surface below. Pinkie takes a quick look upwards and gasps. “Looks like I’ve got to go. D’ya mind if I took this map, and showed it to Twilight?”

“Yeah, I guess. Just please remember to bring it back.” Romero’s voice is quiet, flat, and almost lacking purpose. The smile he once had was now wiped off his face.

“Thanks for the coffee!” Pinkie smiled. She then suddenly turns around and quickly trots in the other direction, towards her room.

Something deep within Romero’s soul begins to tug at his insides. He wanted to tell Pinkie about how she should go back to the others and tell them about how not all Cavallians are bad, and how kind polite and kind he was. He wanted to tell them how he was sorry for dragging them all out here. He wanted to say even though his home may not have Harmony, that maybe if they looked at it with an open mind, they might even learn to enjoy themselves there. He wanted to beg and plead with her to give him a chance, but he struggled to find the right words. He stuttered and stammered quietly to himself, and before he knew it, Pinkie was long gone. Romero breathed in a heavy sigh before taking a sip from his coffee. He slowly paces back up to his carriage and ducks inside, locking the door shut behind him.