Sun & Moon Act II: A Crown Divided

by cursedchords

Chapter 21: The Storm Gathers

“The peace of this age will not last long. I believe that the time may have come to start sharpening spears once more.”

- King Solaris VII

From a distance, the buildings of Southoofton looked just as they always had, a cluster of isolated houses standing against the dust blowing through the town. Wind was expecting a crowd of ponies to be visible somewhere, just as it had been when Cattail had alerted them to Amber’s departure. Yet, to the eye at least, everything seemed peaceful. Cattail trotted briskly ahead of them, though, and it wasn’t long before a low din of overlapping voices reached Wind’s ears.

When they made it to the town square, one glimpse through the open doors of the hall revealed that the lamps of the place were all ablaze, and most of the benches inside were occupied.

The sound of course got a lot louder as soon as they ducked their heads inside, and it wasn’t a pleasant noise. Everypony was talking over each other, and no one sounded happy. A glance up at the head table revealed the shiny yellow mane of Golden, looking somewhere in between sombre and outraged. Sycamore went straight to him, and Wind was only a few steps behind.

Golden looked up at their entrance, and met them halfway, right in the centre of the aisle. “Sycamore,” he said, offering them both the usual tip of his head. “Did Cattail fill you in on anything?”

Sycamore shook her head. “We moved pretty quickly. What’s all this about, Golden? And what are you doing back from Canterlot for that matter?”

He motioned them off to the side, to a dim corner beside the head table. “Just visiting is all,” he continued, speaking about as low as possible without being drowned out. “Taking care of some loose ends that the family forgot about on our way out. But I had some news to deliver too. Rumours, right? You know how it is.”

Wind took a look behind him at the rows of benches. The crowd was a bit smaller than the one he had addressed on his first day out, but he had a feeling that most of the empty seats wouldn’t be filled even if the whole area was called in.

“You called the whole town together just to share some rumours?”

“Well, begging your pardon, Mr. Wind, but I didn’t call no meeting,” Golden returned. “I was making my way over to the General Store, and ran into Sesame in the square, right in front of this building. We struck up a conversation, but it turned out that he wasn’t the only one listening. And then it seemed like not ten minutes went by before the whole town was in here arguing.”

“Must be some rumour, then.” Sycamore gave the yellow earth pony a quick gesture, the flick of the hoof that universally said Let’s hear it.

He nodded right away. “Only a rumour mind you, but, well, the grapevine is something else over in Canterlot, let me tell you. Every street corner’s a different conversation to listen in on. You could spend a whole afternoon just trying to get your story straight.” He caught the expression of annoyance on both of their faces, making it clear he was rambling. “Right, sorry. As you might expect, everypony in the city is always talking about the drought, and all of the troubles it’s causing across the country. They say that the food reserves are running short, even in Manehattan, if you could believe that.

“Anyway, the biggest difference over there is that they all talk about what they expect the Senate to do about any of it. And there’s all sorts of opinions over exactly what that’s going to entail.”

Golden had gotten into the thrust of his account quickly, and most of the preceding sentences had come in a rapidfire drawl. Wind had at first suspected that it was excitement which drove the stallion’s tongue, but one look into Golden’s eyes as he paused here revealed that there was something else too.

“But two corners out of three, or maybe even more, I heard that the Senate’s gonna’ raise the Guard, march over here and take all the grain they find.” He stole an earnest look back over his shoulder at the crowd, and then the pieces clicked together in Wind’s mind. Never mind all of the angry ponies in the room — and now Wind had a good idea what had them ticked off — Golden was scared just of the words that he had said.

Sycamore, though, sounded only confused. “Taking it for what? To distribute?”

“Sure enough,” Golden replied. “But we all know what they’re gonna find when they come looking around these parts. I don’t expect much of anything has changed in the month since we all left.”

Sycamore looked down, and Golden took that as all of the answer that he needed. “We’ve barely got enough to support ourselves the way this year is going. Don’t think that we’re getting the first cut of the takings either.”

That brought her gaze back up again. “Oh, they’d better believe that we will,” she said hotly. “If the Senate wants the surplus, they can have it so far as I care. But we’ll take what we need first. That’s our right.”

Instinctively, Wind stepped in between them, putting one hoof onto Sycamore’s shoulder. “Now hang on a moment. Why would your Senate take such a drastic step? Don’t they have any idea how things are out here?”

“Them unicorns?” Sycamore snorted haughtily. “I wouldn’t bet on it. The only time we hear from Canterlot these days is when it’s tax-collecting season. But even so I wouldn’t have thought they could pull something like this on us.”

Golden simply shrugged. “Only a rumour, like I said. But there was more to it than that. Folks were saying that out west, in Fillydelphia and Manehattan, things were getting really heated. Riots for what food was left in the stores. City ponies raiding farms already, sometimes even torching them. Maybe Southoofton’s only been lucky that we haven’t seen anything like that yet.”

“Well, everypony around here knows what would happen if they were dumb enough to try stealing any of our harvest.” Sycamore looked like she had gotten a better hold on herself, but her eyes were still hard and intimidating. “And I reckon Canterlot would find that out soon enough too.”

Golden leaned up against the head table with a sigh. “I do hate to bring such bad news on my first time back in town, but, well, I’m sure that you could understand the urgency that I felt. I agree with you too, by the way,” he added hastily, perhaps having bore the brunt of a few too many heated responses already today. “But they sure had a different idea about it in Canterlot. Some ponies even said we country folk were being greedy, taking it all for ourselves when everypony else was starving.”

“No matter.” Sycamore didn’t even acknowledge that last sentence with a gesture. “If any of them Canterlot ponies want a piece of this year’s harvest, they can come down here and pay for it fair and square. Otherwise…” The word hung in the air for a few seconds, framed by the voices echoing around the hall. Wind did his best not to think about how that sentence ended, but luckily Sycamore spared him the details. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” The tone of her voice left little uncertainty on how the sentence would have ended, though.

One look over the room revealed a lot more of that same sentiment, even among the folk who weren’t properly farmers themselves. Everypony in town was related to somepony who was in the business after all.

Near the front of the room, Wind spied Linseed and Sesame huddled together at their own table, holding their conversation quite a bit quieter than the rest. Apparently Cottonseed hadn’t come in yet, but Wind imagined that he would be here soon enough. The big farmer would no doubt have an opinion or two on the situation, but hopefully he wouldn’t need to be around to hear it.

He gave Golden a light bow. “Well, we sure appreciate the news, Mr. Golden, but I imagine that we’ll be on our way. We’ve work to do, right, Sycamore?” He gave her a hopeful look, but Sycamore just shook her head sternly.

“Afraid not, Wind. We’ve all got work to do, but there’s a real issue to discuss here. Nopony might have called a meeting, but I expect that we’ll have a proper one as soon as Cotton gets here.” She started scanning the crowd herself. “Pa has probably already got us a table.”

“But why?” Wind went on, even as he spied Pa and Fern waving at them from the fourth row. “What is there to discuss? All that’s happened is that we heard a fresh rumour out of Canterlot! What more is there to do except chuckle for a moment at its absurdity and then get back to work?” He kept his tone conversational, but inside he was starting to understand the catch that he had heard in Golden’s voice earlier. It wasn’t chuckles of absurdity that were animating the room now after all.

Sycamore just gave him a tired look. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Wind. Sure, I can’t say what’s going to come out of this meeting, but I expect a lot’s going to be said that’s needed to be said for a long time. You think that any of us could just go back to work after hearing news like this? No. We’ll talk for a little, I think.”

Despite his wishes, Wind had to accept this, strange though he found the whole affair. It wasn’t news that they were discussing, after all, just a random tidbit of gossip. But perhaps he understood enough to figure out what was going on. Sycamore and the rest of the townsfolk were mad, angry at another undeserved injustice heaped upon a long list of others, and now these ponies wanted to do something, anything, to make it right. Wind knew where that path probably led, but what could he say? At least none of them could jump out into a storm.

No sooner had they found their seats than there came the sound of big hooves galloping up outside. A second later, Cottonseed crossed over the hall’s threshold. A small cloud of dust wafted into the room as the stallion stepped inside, likely the telltale sign of his hurry in from the field. Yet even so Cotton’s hat was still leaning nicely down over his eyebrows, and the fabric of his coveralls was clean.

“No need for explanation, I’ve already heard it all,” he said flatly as he slowly walked down the aisle, the clomps of his hooves on the wood floor echoing off of the walls. The voices in the hall were rapidly quieting themselves, not all at once of course, but pretty quickly all the same. Everypony who noticed Cotton’s entrance quickly nudged his neighbours to settle down. “Not saying I’m surprised, by the way,” he continued. “We haven’t heard any good news out of Canterlot in years now. Frankly, I was starting to think they had forgotten we little country-folk existed.”

Cotton didn’t stop to find his seat at his brothers’ table, instead continuing right on up to the front of the room. Golden met him there, but quickly stepped aside to let the big farmer have the floor. The hush that had followed his entrance had somehow instantly transformed into an expectant anticipation. One look at Cotton’s face revealed that he knew it, too. The energy in the room was coiled up like a spring, waiting for the right signal to be let loose. Would Cotton strike the spark to light the fire, or would he preach some reason?

“I thank you for your approval in allowing me to speak,” Cotton started, waiting for a moment to see if anypony would object. With silence again reigning, he continued. “Even less surprising do I find it that the first we heard of the Senate doing anything is when they realized that they needed something from us. When has THAT ever been a surprise? We little ponies put in the hours, day after day, in the worst years that Equestria has ever seen fit to give us, and nopony ever says thank-you. Yet of course we keep on, cause what else do we got to do?”

Nopony answered the question, yet even so Wind got the impression that the crowd agreed with the sentiment. Cotton started pacing slowly on the little platform, running a hoof back through his dark mane every so often. “I know it as well as any of you. We’ve stuck around in this place through thick and thin, because Southoofton is all that we have, all that we could ever want and could ever need.” Wind couldn’t be sure of it, but it looked like Cotton gave Golden a very quick sneer as he said that bit. “Meanwhile there’s been nothing from out east, not a word, not a single hoof lifted to give us any aid. Not that we asked for any. No, we’ve worked tirelessly for years on our little patches of earth, and even in the prior years of leanness, we never once held back what surplus we had. And yet still, the first time that Canterlot sends us any news, it’s to say ‘Give us everything that you got!’”

There was a rumble of agreement from the benches, not properly a resounding endorsement of the words, just ponies grumbling and muttering, a few voicing agreement. Wind’s table stayed silent, but he could see the same hardness in their eyes. Pa especially, but Sycamore and Fern too.

Hearing no objections, Cotton went on. “I apologize if I raise my voice, but surely you all understand how I’m feeling right now. There may not be any justice in this weather, but for sure I felt that it was right to expect some from the Senate. Was it not the idea that we little earth ponies would finally get our fair say in the workings of the land?” That got another rumble of approval, a bit more this time.

As the tension and energy in the room built, Cotton’s words took on a fevered pitch, and his gestures grew more animated. “Well, for all that things were supposed to have changed, for all that this new era was meant to be one of prosperity and harmony, I can only look now upon the sorry state of our affairs and wonder if anything has ever changed. I can forgive all of you for forgetting some of our history. I am myself a lucky pony in that regard, so I can tell you that it’s been over a thousand years since the time before Equestria, when the unicorn Kings and Queens ruled as tyrants over all ponies. In those days, the earth pony had not a single right, under the hoof of the unicorns and their government. Does this sound familiar to you, Southoofton? Have we gone nowhere in all of a thousand years?”

Finally a proper shout came from somewhere out in the back of the audience, and a few cries of “Hear, hear!” answered it. Cotton nodded stoutly, the fires of the lamps dancing in his fervent eyes. “That time was long ago, but I know that we all still remember what the answer of the earth pony was in those days, when it was the only way to make our voices heard, when we faced death by starvation at the hooves of a tyrant King! Do you hear me, ponies? We fought!”

The whole room erupted in a deafening roar of banging hooves and angry shouts, and this time even Wind’s table didn’t hold back, offering their own shouts of approval to Cotton’s speech. At the front, the big stallion roared right along with them, and Wind felt his heart sinking. Sure, they couldn’t fly off into a storm like he had, but there were plenty of other unfortunate things that could happen on the ground. Well, he had already learned that lesson, and somepony had to be the one to talk some sense here.

“Hold up! Hold up a minute!” Wind called out, but his voice was drowned out by the reverberations of the crowd. Pushing himself back from the table, he instead unfolded his wings and leaped into the air, climbing up to right in underneath the rafters, where surely everypony would be able to see him. “Hang on, will you? I’ve got something to say too!”

He saw a spark of confusion and annoyance light up on Cotton’s face, and indeed most of the townsfolk were only looking up at him in bewilderment too, but at least the room got quieter. Nothing close to the expectant silence that Cotton had got to speak to, but enough that they all could hear him, if he spoke up. “They teach us our history in Cloudsdale too, you know,” he said, shooting a burning gaze Cotton’s way. Unsurprisingly the big farmer just stared him down, still caught up in the reverie. “I know a bit about the way that the Unicorn Kingdom ended, and I can tell you that your story’s missing a part or two!”

Cotton exaggerated his eye roll. “Are we on to this again? When is somepony finally going to set you right, boy?”

“You know that we were there, too, right?” Wind went on, ignoring Cotton and speaking directly to the crowd instead. “In those days long ago, when the very world had turned against ponykind, the pegasi bore it just as any earth pony did, with honour and determination. And we were there on that fateful day too, when our kingdom came apart.”

“Yet not on our side!” Cotton interrupted from the stage, jabbing an accusatory hoof up at him. “When the push came to shove, do you remember on which side the pegasi fought, boy? With us little ponies, or with their masters, their lords? None of us have forgotten that either, I hope! What reason do you think we have for accepting the counsel of our enemies?”

“Well, who won?” Wind let the sentence echo in the room for one second before ploughing on. “When the dust settled, who came out victorious? Ponies died on all sides, and in the end none of us came out ahead. And it was talk like Cotton’s that got us there in the first place. We don’t have any enemies, not yet, not unless we make them.”

Wind didn’t give Cotton a chance to blurt out anything else, instead turning right back to the crowd. “You’ve got yourselves all worked up over this, for what?” he demanded. “A rumour. Nothing but idle chatter, and suddenly you’re all willing to throw caution to the wind, to get yourself into a fight over nothing? Who do you think wins in that fight? Nopony does.”

There was a silence, the ponies in the crowd looking at each other with a hint of sheepishness, perhaps broken out of the spell that Cotton seemed to have cast over them. “Well, what do you expect us to do?” came an angry voice from somewhere. Heads turned to reveal that it was Sesame, standing up at his table. “We can’t just let Canterlot have its way with us! Our harvest belongs to us first! Ain’t no way I’m letting a stinking unicorn get their hooves on my winter stores!” There were more than a few grumbles of agreement, echoing around the room.

“Well, I can’t tell you what to do in that situation,” Wind replied, as reasonably as he could. “But none of us even knows if that’s actually what’s going to happen yet. Right now we should be focused on our individual efforts, making ready for what harvest we have, to make sure that every grain and every blade of grass that we can get comes off of the fields. I may not know that much about the process, but I think that I’ve learned enough about you folk to know that despite how you’re all feeling right now, you know that’s what you ought to be doing. So let’s fix the problems we can solve right now, and worry about the things we can’t change once we can see them clearly.”

Sesame at last yielded the floor, and nopony else had a voice to speak up. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it looked like he had probably talked some sense into them, for now at least. Wind turned back to Cotton at the front of the room, only to find the big stallion looking a little rueful himself.

“There is some wisdom in what you say, Mr. Wind,” Cotton said, tucking his hat back down over his brow. “Even if you ain’t seeing fully straight yet.” Then his stare hardened again. “But I’ve got a feeling that a few weeks from now we’ll be back here having this conversation again. And it’s not going to be just rumours driving us then. Put a wager on it, I would.”

The rueful farmer held that stare for just a second more, before stepping off of the platform and joining his brothers for a quick walk out of the hall. The atmosphere in the room was letting up little by little, mostly with ponies making their goodbyes and joining Cotton on the way out. Nopony was leaving cheerful, but at least they were all going back to work and not plotting a rebellion.

Sycamore welcomed him back to their table with an apologetic shake of her head. “Sorry about all of that, Wind. I guess that you’ve seen us all at our worst today.”

He smiled back. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to come of it, right? You all were making a thunderstorm out of a cloud bank, so far as I could tell. Just needed somepony to talk some sense is all.” He took a look around the rest of the table, and noted that there were no frowns among the rest of her family, either, which was encouraging.

“Didn’t you say that your father was a politician of some sort?” Sycamore’s question brought his attention right back to her. “I’d say that I believe that a lot more all of a sudden.”

“Well, he didn’t pass anything on to me, not that I know of at least,” Wind ruffled his mane with a hoof. He might say that, but suddenly he did get the distinct impression that Snow would probably be pretty proud of him for what he had just done, speaking up on a contentious issue and making his opinion heard. “Things are usually a little more civilized on the Council anyway.”

“What do you think, though?” Fern asked the group, leaning over the table with his chin resting on a hoof. “Is it just a rumour, or are we going to be back here a week from now talking about the real thing?”

This time it was Pa that answered. “Way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I think that you’ve the right way of things, Mr. Wind.” He offered Wind a bare smile. “No sense in getting mad about it just yet. We can save that energy for the field.”

There were nods around the table, and then after a moment they all pushed their chairs back and rose to go, joining the rest of the room in leaving behind an empty hall. In truth, Wind was still pretty surprised that things had ended well, given how the meeting had started. If Cotton had gotten the upper hoof, he would have had to get back to Cloudsdale right away. No sense in allowing himself to get caught up in a war. But so long as things were peaceful, he could maybe stay on a few days more. Sycamore still had to explain herself for that kiss, after all.