Sand dunes
The hills across the Appleloosan valley were long and bright.
Around the train station there were was a clear distinction among the landscape. Wide open spaces of desolate desert and lush fertile land separated by two lines of rails with the station resting in between. On one side of the station there was no shade, an outhouse and vast expanses of rolling green hills surrounded by deciduous forests of apples and foreign origin. The other side boasted a full deck and overhang complete with a few small tables and chairs. There was a warm shadow on the deck and a curtain, made of strings of desert pebbles, hung over the door to the bar, to keep flies out. An Earth pony and young Pegasus mare sat at one of the tables in the shade of the deck observing the seemingly endless barren landscape dotted with dunes of sand. It was quite hot and the express from the Crystal Empire would arrive in fifty minutes. It remained at this station for five minutes before departing for Saddle Arabia.
“I’m thirsty, should we get a drink?” the mare asked. She rested her thin and frail wings on the arms of her chair.
“Maybe, it is pretty warm,” the stallion said.
“Let’s have some beer”
“Cider,” the stallion said into the bar.
“Large ones?” a mare asked from inside.
“Yes, two large ones.”
A mare parted the pebble curtain bringing two big mugs of sparkling apple cider and two damp felt pads setting them down on the table. She spared no glance to the ponies seated at the table and promptly retreated back inside. The stallion drank slowly letting the sweet taste of Red Delicious massage the inside of his mouth as the Pegasus stared at the dunes in the distance. The dunes were long elongated forms with sudden sharp curves reaching into the sky before plummeting back into the smooth layers of sand.
“They look like clouds,” she said.
“I’ve seen plenty of those,” the stallion chugged down a mouthful of cider.
“Yes, but you know they’re not actually clouds. Or else they wouldn’t be coming out of the ground.”
“They wouldn’t be made of sand either,” he said. “You couldn’t fly through them.”
The mare turned to look at the curtain. “There’s a pattern on it,” she said. “What does it say?”
“Buffalo Calvados. It’s a drink.”
“Let’s try it.”
The stallion stamped his hooves on the wooden deck and called “Hey” through the curtain. The bar mare came out. “We’ll have two Calvados, a gill in each.”
“You want it with water?” she asked.
“Water?” he asked the Pegasus.
“Don’t know,” she replied. “How good is it with water?”
“I’ve had it before. It’s all right.”
“With water?” the bar mare asked.
“Yes, with water.”
The Pegasus emptied her cider mug and gave it to the Earth pony. He took both their cups inside and returned a moment later with two gleaming glasses of rich gold liquid and set them down on the table. The mare wrapped a wing around the glass struggling to bring it to her lips and sipped. She scrunched up her face and bit her tongue as the stallion looked on draining a quarter of his glass without so much as a twitch of the eye.
“It tastes bitter,” the mare said and put her glass down.
“Yes, but it’s well-aged. Just like most other drinks.”
“Everything tastes too bitter. Especially all the things you enjoy, like absinthe.”
“Aw, shut up.”
“You brought it up,” the mare teased. “I was just trying to have a pleasurable time.”
“Fine, let’s try to have a pleasurable time then.”
“All right, I was trying though. I noticed the sand dunes and their similarity to clouds. Wasn’t that interesting?”
“It certainly was.”
“I also wanted to try this drink,” the Pegasus paused for a moment. “That’s really all we ever do, isn’t it – notice things and try new drinks?”
“Perhaps.”
The Pegasus titled her head to gaze at the sky. The dark blue was clearly accented around a powerful bright spot beating down on the land. She looked out at the dunes and back at the sky.
“There’s not a cloud anywhere,” she said. “Those dunes don’t really look like clouds. I meant the colouring of the sand and how it looks white in the sun.”
“How about another drink?” the stallion asked.
“Sure. Just not anything too bitter.”
The warm wind gently caressed the deck causing the pebble curtain to sway gracefully and unseen wind chimes to clang softly against one another.
“The beer’s cool and fresh,” the stallion said.
“It’s simply wonderful,” the Pegasus said.
The wind died. The curtain ceased moving. The chimes fell silent.
“It’s a ridiculously simple operation, Breeze,” the stallion said. “It’s hardly an operation at all.”
The Pegasus stared at the deck where the table legs rested.
“It sounds strange but I know you wouldn’t mind too much, Breeze. It’s hardly anything. It certainly won’t harm you.”
The Pegasus said nothing.
“I’ll go with you and stay with you the whole time. They just put things back together and everything returns to normal.”
“What happens after that?”
“Everything will be fine after that. Just like it always was.”
“How do you reckon?”
“It’s the only thing that’s ever bothered you. It’s the only thing that’s made you, and us, unhappy.”
The Pegasus looked at the curtain of pebbles and brushed a wing through them.
“You think that’ll make me happy? That we’ll be perfectly fine after?”
“I’m certain we will. There’s no need to be afraid, I’ve known plenty of Pegasi that have done it.”
“I have as well,” she said. “It didn’t go perfectly for all of them. Some I never heard from again.”
“That was a while ago,” the stallion cleared his throat. “Things are much simpler now. Ponies know much more now than they did then. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Those ponies that were able to get through, they did seem much happier.”
“Exactly,” the stallion sat up straight. “Although if you really don’t want to then you don’t have to. I wouldn’t force it on you. But I know and so do you, it’s completely straightforward.”
“And you really think it’s the best thing to do?”
“I really do. But I wouldn’t want you to do it if it made you feel uncomfortable.”
“If I do go through with it, will you be happy and everything will be like it used to be and you’ll love me?”
“I love you now, I always have.”
“I know. But if I do it, will it be fun if I say things like how sand dunes look like clouds, and you’ll like it?”
“I’ll love it. I love it now but I can’t concentrate. You know I can’t think clearly around distractions.”
“So it’s distraction then? And I should just get it done so you can think straight?”
“You know what I mean, I want you to do it because I care. I can’t focus on anything knowing how much that’s bothering you.”
The Pegasus shifted slightly in her seat. “If I do it you won’t be distracted anymore?”
“I won’t be distracted about that because it’s completely straightforward.”
“Then I’ll do it. I don’t care about myself anyways.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t care about myself.”
“But I care about you.”
“Of course you do. But I don’t. I’ll do it and everything will be normal.”
“I don’t want you to do it, if that’s how you feel.”
The Pegasus mare lifted off her seat and hovered feebly a few feet off the ground to the other side of the station. The hills ran in between a flowing river before leveling out with apple trees lined along the banks in plentiful number. The settlement of Appleloosa lay not too far away with the noticeable fumes of bakeries at work rising overhead. The Pegasus flew back to the other side never taking her eyes off the sky. “And I could have all this,” she said. “We could have all this; we could make all of this ours. We could have everything.”
“What was that?”
“I said we could have everything.”
“We can have everything.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Of course we can.”
“We can’t. It doesn’t belong to us.”
“It can belong to us.”
“It doesn’t. I might still be able to have it though. But once they take it away, it’s all gone forever.”
“They won’t take it away, it’s perfectly safe. You’ll be perfectly fine.”
“We’ll wait and see.”
“Come back and sit down,” the stallion said. “You mustn’t feel that way.”
“I don’t feel anything,” she said. “I just don’t let things get in the way of my better judgement.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do anything you didn’t feel comfortable with -”
“Or if it just wasn’t right.” She floated back to the table and sat down. “I understand. Let’s have another drink.”
“Fine, but you should know that -”
“I already know,” the Pegasus said. “Can we just leave it at that?”
The Pegasus looked out at the sand dunes on the dry lifeless valley while the stallion looked at her and at her half empty glass. His glass had nothing left in it.
“You should know that you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he said. “If I was in your position, I’d be perfectly willing to go through with it. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Does it mean anything to you?” It’s not even about you.”
“I know that. It’s about you right now. You’re all I could ask for. There’s nothing else. And I know it’s completely straightforward.”
“Yes, of course you know that.”
“It’s all right if you feel that way, but I do know it.”
“Then would you do something for me right now?”
“Anything.”
“Can you just shut up? Right now? And not say anything else?”
The stallion did not reply but turned to look at their saddle bags resting against the wall of the station. They were plastered with the labels of all the places they’d visited and hotels they’d stayed in.
“Don’t do it then,” he said, “Really I don’t care, and I’ll never say another word about it again.”
“I’ll leave,” the Pegasus said.
The bar mare came through the curtain carrying two glasses of beer and placed them on the felt pads. “The train will arrive in five minutes,” she said.
“What did you say? asked the Pegasus.
“The train will arrive in five minutes,” the mare repeated.
The Pegasus smiled brightly at the bar mare in acknowledgment but she had already left their company.
“I guess I should take the bags over to the other side,” the stallion said. She nodded her head at him. “You can come back and we can finish our drinks after,” she said, sparing him no glance.
The stallion picked up the two moderately heavy bags in his mouth and trotted over to the other side of the station. He could not find any shade on the platform so he left the bags on his back. He leaned over the tracks and looked down the rails but he couldn’t see anything. He walked back through the bar where a few others of varying species were drinking. He sat down at the bar and drank an anisette. Everyone else was waiting patiently for the train. The stallion walked out through the curtain of pebbles. The Pegasus was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
“Do you feel better now?” he asked.
“I feel perfectly fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. There never was.”