“Another shipping off?”

Rosetide chuckled softly and shook his head. “Not this time, mate.” He stamped a hind hoof, making the jars clink inside. “I’m just sending some goodies along with a few friends who are shipping off. Personal requests, you understand.”

The guard eyed the saddlebags with a more wary eye at that. “Nothing scented?”

“They are, but they’re meant for shipboard. You understand how smelly even the best taken care of hull gets on a long voyage, yeah?” Rosetide nodded towards the waiting docks, just a few hundred yards down the main riverside way from the Dockbridge. “They call it a bilge for a reason.” He mimed vomiting. “Sixty ponies, unable to do more than take saltwater baths for a month at a time? Trust me, with a nose like mine, rank isn’t close to what that smells like.”

“Fair enough,” the guard said, looking a little green about the gills. “My sister’s a first mate. Never really believed her when she complained about it.” He looked left and right, considering, then sighed and said aloud, “Go on. And safe sailing for your friend, Rosetide.”

“Thanks, Corporal Shine,” Rosetide winked and flicked his tail as he danced past. “Hush hush,” he whispered as he did.

“Thanks,” Shine whispered back, then raised his voice. “Next.”

Most ponies ignored him on his way to the docks. It wasn’t unusual in these days to see a nautical cutie mark with a rose theme making its way through the crowd, after all, and that was what Rosewater counted on for the first part of her trek through a part of Damme that was almost open to all.

Dock row itself was a confused mishmash of architectural styles from the many distant nationalities that called it at the very least home, though a good portion of those frontages were only that: frontages to the staid and true Dammer stone and mortar construction that pervaded the rest of the town.

Accents from across the nations of ponies came at her from all sides, and fragrances from all over the world came to her. Spices from Saddle Arabia with their dry heat that prickled at her nostrils, some mixed into sauces by the vendors trying to capture the attention of the passers by hoping to remake the dishes at home.

With their spices of course.

She ignored them all. They were a paltry companion to the spice market in Merrie, where the experts of scent and food could entice the senses from a street away. Still, it could be overbearing at times.

Time slipped away too slowly as she meandered through the Dock Row mercantile wonders, her eye half on the tide and half on the progress of the sun towards the horizon. She picked up a bauble here or there just to keep the eyes of the Dammeguard that patrolled the row as unwary of her mission as possible.

It wasn’t uncommon, she’d found, for sailors to wander just as she was, though more of them seemed to make their way to Merrie and family or lovers they left there, family that wouldn’t resent too much their wanderlust and frequent long stays away. In many ways, a Merrie family was perfectly suited to a sailor’s life.

Some, though, were Dammers through and through.

Collar would be arriving at the campsite soon, and starting to set up. To all watchers, it would be a date with Cloudy, and none would be crass enough to crash the date, even if they never saw Cloudy ever arrive. That was one of the good things she could count on from Dammers. They were so outwardly insular that even the appearance of taking an interest in another’s sex life was frowned on.

But if she were to take another walk through the same market tomorrow, the whispers would be on every lip, and arguments over whether or not their lord heir was making the right choice by continuing to court a Rosewing would be heated by the end of the week before some new bright bauble caught their attention and the scandalmongers and gossipers turned their efforts to spreading and conjecturing on the next thing.

Now, the whispers she heard in passing were bits and baubles about herself and the apparent lackadaisical attitude she was adopting in her trips into Damme to negotiate for the release of her cousin.

Only the occasional whisper said it was a ploy on her part to get closer to Collar, and that Rosemary was in on it as well.

They weren’t wrong, but it had never started out that way.

Her initial plan, to wile her way into his good graces slowly, had fallen apart the moment Roseate had dragged Rosemary into her scheming. From that moment on, had she known it or not, all of her grand scheming had fallen apart.

Still, it did seem to be working, even if it wasn’t on her terms entirely.

But, more and more, she was feeling uncertain about her ultimate future. Lace’s unveiling of the book had thrown that into even more fractured thoughts. It had taken her days to work her mind around the implications, to put down the depression it had thrown over her life again.

She’d thought avoiding the Rose Palace had been enough.

Her thoughts began spiraling as her path took her back around and towards the docks to where the ship her ‘friend’ was supposed to be disembarking with the rising tide. She had a chance, of course, to buy herself passage out of Merrie, out of Damme, and—

She cut the thought short and gathered up the meaningless little gifts, common comforts for sailors on their way out to sea, and sent them up to the quarterdeck beside the helm. She had no note prepared, and no idea what the captain would think of them, but the fact that she did it in the open, as a sailor-marked pony, earned her a few gracious nods from other sailors tending to the ship bearing the name Mare’s Prowess.

They would assume Rosetide had a friend on the ship.

By then, it was time to make her way down the beach to watch the ships leaving with this tide make sail before the final setting of the sun.

The fragrance of stewing ale with grains and vegetables reached her nose long before she rounded the sand dune protecting Collar’s makeshift campsite from view. She could identify the spices in the stew, too, most of them low-key, salt-mixed or derived spices. The rich fragrance of the ale, and its very richness was an indicator that it was one of the higher quality labels, was the main fragrant component.

As she got closer, cheese and bread and butter came to her nose as well, the latter with rich undertones that had been hidden behind the ale, and the bread smelled of a richness that was pleasant and surprising at the same time, with hints of onion, dill, and a touch of butter.

With her hiding still under the veil of Rosetide, she strode around the dune rather than over it, lest the tracks lead a pony directly to the site.

He was sitting there, a page of a cookbook resting anchored by three rocks on a blanket clear of sand. Backing him was a tarp held up by what looked like campaign tentpoles, the ropes stretched taut and held in place by largish rocks holding them in place against the loose sand.

His attention was largely on the food, but his ear twitched as the sound of her hooves on the sand, the not-quite crunch of shifting grains, the not-quite wet squelch as inches or feet below her, water soaked the sand despite the apparent dryness above.

“I didn’t expect you to—” He broke off as he canted his head slightly towards her, still in the Rosetide illusion. She could practically see the gears whirring as his eyes darted from the cutie-mark to the ships in the distance, their shouts muffled beyond coherence by the waves, the sight of them already partially hidden by the rising evening mists.

Far distant, the lighthouse of the Rosethorns glowed with the light of the unicorns’ magic that powered the enchanted jewel at its heart, playing counterpoint to the sun nearly to the waves.

She could read it all in his expression as he tensed before his eyes met hers… and realization and recognition came.

“Your eyes,” Collar said gruffly. “I should have seen it before.” He shook his head slowly and let out a breath. “You gave me a fright, Rosewater.”

“I didn’t want to suddenly turn into a ghost in the eyes of so many of my ‘shipmates,’” Rosewater replied with a smile as she cast a spell on the mist around them. It was a simple spell, and wouldn’t seem all that different from a distance, but the mist around them would rise higher and stand thicker over the course of the spell’s running. “Once that obscures us, I’ll be simply Rosewater again, Collar.”

He eyed her for a long moment, then glanced past her through the slow-gathering mist at the ship making way slowly with the aid of half a dozen pegasi acting as wind guides. “You care about the myths of seafarers?”

“I do,” she said in an even tone. “I care a great deal about the beliefs of other ponies. Seeing a ghost in the mist is one of the greater harbingers of doom for sailors, and it has ever been since long before our distant ancestors set first hoof on these shores.”

Collar’s eyes followed the passage of the ship for almost a minute before he jerked his attention back to the stewpot and gave it a desultory stir, raising the fragrance of ale and… a new scent she’d not tasted in the air before.

“Cheese?” She came closer, onto the blanket laid out, and scrapped the sand from her hooves before she shuffled the grains back to the beach and leaned in closer. “It’s not a very fragrant cheese. The ale masks it.”

“It’s a local product, and while it’s not like your Merrier stink cheese, it’s still very flavorful.” Collar gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s a flavor of emmental. It goes very well with stew, and on bread.” He tipped his head to the side, where a wheel of cheese with bubbly holes in it sat, wrapped in cheesecloth on a large silver platter along with two bowls, spoons, and other accoutrements of stew enjoyment.

There was also a large loaf of crusty white bread that made up the smell she’d found out, sitting on another, shorter tripod near the fire, fitted with clips that made it clear it was meant to clip to the inner legs of the larger.

“How did you manage to sneak an entire camp cooking set out here?” She lifted the silver platter and sniffed more delicately at the cheese. Closer, she could smell the faint dairy smell of it, and it woke in her a desire to learn more about dairy processing. Another thing to distract her from…

He chuckled, either unaware or ignoring her momentary lapse. “That was quite the trick, actually. I had to get a line on the beach from a window and teleport the heavy stuff here earlier today. I’m afraid I scared a few seagulls.”

Rosewater laughed and settled the plate down between them, but not before carving off a small slice of cheese. “That is a tactic I’d not thought of.” She considered the distance from the castle to the beach, ear ticking. “I’d not thought you had the range, either.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Collar said with a sly grin. He looked at her again while she was inspecting the dark yellow cheese, the rind seemingly burnt, and simply considered her for long moments.

“Am I so fascinating?” she asked at last, setting the cheese on the platter, closer to her.

“You seem much more yourself today,” he answered with a small pull of his lips into almost a smile. “I was worried about you when you left, Rosewater. And our reports on your movements were…”

“I was following a routine,” Rosewater said when he trailed off, his eyes rising to hers, then dropping again as if the admission that he was still keeping tabs on her movements was somehow taboo, that simply by their clandestine apparatus of ‘dating’ she stopped being an enemy agent. “I… had…” She cleared her throat and looked away from the intense curiosity burgeoning on worry in his eyes. “A revelation, Collar. About…”

She swallowed thickly, the memory butting up against the walls and threatening to spill out. The weight of all of it, the revelation, the need to know what he’d left her…

“Don’t.” Collar’s hoof against her shoulder was a warm presence, a reminder that she wasn’t alone anymore, not now, and she didn’t need to be alone. “Not until you’re ready.” His lips parted, moved, and stopped. “I want to earn your trust, Rosewater.”

She leaned against his hoof. “I trust you already more than you have any reason to trust me.”

“What you said,” he went on slowly, his hoof not leaving her shoulder. “About getting to know one another better, about missed opportunities.” The faint pressure left, then, and the platter lifted to settle beside the flames on the hot sand around the fire. Then, his shoulder replaced his hoof and his warmth spread across her side to her flank. “I think I’d like to take up some of the slack you’ve left me and do my part to make up for some of those missed opportunities.”

For a long moment, she sat frozen stiff, staring at their hooves side-by-side, the warmth of his body against hers buffer against the chill both within and without.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said into the silence left by her surprise. “And I, unlike you, didn’t think to bring another blanket.”

Thought caught finally, and she raised her head to look at him side-eyed. “Aside from—”

“I didn’t bring another blanket,” he insisted, his eyes twinkling briefly before he turned away and brought out two bowls and two smaller platters from underneath the other blanket. “That is a kitchen pantry towel.”

Rosewater eyed the ‘towel,’ noting how it was neatly folded, thick, and woolen, and felt his gaze on her as she considered whether or not to call him out on his attempt to get closer to her.

This is what you wanted.

“So it is,” she said, turning from the towel at last and giving him a lopsided smile. “My mistake in thinking it otherwise.” She wiggled on the blanket underneath them and leaned against him. “Thank you.”

“You’re my friend, Rosewater,” he said without the teasing tone as he ladled stew into the bowls, the lumps of potato she’d not even known had been there already falling apart. It looked, in a word, delicious. “It hurts to see you like you were. I tried to push, but my dad told me not to. I’m glad I listened to him.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Would I have told him? Rosemary deserved to hear it from her first. Stars above, Blue Star was as much her grandfather as anypony else she knew of. There were… things she needed to do before she told anypony else. She needed to tell Rosemary. She needed to tell Seed and…

And she was on a date with Collar right now, and he was sitting beside her, and she was worrying about who to tell first.

“It must have been something traumatic,” he whispered softly as he worked arranging the plates with bread and cheese to match the bowl of steaming, rich stew floating with rice, potatoes, carrots, peas, and long, thin strips of onions.

You can tell him that much.

“I…” She took a deep breath. “Your mother was keepsafing my father’s journal from my mother’s hearth.”

“From your mothers—” His teeth clicked shut. “I see.” He sighed and glanced at her, his eyes lingering on hers, their green depths mercifully not pitying, but compassionate. He ladled another measure of stew into her bowl. “This is a recipe that’s been in the family for generations. There’s no fish in it, but it’s based on a Dammerale that’s been around for hundreds of years. My great-great-great grandfather was supposed to have helped to found the brewery himself, and drunk himself into an early grave.”

Rosewater snorted, smiling briefly. “I can think of quite a few reasons why he might have drunk himself to an early grave. As I recall, he’d caught the attention of my great-great-grandmother before, and she never let go of her fascination with him. Hostile though it was.”

Collar spared her a glance with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s not like mine,” Rosewater said softly, leaning against him briefly. “I hope it isn’t. She was… truly a horrible pony. That kind of megalomania seems to run in the family.”

He was silent for long moments while he focused on the plates, rearranging bread and cheese until both had made a full circuit of the bowl before he seemed to realize he was obviously stalling.

“I don’t think it is,” he said at last, passing her the plate with the carefully arranged food, a smile coming with it. “My ancestors are hardly any better than yours, albeit differently awful.” He sighed and leaned against her briefly. “I don’t want to talk about the past, Rosewater. I hear enough about that when Primfeather Wing pesters me about Cloudy. Tradition this, tradition that. Forgetting, conveniently, that Lace married a Merrier.”

“Half merrier. And I doubt her father was any more pleased about that than Wing is.” Rosewater picked up and dipped her end of bread in the stew, then jabbed it at him. “And that’s the last I’ll say about that.”

“Good. I’d have to put cheese in my ears if you went on.” Collar watched her quietly while she bit into the bread, his ears perked, his expression bordering on anxious. “How is it?”

She considered the question and the bite of sopping bread, inhaling slightly and letting the lingering fragrance of the mixed bread and stew flow into her nose. Salt, counter to the use of potatoes and tubers, did not dominate, but it was a strong contender. Rather, the understated use of broth was the stronger taste. A mixture of ale with its slightly astringent hops and mellower malt flavors combining with the rest of the brew’s spices to add a body to the taste she’d not expected for something not made with some sort of sea produce.

Vegetables and flowers could be tasty on their own, and the Mare knew onions were a powerful flavor… but the ale brought its own delight to her tongue.

She swallowed and dipped her bread again, taking more time to savor the next bite with a little bit of the cheese as well, which added an only deeper undertone to the ale, rather than a complimentary one.

“It’s… delicious.” Rosewater dipped her ears briefly. “I was worried, I admit, when you said it would be an ale base. But especially with the cheese, it works very well. I think your ancestor found a very good use indeed for some of the Dammerale.”

“But that’s not all!” Collar said, winking at her. “I also brought some of the selfsame Dammerale, and a special treat for dessert.” He raised and lowered the ‘towel’ to show her two large brown bottles and a small cheesecloth wrapped package. “Cloudy suggested the wrapping to keep it secret from your nose.”

“She did, did she?” Rosewater murmured, looking but not lifting or touching. Cloudy had put her hoof in this date, and it would be Collar’s surprise to her that she had. “No hints? Not even a sniff?”

“Not until dessert,” he said, taking a bite of his own soup-soaked bread, then nodding out towards the bay. “This is still one of my favorite places to go when the weather behaves. To see the ships arriving and sails appearing on the horizon, wondering what might be over the horizon.”

She almost made a witty remark about what actually lay in that direction, but kept it to herself and settled in more firmly against him. It was comfortable, companionable even, to sit there without the expectation that they would—or even could—take their relationship further. Not yet. In Merrie, such a date would have her wondering where she might wake up the next morning, by choice, or what lies she would have to spin to keep her paramour safe.

Absent that anxiety, she was able to relax and enjoy the taste of the stew, bite after bite, until she had whittled down the liquid enough to almost eat it right from the bowl. It was the proper way to eat stew.

“This is absolutely delicious,” Rosewater murmured again when she finished off the last of the bread he’d given her and picked up the spoon. She paused, spoon halfway to the bowl, and glanced at him. “I’m not a very good conversational partner tonight.”

“To be fair, neither have I been. But we have been eating.” He raised a hoof and touched her ankle. “The night doesn’t need to be filled with words, you know. Just knowing you can be comfortable to sit against is a great balm to my mind. It’s hard to act comfortable with silence.”

“That’s…” Rosewater trailed off, nodded, and took another bite of stew, chewing slowly through the onion and carrot pieces as she considered. Since she’d started eating, just eating and not talking, a peace had settled over her that she’d not felt in a long time. Dinner at the Garden was always noisy with the latest news and gossip and discussion of both flying across the table like raindrops tossed by a cyclone.

The closest she could come to it was dinner with Rosemary, and earlier, with her and Carnation. Sometimes with others of her lovers. Even Silver Star and she had shared some quiet dinners, albeit out in the town.

“This is very comfortable,” she said at last.

He nodded slowly, chewing as deliberately, and swallowed. “It is.”

Rosewater allowed herself a trickle of hope, that maybe, just maybe, she might have found somepony safe from her mother’s wrath. Whether or not he would open up to her…

She hesitated around the last mouthful of stew, her chewing coming to a halt as she considered that. What custom would ask her to say, to make clear that her feelings for him were growing, that she was… maybe, starting to find the threads of love that she might, one day, weave into a comfortable blanket.

“Collar,” she said after she swallowed.

He looked up from cutting off more bread, brow raised. “That tone sounds… ominous.”

“I don’t know if it is or not,” she admitted, dipping her ears and accepting the first slice of bread and holding her tongue while she focused on cleaning the bowl. “But, I need to say something. Something customary in Merrie, and I want you to know that it’s honest, and truthful.” There were ways she could help him see her heart, but… that was too much. She didn’t know she could keep the hurt from flowing to him as well. “I want you to trust me.”

His ears flattened to his mane, but he nodded. “I do trust you, Rosewater. Much to my surprise, I find that to be a truth I can’t avoid.”

“Then… Collar, I think I could love you. Not only as a friend, but…” Her tail twitched before she could control it. “I could love you,” she finished, simply stating it before she tried to temporize it or constrain it.

He watched her, but didn’t break from her or change his stance. This close, he could have kissed her before she could react. She could have. She wouldn’t, and she made herself not lick her lips even though they itched.

“What am I to say to that?” He asked at last. “I honestly don’t know what to say when… I don’t have the same feelings.”

“Nothing,” Rosewater said softly, and risked leaning against him more heavily. “It’s… me clearing the water. Putting my cards on the table, so to speak, and telling you that it’s more than a scheme, as it started out. I think of you as a friend so easily now, and now I’m afraid of pushing too hard, or too soon, but I need you to know where my heart is leading me.”

He didn’t move away, and in fact leaned into her. “I already knew you were courting me, Rosewater. How does this change anything?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you.” Rosewater risked touching her cheek to his, the closest she would allow herself to come to a kiss without his consent. When he didn’t move away, she continued. “I respected you before, I even liked you, and I thought we could be a good couple, if we could get past our differences. I wanted to see if we could.”

“And…” Collar nudged her cheek gently with his nose. Not quite a kiss. “Why now? Why tonight?”

“Because I needed to be safe tonight, Collar. I needed to feel safe and comfortable, even if I didn’t know it when I got here.” She leaned away from him to look directly into his eyes. “I needed what you gave me tonight. Peace. Comfort. Quiet. Even from my own thoughts.”

In his eyes, she saw compassion, understanding, and… not quite affection. Or is it, and I’m guarding my heart? Only he could tell her, and she could only hope that he understood the traditions of Merrie enough to know what the admission of her growing feelings meant to her. It was an opening up, a vulnerability that she’d not allowed herself for too long.

It felt freeing to get the words out, to feel them on her lips and not just on her tongue and know they were the true way she felt.

“Thank you for being honest,” Collar said in a quiet, somber voice. “I do appreciate you being open with me.”

The but held shivering in the air for a moment between them, then passed as he looked away, the refutation unsaid.

“I need time to think,” he said instead. “I was incredibly rude on our last date, and Cloudy made it plenty clear what she thought about my forthrightness.”

“You weren’t. I appreciated the honesty, Collar.” Rosewater urged him on with a lean against him. “You won’t hurt me by repeating it.”

He glanced at her, then away towards the ocean. “I think it’s dark enough out now you can drop the misting veil,” he said instead. “Nopony will be out this far, and the sun is about to set below the waves. It’s something special to see from almost the level of the sea.”

She let the spell holding the mist up expire, rather than pushing it away, and the thick layer of it spread out slowly, ghosting towards the fire and evaporating.

Being so open in Damme made her nervous, even if the mist elsewhere would make it hard for anypony to see to their level. It would take a more powerful spyglass than a pegasus could drag up to cloud level to see where they were with any kind of clarity. Still, she found herself looking up and around more often as she cleaned her bowl, expecting to need to bolt or disappear at a moment’s notice.

“Nopony can see us here,” Collar whispered to her. “It’s safe for tonight to come out a little and take a look.” He rose, plucking the ales and the cheesecloth package from their hiding place and stepped to the edge of the firelight. “I promise, Rosewater. Nopony will know you’re here.”

“How do you know?” she asked, following him with only a passing glance back at the shelter with her saddlebags still there with the ‘contraband’ Rosemary and Cloudy had asked her for.

“You’re not the only one who can vanish,” he said with a wink as he walked into a dome she’d not noticed in the fading mist, his tail flicking an invitation just before it disappeared.

With one final glance at her pack, Rosewater shook her head once and joined him under the dome of his magic, finding him watching her, his expression relieved. “Just like old times,” she said lightly.

“Like old times,” he agreed with a snort. “Just down the beach, there’s a rocky overlook that’s safe from the waves where we can watch the sun setting.”

Taking a risk, Rosewater stepped closer to him than she had the first time they’d walked together under his veil of invisibility, walking almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him with his warmth close enough to feel. “I’ve never risked coming down here, out in the open.”

“But the forest is easier to hide in? With all those loggers tromping around and sticking their noses into every nook and cranny searching for promising wood?” Collar’s tone was light and teasing, but the question was a serious one.

“It is. Woods are easy to veil in. All it takes is breaking up your shadow in such a way that light and darkness might at best be a trick of the eye, not a pony hiding.” She chuckled and flicked her tail. “Besides which, who would expect me to be in the seat of Damme’s own woods?”

“A fair point, that,” Collar conceded, letting the sound of the waves and their hooves crunching on sand fill the space left by conversation.

Even with the sun halfway past the horizon, she could feel the meager warmth of the day still clinging now the mists were gone. The sea did much to alleviate the chill, though only when the wind drew in the warmth from the waves onto shore, and often then only to immediately dust the world with snow.

“When was it that you realized you saw yourself as Rosemary’s mother?” Collar asked, his voice cautious and gentle, curiosity blended into it.

“That’s quite the subject change,” Rosewater murmured, glancing at him, then over her shoulder towards the east and the palace barely visible past the town’s roofs.

“It’s something that I’ve been curious about since you told us, but I’ve never felt comfortable enough to ask. There has to be a story there, something… deeply personal, I know, but…” He waved a hoof vaguely and skipped a bit to keep up. “We’re dating. Deeply personal is the territory, isn’t it?”

“We’re dating, you say?”

“Platonic dating, at least,” he said, his ears flattening briefly. “I know… I know you said you see a path to being in love, for your part. But I can’t see that.” His lips moved as if he was about to add more, but shook his head instead. “But… some of those missed opportunities. Talking about what’s important to both of us. There doesn’t seem to be anypony more important in your life than Rosemary. It seemed the best place to start.”

“I suppose that’s a fair point.” Where to even start, though. “It’s not something easy to explain, you know. It wasn’t a single moment that made me think. It was a slow revelation and moment by moment…” Rosewater waved a hoof and paused at the rise of the rock. It was damp, but rough and pitted where eons of spattering rain and waves had eaten unevenly at it. “It was a long, slow process of learning just how much I cared for her, and that care morphed slowly into…”

“Something else?”

“Pride, I suppose. I was proud of everything she did, every accomplishment and joy she had, I shared with her. With Carnation.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “I didn’t know what that was. I was too young in so many ways to understand what it was. I didn’t know, until my own mind told me.” She laughed then and nudged his shoulder lightly. “I suppose there is a moment where that all solidified. When understanding came at me so hard it took me days to grasp what it was, and there’s quite a story attached to that.”

“I’d love to hear it. If nothing else than to hold a bit of foalhood teasing over her head next time she tries to tease me.” His smile was genial and the flick of his ears conspiratorial.

“She’s been teasing you?” Rosewater asked, surprised. “She’s not said anything about that to me.”

“I’m not surprised. I doubt either of you would consider it flirting, to be honest.” Collar chuckled and waved one of the ales at her. “Besides,” he added, “I’d like to get to know her mother better.”

“Alright then. Give me a moment,” Rosewater said, smiling and sidestepping to rub her shoulder against his. “It was a long time ago. Sixteen years ago. I think. She was… no. Fourteen. She was six, and we were staying at the Garden for the weekend, Carnation and I taking our turn to teach lessons to the younger foals Rosemary’s age.”

“And you? Did you get involved in learning at that age?”

“I was. Budding and Carnation were my teachers, but this day, I was teaching Rosemary and Seed together while Budding and Carnation took Petal aside to begin her lessons as a noble. I was teaching the two foals in trouble about the history of ponies and deerkin in Merrie, preparing for the migration to come, and I was going to teach them how to make the flower crowns the foals make to gift to the bucks who traverse the Garden lands on their way north and east through the Unicorn foothills.”

Collar merely nodded, guiding their steps with more surety as the dune they were rising up the backside of shifted and turned crunchy underhoof as they crested the rise to find a broad cap of stone jutting out into the bay like an thrusting spear, the sand on either side of the crest building up to a rounded escarpment while waves beat at the roots, some hundred paces to either side of the broad feature.

To the east and south, she could make out the city through the rising mists, the lanterns just coming on as the last rays of daylight fled.

“The day was normal, or as normal as it could be for those two,” Rosewater continued after a moment, finding her footing on the ridge. “It was a good day, filled with joy and pranks and blame-throwing, and a little scolding, but it was in good fun, and the lessons were done before lunch. For the first time in my life, I was invited to sit with the adults and discuss the matters of the day, the important things that mattered to the running of the vineyard, and of politics, and the burgeoning wrongness that was Roseate’s policies as she wore down or subverted her opponents in everyplace that she could.”

“It was about that age that my parents started including me in discussions, not merely teaching me, but asking my opinion as well,” Collar mused softly, glancing at her and raising a brow. “We already know Carnation was more closely connected with my mother. How much did she tell her about you? How much did Lace try to mirror our upbringings?”

“I doubt that. Too much conspiracy, and too much speculation. And not enough pushing from either side.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “I think it was coincidence at the very least, or taking cues at the most. Your mother was more experienced than Carnation, and I don’t doubt that she would have sought advice if it were offered.”

Collar snorted. “Pushing, you say?”

“Us. If they’d meant for us to be mirrors, they’d have pushed us together more. Tried to forge a bond between us.” Rosewater shook her head again. “I think they hoped we would, but they’re not my mother. They won’t throw us together to try and get us to like each other. That,” she said, pausing to tap his shoulder with her nose, “is up to us.”

He was silent again as they made their way down the ‘shaft’ of the spear towards the broad head jutting out into the sea, the sand on either side of it sopping wet, but the stone itself seeming dry from a distance.

“That will take some thought,” he said after reaching the base of the head. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I believe you were talking about your part of the day?”

“Ah.” Rosewater smiled and flicked her ears. “Yes. We retired to the villa while the foals and their caretaker for the day played in the courtyard and surrounding gardens, practicing what they’d learned in the morning, making each other flower crowns and anklets.” She chuckled softly. “Rosemary came in with Seed and gave me one, their faces the picture of innocence before they darted off again, giggling.”

“It was a distraction, wasn’t it?” Collar asked, the smile on his lips reaching his eyes and ears.

“It was. We never did find out what it was that they’d done, but we were all suspicious… until a few hours later when the foals were supposed to come in for dinner. Seed came in, looking guilty as a foal with his muzzle in the cookie jar, but no Rosemary. All the other foals swore up and down she was still there, but she wasn’t, and Seed knew better.

“‘She made me promise!’ Seed said after a few minutes of grilling. ‘She wanted it to be a surprise when she came back.’

“‘Came back from where?’ Carnation asked in that way she had of being demanding without shouting. ‘You’re already in so much trouble I doubt Budding will let you sit still for a month.’

“‘Too right,’ Budding told him. ‘Out with it. What mischief have you two gotten up to this time?’”

“In halting bits and pieces, he told us that Rosemary wanted to give her crowns to the deerkin directly. Not just leave them hanging from trees and bushes for them to accept.” Rosewater raised her nose briefly. “They’re very skittish around ponies, but they’re also a rich part of our heritage. In the days of yore, before the founding of Merrie or Damme but after the sundering of the sky during the Battle of two Nights, Rosethorn and his mother wandered the broken world with a band of deerkin, living off the land and using their talents at scenting to help the deerkin survive off the severely shocked vegetation.”

“I’m sure they remember. There’s a similar account from our histories about the deerkin helping us found Merrie and Damme, and set up a wayplace for them on their wanderings as they tried to heal the wilder places.” Collar flicked his ears. “But no mention of him befriending the deerkin.”

“It was something special about our relation to the Mare in the Moon.” Rosewater stamped a hoof on the sandy stone and glanced around the broad head of the promontory. “The wind is fiercer here.”

“I squirreled away some blankets and enough firewood for a small fire if we need it up ahead. There’s a hillock that will hide us from casual observance if we sit on the seaward side.”

If the light were brighter… Is he blushing? “You put a lot of thought and effort into setting up this date, Collar. Thank you.”

“Cloudy insisted on helping with this bit,” Collar replied, sounding almost defensive. “She brought the blankets and the firewood and told me about it later.”

Rosewater’s eyebrows climbed of their own accord almost to her forelock. “You don’t say.”

“I do say.” He coughed as he led her around the shrub-covered hill of sand and earth, clinging on despite salty conditions and frequent storms trying to brush it off. “But you were just getting close to the good part. Or the scary part.”

“Scary part, for me and Carnation and the rest of the garden.” Rosewater sighed and shook her head. “We split up into two pony teams, with most of the Garden staying behind to keep the foals safe and in one place, while six teams went out to search the Rosewine Wood. I was with Carnation, and we screamed ourselves hoarse calling for her. We took the middle of the wood, pegasi taking the western edge of the cliff.” She swallowed as she remembered the sallow feeling of ash in her stomach at the thought of losing Rosemary, and the look in Carnation’s eyes that told her she wasn’t alone.

“We could hear the other search parties faintly in the distance, calling for her as well, advancing deeper into the forest, each of us aiming for a known or at least previously used thicket.” Rosewater stopped as she rounded the hillock and found a basket, a blanket, and a small pile of firewood already set up for lighting with a ring of stones around it. “She went all out, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Collar agreed and set the ale bottles firmly in the sand before lifting the blanket and shaking it clean, then settling it back down again. “After you, Rosewater.”

“Thank you, Collar,” she said demurely, taking a seat carefully and looking out over the sea where the last sliver of sun was descending, wider than it should have been, sending streaks of gold and maroon and distant purple through the clouds on the horizon, fading to dusky midnight above them. “What is it I’m to see from here?”

“Since you’re so well versed with nautical ways, I thought you would know,” Collar murmured. “But I’ll leave that as a surprise. Just a minute or two, but never stop watching, or you might miss it. An eyeblink, and you might miss it. If it happens. But Cloudy assured me today would be just right.”

More of Cloudy’s hoof in the date. Considering what Rosemary and Cloudy had cooked up for Collar and Cloudy’s date, it was only fair, and welcome, that she would provide unknown support. “Not even a hint as to what I’m looking for?”

“You’ll know it when—”

As if on cue, the shade of the sliver of sun shifted suddenly from orange-gold to brilliant, emerald green, flashing briefly as the last bit of it slipped underneath the waves, leaving only gold and maroon behind in the distance as the night sky overhead started dimming rapidly.

Leaving Rosewater with a feeling of trepidatious awe at having witnessed something she’d only heard sailors speak about in hushed tones. It was a sign of good fortune to see one, and an omen of a fair voyage.

Even a voyage of the heart? Rosewater risked looking away from the horizon to find Collar watching her, an undefinable, unreadable emotional in his eyes and the set of his ears.

She looked away before she could let her heart rise to the hope that what she saw was more than what he’d already told her these dates were. Platonic. Friendly. Even his closeness tonight was a sign of friendship and support for a friend going through a hard time, and until he pushed over that line, she wasn’t going to push him towards it.

“Thank you,” she said finally, her voice rough from the effort of keeping in what she wanted to say, to ask. “It was beautiful, and I’ll remember it always.”

He didn’t reply immediately, instead sitting next to her and resuming the close position he’d held at the prior campsite, shoulders and hips together, and pulled out a small bronze box with a heated smell to it from under one of the stones around the fire pit.

In moments, smoke and flame curled from the kindling and tinder, providing warmth and light to see by.

The flickering light, growing brighter and steadier by the moment, revealed his features more clearly as he stared into the flames for another moment before turning to her with a smile. “You’re welcome, Rosewater. Share an ale and finish the tale?”

“Of course.” She waited a beat, recovering the thread of the story. “The forest was quiet save our calls and the sounds of our hooves, but Carnation and I soon found a faint trail of her scent on the bark of a tree she must have brushed against, and again on the leaves of a bush. Old, faint, and fading. Leading us deeper into the woods. Snatches here and there as the sun began to settle to the horizon kept us close on the trail.”

“Weren’t there others nearby?”

“We tried calling, of course, but the way we’d set out, like scattered sunrays, we quickly outdistanced each other’s voices, and those woods, deeper in, eat voices like foals eat pastry. Nary a crumb left beyond sight.” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “It’s hard to hear yourself think sometimes when the wind rushes up from the south during the springtime storms, but other times, your heart thunders in your ears for how silent it is.”

“No wonder the forests are a place of myth and superstition,” Collar muttered, glancing to the northeast and the dark, almost black outline of the forested hills north of his palace home. Stars were coming out in greater number, and the sliver of the moon rising behind them began casting everything close in muted shades of silver and shadow.

All else beyond was inky darkness.

“We began to worry that we wouldn’t find her before dark, that she’d gone too deeply in along too twisty a path to ever find her way out. For us, we worried as much about the state of our trail and whether we could find it again. But before darkness fell, before the last of the light faded from the upper boughs of the tallest trees, we heard her voice, and more. Laughter and giggling of children. Not our children. Before we’d left, we’d made a count of all the foals, and accounted for all but Rosemary.

“We called for her, and heard a stop to the laughter, and before we’d even breached the thicket’s walls, deerkin emerged, new antlered bucks followed by the sleeker forms of the does.

“Carnation spoke first, bowing her head to the leader, a doe she called Forest Mother, older than the rest, her coat graying and her muzzle silvered where it wasn’t white.” Rosewater took a deeper breath and imitated Carnations lighter voice and steady cadance of words, “‘We came to find my daughter, Forest Mother. We do not intend to intrude on your sacred migration.’”

“‘Your daughter has been welcomed to our thicket, young mothers.’ Forest Mother spoke in our tongue, accented thickly from disuse, and spoke quickly to the other deerkin forming the wall of thorns they used to defend their temporary homes. ‘So, too, are you welcome, as her parents. She has spoken well of both of you.’”

“It was an idea that had been growing in the back of my mind. Something that I shouldn’t have felt because I was too young, and there, a mother of dozens of deerkin had just called me a mother. A parent. To Rosemary.” Rosewater shook her head slowly, and forged on. “We found her sitting in a circle of fauns, just as they had been taught to do if danger or something unknown approached, with a strong older buck and his mate standing close by. The next generation of leaders. When she saw us, she leapt up and dashed to us, stopped halfway, and glanced back at the older deerkin watching over them. They had been keeping her safe, by the stars, and teaching her how to behave in danger as a deerkin should.

“Carnation was watching me as much as her, and approached the future leaders, bowing again as the other bucks and does reformed the line behind us, watching for others. ‘I thank you, Dashing Leaf and Seven Tines, for watching over Rosemary for us. I hope she has not caused you much trouble during your migration.’

“‘For you, honored Carnation,’ Seven Tines’ accent was worse than Forest Mother’s, but well understandable, ‘We are pleased to meet the youngest of your family.’ His eyes came to me. ‘And your mate.’

“‘I’m not her mate!’ I protested, ‘I am her niece.’ But this only seemed to confuse Seven Tines as he looked to Rosemary for an answer. Either he didn’t know the words for other relations besides parentage, or… Rosemary had told them she had two mothers.” Rosewater glanced at Collar. “You can probably guess.”

“A little of both, would be my guess.”

“A little of both is correct. Forest Mother knew enough to understand, and we had talks about it later, when she made the migration south again the next winter, her last, as it turned out. But…” Rosewater shook her head slowly. “That’s all there is to me finding out. It was a revelation by another, by Rosemary’s on words. She saw me as much of a mother as Carnation, and she was too young to understand that I wasn’t her mother, or her sister, or… whatever else we might have been in less unusual circumstances.”

“She chose you to be her mother?”

“In part. She knew that I had chosen not to view Roseate as my mother, even if she didn’t know why yet. The mind of a foal is simple, unbounded by consequence and history, custom, tradition. If somepony can choose not to have a mother, then why not the opposite?” Rosewater let the revelation settle over her again, her smile coming back, pushing back the darkness of the last few days. “In part… I had been growing towards that, but my mind, burdened by all of the things a foal’s is not, needed a push."

Collar nodded slowly, sitting back and pulling out the ales again as the fire began to settle down into a merry blaze, the kindling and tinder spent, the flames licking at the split wood. “Sometimes, we all need a little push, don’t we?” He passed her one ale, corked with a wire-bound stopper, and opened his. “To all the things we need to be pushed to understanding. Friendship, motherhood, and a brighter future.”

Rosewater clinked the body of her bottle with his. “To friendship and understanding,” Rosewater echoed. “And a brighter future.”

Together, they drank, and Rosewater pushed aside the nagging feeling that she should have pushed more.

“When I was that age,” Collar said after a long pull, “I was starting to train to join the Dammeguard.”

“I’d love to hear about it, if you’re willing to tell.”

“There’s not much to tell, to be honest.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you’re wrong. What was it like on your first day? What was training like? How did you meet Coat, and Dazzle, and… well… they’re your friends from your Dammeguard days, right?”

It was a push, and she could see it working as Collar took another swig, his eyes focused far off over the fire. He leaned against her and leaned closer. “It was boring, honestly. After the first day. But that first day, the first week, was the most terrifying, hardest, and strangest week I’ve ever had.”

Rosewater chuckled and leaned in closer, half-supporting him with her weight. “Oh, do tell.”

“It was raining…”

Author's Note

Out sick today, so early chapter. Stupid sinuses, not covid thankfully. I hope all of you are safe and healthy today. Enjoy this look at Collar and Rosewater's second 'date'. Next week, a whole Collar perspective chapter to balance out the long Rosewater chapter.