Chapter 7 ~ Remote Reverie

Yellowish orange mane with a few grey streaks, cut short.

Red coat, sporty build.

Campfire and guitar for a Cutie Mark.

His name is Limelight and my first memory of him is teaching me the names of flowers. There's even one called a limelight. His parents wanted him to be a florist and named him more out of selfish desire than the truth their hearts recommended.

He still speaks fondly of them, though. Always with a smile on his face. I later learn that he doesn't know if he himself ever actually knew his parents. He tells me the changelings fed off his love and even now he struggles each day to find some harmony within himself. As he tells me all that he starts cracking up, so I hug him. I remember that well, it was practically the first hug I ever gave. A small thing really, just throwing my arms around him, hoping this tiny gesture will make him better. One of the things I knew even as a filly was that crying wasn't good. He didn't say anything that moment, instead just sobbed quietly in the small filly's arms.

Limelight is the closest thing I got for family. That's why it would later hurt so much. Not just seeing the grey in his mane spread and the color in both his coat and life waste. It hurt because I always felt responsible for all the pain that never healed. No, that's wrong, isn't it. I am responsible. For everything.

I distinctly recall us sitting on the roof of a caravanesai. Our caravan was huge. It had at least thirty wagons and that night, it looked like a small village in the middle of nowhere. Limelight hangs out with me, he always does. I sometimes call him my father. I never got to apologize for that. In the beginning he wasn't bothered by it, though.

Well, what I wanted to say was, that we are sitting there. He, me and another colt, who's a bit older than me. It's two months before that caravan ends by the teeth of a hydra. Limelight looks at the other ponies. There's so much noise, so much happening. I'll never forget it. Ponies dancing and singing and laughing. So many of them. I knew some had differences, I knew some disliked each other. Some of these I saw dance and sing and drink happily together.

Limelight takes the opportunity for a life lesson he will later be sure I have forgotten. I haven't. I never will. He asks both me and that colt, Stormcloud: "What defines us caravaneers?"

Our answers are clear. Caravaneers are the cool folk. We guess that, unlike the oasis-ponies we aren't jerks. That means we're the good ponies and makes us automatically cool.

Limelight laughs it off.

"We stick together," he says, "No matter who does what. Sometimes, one pony will be loved, sometimes, a pony will be hated. It doesn't matter since we're one huge family."

I remember asking him if he'll stick with me.

He's a proud stallion and at that time still looked like an actual warrior pony. I remember him laughing at my question and then putting his arms around us. He says the following words as he looks happy at the fire, "We're family, of course we stick together."

Remembering hurts.

Stardust opened her eyes slowly. The first thing she saw was a ceiling made of wood. Their wagon? Had she fallen asleep during the job?

"Ah, Sunset is going to be mad," she whispered, brushing aside the blanket that was laid ever so softly on her body. There was a bit of smile on her face, she felt happy, although she didn't understand why exactly. Somehow she figured to just have woken up from a bad dream. Not that it mattered, there she probably had overslept, maybe her shift had already started. Sunset would definitely be mad.

The mare set her hooves on the ground but upon getting up from the bed her body's state revealed itself. She felt a sudden surge of pain going through her limbs and her head began to hurt as well. Stardust immediately let herself fall back into the bed, closed her eyes and took deep breaths, tears starting to roll down. The pain wasn't that bad, she told herself, a guardpony shouldn't cry that easily.

She remained there for a bit. The unicorn didn't know for how long, whether it was seconds or whole minutes passing or maybe even a whole hour. She concentrated merely on the pain she felt and that feeling that something was off. It took her a few more seconds before it sprung to her mind exactly what it was.

Stardust's eyes opened.

"I've survived..." she muttered, her voice immediately cracking up. She felt pain and that was a clear indicator that she survived yet again. For a moment she looked at the ceiling, her breathing going faster, moving into sobs. Surviving wasn't the problem, she knew. She had honestly cared for them, loved them and had wanted to protect them. Yet she had failed once more and again it was because she had decided to run away at the wrong time.

Even now, crying and hiding beneath the blanket felt easier than anything else. It took a few more moments but then she decided to be strong. Stardust knocked herself over the head. Crying had to wait; for now she had to find out where she was.

"This bed is comfy," she examined, still lying beneath the thick blanket. That and the fact that the ceiling was too high for a wagon gave her enough reason to doubt she was picked up by another caravan. Most oasis dwellers didn't have houses either...well, southerners at least. Were they that far up in the north? Did they have actual, real houses here? Where the hay was the 'Oaktongue' anyway? She couldn't say anything about this place from a look but judged it belonged to a pony. At least she hoped it did. The white mare had heard of changelings living afar from civilization and picking up half dead strangers. They nursed them back to health, cared for them, draining their love until no emotion was left, then discarded them.

Fine Clouds would always talk of the changeling hives that existed hundreds of years ago, giant cities with thousands and thousands of changelings within.

Good thing these were only tales and even what Dry Soil had gone through had been an exception. That she had been taught during her years as a guard and as an officially named coward she obviously knew anything that would save her life in the long run. Although, she might prove to be an exception, too. Stardust pondered how to spot a changeling but after searching her mind for a while she merely found a minor headache and not the information she was looking for. So apparently, changelings were a problem now.

She sighed.

Stardust shook her head and decided that it would be best to just embrace the comfort of the bed. Even if she had only a moment of peace, she'd take it. The white unicorn laid down again, resting her head on the extremely fluffy pillow and covering herself with the blanket once more. The unicorn used the chance to look at her surroundings.

It was a room far larger than what she was used to. There was a window, although she could only see the color black through it, to her left and on the same side a bed table with a lamp on it. Some fireflies buzzed around inside of it. As Stardust looked at the lamp she also spotted that it wasn't enclosed, instead the bugs were actually able to leave through the top quite easily.

"So this all belongs to an earth pony," she then figured, since earth ponies were all very close to what little remained of the tame and safe animals. She had seen it a few times when they had halted. The animals kept close to the earth ponies, even those who originally hadn't had any kind of special talent involving them. There was a natural bond between those and even small fireflies made valuable friends out in the wastelands.

To her right and across the room she spotted the door. Also of notice were the wardrobe and a picture on the wall. It depicted a scene from the Celestial Scripture. She knew that because even from her position she saw that the primary colors were green and a light shade of blue, the colors of a summer day, one of the most sacred memories of ponydom. The wardrobe looked antique. It had probably lasted a few generations already and gave the whole room an even warmer feeling than it already had. There also was the red carpet on the wooden floor and the light green pony with the blonde mane and the large straw hat that had just entered through the door.

Stardust looked at her for a second before she realized that another pony really had just entered the room. The immediate reaction was to hide beneath the blankets. If she was a changeling she'd probably be discouraged by the wall of fabric.

"Hey, no need to be afraid. Ah'm harmless,"  the stranger said with a smile so bright that the unicorn could actually hear it and an accent so thick and foreign that Stardust wondered if it was actually equestrian she had heard. "Ah did those banda-thingies, never used 'em before so Ah dunno just how sloppy of a job Ah did." Actually, it sounded like equestrian. Equestrian in weird.

Stardust smiled, weird was good. Changelings weren't weird, they were horrifying. So with that, she found the conviction to raise her head up from beneath the covers.

"I guess they're fine," she said, finding her voice still shaky. You're a guard, guards are brave, guards don't cry, she thought. She was alone and the least she could do was try....

"Then why're ya cryin'?"

Stardust wasn't brave, she wasn't a good guard and she had abandoned her family twice now. They had gone up from the Badlands like before and once again she was the one that remained. This time, she was completely alone and it made it all so much harder.

She felt the other pony actually hugging her, she heard the words of comfort but as she cried herself asleep once more she only found the smell recognizable.

The smell of apples.

Green hair, curls probably not natural.

Vanilla coat, with lots and lots of dirt on it.

Three sapphires for a Cutie Mark.

Her name is Sunset Dale and when we first meet, she smiles the whole time, calls me a 'cutie' and wants to be my friend. She asks where I'm from but before I can answer, Limelight cuts in.

"You really shouldn't talk to that little horse apple," he says with all the spite he can muster. Since it's me, it's a lot of spite. A lot has changed between us since our family died. He blames me and I know he's right. We both want them back, even though I lead us towards the castle. Worst of all, while I want them back so badly, I'm glad I didn't sleep in the gardens. I'm actually glad that I abandoned them.

Sunset is different. We went to the Void Path, where no magic reaches. I looked into a cave, still a young guardspony and instead of checking what lingered in the dark I deemed it safe and practically lured the whole caravan into the jaw of a hydra. The beast appeared when we had set up camp and roared it's heads above our wagons. I remember that while it did that, Frisbee crashed into it, spear first and Sunset immediately started barking orders, like she was our captain.

I remember them taking it down, the monster I lead them, too, all while I cowered by the side of the ponies I had sworn to protect.

I remember, because when I'm treating the wounded she comes to me, "You know how to heal?" she asks. I say 'Yes' to that, fully expecting her to say that I should be a doctor, not a fighter. She's going to say that I would at least be helpful if I did that.

"You're not scared of blood?" she asks instead.

"I'm scared of dying." I answer, although a bit to fierce. It's not even a year since I put on the armor. Somehow I still feel pride in that.

She looks at me, a smile coming to her face. I think she's laughing at me, so I turn away from the wounded Garden Tool and towards her. "Next time I'll prove myself, just you see!"

Sunset Dale just stands there, smiling, shaking her head. "I rather hope that when the day comes we don't die fighting but run away living."

She later curses me not for running away, but for killing one of the two colts that were with the Captain. Sunset lets the memory of him go at one point but neither she nor me can ever truly forget or forgive.

Remembering Hurts.

The pony with the straw hat was one thing: Nice. She had placed an old gramophone in the corner of the room after Stardust had awoken the first time and although it was mostly incredibly tasteless banjo play, it still was noise. Over the days she changed the bandages, the bed sheets, came with food and more often, and just sat at Stardusts side with either a bright smile or a worried look. She waited for Stardust to talk, instead of bothering her. She didn't even ask the unicorn's name.

In the beginning, Stardust didn't speak. The more she thought about them, the more she remembered the good times they all had. Then she would remember how they would turn away from her, one by one and in the end they all died because she had made a stupid mistake.

At one point, she woke up from sleep and looked at the ceiling, saying: "If I hadn't run, I could've made a difference."

"Where?"

She looked to her side, seeing the straw hat pony with...some fairly nice looking dishes.

"What're those?" Stardust asked and pointed at the tablet.

"Oh, them're called apple strudels," the pony said with an even brighter grin than ever before. Stardust didn't talk to her, she ate rarely and didn't drink much either.

"They look tasty, can I have one?"

"Ya can have all them strudels, if ya want," she said.

That was how it began, really. She didn't know how exactly but suddenly she was talking with the green pony. It started with questions about the place, then how long it had been since she had gotten there. Those were all questions the earth pony couldn't answer. Apparently there were quite a few apple trees just outside the building and a river a bit further from here. That one ended in a waterfall, which again ended in the Oaktongue, although the straw hat didn't use that name. Although Stardust didn't make the inquiry, she figured that the green pony hadn't come here long before them. Time was another matter. The earth pony had no way of measuring it and Stardust sighed, admitting that she maybe should've asked some questions to read the leylines beyond the whole 'levitation' and 'combat-usage' thing.

"What'cha mean?" the green mare asked, genuinely wondering.

Stardust felt taken aback at that question, since that was common knowledge, "Don't you know any unicorns?"

The straw hat pony shook her head and Stardust decided, rather than asking uncomfortable questions, to elaborate.

"Our horns act as kind of an eye to see magic. It flows across the world in long streams dyed in the colors of the rainbow and colors that don't even exist for our normal eyes. We call these streams Ley-lines," she explained, then pausing to think. "I don't know too much about it but I heard that we once knew what exactly magic was made of. A griffon from the windclans once told me that a certain Twilight Sparkle had written a dozen volumes on the subject...but, well, yeah...griffons...Anyway, since we don't know what magic is, the actual process eludes us somehow but we unicorns re-shape parts of the ley-lines when we cast our spells. We change their colors and their form to create spells like levitation or whatever else we can do.

"Colors and shape are the heart of it. You see, some ley-lines, special ones, can't be changed and a well-trained unicorn can sense these lines and read them. There's always a reason why they can't be changed and you can trace them in certain directions. At the Silver Knot, these special streams form a silver-colored knot that is spun so tight, it can't be moved,for example. Or the Oaktongue, down there...well, I didn't see it but apparently the ley-lines form some sort of tongue above the water and out of it rises the magic in a golden oak."

The straw hat pony nodded a few times throughout the somewhat-explanation and at the end seemed to try to imagine how the oaktongue must've looked. Stardust figured it from her look that she found it impressive.Yet the earth pony didn't simply nod the whole thing away.

"What does this have to do with time, though?"

Stardust smiled, talking got her mind of things, yes but she had made an important point with that speech, "Colors and shapes. The ley-lines roughly flow in four directions: North and South. West and East. Each line has smaller arms and they all connect at one point or the other. The great points, like the Silver Knot I told you about, they're all mapped and known. So by them, we figure out where we are. Telling time goes similarily," she explained, leaving out that explaining it would be even harder, "It's said that with good enough knowledge, a unicorn can let her mind float amidst the magic and look into it's vast ocean. The ocean of magic is the only thing in the world that still knows..."

Pause for dramatic effect.

"Day and Night!"

That didn't have the much needed reaction. Normally ponies or other creatures tended to at least be little bit shocked then they heard that part but the straw hat pony just looked at her with a quizzical expression. After a small explanation how sun and moon existed and moved back in the days she nodded understaning, though.

"Anyway, by it's color you can read the actual time." Stardust finished then, quite happy that the pony on the other side had little to no understanding about magic, otherwise she would've started poking holes into her explanation. Luna's Gift was hard to grasp and harder to explain but it served it's purpose for those who were trained to look into it. Although, she thought, there are other ways.

"Do you have a ley-clock?"

After a short pause of thinking the green pony answered, "Sorry, I dunno."

Stardust nodded. Ley-clocks weren't that easy to find and she doubted the earth pony possessed one. Losing track of time when you were surrounded by darkness was an easy thing. It hardly seemed important. For the first time in what felt like a thousand years the unicorn decided to sit up to see eye to eye with the straw-hat. Their conversation shifted from time to the music, from the music to the state of the house, and from that to apples.

And from apples Stardust went on to saying that she was hungry. She hadn't moved around much during her time here. Some bones were broken, her head had been hurt and she had some cuts from the woods. All in all, Stardust had given herself two weeks until she could go out again. The Straw-hat trusted her judgement and during her time here she had given Stardust much attention without asking for anything.

Even now the grin on the pony widened, and she reached to her back, getting a plate out. The unicorn hadn't even noticed the platter. The straw-hat pony always managed to surprise her, just as the food did.

In the caravan they had lived mostly on grain and oatmeal so mealtime had always been stale. As the straw-hat pony sat the plate on Stardust's lap she found both the sliced apples and the flowers on it a welcome sight, even though it seemed badly prepared from a visual standpoint. The apples badly cut and the flowers lying around completely random. Reminded her of the times Hearth had still been alive. All his meals had looked the complete opposite of what they tasted like. This wasn't so bad though. It looked fair enough and tasted quite good, too. When it came to apples, the straw-hat pony seemed to work some kind of magic.

As the unicorn started chowing the food down, the straw-hat pony started grinning, "Ah thought you'd need somethin' good to eat."

Stardust was truly grateful for that thought. Her host stood there, smiling brightly, although a bit awkwardly. She seemed to be thinking what to say next. After a few more moments of watching her guest chewing apples she decided to go for what Stardust thought the weirdest question possible.

"So...you're from beyond the wasteland?" the straw-hat asked.

Stardust looked at the stranger. "Yeah...I'm from one of the southern caravans. Founded by Fine Clouds, if you've heard the name," sure as sugar, when the mare shook her head Stardust knew they were far north. Fine Clouds had been around for more than eighty years and he had used that time well. Even up in the Badlands his name had been known, she had heard that he had even gone up to the fields near Canterlot. With that one thought, the floodgates opened and the memories of her big family came to her mind again. The mood shifted instantly.

The earth pony looked at her for a few seconds before she got an idea what to do.

Wisely, she decided to shift the topic and seated herself beside the bed. "Ah'm from here," she said rudimentarily. "One day Ah just woke up here. Ah remember the furniture, the fireplace beside an' the ceiling above me. Ah remember that when Ah took mah first breath it felt exciting. Ah remember how Ah opened my eyes having no idea where Ah was, what Ah did there, who Ah was and even what Ah was."

That did it's job as Stardust looked at her, bleakly.

"Ah still don' really know any of them things and whenever Ah found something here Ah didn't know what to do with, Ah just tried different things out until Ah got to what Ah thought was the right thing to do. Ah remember first trying to get somethin' to eat, because when Ah felt 'hunger' that was the right thing to do. Yet Ah had to go figuring out what to eat. Ah wasn't able to eat myself, because that hurt. Ah wasn't able to eat them rocks on the ground, because Ah couldn't chew them. Ah could eat the wood with some preparation, though but mind you Ah don't fancy the taste. Instead Ah settled for the grass, them flowers before the house and these small reds.

"Apples they are. Weird little things are mah lifesavers. They grow on trees before mah house, you know? Best thing, there's a lot of them, too. Ah can just go out everyday after Ah wake up, buck one of 'em good and down fall them apples. They taste amazing and are generally amazing."

Stardust looked at the strange pony before her with an unchanging blank look on her face. After all the time she had spent with the stranger, she hardly knew her and this story was more than just a small revelation to her.

"But that's not what Ah like so about them. What Ah like is their smell. The smell of apples. No matter what happens, apples always smell nice. Even the ones that sat so long on the table that they're brown and mushy and not good food anymore. There really is only one word for it: Indescrit-, intist-,...give me a sec...indescribable. Yeah.

Not the wood of the trees, the earth through which their roots dig, not the colors of my house, nothing smells like these apples. In mah small world they are the best thing," the stranger continued, pointing at the remnants on the tablet.

Stardust looked at the thing and the few pieces of apples that remained. The smell of apples, she thought.

"You're...lost," she stated bluntly, covering her mouth instantly.

The straw-hat only smiled, "Sounds like me. Anyway, if yer sad ya can tell me," the straw-hat said. "We're friends now and friends are honest to each other."

Mint colored mane that won't bow to any comb.

Turquoise coat, small pony.

Two streamers and a balloon for a Cutie Mark.

His name is Party Star and the first memory I've got of him is when we first meet the caravan. Everypony's welcoming me and Limelight, but this one, he's a bit younger than me, he's almost ecstatic meeting new faces. It's thanks to him that Limelight can smile once more and I, too. It's the welcoming meal where he shows off what he is good at, making an otherwise stale meal a fantastic occasion.

My fondest memory is when I don the armor of the guard and everypony looks at me so trusting and hopeful. Some die because I run, some because I wasn't with them when I had to be, others because of my stupidity. Party doesn't lose that smile of his, not even around me. The others keep him away from the fighting, but I see a similarity between me and him. We're both scared of something. I am afraid of dying, he's afraid of killing.

Party is a better pony than me.

I tell him that one day when we go the rounds. I'm scared of him, even though he's younger and smaller than me, so I even tell hm why. That one time he builds himself up, tries to look tough.

"Are you calling me a coward?"

"No," I say and under my breath I add: "I'm calling me a coward."

I'm aware of it. In the beginning, I'm the only one, later everypony else realizes it, too. They know they should throw me aside, but they don't. They still care about me. One night Party sits by my side. The fire in the middle of our Fort is burning and Seeing Sight is teaching the fillies one of his funny dances.

"You're a better pony than you think," Party lies.

I don't answer, I don't smile, I don't cry, I don't react. I see Seeing singing in the language of the zebras, a prayer to the sun to shine once more and to the soil to keep steady until light is upon us one day. I listen to the sound of hooves, the laughter of our youngest members as they fail to repeat the chant. It's a normal scene, I can remember a day when the noise faded.

I look at Party. He doesn't know such a day and I pray he never will. I'm here though, so he's going to die like everypony else.

"Someday you'll admit it even," he continues.

Why do I remember him being like this?

Remembering hurts.

VII

~Remote Reverie~

~End~