Skipping Stones.

by ambion

chapter one

There is the calm before the storm.

This is true, but isolation - even willingly accepted - does strange things to a mind. Skipping Stones woke to the weak light of morning with unusual eagerness to face the day.

It started as every other did. Only a most observant witness, one who had followed this routine through the years might have noticed the slightly exaggerated lift to her step, the faintest quickening of her slender shoulders as she trotted neatly up the winding stairwell of the lighthouse.

No light worth seeing by was yet to creep in over the water and slide through thin slits in the old stone, but she needed none to go by; her hooves knew each stone like another pony might know a song, each quirk, each rise and fall. Stones’ hooves played across them like an iteration of the dawn chorus. Right or rain, wind or snow, there they’d be each morning, stepping briskly over the worn and uneven steps. Climbing. Climbing to the very top of the lighthouse.

It was, she knew in an academic kind of way, an important duty. It was no exaggeration to say that lives depended on the beacon that staggered up over the rugged and barren rocks of the island.

It only barely deserved the name island, and bare it was. It was tiny, and every speck of that was hard and desolate and all bleak, sharp edges, like a rotten old tooth the mainland had spit into the sea. The stone was sharp and unforgiving while the barnacles that proliferated across them - the only life to do so anywhere on the island - were even more so. The only greenery came and went with the tides, other than wretched little clumps of sea-grasses that eked an existence in the lee of one stone or another. Waves pounded and sloshed over the broken shore with constant energy and violence. Always the land tolerated it poorly, seeming at the extreme edge of temper and patience, as if it might go bash the water any moment now and see how it liked it.

But for all that Broken Head Island, as it was known, in all its perfect lack of life, interest, or anything of import, a vicious little speck of grit on a map swirling with blues and greens and white, had one thing of worth.

Namely, it had Skipping Stones, and the lighthouse that was as much an heirloom as it was a home.

Tides, ships, storms and seasons; they came and went, but there was always the lighthouse, and always a Stone within it.

Not that she could sit as idle as one. There was a wick to trim, kerosene fuel to move into the tank, glass to polish and mechanisms to wind up. Just because the lighthouse didn’t run during the day didn’t mean Skipping Stones had nothing to do.

Keeping the lighthouse first thing in the morning usually took about forty minutes. With a bit of a bounce to her step and the broken notes of a whistled tune she managed in thirty-five, and at that the earth pony put extra vim into her strokes as the cloth wiped away the dust of the previous night from the carefully shaped lens and severely thick windows.

The uncommon sight of gray ocean at calm welcomed her into the day, and in a way, it was as if the entire world brightened for her efforts. Satisfied, both with her work and in general she nodded approvingly to noone in particular and smartly went back down the steep and winding stairs.

The first of the days’ chores seen to, she could take some time for herself. This meant a brisk twenty minutes hauling fresh water, collected in tanks from the extremely reliable torrential rainfall for an unheated bath. Most of that was waiting on the bucket to fill, turning off the gurgling tap, pouring it into the tin bath, then beginning again. Rinse and repeat.

Well, repeat anyway. Rinse came afterwards. There was only the one room to her living space, not counting the larder adjoining, and as always Stones shoved her bed to the corner, its stout legs grinding heavily on the worn stone flooring, the tin bath shoved in its place with a minimum of clang.

All this to make good use of the one window she had in the low-ceilinged, snug little abode. An archaic affair of iron and sturdy glass embedded deep in the architecture, the window was well battered by the elements. It swung outwards with only the slightest squeal of protest, because its long use was ensured to be all the longer by the diligence Stones kept about maintenance.

Bath filled to her satisfaction, crisp water still swilling about in it and not a drop on the floor. Skipping Stones took a deep breath, exhaled with slow and carefully measured enjoyment as she slid into it. The sigh had the musical overtures often found in a smaller bodied mare, but she thought only that it was nice to have a bit of wiggle room as she bathed.

The first rush of sensation as the less than warm water tickled and played across her body nearly made her draw a sharp breath, but soon enough it gave way to the pleasurable feeling of cold, seeping ever so slowly through coat and skin and muscle, easing them all the while.

For a time she stayed curled up in the bath, the water perfectly still as she was. Stones kept her eyes closed, thinking of nothing much and doing even less.

With another little sigh Stones came back to herself. Her face, lean yet robust, weather beaten yet vibrant, the colour of dark basalt, scrunched up a bit with concentration.

This was a hard part. No, this was the hard part. Vitally important, make or break, sink or swim. Only absolute diligence would spare this nice bath from becoming an experience of utter frustration and waste.

It was...the using of the soap.

Only a fellow earth pony could empathise. Unicorns had magic, and even pegasus wings could be so much more tactile in the circumstance than hooves.

That wasn’t the whole of it either. Oh no, that’d hardly be difficult enough. The boat that came round every month or so brought plenty of things to live confidently and comfortably in the lighthouse, more than enough food for her sparse diet, all manner of useful little odds and ends, even plenty of iodine and bandages at Stones’s own insistence.

What it did not bring plenty of was soap. It brought enough, which was some theoretical idea thought up by a pony who’d never had to get by on limited stock, let alone without. The tiny chip of creamy white was all that remained of Stones’ supply, she stared into it as if appraising diamonds.

More than the food she ate, the water she drank, even the oil for the light, nothing had to be so carefully rationed as the soap.

Somepony must have thought it wasn’t essential. Oh sure, food and water made living possible, and the light kept lives being lived, but soap made life worth living. Any old animal could rut in the water and be done with it at that. Soap separated a thinking, sapient mind from all the rest.

The wafer thin chip sat on her hoof, daring her concentration, begging for one tiny slip up to slip down and be lost in the water, dissolving with ludicrous speed and forcing the mare into a mad writhing, splashing search before all was lost.

Like surgeon or sniper, Stones’ stilled her breathing to the slowest, steadiest, most shallow she could manage. With tectonic slowness, unblinking, unmoving, she brought her other hoof down like a clamp. The sensation of the soap breaking in near perfect halves sent a chill of intense apprehension through Stones, she was sure her heart skipped a beat.

The first step was done, but she wasn’t out of this yet. Ever so carefully she leaned over the side of the bath, gently dropping her last treasured bit of soap on a bedside stand. The worst was passed. Her soap was saved, she’d be good for another bath, another day.

In her right hoof she held the half to be used, but for all the rapt eye reverence it might as well have been the entire world. She pressed it into the base of her throat firmly, than remembering to breath closed her eyes and worked by touch. Slowly she drove it back and forth, working up the slightest bit of lather. It was enough.

She scrubbed with precise efficacy. Across her face, through her hair and over her body and all its little scars, from which her coat came back slightly different in colour than it had been, making her look all the more like stone.

A bit of stretching and squeezing Stones just managed to entirely submerge herself in the tin bath. For her efforts the water level rose dangerously close to the brim, but she’d gotten good at measuring it out ages ago. It was nice to feel the cold wash over her, quite literally, and to feel the air moving through her as she blew bubbles into the water.

She didn’t so much raise herself from the water as simply unfold herself. Soap suds rode the little waves, like the froth of a distant sea as some leviathan surfaced, strung with seaweeds and shipwrecks.

Stones’ navy blue hair certainly looked the part. Brushing wasn’t all that easier than soaping, but at least a brush didn’t dissolve if mishandled and eventually run out anyway. It wasn’t long, but it hurt all the same as Stones ripped the brush through the knots, biting hard enough into the handle to leave little marks. If her hair wanted to snarl, well, she’d snarl harder.

The bath wasn’t as cold as it’d been, but neither was Stones as warm either, and the feeling was going from refreshing to plain old cold.

It was, by all intents and purposes, impossible to get out of the bath, sopping wet, without getting any water on the floor. Stones tried just as hard to manage this feat as she did every other time. It involved some minutes of standing patiently in the bath, letting as much of the wetness slough back down her as possible, followed by a sort of maddened hop, skip and jump out the door, trying to touch as little of anything with her hooves as possible.

Only the unusual calm of the waves, not so much breaking on the rocks as merely nudging them for attention made Stones aware of the rhythmic ebb and flow.

Her moment of distraction passed, Skipping Stones shook water from herself like a dog might, furious and brief, before plunging back inside and shutting the door none too gently.

That bit always flustered her, but it was the most pragmatic thing to do, even if it meant feeling awkwardly naked for the world to see, not that in all these years anypony had, or would. But still. They might. She drew the window shut and pulled down the curtain, resolving to empty the bath water out the window just as soon as she was dry, which was entirely not a front for delaying past feelings of self consciousness and indignation.

Opposite the window was the little kerosene stove, and from a banister in front of it Stones drew her towel. It was coarse and white, or had been once, but was definitely coarse. More importantly than either it was clean and dry, and the lithe mare draped it over her shoulders, massaging it firmly across her body, feeling the pert cleanliness of her coat and the rough little scars along her legs and sides.

Normally she’d wrap the towel around her hair as she always did, empty out enough of the water to push the bath outside and tip it, lean it to dry, then start breakfast. Whatever vim she’d awoken with had swung the other way, Stones was suddenly quite content to leave it for the time being and just close her eyes and rest in the feeling of the scratchy touch of the towel as it held her.

Or she would have done, but ingrained routine ground its gears and screamed incessantly. The tin sneered at her, and in her haste to empty the bath Stones spilled a great deal of water on the floor, onto which she then had to throw her towel. She wrung out the tough cloth, again and again, then once more before satisfied with herself and hanging the towel to dry back in front of the stove. It took all too much conviction to not go about washing it out right now, but she managed, and laid back onto her tiny bed, thinking nothing much and doing even less.

At least she wouldn’t have to cook anything yet. Stones had no appetite just now.

She might have lain there an hour or more, resting but not sleeping. The lighthouse kept her up at all hours, it was as much a graveyard shift as anything could be. Daytime made for most of her sleeping hours; at night she could only sleep in little spats, only nod off at all to the rhythmic sweep of illumination across the horizon and at that she would awaken restless, compulsed to make sure the lighthouse served without failing until dawn.

Sooner or later the meek edge of hunger asked if Stones might not get up and see to it. The dark mare slid from the bed, relishing every touch of fabric against her freshly cleaned body.

A small door adjoined her living space, and like the window it was set deep into the thick stone. Through it was the larder, a room perpetually peaceful and dark. Ropes of onions hanging from the shelves rubbed shoulders with turnips and potatoes, while sacks of oats and grain lined the lower heights. It was humble fare, but it was fair.

Not much was left, but there didn’t need to be. Today was delivery day. It had to be, there could be no day later before the storm.

Stones chewed through a tough meal with a quiet restlessness, then made for the shore. Somewhere out there in the rest of the world there were sports players and ballerinas, but Stones knew no other pony could match the game she played, dancing along the broken, upthrust boulders. Almost making a game of their wet slickness, hidden crevices and murderous edges.

Not that she did, this time. It was a conscious effort to reign in the urge to show the sky she could. To skitter across the cruel and unusual geography with grace and balance. That’s where it started, and it inevitably ended, sooner or later, with the jagged rocks quenching their thirst for blood and Stones quenching her newest-to-be scars in iodine. But sometimes she had to risk it. The body healed, but the mind needed to scream ‘I exist!’ into the endless sky every once in awhile. She’d come down from that - bleeding or no - sensitive to every touch of wind and rain and grit, every pull and twinge of muscle and coat, her eyes wide and breathing deep.

The relative calm of the day reflected Stones’ mood. Or perhaps more aptly; Stones’ mood reflected the relative calm of the day. The faint suggestion of a path lead the dark earth pony down between ledges and overhangs of stone. Had they been alive they would be fangs with great ropes of spittle strung between them, greedily eyeing at the little morsel. As it was, Stones passed through the maw unmolested, to Broken Head’s one accessible inlet.

It didn’t have a name here, nor would it have had on the mainland, because any reasonable sailor wouldn’t try this shallow cove if anything even remotely better was presented. Which it was, almost everywhere. A painter might be inspired by the low lying blades interspaced with tufts of wispy grass, but to anypony that might have to actually touch water it was only a headache.

On one of the rare flat spots of open ground Stones sat and waited. If there was such a thing as providence it probably didn’t even know about the lonely lighthouse and this little island, so it was probably the rather more mundane and pragmatic thing called coincidence that did not keep her waiting long.

It was like what a raft would be if, seeing a canoe and feeling very jealous, it had tried very hard to get in shape and almost managed. The little boat could’ve stood two ponies abreast, but much of this space was filled with tied down bundles. The bow bounced along the waves like a happy colt, lead on by the rope a pegasus pulled along with his hooves. Wings like blown sand beat the air in timing with his strong breaths, he moved as if running an endurance marathon. With each flying stride his mane and tail of kelpy green rippled like so much seaweed in the currents.

Sea-going pegasus had to be strong. They had their own complicated system of qualifications, training and plenty of strange words like ‘flight vectors’ that helped, quite firmly, to keep those ignorant to the dangers of open water well away from it.

Like the lighthouse keeper and her stones, the sea for a pegasus was an enemy that always, always won in the end if only because when it did win, it was the end. The ocean in all its immensity was a foe of trickery and sneaking. Remembering that was the first and last rule hammered into memory. The way to get on with it was to know that and get away before it could pull any surprises, least of all from the pegasus’ own body. Exhaustion snuck up with little warning, wind, rain and worry could all twist the sky into a whirl of confusion. Salt heavy feathers dried brittle and useless, if one could even get that far: lifting oneself from the waves on pure wing power made for an incredible feat even under ideal conditions.

Too many ghost stories were born from the collapsing wings of over-exerted pegasi, fighting for just one more flap against the gale. Maybe they flew on, struggling, fighting, evermore beneath the waves, forever out of sight of the shore.

It was a terribly chill thought to welcome Long Shore on.

“You have stubble now,” she said somewhat inanely. It was quite fascinating, the way it clung to his chin like limpets. Rough and ready like all sea going pegasi, Long Shore was quick to smile and quicker to laugh, a blessing that softened much of his hard look and kept him younger than his years. Somehow the scrubby bristles made him look even younger, like an eager, unkempt youth.

Skipping Stones, in a moment of private scrutiny as he dragged his pegasus raft ashore decided she liked this. It’d been, what, a month since she last saw him? Last saw anypony? The stubble was new and different and she could file that away into a private little folder of the mind and later on wonder what it felt like.

Or...and this set her to gulping nervously, but underneath the unsettled surface was a great expanse of carefully calm, fixed intent, she could...well...she didn’t really have the words to her satisfaction, but it boiled down to the acute awareness that the ocean was very big and she was very small, that the sky was full of clouds and stars and she was not, and that even with everything a pony needs to survive, she couldn’t quite live. Not indefinitely.

Even soap just didn’t quite cut it.

Contact. It couldn’t be rationed out in ever smaller pieces like the soap, though it was vitally important to have and, once fumbled, made fishing soap out from the water look easy.

There wasn’t a whole lot of formality to their acquaintance. Really, there was none. Rock and wind and wave left no place for pleasantries, at least until the boat was secured and supplies hauled.

Long Shore smirked and took a second to rest his wings. He probably could haul the boat and everything within on his own, but there were so many reasons against that.

“Here,” Stones said, taking up a generous portion of the lead rope and pulled. It’d take a tough pegasus indeed to outclass even a mediocre earth pony in sheer strength. Sure he was tough, and Skipping Stones wasn’t large, but it was a wiry slenderness, the sort with corded tendons that can mean oh so much more than untempered muscle mass.

It was easier for both of them for Long Shore to just step aside and give her the full lead. She loathed his good manners.

Wood ground on stone. The pegasus gave his hardy little craft an approving look, then grunted as he hoisted the nearest bundle onto his back. Stones hoisted two with hardly a sound. Weight made even a short jaunt through the rocks all the harder, and she slowed to Long’s pace.

“Nice weather we’re having.”

“Yes. It is.”

“It won’t last though.”

“No. It won’t.”

Having now exhausted her full repertoire of conversation starters, Stones got a little desperate. She’d never really had ponies around to talk. There’d been a few when she was younger, and her father. What was she supposed to say?

Her eminent, unshakeable practically shoved her emotion aside as they left the shore behind. “You brought iodine?”

The pegasus gave her a querulous look for all of one second. “Yeah. They had it by bulk, so I just brought one of the big bottles of it for you. Good to have extra and not need it, right?”

“Right,” she said uncertainly.

“Oh, how’s that cut you had last time I was around?”

Cut? What cut? Stone wracked her memory. She had a whole network of little scars and a few big ones to call her own. Was it one of the ones on her leg? If so, which leg? Her back, her sides?

“It’s fine now,” she guessed cautiously, fairly sure that to be the case.

Long Shore clambered his way over a rougher patch of ground. “It’s not right, having you out here all on your own.”

Stones mercilessly drowned the first response to come to mind. It wasn’t as if he were actually offering to change her situation at all. It was just sympathy.

“I’m fine.”

He waited patiently under his burden as she fumbled with the door. Thrill swirled in equal measure with bitter disappointment. She was actually bringing Long Shore, a pegasus, a him into her lighthouse. On the down side, fantasies never had to fumble awkwardly with the door.

Then they were inside, and he seemed entirely content to be quiet and about the work before him. Little whispers jibed and mocked Skipping Stones. The tiny sliver of soap, still residing on the bedside table, was the loudest of them.

They set down their loads, and when they returned there it was. And when they went and came again, there it still was. Unflinching, unmoving.

The mare tried to stand ever so slightly closer to the pegasus. Either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care. Both were terrible prospects.

Hope and dread took their turns laying the beat down on Stones. The last two bundles were shared between them. Now or never. Desperate times.

Ten steps from her door she slipped, falling against Long Shore’s wing. She couldn’t have aimed it better, for a second all that fill her head was the sensation of touch.

Then the strong, sturdy feathers pushed against her. She nearly gasped, but the gesture was only to right her. “Careful, there’s some speciality chocolate in that one. Would be terrible to bring it all the way out here to ruin it at your door.”

Sensation tingled all through her side. They must’ve gone inside, they were there now, but she didn’t really remember it. All there’d been was the touch of that wing.

It hung lax now, as did its partner. Long Shore’s neck was likewise lowered, and as he helped himself to a glass of water he sighed deeply.

“Do you want to have some now?”

“Hmm?”

Chocolate. Apparently it was nice, and it was, in a way. Food was just food to her though. It saited hunger, other than that there wasn’t all that much to get excited about. Even so, she caught an opportunity when it presented itself, and pulled it out of the nearest bundle, all the while trying to get the smile to fit her face properly.

“Have some,” she insisted. Stones heard the force to her own voice, but couldn’t restrain it. Long Shore was being so thick, so idiotic. He should just do as she insisted, it’d be simpler for everpony then.

He waved it away. “Thanks, but no. There’s not all that much. You should save it for a special occasion.”

It was more or less this moment when Skipping Stones decided that the name of this feeling, this complex, knotted feeling for Long Shore was hatred. Stupid pony with stupid feathers. Offering cheap meaningless sympathy and cheap meaningless chocolate. Was it so much to hold and be held? To fall asleep to the sounds of another sleeping beside her. Just for once not the waves and the ghosts of pegasi struggling beneath them?

Then he was gone, and she was alone, and that, more or less, was the end of it. Stones wasn’t one to cry, to shout and stamp and rail against the injustices of it all. With calm exactitude she unpacked the bags, setting everything in its place. A shiny new bar of creamy soap smiled up to her.

You couldn’t do otherwise. Not here. Not on Broken Head. You had to be like a stone, and nopony could do that better than a Stone. But even Stones had their breaking point.

The storm hit at dusk. Music might’ve started soft and grown stronger, rising, rising up until it filled the world with its sound. But this wasn’t music, it was a storm. If it could know of music, it wouldn’t have cared at all.

It came without warning, a savage kick of wind and wave that went on without end, battering the island and banishing the last vestiges of natural light.

Waves were as thunder against the jagged teeth of the shoreline, but those harsh crashes were drowned out by the wind, gusting and furious, but even that was drowned out by the rain.

It didn’t fall. It lunged, as if land had been a terrible mistake to be blotted out at once. It pelted the living world nearly sideways, driven by howling wind and lashing the land, the stone, the lighthouse. It splattered against the glass and fell from it in torrential sheets, bent by the wind to assault the lighthouse once more.

Still as as statue, Stone watched with her face pressed against the glass, rain impacting against it like the froth from some ravenous beast, the endless drumming of it filling her ears.

Darkness swept around into light, blinding light, then into darkness again. Out on the water it was essential, surely, but here the constant shifting of light and dark, light and dark made for a sight eyes could never adjust to.

The wick was trimmed, the reservoir filled, the mechanisms wound. For all its worth, the beacon would shine out against the storm. Furious as it was, Broken Head had bested hundreds of storms better than this and would best hundreds more. Stones had no fear for the lighthouse.

She spent five minutes staring at the door of her home. Stones could hardly hear her own thoughts for the rain. Cautiously, as if it might run away, she opened the door. She just wanted to get a better view, was all. It wasn’t everyday a storm came around to visit. Blinding light came and went again.

It slammed into her door and spilled into her home. Wild and free the howling of the wind doubled and the pounding of the rain tripled in volume.

Stones let her breathing run away with her. It went shrill and shallow as the elements scoured, raw and raw sensation. She winced away, not from the touch but from the sight; the lighthouse’s beam came and went once more.

By its glow she could see that water was getting on her floor. That just wasn’t practical, leaving the door open to this weather. There was no harm in just stepping out the door and shutting it behind her. It’d be easier to dry herself than her things. She’d be out no more than a minute, just to see and hear and feel. It was a good thing, reminding herself every once in awhile how powerful the weather was, how dangerous.

Stones hoof crossed the threshold, then another did, and another. Though she closed the door, it felt more as if another had opened.

Of course, you had to respect the wind and the rain, the rocks and the waves. They always won, sooner or later, because you had to win every single time and they only had to win once. Gusts whirled around Stones and rain battered her, but she stood still, eyes closed, simply feeling it. Even then the passing sweep of the light was a red flash on the inside of her eyelids.

Maybe if she walked the path a bit - not far, mind - just a short ways, just to set the blinding light behind her.

Stones set her sight aside. Her hooves could lead her better than eyes ever had. Water streaming from her mane, her tail, her sides, she rounded the first bend.

She’d come this far. It wouldn’t to go a little further. Just for a little while. She’d stick to the path, and stay well clear of the shore. She wouldn’t even see it, really.

By day the rocks had been dangerous, uneven and tricky. By night, in the throes of the tempest, things were altogether different. They were alive, slick with rain that split upon their sharp edges. Malice personified, snapping at her every step. Stones treaded lightly, and pressed on. Indeed the light, when it came. was fainter here.

Further, and further still she went. The ocean rushed to grab her in a great sweeping plume of water, but it fell short. Well, she’d gone further than she intended, but that was alright. It was. Stones knew she’d made a mistake, no harm done. She’d turn back and go home. She’d dry off, warm up and sleep.

Just...just not quite yet. Another wave, reckless as the first, flung itself upon the basalt teeth. Splatters of it fell just short of her, though she was already soaked to the bone.

She wanted to touch that water. Feel its power, its force moving over her. It was a terrible thing to think, a dangerous thing. The rocks were bad enough. The coarseness, the cutting edges.

But even the vicious stones of Broken Head couldn’t pull her under them, batter her again and again and again. Iodine couldn’t fix dead.

All the same, she wanted that touch, to feel it over her, holding her...and knew she couldn’t. Being a Stone didn’t mean you didn’t feel and crave feeling. It meant you did, and carefully kept it under the surface, hidden away like gemstones embedded in the rock.

But she was alright. She was. Just thinking about the thing was not doing the thing. There was no body in the water, there’d never be a body in the water. The light swept over here, just enough to catch the edge of the rolling waves...

...and the body in the water.

Comments

[AerialReptoid]

...um, soap?

... I'm tacking this story; going to see where this goes. So far, it's great!

[Quantum_Shift]

will track, seems interesting.

[Simbion]

i'm very much liking the look of this story and the concept seems very interesting to me

Keep up the good work!

[Ceraph]

Why would it continue? it's beautiful as it is.

[InMyMind]

It was more or less this moment when Skipping Stones decided that the name of this feeling, this complex, knotted feeling for Long Shore was hatred. Stupid pony with stupid feathers. Offering cheap meaningless sympathy and cheap meaningless chocolate. Was it so much to hold and be held? To fall asleep to the sounds of another sleeping beside her. Just for once not the waves and the ghosts of pegasi struggling beneath them?

This seems a bit petty. Or, dare I say, out of character. Nevertheless, what you have here is interesting.

[ChakatRedstripe]

3442915 isolation can twist your mind and thoughts into unpredictable directions often out of no where you can feel very intense emotions at very little things.