The Lumberjack's Lace

Prologue, Aboard The Carnivaal

The mare was thrown backwards against the force of Blue's frame, landing on her back and cackling with delight.  She slowly rolled over and got to her hooves, the one eye showing through her mask appraising him gleefully.  Her horn lit for a brief second before a gunshot rang out from behind Obie and Freakshow's horn shattered.  She collapsed, her knees weak as she howled in agony.  Swordplay stomped toward her, anger pouring from her bloody gaze, and she deftly swiped her longsword at Freakshow's head.

The mask slipped and fell away, the straps securing it to her face severed.  A beautiful mare lay beneath, her face contorted into a horridly pained expression and soaked with tears.  Her long, oily black mane plastered to her face with sweat, two gorgeous bright blue eyes now trained on Swordplay, she manages a small smile.

"Thank you, miss."

The captain huffs angrily, drawing the blade of her weapon closer to her victim's throat.  Yet Freakshow continued, "I'm terrified of you... Captain Swordplay..."  A new wave of tears rolled over her cheeks, her smile widening.

"I haven't felt fear in a long time."

~THE

LUMBER

JACK'S

LACE~

I, Pilot

Jasmine grunted through her teeth as she dragged the chest onto her wagon.  At least in comparison to most wagons, it was a sleek, sturdy little thing.  The wheels were worn and dirty, but it was reliable.

She tucked the chest in among the other four, and hopped back off of the wagon to grasp one of the final two containers by a handle, and move it between the one she just loaded and the wall of her cart.  The last chest, filled with the frame pieces of a compact merchant's tent, sat in the front of the wagon longways.

"That should be it," Jasmine said to herself, closing the wagon's tailgate.  She took a charcoal gray bandana from her saddlebags and tied it around her left bicep to catch her sweat.  Then she turned around and surveyed her home, an almost suburban two-story house with white clay walls, a dark shingled roof and a carriage shelter built into the side.

A sudden breeze blew, forcing her braided mane over her shoulder and carrying the scent of the forest.  The trees sheltered everything around her, only thin rays of sunlight piercing the treetops.  Birds flitted throughout the leaves and branches, a few hopping through the underbrush for their meals and others just watching from among the limbs.

It wasn't humid at all, the breeze crisp and cool against her pale khaki coat.  She took her key in her teeth and locked the door to her home, slipping the key in a side pocket of her saddlebags and beginning to hitch herself to the wagon.  The well-maintained ring, devoid of edges, fit her barrel perfectly.  Leather Beat said the cart was a ridiculous investment when she bought it to replace her old one, but she didn't regret the decision at all.  That's not to say the wagon wasn't expensive; she had to borrow from her brother to pay it all off.  But she hadn't had to replace it in a year and a half, and it didn't show any signs of needing such a thing to be done anytime soon.

With the ring clamped together and the belt along the outside also fastened, she took a final look at her two-story home and smiled.

It's gonna be a while before I find myself back here.

Another breeze blew as she turned and started down the dirt path from her home, promptly connected her hoof with a root-- "WAUGH!" ...and faceplanted onto the path.  "Lovely start you made there, Jaz," she said sarcastically to herself.  She spat dirt out of her mouth and sprayed the ground with blood.  She picked herself up and wiped off her snout, her hoof coming back with red streaks down it.  "Oh.  Wonderful."

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The wind shoved her bangs into her eyes, and she flicked them out of the way again.  What was a gentle breeze before had progressively gotten stronger as she ventured further into the plains, no longer skirting the edge of the Whitetail.  She could see the road weaving through the hills, a few other ponies carting goods in the direction of the Trader's Exchange.  Turning her eyes to the sky, she caught clouds at the horizon, under the sun.  Dark clouds, heralding something of a drizzle in the future.  A sense of unease crept into her chest, and she pressed on along the road.

Turning her eyes forward, she crested a hill and saw that there were a lot more wagons on the road than she had initially thought.  Even given the rich and boisterous nature of the lot of merchants that attended the Exchange, the sight of so many ponies moving to her destination filled her with a sense of pride, determination and purpose.

She took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose, feeling something warm on her lip.  She reached up to wipe it and realized her nose was bleeding again.

"Geez, I must've messed it up pretty bad," she mumbled, wiping her nose and tilting her head back.  Blood trickled down her throat and made her rethink the idea, turning her head to the side and spitting the metallic taste out of her mouth.

"Ugh."

She glanced back to the stormclouds, a glare crossing her gaze.  You better not give me any problems.

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Scrunching up her nose, Jasmine noted that it wasn't bleeding anymore.  She wiped her eyes and yawned, a shiver running down her spine.  The curvature of the road followed the shape of a small pond, curling around to dip further into the valley and disappear over another drop.  The landscape was dreary and plain, every hill the same as the last.  She couldn't stop yawning and the wind was beginning to have a bite about it.  She had skirted half of the pond before her eyes widened and she stopped, searching the sky for the sun.  As she expected, the source of her darkened surroundings was the curtain of thick, pillowy clouds that was hanging over her head.

Her jaw dropped, soft words lost to the wind.

"Ohh, ponyfeathers."

Pt.  A fat raindrop audibly hit the path by her hoof, and Jasmine sighed.  She took a step forward and felt another droplet hit her bangs, followed by two more somewhere shortly behind her.  Then it fell all at once, giving her reason to move on as puddles began to form within minutes.

The path, now having become something of a stream, gently dipped down between two ledges.  It curled to the left, following the shape of the rock face and curving back the other way to cross a ditch on a small wooden bridge.  The creek inside was rising from the rain, but it moved at a sluggish pace.

As she crossed the bridge, she spat strands of her mane out from between her lips and tried to blink the water out of her eyes.  The droplets fell from her lashes like tears before quickly getting replaced by more...

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The pine tree shuddered, creaking and popping under the strain of its own weight.  A fierce buck sent the wedge even deeper into the trunk, and thick, turquoise blue forelegs rested against the tree to push it down.  The day was clear, the air fresh, but the shade from the trees made him shiver.  The cold morning air seemed to press his cold sweat onto his skin, leaving his entire bulky body tense.

He liked the work, and his conditions; the morning wasn't going to change for anypony.  If he grew to mind the freezing chill then his mood would plummet, and nothing short of sleep could make Ocean Blue cheerful again.

He grunted against the weight of the tree, shouldering against it and pushing with his hind legs.  The trunk popped almost in anguish as it fell to the ground with a crash among other stumps that rose out of the underbrush like headstones.  Had it been later in the day, the podzol underhoof would be dry where the stumps were most common, without the shelter of the treetops to protect it from the sun.

But now, on a dreary clouded morning, the leaves were very much damp, their smell dominating Blue's senses.  He knew it well; he was a logger, after all.  His heavy build seemed unnatural for a pegasus, but his father had been an earth pony.  His weight made it difficult for him to fly, and thus he rarely did so.  His aerial stamina was hopeless, and his manners were self-taught.  The deviation between his name and his career often confused ponies; they usually assumed he was a sailor of some sort, when in truth he was named both for his parents' love for the sea and his pelt colors.  The rougher, darker fur that lightly coated his jaw was unevenly cut, but tidy enough.  But his mane, the same dark shade of turquoise as his stubble but streaked with even darker colors, was unruly and disobedient.  It hung low, uncut and completely ignored.

It fell in his violet eyes as he picked up a saw from the ground in his teeth.  After he trimmed the branches and cut the trunk into logs, he heaved them one by one onto the large, degraded wagon drawn up behind him.  By the time he'd hitched himself up and began following the stumps, the wind began to pick up and the branches overhead rustled.  Within a few minutes, the dense treeline between himself and the ocean fell away, revealing completely violent-looking clouds and a rough pattern of waves on his left.  He crested a hill, and his small cottage came into view, with a wagon shelter and a grindstone, both past their prime, in the back.  The wind plowed into him from the east, but his heavy load refused to budge.

The wagon's weight shifted towards him as he descended the hill, though he had taken the route many times in his life and was fully capable of keeping it in control.  He caught a flash of light in his peripheral, and a low rumble echoed over the coast.

Looks like trouble, he thought to himself.  He hastened his pace and pulled the wagon into the dank shelter, unfastening the hitch and letting the arms fall onto the rests on either side of him.  He could smell the rain through the salty tinge of the ocean, and that trip to Rainbow Falls was out of the question.  He'd just have to arrive on normal time, along with all the rest of the darn traffic.  He trotted out of the wagon shelter and around to the front of the house, nudging the door open and going inside.

"Don't sound very inviting out there," said Seafoam from the kitchen.  Blue's cousin was considerably smaller than he was, and so she typically stayed around the homestead.  Her mane was the same color as his pelt, but a bit paler, and her own coat was only a few shades brighter than royal blue.  Her wings fluttered as she stepped into the den, giving him an appraising look.  "Rainbow Falls off?"

Blue's nose scrunched up as he glanced at the kitchen door.  The entire house smelled thickly of garlic.  "Mhmm.  What've you uh..." he trailed off, his brows furrowed.  Her pale blue eyes widened as she bolted into the kitchen with the sound of an oven opening and a heavy pan crashing to the floor.

When Blue reached the door, he found their largest baking pan dropped in front of the open oven with Seafoam next to it on her hind legs, shaking her forehooves and hissing.  The contents of the pan looked like a casserole, with a half-cooked crust and a hideous overdose of garlic coating the top.  When Seafoam had recovered, she found their lone potholder and put the dish back in the oven.

"I guess it wasn't burning, then," she said enthusiastically, closing the oven door.  When she turned to go back into the den, he went in ahead of her.  But instead of continuing, he turned the corner and stepped up the stairs, which contained the only two other rooms in the cottage.

The upstairs hall ran the length of the house with a small window on either side, and two doors sat side-by-side in the center of the hall.  He nudged open the one on the right and stepped inside, the room dimly lit through the overcast sunlight coming in from the window against the back of the house, identical to the ones in the hall.  Blue's nightstand sat under the windowsill with a candle atop, his bed to the left of it.

He opened the nightstand drawer, revealing the cluttered contents: several folded pieces of parchment, unceremoniously smothering the dwindling pile of unused pages, a faded feather quill, and an inkwell.  Which was also rather low on ink.

He nuzzled through the folded pages and pulled a blank one from the nightstand, setting it next to the candle.  The inkwell followed, and the quill was sat on the page itself.  He stepped up onto his bed and folded his legs under him, his wings ruffling to make themselves comfortable.  He picked up the quill in his teeth and dipped it in what little ink he had left, and as he began to write the thunder gave a low rumble over the homestead.

The cherry willow in the forest was great, with its heavy drooping limbs and pale budding flowers.  Spring had arrived and the wind had followed, carrying the scent of past and present, clover and rain.  The birds have birthed and now sing to their young.  And the cherry willow in the forest made its own seeds now, and the spring wind carried them to far away lands.

The cherry willow in the forest was dying, with its insect-eaten limbs and naked leafless branches.  Spring had arrived and the wind had gave chase, carrying the sight of past and present, sky and storm.  The birds' young are young no more, but their eggs were eaten by rodents.  And the cherry willow in the forest had only one seed now, and the spring wind carried it to far away lands.

The cherry willow in the forest was dead, with its dark rotten limbs, and its branches played host to the spiders.  Spring had arrived and the wind had struck savagely, carrying the feeling of past and present, hope and fear.  The birds' young mourned their parents and had their own children, but one was premature and could not fly.  And the cherry willow on the hill high above the forest was still a sapling, and could not make its own seeds.

Blue's quill returned this time from the inkwell dry, and he couldn't seem to get any no matter which way he twisted it.  He huffed and laid the pen on his nightstand; he wasn't finished with the page, but if he left it out then Seafoam might see it.  He hated it when anypony read his poems.  He heard a heavy thudding from downstairs that wasn't from Seafoam's cooking, and his brow knit together as he hopped out of bed and nudged his door open.  He was trotting down the stairs when he heard it again, and he heard his cousin open the door.

"Good evening miss," he heard a gruff voice say.  He quickened his pace.  "We're here on official business for the Royal Crowns of Equestria."  When he stepped into the den and saw that there were two stoic white pegasus stallions in their front entrance, clad in golden armor, saddlebags, and a level gaze, he wasn't surprised.  Not after their previous statement, anyway.

"What's happening?" Seafoam asked as he stepped up beside her.  The guard who wasn't speaking pulled a rolled piece of paper from his saddlebags and unfurled it for the other to read.

"'We regret to inform you that this is government land, and it has been publicly put up for sale as a personal residence as has many of the surrounding properties.  You must either pay the full price of 11,804 bits, the monthly rent of 422 bits, or alternatively propose a loaning deal.  From this point in time, you have exactly one week before you are revisited and evicted, should you not conform to any one of the previous terms.'"

Seafoam's eyes moved between the two of them, while Blue's gaze had gained a knife-like quality.  His cousin's voice cracked when she spoke, like it does when she's nervous, or scared.  It just made him angrier.  "Is this a joke?  Ya'll probably made some mistake, our family's lived here for three generations now.  This is our home."

The stallion's expression didn't change, though he shook his head slightly.  "This is not a joke, and the Guard does not make mistakes.  We're sorry."

Silence parted them like a guillotine, and the stallion with the legal scroll rolled it back up and returned it to his saddlebags.  "We will return in one week," he said, nodding to them.  The guards turned and stepped out into the yard, before taking off inland and disappearing from sight.

Seafoam's eyes burned from the salt riding the wind pouring in through their door.  She met Blue's weary eyes as he looked out at the rolling clouds, then to her.  "I guess I'm going, after all."  He started out the door, but she caught his foreleg.

"Obie, we can't afford those terms.  We're gonna have to move." she said, the word 'move' popping.

"Like you said," he reminded, watching her solemnly, "this is our home.  Papa settled it, dad put his heart in it.  It's our job to keep it."  He tugged his foreleg away from her, stepping out the door.

"It's worth a shot."