Ostraca

by Reese

Well, Cold Spike said I should write something... (Blog 2020-05-12)

Author's Note:

Blog opening author's note:
...and then part of the way through reading this post, I got a bit of inspiration on an idea I'd had a while ago, and decided to actually apply fingers to keyboard on it. So, not much, and not editing beyond what I did as I write (I've other things to do at the moment, and only did this now because I thought I'd better strike while the iron was hot), but for what it is, here it is:

Blog closing author's note (so the "it" above isn't here quite yet):
Not the first time I've put up a little bit of writing in a blog post... I don't know, maybe I should tag them with something relevant? Or maybe even put up an anthology of bits and fragments; I should have enough to clear the minimum length now. Hm... Well, don't have time for that right now, at least, but I may indeed let the idea percolate.
(Also, while I'm posting a blog anyway, semi-random interesting YouTube channel and video people reading this might be interested in, the thought sparked by that last remark.)

Story author's note:
Hey, looks like I'm doing that anthology thing now after all! Even though I still don't have time and am behind on a number of other things as I type this, but I'm trying to strike the iron while it's hot! :D
(Which I at first remembered as "grasp the iron while it's hot", and was confused until I looked it up, given that sounds like a bad idea. :))

(Also, I made a few typo corrections in this chapter in transferring it here from the blog.)

It was the earth ponies who carried the second most. Unicorn magic, in theory, could have bested them, but through the snow and bitter winds, all the way to the new land, unicorn stamina could not. Attempts would – and for some of the more initially ambitious, did – end with a trail of discarded belongings marking their path. Only the most powerful could have brought more than the simplest earth pony farm family's wagon, and their power was spent helping their fellows instead.

Unicorn magic had, however, allowed them to set off first, when the reports came back. Their packing was done quickly and, mostly, efficiently, and there was plenty of power at first to get them started. Indeed, it is not entirely fair to say that it was simply unicorn weakness that allowed the earth ponies to carry more, for the unicorn refugees were first after the scouts, leaving clearer trails for the earth ponies following, and many a piece of old Unicornian furniture, treasured but not as much as life, met a last purpose in an earth pony cooking fire.

Still, though the earth ponies could carry more, they had more to carry, as far as essentials went. The knowledge in a book of magic, history, or other important topics could be carried whole in just a few copies, with many more to be made from them later, and not urgently. The truly indispensable artifacts were few in number, the conveniences could be remade later without an immediate danger to survival, and many other items could simply be left to survive the cold and ice until, it was hoped, later expeditions could retrieve them. And the great works of magical architecture could not be brought at all, now or at any time in the foreseeable future, if ever, and so there was no use considering them.

The earth ponies likewise had their stores of knowledge, their own histories and important stories, the particulars of their crafts, and they likewise had their tools. Likewise, too, they could not bring their buildings and fields along, however much they may have tried or wished. But it was no use saying that a single bag of seed could, after several years, produce enough to plant enough for all the ponies, when those ponies would by then have starved. There must be enough, from the precious remaining stores, to give the refugees the best chance of living, in a land few earth ponies had ever seen or tried to work. They did not know what would be good to plant where, or when; the reports said the land was bountiful, the soil good, but those first expeditions could only explore so much in the time they had available. The earth ponies who would feed the land could, and would, learn, but they did not know how long it would take – and so, they brought everything. Every last seed, and every last bit of food they could find that would keep for the trip.

In later centuries, some who knew this, but not more, would think unkindly of the pegasi, for not carrying more of this load, for not freeing up earth pony carts for earth pony and unicorn possessions.

For the pegasi, by far, brought the most, and though they left last, arrived first.

And Cloudsdale with them.

If this had been the modern Cloudsdale, those who criticized the pegasi for not bearing more of the burden would be right. The modern Cloudsdale, shaped by hundreds of years of Equestrian harmony and prosperity, has many solid surfaces where great loads could be piled, and among the unicorns, there are many who could add yet more capacity with new spells. Cloudsdale, too, moves with great engines, triumphs of pegasus-unicorn cooperation; had the refugees had modern Cloudsdale, not just great loads of cargo but great masses of people could have been carried, and to do otherwise while the ground-bound ponies struggled below would have been a great and selfish unfairness.

It is admittedly the case that many pegasi in those days would have argued for it anyway – but there was enough empathy, even then, and beyond that enough simple enlightened self interest, that the load would have been shared.

Not an option was this, however. In those days, very few were the places in Cloudsdale that could support a ground pony or their baggage, and few were the pegasi or unicorns who could use their magic to make more. Why should there be? The pegasi had no interest in giving their enemies a place to stand, and the unicorns preferred to avoid fighting in the pegasi's natural environment. Ground travelers in the clouds were rare indeed, and trade was kept to a minimum; far from being seen as a weakness, the preponderance of pegasus-produced products was a source of pride. Cloudsdale had its granaries, its food stores, of course – but these were needed for the city's own populace, and, indeed, more than that, since while the greatest and largest of Pegasopolis's cities was being brought, it was with every pegasus from far and wide, as other dwellings were abandoned.

Nor were the pegasi idly relaxing in their city as it cut through the weather. While many of the best weatherworkers and warriors flew ahead and behind to cover the refugees below, the bulk of the populace, in shifts, were by and large either sleeping, eating their rations of food, and either supporting the other pegasi, or doing their civic duty in the age before engines.

Over the refugee columns passed the city, its buildings bound together in an elongated aerodynamic shape and the thunderclaps of the storm drums echoing down. In time with their steady beat, all along the city's sides, beat together the wings of thousands of pegasi in their ordered ranks, all who were not far too young or old or busy with other tasks. At strategic positions were more specialized groups, those with more training, given in varying degrees of haste, in the particular techniques needed for maneuvering the great sky-city-ship, listening out for coded blows of the wind horns and secondary drumbeats and ready to change their wingstrokes accordingly so the city would turn, climb, or descend without breaking apart. At the city's highest point was another team of specialists, guiding the whole movement of the city, and coordinating with those managing the flappers, the stores, the terrain ahead, the other details of the city, and the entire effort of Pegasopolis as a whole.

Criticism can be leveled that the effort of moving the city could have been spent otherwise, that the time and food could have been put into bringing only the most vital parts and aiding the other refugees. This is not baseless, and there are also those who suggest that Commander Hurricane wanted to make sure that in the event the new ideals of Harmony didn't work out, the pegasi would be in the best position to win the ensuing new struggle. This is also at least plausible, though there is further debate over whether this was in fact a good policy for the promotion of Harmony, both as a deterrent and to increase the chances that, in the worst case scenario, the conflict would be ended swiftly before the new land could meet the same fate as the old.

What cannot be argued, however, is that, within mere days and weeks of arriving in the new land, Cloudsdale was fully operational again as the center of pegasus weather control and military forces. Every weapon and tool -- not just from the city itself but from all the old pegasus settlements, for the city did have ample room for that which could already rest on a cloud – every workshop and training ground had been brought intact, and the city's inhabitants had their own old homes and the other pegasi plenty of space to share. Those on the ground, though some may have envied what the pegasi had not lost, had no fear of poor weather in this new land as they tried desperately to clear and plant enough new farmland, or dangerous beasts as they sought new places of natural resources or magical power.

In time, new great cities and towns, tracts of farmland and palaces and castles, would take shape on the surface of Equestria, and new pegasus settlements in its skies. In time, the city would itself be lost, like so much else, to Discord and his reshaping of the world, and more thoroughly erased was the old city than many of its newer and older fellows both, since even chaos-warped stone ruins last longer than clouds once unattended and Discord had little interest in faraway ruins locked in ice and lifeless long before his arrival. Nevertheless, its legacy, like the new city rebuilt with its name, lasts as a vital part of modern Equestria.