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.
There is only havoc in the storm.
The shoreline was a nightmare world of howling chaos. Through the pounding waves Stones caught a glint of colour, some impossible speck caught between sea and stone. The lighthouse cut a swath through the murk and for a moment Stones could see the body, right where the water was blackest and the frothing madness riding it was whitest.
She could not think, could not act. Caught in the pelting rain the mare could only watch in dumbfounded awe as - with the passing of the light - it was swallowed up once more in the tumult.
The waves rose up, higher than she had ever seen, certainly never from the writhing shoreline. Up and up they rose, great mountains of water that slammed one another; volcanoes of water erupting violently.
Panic pulled at Stones, yet even more so it rooted her to the spot. A surge washed over her knees and shoved at her forcefully. Grasping at her legs the swash tried to pull her back into the sea with it, but a Stone was not so easily moved.
The beam came round again, the light brought her to her senses; the terrible fiends biting at one another were rock and wave. Fearsome as they were, these things were nothing more than that. All the howling banshees ripping at her mane were only wind, the stinging rain that blinded her was no malicious swarm. She could barely see for it, yet dare not raise a hoof from the firmament to clear her eyes. Her hooves were as limpets to the rock, four pillars of strength that held the mare up both physically and mentally. Blinking and squinting she turned her head to the wind, fighting the resistance of her hair as it whipped back and forth.
The speck in the tempest rose up again, the colours of the body slick and shining, a luminescent green astride a tower of water, before it vanished from view again.
Something was wrong. Very wrong. Impossible. Stones weathered the torrential downpour, forcing her eyes clear as they could be. A wave was rising. Rising, higher than all others, then higher still. A dark monolith. Stones watched, disbelieving as others broke before ever hitting it, the way in front of the unnatural surge parting, then lapsing back into frenzy behind it. All the while the obscured green spot of life tumbled and turned, submerged in the very crest.
And it was getting closer. The whole of it, trampling the whole of the storm underhoof, hell bent on Broken Head.
"No, oh nonono!" Her words were ripped apart before ever reaching her ears. She tried to scramble away, but the wave was so huge and fast, there was no where to go. Helpless and watching, the wave to end the world bore down on the island...
...and began receding even as it struck the land. Shrinking, sinking away, almost peacefully, calming the waters around it as it washed over and smoothed the grimacing rocks.
Even then, it was still ten times her height when it ploughed into Stones, and all the world went upside down.
Water became air and air became water; bubbles poured upwards around her, through her. Directions lost all meaning. There was only the twisting and turning, the pushing and pulling of the surge.
Something solid slammed into her, so hard as to knock the breath from Stones, had she had any breath left to be stolen away. Even so, it was something tangible. Cold and slick, hard to grasp, Stones clung to it for dear life will all her strength, sparing none for the impact that slammed them both into the waiting teeth of Broken Head.
Stones’ side bloomed with pain, her head cracked against barnacles, and as the water retreated over her it quite literally rubbed salt in her wound, marking a jagged line down her midriff, burning as if hot coals were stitched to her coat. She was crying out before the backswash even gave her mercy to breathe.
The only good Stones could think of it was that she still still had the capacity to realize the severity of her injuries. A Stone got familiar with injury in their line of work. Her cry became a gasp for air, then a grunt as she hauled herself and the mass she clutched to an inch up the shore. Only on Broken Head could it be called such an innocent thing as a shore, and only because the rocks couldn’t be convicted of their murderous guilt.
Another surge washed over them, roaring as it retreated. She didn’t stop to look at herself. It was too dark, then too bright, only to be too dark again. Stones made sure to keep looking firmly away from the gash along the ribs on her right side, fully aware of how much she needed to deny it. It wouldn’t be that bad. It wouldn’t.
Pain spoke otherwise when Stones tried to stand. She fell to her good side, onto the mass of flesh she held,
It squirmed. Twisted. Struggled.
Alive she thought, not as a word that crossed her mind but as a sensation, a realization that moved through the whole of Stones.
Eyes stinging, the mare could see so little, and what there was to see was the roiling blackness of the storm. All but the lump under her, colourless in the dark, yet glinting with a sheen that promised such colour if only...
Stones was not thinking these things. All semblance of thought had been pounded out of her when the wave struck. The mare moved only on compulsion; something like memory, something not so dissimilar from feral instinct, driving her up the rocks.
Another wave surged over her back, nearly toppling Stones, nearly stealing back the prize she’d stolen away from the ocean, or at least, what it had thrown so viciously at her. She hobbled, draping the thing best she could over her shoulder, fighting off the urge to curl up on her wound and rest a breath. Rest two. Lay down. Not get up.
Each step she took, Stones distracted herself with memories of similar marches; time had lead her into many of them, and the years had cultivated them into a strange blend of shame and pride to recall.
If it was a march at all, it was one of retreat. One that proved a Stone had taken on the sea and lost the battle. But if they could still walk, it also meant they hadn’t lost the war. Soon enough she was beyond the reach of salt and barnacles.
There was the door, and even that seemed a whole new world to her. Limping, she dragged the lump gently as she could through it. She collapsed, trembling, into the absurdity of warmth, dryness and light that was her home. She forced it shut again, cutting off the fingers of wind that plucked at it. The mare fancied that the storm’s howls were of frustration, that she’d denied it a victory.
Her chin sank to the floor, her thoughts and vision swimming. Behind her were twinned trails of water and blood. It wasn’t distressing as a pony might have expected, and she watched it spread out and dilute in the puddles for a moment before remembering what it meant.
She looked to her side.
“Oh,” she said quite conversationally, as if the collage of pink, red and basalt coloured coat mish mashing its way along her midriff might answer her back. She blinked, and the mess was still there. “Oh balls.”
She wasn’t quite feeling the pain, but she certainly wasn’t thinking. The big new bottle of iodine welled up in her mind, pushing aside everything else. More than habit, it was practically ritual. Ingrained.
Stones stumbled her way to the storeroom. She was going to have to scrub her blood off of the floor. It’d probably stain anyway, and how embarrassing would that be? The iodine was where it always was, a shiny new bottle brimming with the good stuff.
Her hooves and mouth were steadier than her mind. She pried the jug’s top off, then hesitated, the neck of the bottle gripped tightly in her teeth. She’d never liked the next bit. Nobody liked the next bit. She upended the bottle of pungent liquid.
She managed not to scream or shout as fire bloomed along her side, because her jaw was locked on the precious bottle. If she bit down any harder she’d have had broken glass in her mouth to deal with too.
“Ow ow ow ow!” Her back leg spasmed and flailed, quite beyond Stone’s control. She collapsed, panting for breath. Too late she realized it was all pouring out under her muzzle. There was already a fat, smelly pool of iodine on the floor. A month’s worth, gone like that.
“Just great,” she muttered, learning on the upside that her capacity for snark and sarcasm was still completely fine.
Her leg bore weight, that wasn’t at issue. A Stone could trust their hooves, always. It was the movement that hurt. She buried her injury under the biggest towel she could bring to hoof, then wound as much bandage around herself as she could, so tight that it strained her breathing.
Then she saw the glistening mass of life by her door, quivering in the water and blood she’d made a mess of her floor with.
Thought, so slow to come, finally slotted into place. The mare had unthinkingly assumed... she didn’t know. She hadn’t thought that far. Long Shore, maybe - he’d been in only a few hours earlier, and her disappointment there still stung quite deeply.
But this wasn’t him, or even a pegasus at all. There were no feathers, because there were no wings put them on. Or legs, for that matter. Not that a pony had feathers on their legs, Stones thought vapidly. Her eyes blurred a bit, and she felt light on her hooves as she tried to clear it. Then she felt very light on her hooves and her vision swam altogether, and just like that she was gone.
Skipping Stones did not want to wake up just yet. She knew what kind of trouble awaited her there. Even so, she found herself groaning into consciousness. The aches, pains, and outright hurts she had gotten had waited impatiently all through the night and seeing their chance, harangued her all at once. Oh, and she was somehow wet and sticky. The place reeked of iodine.
Stones breath caught. It was hoarse and raspy when she got it going again. Groaning, she exerted the infinite effort of opening her eyes.
She was sideways. She was on the floor. Stones groaned again, somehow more expressively this time. Her hooves, seeing a great deal more sense in being upright, scratched weakly for purchase on the floor, but it was wet and they slipped back and forth..
There was a tug at her side as her legs moved. She dimly recalled a bandage. The growl of pain she found along her side made for a firm reminder of it. The towel was caked with spatters of her blood. Sometime in the night it had gone tacky and dark, gluing the cloth to her. Moving it at all could tear it loose and open her wound. Her side itched terribly.
She groaned a third time. There were no words in it, but was heavy with the suggestion of curses anyway. She tried to lift her head, only to struggle with the stiffness of it. It didn’t seem fair at all; she’d been maimed and brutalized already, to be sore from a night on the floor was just excessive.
Stones forced a few steadying breaths through her and found the strength to stand. The shoddy bandage job held on for all the itching. Stones did her best to put that, and what lay beneath, out of her immediate mind.
Her hooves took her one rickety, uncertain step to the long stairs before she realized how absurd it would be to go up and check the light in this state. It came as quite the startling upset. Any other day - every other day - it would be absurd to consider not doing it.
Habit outweighed sensibility, and the mare scrounged for rationalizations to break routine. The fact that she was hurt worse than usual somehow wasn’t enough on its own, and the call to go up and keep the routine taunted her maddeningly.
It was clear weather outside, she realized. Clear as Broken Head could ever enjoy, if such a malicious little spit of land could enjoy blue skies and peaceful breezes. That was something to consider. And it was day. Day was good. And there’d be nothing out from the harbours this soon after such a gale.
Armed with her dirty excuses Skipping Stones turned away from the familiar stairs, feeling treacherous and wilful. It hurt to move even that much.
Not two steps away laid the thing she’d fished from the water. It was grossly, iridescently green. It was breathing faintly, with little wheezing huffs.
Scales. She could see scales. Stones’ initial revulsion was tempered by the fact that more than a few of them - tiny, shimmering flecks of colour were scattered about on her floor. The creature was as roughed up as she was. She tried to follow the shape of its hunched up body, but two emerald eyes fixed on her and bore deep, pleading with undeniable intelligence. The wide pupils weren’t round at all, rather, they were shaped like blobs that had been squeezed and stretched together.
It almost had the face of a pony, which made those eyes all the more upsetting a thing to look at. Something milky blinked down over its eyes and were gone just as quickly, but they weren’t eyelids. It worked its mouth feebly. If it was trying to speak, there were no words. Flaps along its narrow neck flicked open revealing moist, frilly pink tissues to the air. They fluttered weakly, opening and closing. The milky film came down over its eyes again, stayed, and the creature curled back on itself.
Stones blinked and waited for sense to come. She blinked again, with still no idea forthcoming, sat down in front of the seapony.
“Uh, hi,” she said. It glared from the corner of its eyes with accusation. It turned away, inadvertently showing a pectoral fin. They were smaller than what she might have expected to see, and very thin. She could see right through it to the wiry little bits of cartilage inside, hardly thicker than the hairs of a pony’s mane. They stretched out and bent in delicate, dexterous ways then the fin pressed back down flat where it became almost invisible against the seapony’s body.
Seapony. Stones had never seen one before. You weren’t supposed to. They were myths. Not real. Just tales for the gullible and superstitious, and the butt of bawdy stories between sailors. Admittedly, she was the last pony to know the happenings of Equestria, but there’d never been any seaponies as far as she could tell.
It didn’t stop the one on her floor giving her dirty looks. Next she’d be hearing changelings that changelings were real.
Stones reached out a hoof and touched the thing. It was fishy, and burbled angrily at her in a quite, bubbly kind of way.
There was no warmth to it. There was a substance that made the seapony soft, but not the way a pony would be. Like wet glass. Slick, and smooth. She pulled her hoof away from the vibrant flesh.
“Seapony,” she said, still not quite believing the sight before her eyes. Hooves, however, were more dependable by half, and they had certainly felt a seapony, brokering no conjecture.
She had a seapony on her floor. It was crazy no matter which way she looked at it. Stones, being an uncomplicated pony, started with the simplest issue at hoof.
“Do you want water?” she asked, feeling like a doofus. Still, it blinked at her in what she hoped was a promising manner. That was good enough for her. Stones grit her teeth and grinned. “Right, than.”
Her first idea was to get it to the sea, but that was scuppered almost instantly. It was badly hurt, not to mention herself. Oh, and this was Broken Head, which was the possibly the only place in Equestria that turned strolls by the beach into a deathsport. Or would, if there was anything like sportsmanship about it.
There wasn’t.
If she couldn’t bring the seapony to water, she’d bring water to the seapony. It wasn’t much better prospects. Stones had had more than enough ocean for now. She thought of her tin bath, and of the rainwater reservoir. It’d be brimming full after the storm.
She stiffly went to get her bath. “Are you okay with fresh water?” The creature’s eyes were two inky, misshapen pools locked on her. The gills flickered open and shut.
“I hope that’s a yes,” she said, and clamped her jaw down on the edge of the bath. “Frej waha is jusch going to ha’ to be good e-na.” Stones dragged it over with loud, grinding clanks. Her towel and bandage peeled away with the terrible, itchy feeling of scabs, but she ignored it and carried on. The tarnished tin echoed with one final clank as Stones set it in place in the middle of the floor. She turned to the seapony.
She tried to grab it, but between her aches and its determined slipperiness it was impossible. She’d get one hoof’s grip firm, only to have the seapony squirm out from the other. She was getting exasperated with the unruly creature.
“Oh, come on!” she said. “It can’t be any worse than drying out on the floor.” Whether she talked sense into the seapony, or it was merely exhausted from its struggles, Stones didn’t know. Either way she was grateful, because even when lax it was a heavy, damp lump almost as large as she was.
It had no limbs beyond the pitiful little fins, except for a tail that tapered off from the torso and curled in on itself. It loosened and clenched repeatedly as Stones pony-handled the creature, and she kept a wary eye on it; it looked quite strong.
Finally getting a grip she was more sure of, the mare hefted up the seapony with a grunt, feeling more of her scabs tear open on her side as she did so. She dropped the seapony with the most delicate thud she could manage. It hunched up on itself again, hiding its eyes under the milky lids, seemingly resigned to the tub.
Stones took a moment to catch her breath. She could feel the itch and the ooze, and when she finally looked at her side she was not happy. It was still a mess, but one that had had time to dry and go sticky and pick up bits of grit and. Ugly, organic things were happening there, and the jagged edges along her side were inflamed into angry red, weeping speckles of pus and blood. Stones hoped she’d been judicious enough with the iodine. She’d certainly wasted a great deal too much of it, and it was going to be a long time before she could hope for more.
Stones jolted when she noticed the strange, blobby pupils staring and blinking at her injury. The seapony had propped itself up enough on the edge to see, but she couldn’t recognize the expression it had, if any at all.
“It looks worse than it is,” she insisted, though she still wasn’t sure it could understand her at all. The seapony worked its tight, lipless mouth, making only a sad little gurgle. It shut its eyes and slumped back down into the tin.
Stones couldn’t decide which was worse: the itch or the actual pain. Dribbles of stuff she tried not to think about worked its way down her midriff as she limped off to fetch the bucket.
“Here you go,” she said, pouring the cold, fresh water over the seapony. The filminess flicked back from its eyes. It made a few flaps of its fins and gave an encouraging wiggle.
It was as slow task as ever, but Stones found herself taking to it with an unexpected enthusiasm. It was as if by doing this, it would make everything better. When the seapony had a few inches of water it wriggled this way and that in it, Stones hoped it did so with delight. The gill flaps flicked open and shut, fanning out the feathery tissues to the water and air.
It gargled something that could almost have been a word, and Stones redoubled her efforts. The seapony buried its face in the water, noisily slurping at it. Strange sacs in its throat made even stranger noises as they filled up. Fluid overflowed from its mouth as it tried to speak. The mare hurried with another bucket, pouring it with earnest over the seapony.
The seapony choked out mucous-heavy coughs.
“Fresh water,” it complained in a gurgling, musical little voice.
“So you can talk,” she said. It blinked the strange eyelids at her. Stones wondered if that was a seapony’s way of nodding. She poured another bucket over it.
“Thank you,” it murmured.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I didn’t know you would save me. You’re not going to eat me, are you?” Stones thought about this.
“You’re not going to bait me down to the sea and drown me, are you?” The seapony blinked. The mare hoped this time it was only a blink. Stuck to the old tin bath as it was, its superstitious fear seemed the more reasonable of the two.
“You were doing well enough at that on your own,” it burbled. Stones dumped the bucket on its head. Satisfied with her work, the mare fetched her bloody, crackling towel from the floor. It was a sticky, smelly mess, with the linen wrappings clinging and brown. She tossed the lot aside and went to fetch something fresher.
The storage room was pungent with spilled iodine. Her meals were going to taste of it for days. Stones sponged up as much of the spillage as she could with a new wrap of cloth, then pressed it firmly to her side, hissing a little intake of breath as she did so. She fumbled to wrap it tight, but felt confident with her work. Just like the seapony, she was out of the deep end now.
She couldn’t see the seapony’s head poking over the side. For a dizzying instant the old ghost stories came back to her. Getting a grip on herself, she looked into the bucket. The seapony was curled up on the bottom, presumably sleeping. It wasn’t like either of them had had a very restful night.
Stones meant to go for her own bed, so she was a little surprised when her aching hooves took her to the winding staircase of the lighthouse. Sighing quietly, she hoisted herself up the first step.
An hour later, Skipping Stones stumbled back down to the ground floor. She was beyond tired, into that dogged, unrelenting determination of the the utterly exhausted. But the lighthouse was sorted for another day, and secure in that knowledge the haunting need to keep it that way let her go for the time being.
She had to stop halfway through a glass of water just to catch her breath. Finishing the one, she drank down another and ambled onwards. She collapsed on the tired old bed, shuffling weakly to find some small comfort before sinking into a dreamless slumber.
The mare woke up hungry. Groaning, she slumped from the bed to the floor.
“You were making a sound,” said the seapony, which then went on to emulate a wheezy huff. “The whole time.” It was rather captivated with that, whatever it was. The little fins flicked idly at the surface.
“Uhuh,” she managed to grumble, or maybe it was just her stomach. It still stunk of iodine in the storage room, not that it mattered much to her appetite. She hadn’t even touched any of the new delivery yet. She had green vegetables, even fresh fruit.
Mostly it was unripe, so that Stones wouldn’t have it going bad all at once, before she could get to it. Her thoughts drifted over the water to Long Shore, and she pouted angrily. Some ponies could be so clever and so stupid, both at the same time. She passed by the little yellow pears in a bowl, and green bananas. Feeling tired and callous, she gave anything she couldn’t outright eat a miss. Feeling petty and spiteful at a certain pegasus, she reached out and took the chocolate.
Stones broke off a tiny corner and chewed it up. “You want some?” She held it out, only to have the whole block snatched away with a splash. “Hey!” she called to no avail.
It savagely gummed the block of chocolate, spilling water everywhere as it did so.
“Hey!” she called again, taking a futile lunge at the slippery seapony. It didn’t work, but the splashing stopped and just maybe the seapony had gotten the message. It looked at her with its inkblot pupils, and gave it back with a wet splat. The chocolate had a shiny new coating of dribble. As she watched, a dollop of mucous rolled down it, then fell to the floor.
“On second thought, you can keep it.”
“Okay,” it said, and took the piece back with a more genteel gusto. Stones watched it eat.
“So much for a special occasion,” she meant to say, but by the time she opened her mouth she realized that it actually was one. Just not the kind she’d expected, and with a lot more mucous.
More tired than hungry, Stones lay on her bed and stared at the tin bath and its curious occupant.
“Do you have a name?” she asked. “Do seaponies have names?”
“Neap,” it said, and turned back to gumming the chocolate to death.
“Neap,” Stones said softly, trying it out. Somehow, it didn’t feel what it ought to be. She wasn’t sure what it should have been. Something with apostrophes. “Neap. Oh, and I’m Skipping Stones.” She’d never really liked her first name.
“Hello, Skip.”
“Call me Stones.”
“Okay, Skip.”
The mare groaned and turned over. Her side complained. That was easier to ignore than the eager sounds of eating. The tub was giving the otherwise cheefrul ‘num num’s’ a sonorous, haunting quality. It certainly broke away from the usual of wind and distant wave. Stones slept strangely.
Stones thought it must have been sometime in the afternoon when she woke up again. She blinked away some fleeting dream or other. Neap was curled up on the bottom of the tub, and she was content to leave it at that, hoping he - or she - rested better than Stones had.
The basalt mare put jam to bread and chewed through it slowly. The last bite was still on her tongue as her hoof touched the stairwell.
“What’s up there?” asked the small, burbling voice.
“It’s a lighthouse. Up there’s the light.” She didn’t want to explain it, just do it.
“The spinning light?”
“Yes.” She made for the stairs again.
“What’s it for?”
“It has to be lit.” The seapony dunked its head and burbled with thought. Stones didn’t wait on it and was gone, up the winding steps.
Something grated at Stones’ nerves as surely as the grit in her wound. It always a while to go up and down the spiraling staircase, but for the first time she could recall it felt like a long time. She chalked it up to her tiredness and the recent excitement, and thought of it no more.
Or tried to, but the edgy feelings kept seeping their way back into her thoughts. Her focus simply wasn’t in the job before her, and it served only to frustrate her further. The mare huffed out a breath and sat on the barren, age stiffened beams of wood that made up the floor; something she only did when particularly troubled.
The island was a gray blotch gnawing at the base of the tower, surrounded by a world of blues and whites and yellows. She had sketches, tucked away somewhere, that she’d made from up here. All the heavily stenciled lines, cutting back and forth across one another, biting into the page. She’d never done the waves and sky the justice she felt they deserved though, and had left them at that. She wondered why she was thinking about this at all. Broken Head gnashed its teeth and growled by way of its usual response to her inquiries.
Neap. A seapony. A seapony in her bathtub. Stones’ brow furrowed. She wasn’t going to be able to have a bath. Neap had eaten her chocolate. She’d offered it up.
It could be watching her while she slept. She’d been watching it while it slept. She wondered if Neap was mare or stallion, and made note to ask.
For the first time in years, the humble question mark was wriggling its way into her head. Routine hadn’t left a lot of room for that before. She wasn’t sure she liked the unexpected.
Stones scab cracked open with a sting while she was refueling the lamp. She cursed, struggling to adjust her bandage. She tugged on it this way and that, but couldn’t get it to feel right. If anything, she made it worse, and an icky trickle of something seeped out from under it.
Stones grimaced and turned to ignoring the tickle itch of it best she could. She finished loading the fuel and priming the winch, mindful of every little tear reopening on her side as she did so.
Round and round she went down the stairs, shifting and itching in her bandage all the while. She fumbled it off as she stepped off the very last of them.
“You’re hurt again,” Neap said helpfully. Stones huffed.”What’s the light for?” Stones dipped a sponge in the tub, then dabbed it at her side.
“For the ships.” She, said gesturing a wide bowl shape. The sponge went flying. “The-”
“I know what a ship is.”
Stones let her hooves come back down with two little clicks. She went and got the sponge. She wondered if using water with seapony in it had been the smartest move. The mare shrugged to herself and went on dabbing.
“So, uh, are you a seapony mare or...?”
Neap blinked at her. “Stallion, of course,” the seapony gave a squeaking huff of indignation, “but don’t get any ideas. You seem nice and all, so please don’t wile me and get me pregnant.”
Stones, who’d been sponging at a particularly rewarding bit of scab and, nodding along with half an ear, was caught up suddenly. “Wait what?” Getting an answer made only for even more, and stranger, questions. “Right,” she said, not even really wanting to make sense of that. “I promise not to. Not to mention that I’m a mare, so...” her utterances trailed off. She just hoped to leave it at that.
“My water’s going sour,” Neap said after a long, vaguely awkward quiet, like that of two strangers waiting for their turns to make use of the bathroom.
Stones grunted and took up the bucket.
“More empty water?” the seapony asked.
“Freshwater, yes. It’ll have to be, for a while yet anyway.” Stones hadn’t seen any major injuries on the seapony, though the mottled patches of colour hinted at a whole spread of bruises all up and down its body. Some of Neap’s scales had gone dark, like little grains of black sand, and these ones popped off, sometimes with the seapony helping them along.
A trickle of water was crawling through the air towards the bucket, with the sound of Neap humming something deep and heard more through the hooves than the ears. The seapony spurted out some fluid with a wet slap, and the water collapsed, doing a convincing impression of having been entirely normal the whole time.
“What was that?” Stones asked.
“It’d be a lot easier with proper water. I’m sorry. I’m weaker than I thought. I’m tired.” Neap hunched down so that his eyes were just below the surface. He blew small bubbles.
“Me too,” the mare found herself saying. She filled the bucket up from the reservoir, hoping to freshen Neap’s water, if just a little. A moment later when it was full, he was curled up and asleep. Stones poured it in slowly as she could, then walked away soft as her hooves could.
“What am I going to do?” she mused silently as she crawled onto her bed. Skipping stones drifted through her thoughts and feelings, trying to find some sense to them. Sleep was as hesitant in coming as answers. She lay there a long time anyway, as if feigning it hard enough and long enough would make it become real.
Eventually her silence was broken with a groan and, dropping her hooves to the floor, Stones wandered on up the stairs of the tower.
