The Earth Ponies

by RomanCandle

Chapter 28 - Roots

Half Note groaned and rubbed her face with her hooves

"Six legs. We've got twelve between us, which is twice as much." Tornado bolt gesticulated. "So, stay with me here, I think we're supposed to use half our legs."

Firelock looked up from where she was sprawled on the ground. "How, exactly?"

Tornado shifted her eyes. "I mean...I dunno. We could cut them off and -"

"I am not cutting off my legs!"

"You didn't let me finish!"

The pink Earth Pony let herself fall onto her side and stared at the grey and gray horizon. How long had it been? Days? Months? Hours? She didn't know. She remembered lots of talking, sure - she remembered lots of silence, too - but trying to put a time on it was all but impossible with no Sun or Moon or stars to watch go by. The gray stayed gray and the grey stayed grey as ever. All she knew was that they had been walking a lot, and talking even more.

"You didn't even count your wings, that's fourteen limbs, not twelve."

"They - they don't count, Firelock!"

"If they count on Aestrak and Zephyr they count on you too."

"Well, I'm not some kind of wacky spirit so clearly they don't count!"

"That is makes no sense at all, Bolt."

She ignored the banter of her friends and tried to remember what they'd gone over already. They had walked for an excessive amount of...whatever passed for time here, she was sure of it, and nothing new had shown up - no mountains, no trees, nothing but grey and gray. They had tried to build things with the dust, but it didn't work - everything they'd built crumbled back down the second they stopped building it, leaving the flat and grey flat and grey again. Spit hadn't held it together - Half Note snorted at that memory - and Tornado had refused to entertain the thought of trying any other bodily fluids or byproducts.

She huffed. Whatever they needed, it didn't seem they could find it or build it. It just wasn't here.

She blinked. Then she buried her face in her legs and groaned.

Tornado Bolt and Firelock stopped their bickering and looked at her with concern. Firelock bit her lip and stood up, but was interrupted.

"Guys...we forgot the most important thing Laccarentia said." She dragged her hooves down her face. Her friends remained quiet. "He said he could show us the absence of Earth Pony magic. So, what's missing?"

Firelock huffed. "We didn't forget, it's just that everything is missing, so-"

"Not everything. Just Earth Pony magic. So what's left?"

Tornado rubbed her front leg with a hoof "Well, I mean, there's the ground and the sky, and light and darkness but...well, aside from us, not really much of anything else."

Half Note pulled her hooves off her eyes to look at her friend. "So everything that isn't the sky, the ground, the air, light, and darkness is Earth Pony magic - or somehow related to it."

Firelock quirked an eyebrow. "There are no rocks. Are you saying rocks are magic?"

Half Note rolled over onto her back with a sigh. "Well, not exactly. I mean, maybe what makes rocks rocks and dirt dirt instead of..." she waved a hoof around "...this grey is Earth Pony magic. We couldn't even make a pile of the stuff stay together - maybe it's because there's no Earth Pony magic to make it work that way. Earth Pony magic makes stuff stick, and sometimes that stickiness makes rocks, and sometimes it makes...things more complicated than rocks."

Tornado Bolt perked up and Firelock's expression softened slightly. "I mean...that sounds like...like physics, not magic, Half Note." The Pegasus flew higher while the Unicorn continued. "I mean, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure stuff staying together is because of, like, chemistry and gravity and stuff? Something about magnets, maybe. I dunno. Not magic."

Half Note tapped her hooves together. "But remember when Aestrak yelled at us, about how it was like...being blind to the back of our heads, or a fish who didn't think about the water? I think maybe he was trying to explain that it was something that was just...everywhere. Whatever's missing is what separates this dirt from rocks - and probably rocks from living things too, for all I know."

Firelock huffed. "I mean, I see your point, but I don't understand how that - "

"Guys! Guys!" Tornado shoved her face between theirs. "I think I know which way is East now!"

Firelock blinked, then snorted. "I thought you said Pegasi didn't have some magic internal compass."

Tornado scoffed. "We don't, dummy."

"Well, then, what changed, smarty-pants?"

The Pegasus smirked and pointed a hoof towards the horizon, where the gray had started to take on a little more brightness - leaning in to silver and edging on towards white.

"Because I'm pretty darn sure that that, you big dum dum, is a rising sun."

Author's Note:

Okay wow so I had a real life instance of why you never say "what could possibly go wrong" because, okay, everything did go wrong. I had about a chapter and a half in rough-draft form before shit hit the fan from every conceivable angle during the hell-year known as 2017. As much as I'd love to explain more, I don't think this is the place to share my font of depression-fuel. Maybe I'll put a blog up about it so people can have a degree of understanding of why it was so damn hard to get less than a thousand words published.

What I will say is that, while things for me are not really better right now than they have previously been in any measurable sense, they are at least stable right now rather than in decline, and I have a lot of free time and a lot less despair - and I am currently hacking out the next chapter even as I write this note. I want to get this story completed soon - but any time I make a promise or commitment the universe conspires to make me a liar by any means necessary, so I can't, lest I tempt the gods of fate again. I can hear an even bigger fan running in the background and I have no intention of testing it's output potential.

So once again, apologies for the excessive length between chapters - and thanks for the kind words and patience for those who have waited for as long as they have. I aim to provide a satisfying ending, and I hope I can provide it soon.

--
here's a blog of everything that punched me in the face this year, and kept me from writing, in case you want to suffer with me.

Comments

[General Grant]

Glad to see another chapter. Even more glad to find out that things have stabilized at the very least, and I'm hoping whatever's been going wrong for you manages to get better.

[The Fourth Monado]

Y E R B A C K

[Bloody_Tofu]

OHhhhh!!!! This amazing story!!! I’d forgotten about this. Time for a reread!!!

[e520]

oh crap, it updated! i kinda jumped the gun on my previous comment huh

[RomanCandle]

8666834
Naaaah you just had convenient timing. I know how it feels to be waiting ages for updates - some of my favorite stories have had huge silences between updates, but as much as it irks me I am guilty of the same - I just can't force these things.

[AyanamiRei]

Hurray for the story not being dead and the continued mystery of the Earth Pony Magic! <3

[Emperor]

The real Earth pony magic is their adventure, I bet. Or something. I dunno, I barely remember much about this fic.

[Winter_Solstice]

Approved for The Goodfic Bin