Gloaming

by Rambling Writer

5 - Baby Steps

Levanta had made soup for dinner that night. Potato and corn chowder. Since I didn’t know much about soup, I didn’t know how much of an effort this actually was for her. Easy or hard, it tasted good.

I’d kept telling myself I’d drill into Levanta that night, no matter what. I knew my first attempt would be futile, but I went through with it anyway. I slurped down a few drops of soup and cleared my throat. “Levanta?”

“Hmm?” Levanta barely looked at me, instead licking cracker crumbs from her face.

“How was your day?”

“Eh. Fine.”

For a second, I thought about grilling her right there, but reconsidered. Maybe, if I opened up first, she’d be more willing to. And maybe a note telling me exactly what was going on in Delta would show up in my mailbox. “My day was fine, too,” I said. Slurp. “Pretty uneventful.”

“Mmhmm.”

“I was examining some of the places where the animals had been found, and… Well, there wasn’t much there. You know how it is.”

“Yyyep.”

“And this…” Slurp. “This is a really weird case. Remember the timberwolves south of Vernal Meadow? How nopony could figure out what was going on?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s kind of like that, but with even less conclusive evidence. I’m not kidding; I don’t even have a place to start. At least with the timberwolves, I could make a guess and had a place to start. Even though the guess was very, very wrong.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I haven’t told you exactly what’s up, have I? Well…” And I rambled for I don’t know how long. A while. Levanta made periodic grunts and “hmm”s to indicate she was… not that she was listening, but that she’d heard me. Eventually, I took a chance. “So, yeah,” I finished. “Strange, but not much really happened.”

“Nope.”

“So what sort of nothing happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.”

“Absolutely nothing?” I pressed.

“Right.”

Son of a dog. “So tell me about the nothing. What are your classes-”

Levanta abruptly pushed away from the table, leaving behind her half-full soup dish. “Going up,” she said, and was gone.

I sighed and began gathering the plates and leftovers. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes for her to get her thoughts in order. I doubted it’d do anything; maybe I was delaying myself from talking to her. But I would. In fifteen minutes.

---

Seventeen minutes later, I had my ear pressed to Levanta’s door. I wasn’t sure what I was listening for. Crying? Levanta had never been weepy, outside of Thunderhead’s funeral. In any case, I heard nothing, so I knocked. “Levanta?”

Grunt.

“Can I come in?”

Grunt. It was vaguely negatory, but I still had parental rights and she hadn’t locked the door.

Her room was small, a lot of space taken up by still-packed boxes. The walls were painted in a blue that looked like it’d been sponged on, making an intricate and irregular pattern. Some of her posters had been haphazardly put up, but most of them were still rolled up in one of her boxes. She hadn’t even reassembled her bookcase; the few books that had been taken out had been tossed aside into the corners. Levanta was stretched out on a bed that looked like it hadn’t been made since she’d first put the sheets on and staring at the ceiling. “Hey,” she said without looking at me.

“We need to talk,” I said.

Levanta gathered herself up into a sitting position. “I- I’m fine.”

I sighed and sat down next to her. I gave her several feet of space. Teenagers. “Levanta,” I said with what little steel I dared, “please don’t lie to me.”

Levanta twitched and reddened slightly, but didn’t say anything.

“What’s going on? Are you feeling okay?”

“ ’M fine,” she mumbled.

I looked down my muzzle at her. I wished I had glasses so I could look over the top of them. “Feelings Inside Not Expressed?” I asked. “Freaked-out, Insecure, Nervous, and Emotional?”

Levanta stared at the floor, shaking slightly.

“Is it about Dad?” I asked quietly. I was never quite sure she’d really adjusted to it.

“Dad’s- He’s part of it, but-” Her voice almost broke when she talked. “M-Mom, I… I don’t belong here. All my friends are back in Fawkes, and the other kids, they-” Sniff. “-they’ve known each other since they were in kindergarten. It’s- It’s not like Fawkes or Salt Lick City or, or even Stauntrot. Kids came and went all the time there. N-nopony here’s changed in… I don’t know.” She blinked a few times, flinched, and looked away.

I doubted that was everything, but simply getting her to speak made me latch onto it. “How long have you been worried about this?” I asked.

“A- a while,” she said. She rubbed her eyes. “Since you said we had to move to a small town.”

Which had been only a little more than a week after the funeral. I was probably lucky I’d gotten this much out of her; I didn’t think Levanta was sure of her own emotions. It’d taken me days before I could get mine sorted. “All this time? Honey, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mom…”

‘Don’t ‘Mom’ me. You should tell me these things. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“…I dunno,” Levanta admitted. “It… just seems…” She slouched over so much she was almost bent double. “ ’S stupid, but-”

“It’s not stupid. I’ve felt the same way, sometimes.”

Levanta didn’t respond.

“Scared?”

“…N-not re- Yes. I’m-” The word seemed to catch in her throat. “I- just- I don’t know what to do! How do you do it?”

“C’mon.” I wanted to throw a leg over her shoulders, but she would’ve just shied away. Stupid adolescence. I settled for a nudge to her ribs. “You’ve moved before.”

“It- It’s easier for you. We move someplace and it’s like you’ve always lived there. I can’t do that. And if ponies come and go, it’s, I’ll be fine, but not someplace like this.”

“It’s not easy. You j-” And then I realized the perfect way to reach her. “I never told you the first time I had to move, did I?” Talk about lucky.

Levanta turned to me, her ears twitching slightly. “No.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not long. I was twenty-one, bachelor’s in earthcraft, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, heading back home to Halterdale with a spring in my step.” I chuckled just remembering it. I’d felt like the only reason the world wasn’t my oyster was because oysters were too small. “I’d barely even gotten settled back in when somepony from the Royal Court was knocking on my door, asking if I’d like to become an accredited ranger. Short version: yes, very much.”

“And then you had to go somewhere else before you knew what was going on?” asked Levanta.

“No, actually. I was assigned to Halterdale, and suddenly I had power. It wasn’t much, and I was junior enough to be easily overruled, but if I told the right pony, ‘hey, I’m working late, gimme some coffee’, they’d gimme some coffee. And all I had to do was wrangle a manticore every now and then. Which is a lot easier than it sounds, they can be big softies.” I chuckled again. Manticores are about 75% cat and usually behave as such. “Oh, sure, I was cautioned that I’d be moved elsewhere if the need arose, but I wasn’t worried about that. Somepony else would be moved. Then, two years in, I was reminded that I was somepony else to somepony else.”

I twirled my hoof around a lock of my hair. “One day, a letter came in the mail, telling me that a town called San Hirzai, way on the other side of Equestria, was having issues with a manticore, and my manticore-wrangling was perfect for it.” The increasing horror I’d had as I’d read the letter was still clear in my mind, even though it was now so laughable. Celestia, I’d been naïve. “Now, college was the only time I’d ever gone more than twenty miles outside of Halterdale, so, naturally, I freaked. I did everything I could to stay in Halterdale; it was where my friends, family, everyone I’d known, everywhere I’d known, where all that was. But the Court shut me down and shipped me off to San Hirzai.”

“Bummer.” Levanta moved a little closer to me. “So then what?”

“I was terrified, believe it or not. I knew literally nothing about San Hirzai except that there was a manticore around. All the ponies were strange, there was a lot less green and a lot more mountains, the town was a lot bigger than Halterdale, and there were accents. I was shocked by accents. Can you believe that?”

“Wimp.” Levanta smirked a little.

“Yeah. My first day, I struggled to find the police station, got there almost half an hour late even though I’d left half an hour early, did the stereotypical eating-lunch-alone-in-the-corner thing at twenty-three at my job, and was barely able to communicate with the ponies I was supposed to work with.”

Levanta stared. One ear flopped down. “It was that bad?”

“Yep.”

“Even my first day here wasn’t that bad!”

“You have no idea. Anyway, the second day went a bit better. I was on time and I could pretend I knew what I was doing. I still went for the grungiest corner in the cafeteria, though. All the new ponies scared me on a personal level, if not an occupational one. And then some pegasus stallion suddenly sat down across from me and asked if I was the ranger.”

“It… wasn’t Dad, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t him. I can’t even remember his name, honestly. But we talked a little, he introduced me to his friends once the day was out, and I slowly slid in when we went to the bar. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was invited over for poker night. Let me tell you, it went a long way to get me adjusted to San Hirzai. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed an increasingly maladjusted island. No matter what’s out there, everything seems less intimidating when you’ve got a friend at your side.”

“I… I guess.” Already, I could hear the interest slowly slipping out of Levanta’s voice. Maybe I’d come on too hard.

“So here’s my advice: try to talk to somepony,” I said. “Anypony. I know how it feels. If whatever city we move to has an animal control department, you can bet your tail they’re not doing it for the money.”

“W-well, no,” said Levanta, “b-but it’s diff-”

“And since they’re not doing it for the money,” I said loudly, “they’re really close-knit. And, yes, I feel like I don’t belong. Sometimes I end up belonging, sometimes I don’t. But I always try to get to know them, because if I don’t, I definitely won’t belong.”

Levanta and I looked each other in the eye. She had that expression of nervous trust, where someone’s urging you to take a leap of faith and, were it anypony else, you wouldn’t do it. But since it’s them, you just might. “You-” Levanta flicked an ear. “You make it sound so easy.”

“That’s the problem with the world, honey. Everything sounds so easy. Ponies say it’s as easy as falling off a log, but have you ever tried falling off a log?”

Levanta looked down at the floor again, chewing on her lip. “Well,” she mumbled, “there’s a mare who seemed nice in biology. Babbling Brook. She sits right next to me.”

“So talk with her. You can do that, right?”

Levanta nodded, first in a slow, “I guess so” sort of way, speeding up to a “yeah, definitely” one. “Right,” she said, mostly to herself. “Tomorrow.”

“And remember, Levvi,” I said, “if you need anything, I’m here for you.” I leaned over and gave her just what she needed: a hug.

“MOOOooom…” Levanta squirmed and twitched her wings. “I’m- I’m not six anymore…”

It was working. Parental cringeyness was distracting her from her glumness. Even I knew that never failed. I squeezed her a little more tightly before I released her. “Feeling better?”

Levanta rubbed a kink out of one of her feathers. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Seriously. Tell me if you need help. I know-” I swallowed. “I know I’m not Dad. But I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks.” Levanta looked at me for a second, her wings twitching, before her gaze turned to one of the boxes around the room. She walked over to the one with her posters and began sifting through them.

“And remember,” I said as I got off the bed, “you can go out if you want, but no flying until you get a good idea of the layout of the town.” One of the most unenforceable rules I’d ever laid out, so it was really more of a suggestion. Short version: being an earth pony parent to a teenaged pegasus is really complicated.

“Yep. Uh-huh.” Somehow, I could tell her lack of response was now because she was engaged with something else, not because she just didn’t care about anything. For tonight, at least, she’d be alright, but I’d keep an eye on her.

I started heading downstairs, but as soon as I left her room, I remembered one more thing she needed to know. I turned back in. “Levanta?”

She was putting books on the corners of one of her Spider Sinew posters to flatten it out. She looked up from a tattooed singer with more mane than head. “Yeah?”

“One more thing. There’s a earth stallion around named Crooked River. He’s got orange eyes, a yellow coat, and a light blue mane. Stay away from him.”

Levanta nodded. She knew of those kinds of ponies from Fawkes. “Got it.”

“Good.”

I was halfway down the stairs when Levanta yelled, “Hey, Mom? Love you.”

My heart swelled as I called back, “Love you too.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Glad to see Swan got through to Levanta before it was too late. Sometimes the most helpful thing to know is that you're not the first person in your particular predicament.

Short version: being an earth pony parent to a teenaged pegasus is really complicated.

Intertribal parent-child interaction is one of those rich areas of potential story space that no one ever seems to do much with.

[River Babble]

This chapter makes me SO. HAPPY.
Im so used to the crappy standard in stotytelling these days of the parent and their teen who cant relate and things just get worse and worse u til they explode overdramatically. But this was as near to a healthy, if uncertain (which is NORMAL) effort of a Mom both respecting her daughter and not letting a known problem fester. Their conversation felt realistic and healthy (did I mention healthy?) And the result didnt feel forced and gave me hope for both characters. In short: HUZZAH FOR STRONGLY PORTRAYED FAMILY DYNAMICS

[kajisora]

9101613
Very true.
Hay. Even decently thought out intertribal relations are hard to find.
Very much worth the search though, the three-tribe dynamic can easily be be the most interesting part of a well written fic.

[Bugsydor]

This chapter gave me the warm fuzzies. Which is an odd if welcome juxtaposition with the rest of the fic.

[AppleTank]

As long as Levanta doesn't end up making friends with a blood red eyed pony, we should be fine

[redmar]

It's good that Swan and Levanta had a heart to heart. I do like that Levanta understands her mom when she's warned about Crooked River.