“Shove off, you gobshite!” I screamed, staggering back to my hooves. I charged the pony that had pushed me only to get shoved back. I growled and flung my forehoof out, cracking the older pony in the eye. I felt a bit of satisfaction as he crumpled, a cry of pain issuing forth.
“Take that, ya Celestia-forsaken back birth!” I shouted. I panted and turned to leave.
And saw five other ponies circling me.
“Get her!” I heard just before they started charging.
“Ah, roadapples,” was all I had the time to spit out before they fell over me.
I don’t really remember much from the beating after the first few punches. The next clear thing I remember was standing by the river that ran near town trying to wash the blood out of my blue coat. But every time I thought it was rinsed out another open cut had just spread more blood, making me have to start over.
“Ah,” I heard a voice say behind me. “Get in another fight, then, sprout?”
I looked up to see Golden Ring standing nearby, her silver mane giving her a matronly look despite her youth. The deep brown coat was dotted with a few patches of white, something rare in most ponies I knew. A blaze of white was also on her forehead, where a horn would have been had she been born a Unicorn instead of a Pegasus. She had on a long coat that obscured her cutie mark, but I didn’t need to see it to visualize the three interlocked rings of yellow.
Her cerise eyes bored into me and I had to look away. We both knew the truth. She sighed and I heard feathers ruffle.
“Why do you keep letting them get to you, Azure?” she asked as a wing slid out to tilt my face up, then from side to side to examine the latest series of cuts and reopened scabs I seemed to collect on an almost daily rate. “You know you can’t beat them. And what if you break your horn one time, hm?”
“I don’t care,” I rasped out. My horn was somewhat stubby for my age and I hadn’t been able to get it to work even though all the other Unicorn ponies were floating things around and learning to write with their horns. “It’s pretty useless anyway.”
A hoof landed on my head and mussed up my mane. “Now, now,” Golden said, her lilt giving a musical quality to her unusually deep voice. “Don’t be like that. You’re still quite young, you might yet get a growth spurt in the next season or two.”
I crossed my forelimbs and turned away in a huff, much to my seeming only friend’s amusement. She forced me back around, a damp bandage held in her primaries. “Ah, sprout,” she chuckled. “You’re suren a challenge. Good thing you’re so loveable.” She pressed the bandage against one of the cuts and I felt the sting of the antiseptic.
“Iffen I’m so loveable,” I grumbled. “Then why hasn’t anypony adopted me? Or tell me what happened to my parents?”
Golden’s ministrations slowed and she glanced down. “I wish I had an answer, Azure,” she said, a wingtip caressing the unbroken skin on my cheek. “But trust that if Serendipity saw fit to place such hardships on you, it was to prepare you for some purpose.”
“That’s what you always say,” I cried. I could feel the tears building up again. “If you care about me, why don’t you take me home?”
She pulled me into a hug, a sigh rumbling in her chest.
“If only I could, sprout,” she whispered. “If only I could.”
And I had to take the solace of the wings that wrapped me in some warmth that the hug didn’t. I knew why she couldn’t, but it didn’t take the sting out of the fact that I was a scrawny little Unicorn in a run-down orphanage that could barely afford blankets for all the fillies and colts that found themselves there.
“How long will you be here this time?” I asked softly, knowing that if I spoke any louder a sob might slip free.
“Just a couple of days,” she whispered, a hoof stroking my mane. “Then I’m back off to the Wilds to try and keep the Ungols at bay.”
“Could I go with you this time?”
Golden sat back a little, her hooves cupping my face. “Azure, you know I can’t take you with me to an active front line.” She leaned forward and brought her nose to mine. “I should be done with this one last tour, though. After this trip, I’ll be coming home for good. And I have a spare room that could use some laugher. There isn’t enough of that in my life right now.”
I brushed a few tears away. “How long will you be gone?”
She stood and helped me to my hooves. “A couple weeks, maybe a month or two. Not too long.” Her wing came out and draped over me. “Now come on, lets get you cleaned up and some food in you. You’re so skinny you could be mistaken for Deerkin!”
“Am not!” I protested.
“I’ve got feathers bigger around than you,” she chuckled.
“You’re bigger and older than I am!”
“What’s your point, sprout?”
“What happened to her?” River asked suddenly, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Why do you think something happened?” I asked.
“Well, because you’ve never mentioned her before, and I’ve never met her.” She tilted her head, her face a mixture of fear and curiosity. “So what happened to her?”
I reached out and tucked her in a little tighter, planted a kiss on her forehead. “If you stay still and quiet,” I teased. “You might actually find out.”
“She was gone for about six weeks,” I continued. “And when she got back, she found me at the river again, cleaning up cuts from yet another scrap. Seems I never could keep out of trouble.”
“Ma,” River protested. “What happened?”
Laughing, I booped my daughter on the nose. “That, my darling,” I grinned roguishly. “Is a tale for tomorrow night.”
I couldn’t help but giggle as the air rushed over me. I was holding my forelegs straight out to either side to allow Golden a better grip on me as we glided over the fields and hills of the countryside.
“Isn’t this a sight, sprout?” I heard her say into my ear. I couldn’t help but agree. From the height we were at, Foalksmill looked like a giant patch of green with a blue crack in it. From up here, it was peaceful, idyllic even.
You couldn’t see the dirt from up here.
Golden banked and began dropping for a landing, gently releasing me before landing a little further ahead. I rushed up and hugged her.
“I love these, Goldie,” I said. “It always seems to remind me of how small problems are.”
“Well,” Golden said, stretching a bit. “Your problems may be small, but you certainly aren’t. I miss that wee filly that could fit between my wings sometimes. Might not be able to do these much longer iffen you don’t grow wings.”
I felt a small stab of sorrow at that. Over the last few months, I had grown a few inches and my horn finally decided to be useful. That didn’t stop the older ponies from trying to pick fights, but it did mean that I was winning more than I lost. That bend in the river stopped being the place to clean myself up and more a place to reflect.
I must have looked down as I thought because she stretched out a wing and poked me in the nose, making me stare at her.
“Don’t be down in the muzzle, sprout,” she said, walking over to drape the wing over my shoulders. “Pretty soon, you’ll be getting a cutie mark and be going off on adventures of your own, and you’ll be telling me the stories! You can already recite quite a few from memory, though I can’t say I care f’the places you learned ‘em from.”
I felt a blush build and cringed a little. “Well, where else am I going to hear something interesting?” I asked. “All the other fillies at the school and orphanage only talk about their cutie marks or colts or their families. All I’ve got is you, it feels.”
She pulled me in tight. “Don’t be so sure about that, sprout. There’s more you got beyond me.”
“Like what?”
“Like what?” she parroted. “What a thing to ask.” She spread her wing, pointing at the slowly setting sun. “Ya got the sun ta warm your bones, and the moon to light the night. Stars to wish on and an open road to wherever you want to go.”
She came around and sat before me, using her wings to tilt my head to face her. “Your ticket in life will be whatever you write, Azure,” she said, more serious than I had heard her before. “But you’ve got to pick up the quill. That’s the most important part. Everything else is just details. As long as your penmanship is legible, you can go anywhere.”
We sat there and watched the sun slowly set, the night slowly spreading around us. As the moon rose, I tilted my head as I looked at the strange sight of a mare’s head on it’s luminous surface.
“Goldie?” I asked. “Could I hear the one about the Mare in the Moon again?”
I saw her look at me from the corner of my eye, a small smile on her face.
“Sure, sprout,” she said, rising. “First, though, what do you say to some dinner?”
“Are you cooking?” I asked, following her as we walked down the hill to the town.
“Celestia, no!” she laughed. “I’ll not poison you with something like that!”
I shared the laugh. “Then yes, I’ll join you for dinner.”
We neared the small inn on the edge of the village and I could smell the wonderful aroma of cooking vegetables. My mouth began to water as we sat down. The waitress had taken our order and left when Golden looked at me for a second.
“I’ve got a wee bit of bad news, Azure.”
“What is it?”
“Well, they extended my tour by another three weeks,” she said, hooves toying with the tablecloth. “I leave the day after tomorrow.”
My heart sank, and I’m sure my face showed it as well, because she reached out and ruffled my mane. It was getting shaggy again, in need of a good cutting.
“Theres a silver lining yet,” she said. “In return for this wee bit, I’ll get a nice little severance package that I can use to build a nice little house, one big enough for a pair of ponies to have nice quiet nights. I’d have to move, though.”
“Where?” I whispered.
“There’s this wee little place called Ponyville not too far from Canterlot. Nice place,” she smiled at me. “I think you’d like it, m’self. They’ve got a proper library and a short train ride can have you in Canterlot to catch shows in the theatre.”
I blinked, confuesd. “Wait, what?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Oh, sprout, you are a wonder.” She leaned forward. “When I get back, I’m taking governance over you from the orphanage. I figure it’ll be time for you to have something a little more structured than this rough and tumble life you seem determined to give yourself into. Give you a real sense of family.”
“I’ve done pretty well so far,” I huffed. “And I don’t need a family to make do.”
She reached out with a wing and poked me in the side where I had a fairly tender bruised rib still. “I can see how well you do,” she smirked at me as I hissed with pain. “I promise you, sprout, you won’t regret this. Just hold on three more weeks.”
I looked at her for a long while, and after our food had been deposited and the waitress out of ear shot, I smiled.
“I suppose I can afford to wait three weeks,” I said. “I’ll have to write up a ticket though.”
She winked at me. “Make sure it’s legible, sprout,” she grinned. “Otherwise you might get sidetracked.”
I saw her off to the train depot two nights later. I had always liked how she looked with the long black coat and her rapier in it’s battered scabbard. She looked fierce, she looked adventurous. I couldn’t wait to hear all her tales. Imagine, a house, and somepony that cared for me. Not just a tent or a rented room, but an actual home! I couldn’t wait for the three weeks to be done with already.
Which was why, I suppose, destiny decided to make that the last time I would speak with Golden Rings.
I was staggered as the Earth Pony set down a pack with Golden Ring’s cutie mark on it, the rapier clattering against the floorboard. He was haggard and beat up, a rough bandage around his head and one eye. He also held out a small letter to me.
“She said to make sure you got this,” he rumbled, giving me a small smile before patting me on the head and turning to leave.
I absently put a hoof onto the backpack, still not seeing the present. I was remembering all the moments I had shared with the Pegasus, her easy smile and her rough and tumble way of teaching me life lessons. She had never been one to mince words with me, but she had also been the only pony that seemed to care about me on her own behalf. The matron of the orphanage was not what one would call a sympathetic soul. She came over and levitated the pack away, giving me a look over her glasses.
“I’ll place this in storage until you come of age,” she said flatly. “You wouldn’t want the other foals to try and take it.”
I sat on the porch, not really registering her words, images still playing through my mind. Even after I went to what they laughably called a bed hours later, I hadn’t spoken to anypony. My mind wasn’t willing to move on. I still hadn’t even opened the letter that was clutched in my hoof. I glanced around and saw that all the other orphans were either asleep or close enough to it they wouldn’t care.
I slipped from my pallet and moved to the door, slipping my way down the hall to the porch where I could use the street lamps to read the last words she had thought to give me.
I opened the envelope after slipping behind a rain barrel. There were two pieces of paper in it, one looking like an official document and the other a hastily written note.
Azure,
I know I promised that at the end of this tour that we’d head off and set up shop in another place, get you some schooling and such. I guess Serendipity had other plans for me.
In this envelope is the deed to the house I had purchased in Ponyville and the name of a fine young mare that would be willing to check in on you from time to time if you can make it there. I’m sorry I can be there with you right now and I know you’re hurting, but remember. I’ll always be there in spirit and in your heart. And remember this above all else: To thine own self be true.
I’m sure you’ll figure out what that means one day. You’re a bright young filly.
I love you,
Golden Ring
Tears had filled my eyes at the end of the letter, and I hunched over and cried, choking back the sobs so I wouldn’t be found. The grief had caught up to me now, and the hole in my heart burned with pain. I looked around, and I knew a simple truth. I couldn’t stay here anymore, there were too many places that would remind me of her and I was tired of it all. I glanced back at the door to the orphanage, and I sniffled a little, wiping my eyes and putting the note back in the envelope with the deed. The matron slept like a log, and I knew that the door to her room looked like it locked, but it was just a slipshod as the rest of this building. I had explored it thoroughly in my time here, earning a lashing or three in the process.
“Better to be hung for a goat than a sheep,” I said to myself. I didn’t exactly know what it meant, but it was one of a few sayings I had picked up from Goldie. It didn’t matter what it meant. I crept back inside and stole my way to the matron’s room, nudging the bolt open with a tiny stream of my magic. The door slowly swept open, the hinges thankfully not squeaking.
I looked around in the faint moonlight streaming in. The surprisingly large bed took up a good portion of the room and it contained a snoring mare. There were two doors on the far wall, one of which I knew contained a closet and another that was an office that also served as the storeroom. I walked over and pushed the door to the office open. I slipped in and saw the pack with the yellow rings on it sitting on the floor next to the desk, rapier still attached to it by a strap. I lifted it in my magic and gently settled it over my body. It was a little heavy, but no more than I thought I could handle.
I turned to leave and saw a pouch sitting on a table next to the door. I lifted it out of curiosity and heard it clink gently. Opening it, I saw that it contained gleaming coins within, more that I had ever seen before. I looked at the pouch and saw it bore a seal and an emblem that I recognized as the emblem of the EUP, the army that Golden Ring had served in. The seal was from the personal company she had served in.
I felt anger flare up. This was Golden’s, gifted to me in a dying wish and she thought to take it from me? Sure, it could have been useful to the orphanage, but something told me that she hadn’t meant to use it for that. I closed the pouch and tucked it into the pack and slipped out, locking the door behind me.
I stepped onto the street outside and glanced both ways. It didn’t really matter to me where I went, but I knew that west would lead me towards Canterlot while east would lead out to some of the more wild areas of the world. I looked up at the moon, beginning to sink lower in the sky and tossed my mane out of my face.
And left the town I had known all my life, heading west. I was more than ready to shake the dust of this town from my hooves. As the sun began to rise behind me a few hours later, I had long since lost sight of the tiny hamlet.
I sat down later to take stock of my belongings and found a few packs of dried fruit in the pack and the short vest of Golden’s that she had always worn under her long coat. I pulled it on, still a little large for me but it was warm and smelled of her. There was also a single feather of hers stuck through one of the buttonholes.
I stroked it with a hoof as I ate a few pieces of fruit.
“Let’s hope I’m not a rudding fool,” I whispered, glancing up at the sky, tinged bright by the dawning sun.
That’s not true. I hated camping alone. Goldie had taken me several times, but had never gotten around to teaching me how to make a campfire. The tent and bedroll I had kept a bit of warmth in by keeping the wind at bay, but that was about all I could claim.
After a few hours of tossing and turning, I finally growled and got up. It was clear I was probably never going to get any more sleep tonight and I began to break camp. I looked up at the moon, hearing a soft voice in my mind.
”As punishment, she was locked into the moon, and her threat was eliminated.”
“That’s not how you said it happened last time!”
“Oh, and you are just so sure, sprout?”
“Yes!”
“Well, then, maybe you’d like to tell it from now on?”
I felt a tear slide down my cheek. “But I like it when you tell them.”
It took a few minutes for me to get my emotions back under control. I pulled the vest tightly around me against the chill of the predawn air and packed up the tent. My steps were slow and shuffling, but determined. There was a place where I wouldn’t think of her every waking minute, I was sure of it.
I just had to find it.
I found something, all right, but it wasn’t a place to live. Rather, it was a very inhospitable place.
I looked down over the edge of the ravine, the ropes from the tattered reamins of a rope bridge swaying in the wind. The majority of it was across the way, the rough slats barely visible through the haze of distance. I tried to get a grip on them, but my magic wasn’t strong enough. I saw my cerulean aura coat them, but the strain was too great.
I blew my bangs out of my face and plopped down. The map in Goldie’s pack was wildly out of date as far as the printed date, nearly by twenty years, but surely land didn’t change that much, right?
I pulled the map out and located the ravine. It was nearly to the edge of the map, but it showed a few small towns another few days worth of travel beyond the ridge line. If I was reading this correctly - and it was one of the first things I was taught how to do on our camping trips - only a few leagues northward the ravine would close off. The southern end wasn’t included on this map, so I decided to make my way north.
The trek offered me time to reflect on things, lessons taught both by word of mouth and hard practical experience. What sorts of plant life was safe to eat, how to navigate by sun or star, how to choose a campsite and pitch a tent.
“Everything but how to build a fire without matches,” I muttered as I rounded a boulder.The ground was getting rocky, only a few scraggly patches of crabgrass here and there. The landscape was getting bland, dull, and ugly.
And yet, I was feeling something underneath the lingering sorrow and annoyance at the detour. An exhilaration that I had never felt before, even when flying with Golden Ring. I was out among the world, no longer shackled by the rules of a town or the fact that I was a blank flank keeping me from doing whatever I wanted.
I held my head high as a breeze blew through, turning slightly to keep my mane out of my face. Even though my hooves were firmly on the ground, I felt like I could do anything. Once the ground cleared of loose debris, I broke into a trot, excited to see what was over the hill.
A smile broke across my face, and my trot turned into a canter, a wild whoop flying from my lips. Grass, clay, and weeds whipped by under my hooves as I sped up even more, and I felt a few strands get caught in my coat and tail. I crested a small hillock and saw a wide plain spread out below me, the wind making the grass billow like green waves. I saw a small speck in the middle, what vaguely looked like a building of some sort.
I pulled my map out and scanned the area, and there was no indication of what that building may be. Which meant it was either more than twenty years old or had been set up in the interim, and I was curious as to find out which it was.
I took off down the hill, and if somepony else had beheld me in that moment, I’m sure the gleam of excitement might have been brightly in my eyes.
It wasn’t a building. It was a tiny hut surrounded by some carefully tended patches of herbs and vegetables. I was slowly approaching it when I heard a step from behind me.
I whirled and lowered myself somewhat in the tall grass. Not too far back was a figure in a hooded cloak of light brown, the hood keeping the noon sun out of their eyes. The grass around them was tall enough I couldn’t make out their coat color or a tribe.
“It’s ok,” a soft voice said, masculine and with a strange inflection. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just curious as to why you be staring at my house.”
I rose a little, still keeping the mysterious stallion in front of me.
“I was coming this way and I saw your house in the distance,” I said, holding up my map. “There weren’t any notes on here about a settlement or anything, but it is a little old.”
A chuckle came out of the hooded pony. “Isn’t everything, after a fashion?” He started walking forward, and I blinked as he came fully into the cleared yard.
His coat was a zig-zagging pattern of black and white stripes, and just behind a satchel bulging with several root-looking contents was a strange whorl of jagged lines. His tail was twisted in strange locks and I saw a few tendrils of his mane in a similar style trailing from his hood.
“What be the trouble?” he said as he lowered his hood. Threads of gray were mixed into his hair and his face a creased a little with age. “Never seen a zebra before?”
I shook my head. “No,” I stuttered.
He gave a rumbling laugh as he walked over to a barrel by the corner of his hut and dipped a hollowed gourd into it. After drinking from it, he offered it to me. “It gets rather dry out here. Please, drink up.”
I took the gourd in my magic and drank some of the water and was surprised at it’s coolness. I gave the gourd back and nodded some thanks.
“So,” he said as he walked into the hut and shrugged the pack off onto a low table. “What brings you out this way? Not many young fillies in the military without a cutie mark, especially of rank.”
I frowned for a moment, then remembered I was wearing Golden’s old vest. Her rank and division patches were still attached to its sides. “Oh,” I whispered, touching a hoof to the dark, weather stained cloth. “I’m not… this isn’t mine. It belonged to a friend.”
The zebra nodded. “Ah. Somepony important?”
I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice at the moment. The zebra sighed and walked over to a firepit in the middle of the room, kicking a few stray sticks into the middle. He bent over and blew gently on one of the rocks surrounding it and a glyph lit up brightly, causing the assembled kindling to flare into flames. He dropped a few other large sticks in before turning to me again.
“Well, I can’t very well be sending you off without letting you get a decent meal,” he said, going to pull some baskets of havested vegetables out from a cupboard. “Hardly more den skin and bones, you are.”
I cocked my head at him. “Excuse me?”
“No excuses,” he said as he opened a jar containing an aromatic spice of some sort. “No cause for a young mare to be near to starving.”
“I’m not starving!” I protested, but was undercut by my stomach suddenly growling.”
“Somepony seems to disagree,” he said with a smile. “Go ahead and rest your hooves and I’ll have some food ready soon. My name is Zeke, by the way.”
“Azure,” I responded, removing my pack and settling on the roughspun rugs set around the room.
He chuckled. “Pleasure to meet you, little filly.”
I had never been more wrong in my life. It turned out I was ravenous, and I had never tasted anything so grand in my life. Even comparing it to meals with Golden I had never been so satiated in my life. The root vegetables and other products of the stew Zeke had made were seasoned in such a way that I could still taste them an hour later and the general smell lingered in the air.
“So,” Zeke said as he set a clay mug down. “By your way, you’re trying to keep true to your mama’s dreams.”
“She wasn’t my mother,” I said. “Nopony seems to know who my parents were.”
“Girl,” Zeke said with a sad smile. “She may not have borne you, but she was your mama in all the ways dat be important.” He rose and went to refill his mug with the strange tasting tea he had brewed. “It seems dat fate has given you a basket fer t’carry water, yes, but you’ll get by.”
“I’m sure it isn’t as simple as you make it sound,” I whispered.
“Did I say it to be easy?” he chuckled. “Girl, nothing in life dat is easy is really worth it. Living way out here has been a challenge all these years, but it been worth every hardship.”
“Why are you living so far out in the wilds anyway?”
He smiled softly. “Dat be a long story, girl.”
I quirked an eye at the old stallion.
“But dose be the best ones t’tell,” I said, emulating his accent.
He laughed deeply and leaned back a little.
“Truth behold,” he said between laughs. “Well, tell my, little girl, do you know what a duppy be?”
I shook my head.
“Well,” he said, his voice taking on a soft but firm tone as he raised his hooves a little. “Duppy is what my folk call spirits dat play tricks on folks, things so full of hate and spite dat they seek to make life inconvenient. Worse den harpies, they be.”
I leaned back and was wrapped up in Zebrican tales for the rest of the night. And I had never felt so alive.
Someone was nudging me, gently. I cracked an eye open and saw Zeke standing over me.
“Time t’get up,” he whispered. “Deres things t’be doing.”
I looked over at the window, still seeing stars outside. “But it’s still nighttime,” I slurred as I rolled out of the cot I had been sleeping on the past few weeks. “What’s so damning important?”
The zebra reached out and whacked me on the shoulder as he laughed. “It’s not a what, but a where!” He pulled his satchel on as he headed to the door. I yawned and followed him out of the hut that had become my home recently, pulling a small pack on as well.
The night air was warm, a light mist floating around just above the ground and drifting through the tall grass that ringed the gardens that Zeke had tended. I saw a warm red glow starting to form on the far east horizon.
“So where are we going?” I asked, yawning again.
“Not too far is a cavern.” He said as he picked his way through the grass, marking a trail that I followed. “I’ve been exploring it fer the last few days, mapping it out. And I’m betting that what I saw last time would interest you, storyteller.”
I felt my ears prick up. He only called me that when he was about to share a new tale for me to repeat or teach me a new use for herbs. “What’s in there?”
He turned and smiled at me, a toothy grin that told me that he would rather show me.
“Can you keep up wit an old stallion?” he asked before taking off at a brisk pace.
My grin blossomed forth as I charged to keep up.
“This is gorgeous, it is,” I whispered as we stepped deeper into the cavern. In the werelight of my horn, the cavern walls glittered and sparkled like a nighttime sky. I reached up and touched a hoof to the wall, feeling the smooth surface. “What makes it sparkle like this?”
“Small bits of mineral deposits,” Zeke said. Around the zebra’s neck was a phosphorescent stone that served as he light source. “Like as not left by the water when it floods.”
“Floods?” I squeaked. “What floods?”
“You didn’t notice the dry riverbed outside, then? Or smell the salt?”
I spun around, my mind already playing at turning the soft breeze into the sound of rushing water.
“Relax, filly,” he laughed. “We’re months for the flood yet. Hop along now, we’re naught but just in.”
As we ventured deeper, the glitter of the minerals in the wall continued to grow brighter, and I began to spot bits of the smoothed walls that looked like little wave like patterns. The deeper we went, the more pronounced the designs became, now obviously a deliberate design. We turned a corner and I felt my jaw drop.
A massive stone structure sat on a speck of stone in the middle of a dark pond, the sound of water dripping echoing in the cavernous depths. The building was decorated all over with the shape of clams, calm water, waves, storm clouds, and a strange half pony-half serpent creature featuring central to the building’s door.
“Cor,” I whispered. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure, m’self.” Zeke stepped forward and into the lapping edge of the pool. “But you can see it’s old, f’sure.”
I tried to judge the distance to the small island, but couldn’t get a good judge due to the impressive look of the time-worn building. Casting about, I spied a loose stone and lifted it in my magic and started pushing it out, comparing its size to the building.
I lost my grip before it had even made it halfway across the pond. It was further away than my current telekinetic grip could stretch, which I had exercised to a fair reach.
“That thing is massive,” I whispered. “I’ve never heard of those snake creatures, have you?”
“Not in my life,” Zeke murmured as I dug a small notebook from my pack. I sketched the rough design of the ruins on a page, then started to jot down the directions from his hut.
“Naga,” River piped up.
“What now?” I asked.
“Those beasts carved on the building,” she repeated. “They sound like Nagas. I read about them in one of the books I got from Princess Twilight.”
“Did you now?”
“Mmmhmm! And it said that they were cousins to the Sirens! You think that Miss Aria or Miss Sonata would know anything about them?”
I patted her on the head before lowering the beside lamp.
“Who knows, sprout? Maybe we’ll ask them next time we see them.”
I was polishing the blade of Goldie’s rapier as I waited for the stew to cook. In the past year, Zeke had shown me marvelous ways of mixing spices to bring out flavors and herbs that could tend to small hurts. I had learned hundreds of stories and myths and explored things all over the ridgeline that I had come to call home.
“Storyteller,” he called out. “Ain’t that stew done yet?”
“Keep your horseshoes on, y’old crab!” I called back. In the past few months, I had taken on more than a few of the duties and upkeep of this little homestead. To be honest, it didn’t bother me that much. Zeke felt like what I had always thought a grandfather would be like; wise and patient, but always with a small hint of mischief and humor back behind the grouchy smile.
“Call me a crab again and I’ll find me an old obeah mare and turn you t’one, ya rascal!”
I grinned, standing and looking to the stew. It wasn’t quite done, but it would be soon enough. I couldn’t fault him for asking, the smell of the cooking food had long since permeated the air so that nowhere you went in this simple little cote was free of the aroma.
I sheathed the rapier and put it over by a pile of items that had mostly sat since I had come here.
“You always be cleanin’ dat thing,” Zeke said. “But ain’t ever used it. Don’t know how, by yer own admission.”
“It was Gol… my mothers.” I still felt odd referring to Golden that way, but it had started to feel right, somehow.
“Den why don’t y’be learnin’ it?” he asked, sighing as he shifted in his chair. “In de Wilds, we be, Azure. Dis be a place dat nopony knows.”
“I don’t know how,” I said. “I wouldn’t be good at it.”
“Better den without,” Zeke retorted. “Look, filly, I not be long for dis world, but I’d hate t’tink dat you be out there widout a way to see you through.”
He slid to his hooves and took up a short cane. Tossing it to me, he picked up a similar one.
“I don’t know de proper way of it,” he said. “But I can give ye something t’swing at.”
Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but by the end I was glad he had taught me what he had about plants and salves.
I needed it to ignore the sting of bruises to get to sleep that night.
***
I woke sometime late in the night to the sound of heavy rain and saw the old zebra staring out the open door.
“Zeke?” I called. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer, just standing there as the wind of the storm ruffled his mane.
“You ever see a storm,” he said after a moment. “Really sit and watch it?”
I got up and walked over.
“All i’be is water and de breeze, all mixed up.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head up a bit. “You can almost hear de ancestors in de wind on a night like dis, if you listen right.”
I perked up my ears, but all I could hear was the loud thumping of rain on the roof and ground and the loud breathing of the wind.
“The wind changed, dere be something prowling,” he said. “You c’smell it on de air. Stay sharp.”
Just then, a bolt of lightning shot down and struck the pear tree that stood several hundred yards distant. As the haze of the strike cleared from my sight, the smell of burning wood and seared fruit wafting over to us.
Seeing that, Zeke walked to a shelf and pulled out a bowl and a small clay jar I’d never seen him use before. Inside were several small bones with carvings etched into them.
“What are those?” I asked softly.
Ignoring me, Zeke set the bowl down and began casting the bones into it and staring intently at them before casting them again. After the third repetition of the act, he nodded and put them away again.
“Zeke, you’re startin’ t’ worry me,” I said.
He went back to the door and stared out again.
“Sleep, filly,” he said. “You’ve a long day ahead of you tomorrow.”
I woke the next morning and found myself alone. I heard shuffling outside and I went out to find Zeke scratching in the muddy ground around the base of the cote, strange sigils being left in the drying earth. He came up to the door again, completing what looked like a circle all around the house.
“Ah, you’re up,” he said, throwing the stick he was using to me.
Catching it, I saw it was a twisted bit of pearwood, lightly scorched along one side. It had probably come from the still smoking ruin of the pear tree last night’s lightning had struck.
“Hold on t’dat,” he said, walking into door and rummaging a moment. He came out with a sealed letter and handed it to me.
“I need you t’be headin’ out,” he said. “No, I ain’t castin’ you forth, so don’t start tearing. De bones told me it was time t’be off. I’ve got a niece nearby I’ve been meanin’ t’visit, and we have a long trail t’walk.” His wizened face crinkled as he smiled.
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered, the stick in my aura thunking dully as I dropped it.
“Nopony ever does, filly,” he said. “But dis ain’t but a short partin’. We’ll be walking together a while and after we'll b’seeing the other again, and sooner den you tink.” He nodded to the letter. “Dis has an introduction to a friend at de fancy Unicorn school in Canterlot. You should get a good education dere, plenty of stories.”
“But what about you?” I asked, vision swimming.
“Dat niece I mentioned? She lives nearby, so won’t be dat far t’visit. Besides, dis place is too much for me alone and you’re too young t’be tied down here. You got great tings ahead, Azure, but you’ll need skills I can’t teach.” He hefted the letter again. “Dey can here.”
“What about the house?” I asked.
He nodded to the line of squiggling glyphs he had etched into the ground. “It’d be here f’long as we need it t’be. By de end of de day, they be baked in and sealed. It’ll keep tings from pulling de place down.”
He looked me in the eyes and smiled that craggy smile again.
“It’s always gonna be dere, Storyteller,” he whispered. “Even when it ain’t.”
As I packed my bag, I pondered his words. I suppose in a way he was right, just as things Golden had told me were still true. And if they didn’t take me in at the school, it wasn’t like I couldn’t return here and drag his leathery hide back with me.
Speaking of the old stallion, I realized he had disappeared on me midway through the day. When I stood to go looking for him he stepped through the door, a length of wood across his back.
“I know we still t’be together till we get dere,” he said, pulling the wood down. “But I wanted t’give you dis.”
The length of wood turned out to be a long bamboo flute.
“Was my wife’s, long ago.” He turned away slightly. “Never felt right fer it t’be silent but I couldn’t play it f’cary water.”
I looked along the smooth wooden barrel of the instrument. Something about it just felt right, and I almost felt like a pair of wings were slipping over me as a warm feeling blossomed.
“Thanks, ya old crab.”
“What I tell you about dat?” he scowled at me, but we both broke out laughing.
“C’mon,” he smiled. “We got a fair pace to hit de nearest rail track, and I don’t plan to walk all de way to Canterlot.”
I looked back at the small cote once as we left, just as we hit the top of a short hill I had always enjoyed laying in the sun on. The tiny home sat almost invisible among the tall grass and scrub that had grown in the fields that had laid fallow since fall.
