Drifting Down the Lazy River

Chapters

1 - Marooned by Fate
2 - Fate's Chew Toy
3 - Drowning in Air
4 - Part Of My World
5 - Uprooted
6 - Seek and Hide
7 - Fly, Flown, Flu
8 - Night Moves
9 - What Lies Beneath The Surface
10 - Dinner and a Show
12 - What Is Love?
13 - The Heights of Culture
14 - High Cuisine
15 - Family Dining
16 - Cruise Shipping
17 - Fatherhood
18 - Home
Epilogue
Inspiration, Author's Notes, and General Stuff
11 - The Hardest Teacher

1 - Marooned by Fate

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Marooned by Fate

"It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed — only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all — that night, nor the next, nor the next."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

It was one thing to consider floating down the river on a raft in search of adventure while reading a book and marveling at the wonderful time the young pony in the story was having. Once the shadows began to gather and the night birds emerged, it was a far different thing for Turpentine to consider when belly-deep in wet sand, trying to shove a huge collection of logs off a sandbar and back into the river.

For the first few days after he had left the orphanage, his trip had been an adventure worthy of the book. It had been fun hiding under the collection of loose brush and branches in the middle of the raft whenever a pegasus flew by, then prodding for the riverbed below with a pole at random times afterwards, pretending that he had some sort of influence over the course of his gallant ship. Well, raft.

There were at least a dozen logs making up the raft with four or five ropes weaving them together. They were not as big as most of the logs which occasionally slipped away from the lumber mill upstream of Tidewater, and which the local farmers tied up against the riverbank whenever they could be easily caught. These were long and straight, well worth the five bits a log he could have gotten when the chuffing steam tug would come every week or two to gather up their lost wooden sheep and tow them back upriver to the mill.

At the time, he thought an adventuresome raft was a far better use for the lost logs. After all, boards and timbers held no interest for Turpentine, much like his home town considered the negligible value of a small earth pony colt who had no interest in growing turnips or beans.

Instead, he was a painter, but not the way his home village preferred. Painting was something they did with a broad brush dunked in thick white paint, using long straight strokes to give as perfect a surface to the house or barn as possible. Of course, not everypony in the village preferred a plain white house. Some of them were adventurous excitement-seeking rebels, who actually painted the trim… red.

Right now, Turpentine would have given good bits he did not have for a few of those lumbering art-impaired ponies to be pushing on his stuck raft instead of himself. He had his earth pony strength, but there was nothing to push against but wet sand. Without a shovel or a winch, he had heaved and dug as much as possible, leaving a muddy mess at the front end of his raft where it had plowed into the sandbar at the pokey top speed the river had permitted. What was worse, Turpentine had seen the collision coming, and had tried with every bit of his strength to pole the raft to one side or the other of the sandbar, which was large enough to have trees of its own.

Well, now it had a dozen more, only horizontal and naked instead of vertical and covered in leaves. He was well and truly stuck, and since the sandbar/island was in the middle of the river, it would take a strong swimmer to make it to either bank. He really did not think he was that strong of a swimmer, particularly since he had never swam anywhere he could not reach down with a hoof and touch bottom.

“Buck!” he declared in somewhat less than his full volume, despite the complete lack of anypony within hearing distance to criticize him on his language. It was probably not as bad as Waterhorse Crusoe being abandoned on some Ponyneighsian island far away from civilization, because if he squinted, he could see a tugboat pushing a barge upriver a good distance away. There was enough driftwood scattered around to make a fire, some thin sandgrass that should not be too bitter to eat, and the bushes on the island certainly should have some berries or tender leaves. It could be an adventure, even though he was rapidly losing interest in the appeal of adventure and really starting to long for his plain and simple bed in the orphanage.

About the time his fifth damp match spluttered to death in the pile of damp driftwood, that keening sense of longing for his previous life was getting difficult to ignore.

Nights on the river were dark, but here on the island with the long moonlit shadows of the sandbar’s trees reaching out across the glittering sand like waving tentacles, his muddy and sand-packed hide trembled despite the relative warmth of the fall air. “Buck” he muttered again before placing the remainder of his matches back into his somewhat damp collection of gear. Matches were supposed to be magic. You struck a match, applied it to the wood, and a campfire would start. It had worked that way in his books, but Turpentine was beginning to lose track of how many corrections he was going to discuss with the authors if he ever got a chance. With an additional shudder of his mud and sand packed hide, Turpentine turned instead to a problem he could at least do something about, and there was plenty of water around to for that solution.

He had never liked taking a bath at the orphanage, but the claw-footed tub and the stringent brushing of Mother Windrow would have been welcome compared to the trouble he had wading into the river and squatting down to rinse out the worst of the sand. A brush would have been nice, and he even would not have turned down a bar of lilac soap if it had miraculously appeared next to him, but at least he could get out the worst of the embedded grime before wading back onto the sandy beach of the sandbar and promptly picking up even more sand on his hooves.

The lukewarm water of his river bath only sucked the warmth out of his skin, making Turpentine shiver in the cool night breeze when he emerged from the water. After a brisk shake to dry himself as much as possible, he picked his way gingerly over to the camp and the small crackling fire which was beginning to eat its way up through the driftwood he had optimistically piled up for the night. He had gotten nearly all of the water toweled out of his mane before a disquieting realization swept over him, and he stared at the campfire.

Maybe one of the matches was less extinguished than I thought. Or not.

Turpentine took a long look around his campsite, seeing nothing in the darkness except the scrubby trees waving in the night breeze, the ripples across the river surrounding him, and the unspeaking stars looking down.

“Hello?” he called out, trying to look in all directions at once. “Is anypony out there?”

There was no response.

Author's Note

Disclaimer: Quotes for this story are out of Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As the author plainly stated in his book:

NOTICE

PERSONS⁽*⁾ attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot⁽¹⁾.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

(*) or ponies
(1) in a metaphorical context only, or if physical force is needed, lemon meringue pies

This author takes no responsibility for any youth of any age who attempt to emulate the activities in this story, not limited to snuggling, swimming in unchlorinated water, spending time relaxing in the sun instead of doing work, roasting marshmallows over a campfire, or other such activities frowned upon by their elders who don’t remember what it is like to be young anymore.

2 - Fate's Chew Toy

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Fate’s Chew Toy

"We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Sunlight stabbed through the holes in his itchy wool blanket, making Turpentine squint while attempting to shift positions on the unyielding logs of the marooned raft. He could barely manage to roll over onto his side and move his legs until the cramps went away, even though the residual chill of the long damp evening still made the stiff hairs on his coat feel as if they were covered in ice.

As a mattress, logs sucked.

It took several tries for him to get to his hooves and stagger to the edge of the grounded raft with a tremor to his coat that only a long soak against a warm campfire would be able to fix. All he needed to do according to the book was to gather up some more dry driftwood and pile it on the coals of the fire from last night. There was just one problem.

The fire was still merrily burning away, with several fresh pieces of damp wood drying on top of the flames. He slowly looked around the early morning riverbank, but there was not a single pony in sight as far as the eye could see. A few birds calling in the distance and the low slugging whoosh of the waves from the river were the only noises around, leaving him just as alone on the shore as possible.

Still, somepony or something had added wood to the fire. Again.

He cautiously skirted around the merry blaze, checking the damp sand for hoofprints, but finding only his own. A growing tremble which was mainly from his chilly coat but also a little from the eerie situation made him huddle a little closer to the fire and cast suspicious glances in all directions while he warmed up. That long swim to the distant river shore was looking more inviting by the minute, except for the obvious problem of drowning in the process. The additional firewood could have been added by a passing pegasus, except Turpentine could not think of any of the social weatherponies he had known who would not at least stop to chat for a while. That only left… monsters.

Still, he had gone to sleep rather uneasily last night, thinking there had never been any terrifying monsters in any of the books he had read which built a campfire for their victims. Monsters were repelled by campfires, or at least that is what the camping books seemed to imply, even though they never really spelled it out. Then again, he had never actually been camping before.

The gear he had brought was the battered and ancient leftovers from the orphanage, where some donated camping equipment had been shoved into a corner of the storeroom for whenever a volunteer would want to take one of the orphans out into the back yard and pretend to be roughing it for a day or two. The only thing was since his home town of Tidewater was so focused on agriculture and so little on wilderness adventures, the only time Turpentine had really experienced the great outdoors, other than helping a farm pony plant or harvest, was on the walk down the road to or from that activity.

Trying to put the campfire into the category of ‘Wandering Helpful Pegasus,’ Turpentine returned to his day’s schedule. The books in the orphanage library had mentioned something called ‘backy, which he could not find, and coffee, which he could, so Turpentine had packed along the old dusty and dented coffeepot from the storeroom for his trip. If there was some sort of invisible non-track-creating creature out there who helped build campfires for little colts who were out on adventures, the least he could do was make them some coffee. Cowponies always seemed to be drinking it around their campfires and Mother Windrow had guarded her little pot with the zeal of a dragon curled around its hoard, so it must have been good.

He dipped out some river water and tried to duplicate what little of her morning ritual he could remember.

It could have gone better.

After a great deal of shuffling rocks around and wedging a few sticks into the fire at odd angles, he managed to get the coffee pot and what little water remained in it propped up at an angle which would probably not spill across the campfire again when his back was turned. The actual coffee smelled wonderful while he spooned a few scoops into the pot and stuck the lid back on, with only a little sand getting into the pot. It would be nice to have something warm in his belly after being out on the raft for several days with nothing to eat but dry alfalfa biscuits and a few rubbery fruit chews.

By the time everything was all arranged, he was feeling pretty good, even to the point of forgetting all about the strange self-fueling campfire. There was just a little bit of fog still clinging to the river’s surface in the morning light, which illuminated the far bank in shades of dark green and light orange. The Running of the Leaves was right around the corner next month, when the colors of the trees really burst into full display and Turpentine would spend most of his free time wandering around in deep appreciation, and occasionally into a deep hole when he failed to watch his step. The rest of the ponies around his home town were of a far more practical sort. They worked diligently to bring in the harvest without any more than a passing glance at the beautiful sights until the first flakes of snow began and the leaves had all been shaken off the trees.

He dug out his easel and arranged it on the raft before cautiously removing his precious set of oil-based paints and checking them for damage. When he left the orphanage, he had sealed up the watercolors in his portfolio in the most waterproof folder Turpentine had been able to afford, because the humidity and splash would have ruined them beyond any repair, but the oil paints in their locking case seemed relatively undamaged and his tattered collection of brushes still functioned.

At least that part of his planning had worked, even if the rest was temporarily on hold. As soon as he could get off this sandbar, it would only take another week before he would step off the raft at Baltimare with his paintings and worldly possessions on his back. Well, most of them. There was going to be quite a bit of extra gear left on the raft, because it had taken him several trips to load it up for his trip.

In any case, that was a minor detail. At that point in Turpentine’s journey, his planning was somewhat sketchy. Since the docks were so paintable with the schooners and big ships sailing around the harbor, he was positive there was going to be some artistically-inclined individual painting the scene. As a fellow artist, Turpentine would only have to walk up and ask for directions to the school. Maybe the artist would even introduce him to his or her patron, and Turpentine could start working on the same day while attending school. Patrons were supposed to be rich and generous like that, and living in an art studio would be a nice change, with a big bay window and lots of space to hang up his works.

Then the grounded raft shifted slightly under his hooves, and Turpentine was brought back to the cold and somewhat chilly reality. Rather than muse about his future, he took the slender pencil in his mouth and began to consider a sketch of the distant riverbank where it faded into the mist with the faint silhouette of a steam tug chuffing upstream.

When Turpentine was much younger, he had not understood the importance of the faint leaden lines on the canvas, and his paintings had suffered from a bad case of slump and wobble as a consequence. Long, slow strokes of the pencil always drew his attention away from whatever stressful situation he was living through and brought a little bit of peace to his spirit. At the orphanage or with whatever set of adoptive parents was trying to find a Turpentine-sized hole in their family for him, the quiet time of preparing to sketch an outline was always interrupted by some older pony who thought they were doing the right thing by checking on him. They did not understand why a period of contemplation was important to the finished picture, only that he tended to sit unmoving for long periods of time with a pencil in his teeth and a blank piece of canvas in front of him.

He touched the pencil to the stark white canvas and drew in short, gentle touches. Between the few puffy clouds in the sky to the dull browns of the raft, there was not enough of one constant color to warrant making a full toned background before starting, but putting three different wide swaths of brown, aqua and blue across the canvas first would have allowed each section a fuller depth of field. He had decided against it, because on the downside, it would keep him from painting any more on it until a day or two had passed in order to let it dry. Then again, he really did not have that much on his schedule for the day other than sweating and straining against the heavy raft while trying to get it dislodged from his inadvertent anchorage.

Painting was far more preferable, particularly when he could take his time to capture the moment exactly the way it should be.

There were times when Turpentine was just seized by the beauty of the moment for hours and tried his best to soak it all in, which was not much of an excuse when he was found standing in a half-plowed field with a butterfly perched on his nose. He was big enough to do the hard work around a farm, and could do it, except for distractions. It really was not his fault how butterflies seemed to like the colors in his cutie mark, or that he liked to watch them flutter about. Understanding how they flew and getting that sense of flight down on canvas was work, just as difficult as bucking an apple tree or pulling a plow.

A few butterflies would add a little color to the scene, and he doodled a couple of pencil dots where he planned on adding them after the background was complete. The mist curling up out of the relatively warmer river water and hitting the chill morning air would make painting the scene easier, much like painting Princess Celestia in a snowstorm. It was a perfectly peaceful time, where the cries of the birds and the gentle humid breeze off the water merged into an indescribable feeling of completion. He could feel the painting in his mind’s eye far sharper than any crude photograph or simple sketch, with the quiet lapping of the waves against the raft and the faint clink of a coffee pot as somepony poured themselves a hot drink to take away some of the fogbound chill of the early morning.

A startled yipe behind Turpentine sent the pencil in his teeth flying while his peaceful mood shattered. He made a frantic grab for the falling artist’s easel while behind him, the coffee pot clattered to the sand-covered ground and splattered little droplets of hot coffee in all directions. There was just a bare glance of something out of the corner of his eye when he whirled around, but the splash from the river made him hold a foreleg over his eyes, and by the time he had blinked away the resulting spray, whoever or whatever it was had vanished. The empty coffee pot was upended on the damp sand with his cup nearby, both seemingly flung away by whatever creature had made its escape back into the shimmering river, which still had a growing circle of large ripples from where it had vanished.

He stood there for a while, breathing heavily while looking around for a hefty piece of driftwood for a club in case the monster came back out of the river and attacked. The only thing handy was the coffee pot, but it scorched his lips when he bent over to pick it up and he wound up dropping it on a rock out of reflex, adding to its collection of dents.

“Kelpie,” he whispered. “But I thought they only lived in swamps.”

There had been a couple of books in the orphanage’s collection of donated cast-offs which had stories about kelpies, but they had not been very consistent about the way they treated their subject matter, other than to imply that disobedient foals who wandered into the Dark Woods would come to a nasty end.

They never had said anything about kelpies liking coffee.

Suddenly, the expanse of river around Turpentine seemed overwhelming, as if it were just waiting to surge over his little island and swallow him up to be eaten by a horde of pony-eating kelpies with long, sharp teeth and hideous claws. At least he had one defense against being eaten, even if it was really weird. He threw a few more chunks of driftwood onto the fire and found a piece of cloth so he could grab the coffee pot by the handle without being burnt. If there were kelpies in the river, and they liked the taste of coffee more than tender young colt, he could keep brewing them coffee until he could flag down a passing tugboat shoving barges up or down the river.

Of course, there was one big problem with his plan.

Still holding the cloth-wrapped handle of the coffee pot in his teeth, Turpentine crept up closer to the water’s edge. This was always where the hero’s faithful sidekick or unnamed traveling companion would be attacked and dragged screaming under the waves to an unseen end, sometimes with a bloom of red in the water that only sealed their ultimate fate. He darted forward and scooped up a pot full of water, nearly trampling the campfire on his panicked retreat from the river. The worst part was looking down into the coffee pot and seeing just how much sand he had scooped up with the muddy water.

“Oh… buck it.”

He plunked his rear down in the sand and stared out across the shimmering water while looking for the kelpie, then got up in order to remove the sandbur he had just sat on. Settling down a little more cautiously this time, Turpentine resumed his observation over his anything but silent surroundings. It was remarkably calming. His initial terror at the underwater creature’s presence gradually tapered off into a wariness tempered by the realization that it was a small splash, and anything really dangerous would have been able to gobble him up last night. Perhaps the kelpie was very young and inexperienced, and was even now fleeing back to its parents, gibbering in fright at the terrifying pony it had encountered on the Big Dry.

At least it would have somewhere to run.

While his heartbeat slowed and the sun started to warm the surface of his coat, Turpentine could feel the treacherous little tremor in his chest start up again, just as it had when he first pushed the raft away from the shore and watched the little town he had grown up in dwindle away in the distance. He sat there for a long time while the sun slowly climbed up into the sky and the mist burned off the water’s surface. No kelpies or other monsters appeared, although in the distance he could see another tugboat slowly chugging down the river with a set of barges trailing behind it, and as the morning wore on, another tugboat with a set of barges chugging even slower upstream.

The river did not care what happened to him. Nopony cared.

Leaning back on his hind legs, Turpentine threw the sand-filled coffee pot just as far out into the river as he could. It bobbed once before vanishing beneath the sun-glistening ripples, leaving Turpentine feeling oddly naked. He really did not know why he threw the useless thing, just that after so many days and nights out on the raft, his coat itched with a damp chill, his belly seemed as empty as a tomb while his mouth tasted like something had died in it, and he was sick to death of the taste of sand. He just wanted to go home, back to the orphanage and crawl into his bed where everypony thought he was a lazy little colt and eventually some bean farmer with a high tolerance for his behavior would adopt him and he would spend the rest of his life being miserable in the middle of a big pile of food.

A few grains of the everpresent sand must have gotten into his eyes, because they welled up with tears that only got wetter when he tried to brush them away with his sand-covered hooves. Big colts did not cry, no matter how many times they get brought back to the orphanage with those kind yet cutting words, “He just doesn’t fit in with our family.” At least there was nopony here to see his embarrassment when the tears began to wash down his cheeks.

Or at least so he thought, until he heard a very small voice from the river say, “I’m sorry.”

3 - Drowning in Air

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Drowning in Air

"I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Turpentine looked up despite himself, blinking away the tears and shooting a nervous glance around the island while he looked for the source of the quiet voice. It had not sounded like a vicious monster, even though the storybooks back at the orphanage were filled with tales of monsters like kelpies who preferred to make gloating speeches over their helpless victims. In fact, the small and timid voice had barely sounded at all. The only clue to the location of the speaking creature was a round ripple out in the river where some fish or other creature had just made a dramatic motion and stirred the surrounding water.

The ripples died out, then began to move again when the coffee pot emerged out of the water, floating in a pale green aura of unicorn magic. It drifted a little while it moved towards Turpentine, who caught it in his hooves out of instinct.

“What are you?” he called out across the surface of the river.

There was no response.

The relative silence of the river sloshing against the raft and the cry of birds in the distance grated on his patience, but also his inherent manners. After all, whatever it was out in the river had returned his coffee pot, now filled with sand-free water. Despite his ongoing confusion, he added, “Thank you for the coffee pot back, by the way.”

Who or whatever it was who had spoken must not have gone through the same lectures from Mother Windrow as Turpentine had been subjected to, because there was a distinct lack of any “You’re welcome” as there should have been.

“Did you want any coffee?” he added after a period of relative silence, which also followed the question as well.

Giving a seemingly-casual shrug, Turpentine bent over and began to get out the coffee grounds to brew another pot again. The situation had changed, and he bent to his task with a silent resolve that several families with disassembled clocks or other loose pieces of carefully examined farm equipment knew very well.

Turpentine’s normally placid exterior concealed an itching curiosity, driven to find out what was underneath that rock or behind that tree and capture the mystery on pigment and paper. If the mysterious fire-builder and coffee-drinker was not dangerous, that meant they were unknown, and if there was one thing which could drive Turpentine into doing the most dangerous things, it was the possibility of discovering something new. Adding a few new pieces of driftwood to the fire and arranging a couple of flat rocks allowed the coffee pot to be propped up where it could get warm again, and also gave him one additional advantage.

Bait.

Turpentine returned back to the raft and fussed with his art supplies, retrieving the pencil and making a big deal of rearranging the easel. His previous tears of frustration were only a memory now, leaving only a few damp spots on his face which would dry fairly quickly now that the sun was up. A cheerful tune almost forced itself out of his lips while he worked, but he restrained himself to a few whistled notes before settling back down with the pencil and a new blank canvas.

This time, he had a slightly different subject to paint.

The tiny mirror clipped onto his easel gave Turpentine a fairly good view of the campfire with the warming coffee pot behind him, and he hummed quietly to himself while he drew in the mirror-reversed scene in thin pencil lines. A good artist is patient about catching the scene they want, and Turpentine considered himself to be a very good artist. Still, he had advanced to doing cross-hatch shading on his sketch and was actually considering just leaving it as a pencil drawing without any paint when the faint green glow he was expecting formed around the perking coffee pot.

He scooted the easel slightly to one side, then a little more to get the mirror pointed out at the calm river where he suspected the anonymous creature was manipulating his coffee pot. At first, he thought the dark patch of what seemed to be a waterweed of some sort in the river was being used by the unicorn to hide him or herself, but after a little inspection and squinting into the mirror he determined it was actually a waterlogged mane with a small green horn sticking up in the middle of it and a pair of emerald-green eyes to either side.

It took only a second to flip over the canvas and begin scribbling on the back. He had no idea what the creature or pony was, but it was fascinating to see the way his chipped and battered cup came drifting over and she lifted her head out of the concealment of the river enough to blow on the hot coffee. From the size of her horn, the set of her jaw and shape of her face, she was a very young unicorn, but what she was doing under the river’s surface both baffled and intrigued him. The only unicorns in his tiny village seemed to hate the idea of getting wet, except for baths, which oddly-enough they made into a daily ritual.

He drew with quick short strokes, using a pencil to outline the little unicorn holding his chipped coffee cup before diving for his oil paints. The colors were going to be tricky, because the green of her coat reflected off the water into a different shade of green, both of which did not match anything in his fairly limited selection, but he dropped a couple of dabs onto his color palette and started mixing with repeated glances into the small mirror for comparison.

“What’cha dooin?”

“Shh,” he muttered around the handle of the palette knife. “I’ve almost got this.” He tilted the mirror down some more to keep the little unicorn centered in the mirror before grabbing a fine-tip brush. The thrill of creation filled his head with a loud buzzing while he dabbed and stroked, letting his natural talent flow through pigment. After being so miserable on the raft and unable to find relief, painting the little unicorn was catharsis for his soul. Blues and darker greens found their way onto his palette while he painted her eyes and the way she reflected in the murky water, then a dark violet mixed with some white to lighten it for her damp sunlit mane.

Emotions were always the hardest to capture on paint and canvas, but easier when there were fewer of them to pick from. Her fluid expression reflected regret and anticipation mixed with fear and curiosity, making a muddle of the little unicorn’s face and perked-up ears. As much as he wished she would only be caught up in one emotion at a time, he found himself drawn to finer brushes and delicate shifts of hue while he worked under the hot sun. Experience allowed the perfectionist inside him free rein over the work until he caught himself reversing tiny details, at which point he drew back and switched to a broader brush for the ripples in the water around her. Perfection of detail was an unachievable goal. Far better to hint and suggest with shadows and the bright colors of sunlight reflecting the scene, while leaving artificial perfection to the photographers.

He was gently brushing the surrounding blue-green water out so the colors would fade into the whitewashed canvas when he became aware of how he had been constantly nudging the mirror on the easel further and further down every time the little unicorn had crept closer and closer to the raft. A cautious peek behind him showed she was resting her head on one of the logs, nearly within touching distance of his leg.

“Is that me?” she asked.

“Um…” Turpentine fidgeted a little and kept brushing the pale blues and browns of the water around the unicorn in question, wishing that he had used the smooth canvas-covered front of one of his flats for the painting instead of the rougher back. “Yeah,” he added once he backed up enough so his words would not cause the brush in his mouth to leave an unsightly smear on the painting. “It could be better.”

“I didn’t know I looked pretty like that. It’s very nice.” The little unicorn floated the coffee cup up onto the logs of the raft with a distasteful grimace. “Lots better than your coffee.”

“I don’t know how to make coffee. It looked easy enough when Mother Windrow did it,” said Turpentine. He put the brush into the paint thinner and swished it a little before wiping it on the rag. Picking up the coffee cup, he took a sip of the cooled liquid inside and promptly spit it out, although fortunately not on his fresh painting. “Yuck!”

The little unicorn by the side of the raft mirrored his expression. “Mister Baron Gaberdine never lets me try his coffee. He says it will stunt my growth. I don’t know how they can drink it when my mother visits.”

As if suddenly nervous, the little unicorn lit her horn up and concentrated. The light revealed a glittering ring of silver around the base of her horn, mostly camouflaged by the dark violet mane, and Turpentine felt a sudden urge to get his smallest paintbrush out of the soaking in order to add the detail before the paint dried.

“Whew,” she said, turning off her magic.

“What?” asked Turpentine.

“Nothing. It’s just… I need to go.” Before Turpentine could even get his mouth open, the little unicorn vanished in a dark swirl of the river water, but just when he had figured out what he should have said, there was another swirl of water at the edge of his raft and she reappeared.

“When my mother shows up, can you tell her you didn’t see me?”

“Your mother?” Turpentine lurched forward when the little filly vanished under the river again, but she was gone, and all of the calling he did out into the river did not bring her back for the rest of the day.

* * ☽ * *

When the moon rose over the scrubby trees bordering the river and their long, skeletal shadows replaced the warm sunshine, Turpentine huddled under his thin wool blanket again. Beside him, the painting had been carefully arranged with a cloth draped over it and spacers to keep it from touching damp paint, because in the outside air, there was always the chance of a beetle or moth getting stuck on it before the drying process completed. He had tried to do a few more sketches, but the humidity had made the papers of his sketchbook stick together or tear under the pencil tip, and he really did not feel like wasting any more of his expensive oil painting canvases on just drawings. Besides, his heart was not in it.

The little unicorn he had seen in the morning remained a mystery to him, which made an itch tunnel into the back of his mind and refuse to let go. She could have been some sort of nature sprite or water spirit, but not likely. There had been a sense of reality around her, seeming more real than the itchy sand or the damp, chill breeze of the evening. When she had vanished into the water, he had even seen the briefest glance of a cutie mark, looking much like a cloud. An illusion or a nature creature would not have a cutie mark, or at least he did not think so.

As he lay there and thought, listening to the soft hiss of the waves against the sand and the cries of the birds, being marooned did not seem that bad. Not that he would turn down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of warm milk in exchange for a few of his remaining dry alfalfa biscuits, but he was starting to think he had never really wanted to go to Baltimare in the first place.

The trip had started out as a futile gesture after the fourth adoptive family had finally given up on making him into a farmer and returned him to the orphanage. Mother Windrow had been properly sympathetic to the family but possibly a little glad to have him back in the house. It was not that large of an orphanage because the farming village was very small, and whenever he was out with a family, she was all alone.

As an old mare, Mother Windrow had not been very good company for the young colt, but she was at least somepony who seemed to appreciate his paintings. The house was filled with his starting paintings, hung alongside the small mementos which had been left behind by most of the orphans who had passed through her small home, but that did not help him make friends. In fact, if there had been another orphan to share the bedroom with, Turpentine would not have been so lonely. He might not have even left the small town if he had not found the raft drifting along next to the bank, so in a way, it was the stupid wood’s fault.

“Psst. Turpentine, are you sleeping?”

Caught in that twilight area between actually sleeping and only thinking about sleeping, Turpentine jolted awake. “Yes,” he hissed back. “I haven’t seen your daughter.”

The response he got was a childish giggle while the little unicorn popped her head up over the edge of the raft to give him a mischievous grin. “Not me, silly. When my mother shows up. She’s off talking to Mister Baron Gaberdine now, so we’re safe.”

“Oh.” Turpentine blinked owlishly in the moonlit darkness. “Who’s Mister Baron Gaberdine, and who is your mother? Actually, who are you?”

“Me?” The little unicorn splashed a few times beside his raft, sounding somewhat like a fish for a moment. “I’m Ripple. My mother is Pearl, and Mister Baron Gaberdine is my friend. Are you really an orphan?”

“Yes,” said Turpentine in a long, drawn-out fashion as he rearranged himself on top of the sandy wool blanket. “My mother passed away a few years ago, and I never knew who my father was. How did you know I’m an orphan?”

“Well, um…” Ripple fidgeted and used her magic to tuck back a section of her mane which kept falling over her eyes, trapping it under a small gold and silver maneclip with symbols of both the sun and moon on it before she continued. “Mister Baron Gaberdine got told about a runaway orphan from some town upriver, so he told my mother and she told my aunts, and one of them spotted you here. They watched really careful to make sure you weren’t hurt or anything and went off to tell Gabby, because that’s what he likes to be called, especially by my mother.”

“Oh. The ponies back home weren’t worried about me, were they?” Turpentine could feel his ears droop as the familiar crushing sensation of failure swept over him. “I didn’t mean to make them worry. I left a note, telling Mother Windrow I was going to Baltimare.”

Ripple let out a little gasp and shifted positions until her entire head and shoulders were above the raft edge. “You’re going to Baltimare too? That is so neat! When Mister Baron Gaberdine gets Castle Paradise all fixed up, he said he’d take me there and show me all about it. Of course, I gotta get good with my transformational magic first. Otherwise they’ll just be upset, like the ponies here.”

Turpentine’s mind may have been swimming with the suddenness of it all, but he cautiously took a step backwards in the shadows covering his raft. In some of the stories he had read, monsters able to take the shape of ponies came out in the darkness of night, using their magic to capture and enslave unsuspecting victims. “Transformation magic?”

“Yeah.” The little unicorn or whatever it was seemed unhappy about his retreat and sunk back down further into the water so only her horn and the tops of her eyes were visible above the raft’s edge, but she did not say anything else. She really did not seem very scary that way, but Turpentine was still a little wary.

“Are you a monster?” asked Turpentine. “A really scary monster like a changeling or a kelpie?” What little of Ripple’s puzzled expression he could see over the edge of the raft made him add, “That’s a bunch of vines that pretends to be a pony until it can drag a victim into the water and drown him.”

The little ‘unicorn’ popped her head back up and frowned in the moonlight. “What?”

“Well, in Captain Hornblatt and the Seven Seas, Lanyard the Cabin Colt was trapped in a sea cave guarded by a huge pile of seaweed that turned into a huge tentacled monster whenever he tried to escape.” Turpentine furrowed his brow in thought. “I tried to draw a picture of it, but the book didn’t give a very good description.”

“Oh, those aren’t kelpies, they’re just Ambling Weeds,” said Ripple. “They’re not as scary when you realize you can eat them. What are changelings? Do they show up in a book too?”

“They’re like this bug-pony thing that turns into a pony to steal their love. The newspapers had a bunch of pictures of them. Just a second.” Turpentine dove into his bags and began to rummage around. “Sorry about this,” he muttered, trying to leaf through his folders of art projects without getting any more sand in them. “I was in a watercolor phase, and I don’t want them to get damp.”

“You need a waterproofing spell on them.” The little unicorn scooted a little further up on the edge of the raft and held her hornlight up so he could see what he was looking for. “Mister Baron Gaberdine showed me how to waterproof things. I can even do whole books now so I can read back at home.”

“Really?” Turpentine looked back with a Power Mare watercolor hanging from his lips. “That would be handy, since you like swimming so much. Are you really some sort of water monster?”

“I s-suppose,” said Ripple with a wince. “All the other ponies I’ve tried to talk to run away and scream.” She swallowed once and shifted her shoulders to put one forehoof up on top of the raft.

Only it was not a hoof.

Ripple’s pale green coat only extended down to the elbow joint, thinning as it went and slowly being replaced by a thin film of glittering green scales where the leg widened into a flipper. It was wide and smooth, cupped a little towards the back and broadening up near the tips where an ordinary pony would have a hoof. Instead, there was only a narrow ridge of a somewhat harder substance extending out across the bottom edge of the flipper and making a little clicking noise when Ripple placed her weight on it.

“That is so cool,” breathed Turpentine while the watercolor drawing of the buxom superheroine fluttered unnoticed to the ground behind him. Moving very slowly in order not to spook his new subject, he moved closer and put his nose almost on top of the strange appendage. “You’re a seapony. I’ve always wanted to see a seapony.”

Ripple giggled as a little tension escaped. “You’re silly. Do you… like the way I look?”

“Yeah.” Turpentine moved his hoof along the strange flipper, nudging it and trying to peer underneath it in the light of Ripple’s horn. “I thought seaponies were just a myth. What do your back legs look like? Can I look at your tail? How do you swim?”

* * ☽ * *

To Turpentine’s intense disappointment, the only portion of Ripple’s anatomy she felt comfortable with him seeing was what she had hesitantly already shown him, but after a few minutes of discouraged internal grumbling, he realized that if their roles were reversed, he really would not be all that comfortable with having a filly looking around his coltparts either.

There were probably cooties involved.

He had to paint her. Well, paint her again, only better this time. If he had a proper studio with lighting and supplies, he would be able to make a few case studies and sketches of her body to get the proportions right, particularly if he could watch her swim. There was no way to do any of that in the middle of the night, on a raft, without the proper materials, but at least he could talk to her now without her vanishing into the river.

And to his intense pleasure, she seemed just as curious about his life as he was about hers. They settled down on the raft, almost nose to nose while they swapped stories and talked about little things. A few more sticks of driftwood on the fire made a warm light for their conversation and a piercing regret for a lack of marshmallows or chocolate for s'mores. For the first time in years, Turpentine felt… he wasn’t sure. The raft was just as uncomfortable under his chest, and the cool damp wind of the evening just as suffocating, but while they shared his insect repellent and each took a corner of the worn wool blanket to ward off the chill, he felt a warm glow he had not felt since the last memories of his mother.

They talked for a long, long time until they fell asleep in the moonlight.

4 - Part Of My World

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Part Of My World

"Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the day-light come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Morning in the small town where Turpentine had grown up was a bustling time long before the sun would rise. Alarm clocks would ring, roosters would crow, and by the time he had shaken himself out of bed and dragged down to the kitchen table, there was always a hefty collection of the breakfast fuel a vigorous earth pony required to face the day.

Well, provided he had not waited too long before getting out of bed, and then it was a slice of toast and a push out the door before morning chores.

This morning, Turpentine was really missing toast. The glow of pre-dawn sunlight had gently roused him from some sort of really odd dream involving a huge dark pegasus calling out his name. The gentle voice of the strange creature in his dreams did not feel frightening or uncomfortable, but it was quickly forgotten once the rumbling in his empty belly made him stretch and yawn. Ripple had not moved from her warm position beside him, with her dry coat feeling so much warmer now than when she had first flopped somewhat seal-like onto the raft last night.

Since she was still sleeping and it did not seem too intrusive, he took a quick look at her cutie mark in the light of day. It was rather plain and ordinary compared to his colorful palette and brush, as all it appeared to be was a loose cloud of some sort. She had said it was steam from when she was helping Baron Gaberdine fix a steam engine a few months ago, but it still just looked like a cloud to him, and no help at all at getting breakfast.

“Hey.” He nudged the sleeping seapony beside him to no avail. Even pulling off the blanket and exposing her pale green coat to the cool morning breeze did nothing more than make her snore a little louder. His easel was still set up, and the scene would have made a good humorous sketch from the way she was splayed out on her chest with all four limbs extended in all directions and her thick tail slightly curled on the deck of the raft behind, but…

His stomach interrupted. It was very insistent. And loud.

After draping the tattered wool blanket over Ripple and taking a moment to consider just how much his world could change in a day, Turpentine dug into his meager supplies and considered the three dry alfalfa biscuits at the bottom of the collapsed cardboard box. While he chewed on one, it brought to mind the conversation of last night, and Ripple’s rather circular verbal maneuvers whenever the concept of seapony food had been raised. Regular pony food was a considerably different and more welcome topic. Apparently, Baron Gaberdine set a fine table for breakfast whenever Ripple and her mother showed up to eat, because she had gone into great detail about oranges and squirty grapefruit alongside buttered fruit muffins, waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, hay fries, and all sorts of delicious things Turpentine had never even heard of, including something called zapapple jam, which was so fantastically delicious that it bubbled on your tongue while eating and made the inside of your mouth tingle for the rest of the day.

It only served to make him more hungry.

There were five bits in the bottom of Turpentine’s paint box which he had been saving for some quinacridone red, but right now some bright red apples would fill a hole in his gut far better than the hole in his paint selection. All he really needed was to somehow break the raft free of the island, drift down the river to a town, get off the raft, buy the apples, somehow get back onto the raft before it got away, and share them with Ripple. He munched on the dry and somewhat sandy alfalfa biscuit instead. Back at Mother Windrow’s house, he would have mostly been eating oatmeal, thick bowls of the stuff with a small fleck of brown sugar and assorted bits of fruits or vegetables to make it taste less like oatmeal. With a pang of regret, Turpentine remembered leaving behind a big container of the stuff in the hopes that something better would turn up. Anything would have been better, but right now, all he had was nothing but alfalfa biscuits, well, a biscuit, and oatmeal was sounding really good.

Ripple stirred from her sleep and looked upward at him with a bleary-eyed blink. “Wha? Is it morning already? Why is there blanket?” With a wriggle to get out from under the warm wool, the young seapony gave a long stretch and a wide yawn, which showed a few more sharp teeth than Turpentine had really expected. “I didn’t realize it was morning already. Do you have anything for breakfast?”

“Um…” Turpentine held up the dry biscuit. “I’ve got one left.”

Ripple gave the biscuit a cautious nibble and stuck her tongue out. “Bleah. You can keep it.” She levitated the biscuit back, giving it a mournful look much as if she had just remembered something tragic in her past.

“Are you sure?” Turpentine gave the nibbled biscuit a second look. There didn’t appear to be any filly germs on it, but there still was a little sand, and it really had not seemed all that appetizing in the first place. Although it did bring up a question he had been wondering about, ever since he had discovered the river grass on the sandbar island was mostly cocklebur.

“Do you know anywhere around here where I can get some food?” he asked, with great hesitation and the unspoken addition of “And not fish” because of the conversation they had last night.

The little seapony’s ears drooped and she shuffled to the edge of the raft. “No. You probably…” Ripple vanished off the edge of the raft with a deceptively-small splash and giving Turpentine a brief glimpse of the way her thin tail and hind flippers fit together into what appeared at first glance to be a larger solid tail. She surfaced after a moment and swam to the deep edge of the raft, with the river water streaming off her face looking almost like tears.

It gave Turpentine an odd feeling under his ribs to see Ripple rest her chin on the log and look away from him, almost as if he had done something terrible by offering her that dry alfalfa biscuit. He moved forward and crouched down next to her before whispering, “I have a couple of packages of hot chocolate powder, if that would help. I was going to save them until I reached Baltimare, but we could drink them now, since you’re hungry.”

She shook her head at first, then paused, looking at the rising sun. “Actually,” she started with a gradual rising of her ears and some of the earlier eagerness coming back into her voice. Ripple lit up her horn and the slim silver ring around the base took flight, floating over the raft and landing around the handle of one of the brushes he had gotten out to dry. “I have an idea for breakfast, but you need to trust me.”

“Okay.” Turpentine eyed the little seapony as she paddled backwards for a short distance, leaving a wide bit of river water between them. “What are you doing?”

“You have to trust me,” she called back. “Lean out over the river.”

“Like this?” Turpentine moved up to the edge of the raft and looked down. The water was fairly clear, but he could not see the sandy bottom of the river from here, and that made him nervous.

“Farther. I mean further. More,” said Ripple, splashing water in all directions in excitement.

“I don’t understand,” said Turpentine. He did not see anything under the water that looked even remotely like food, but Ripple seemed to know what she was doing. She was pretty smart, for a younger filly, so maybe she had tucked away a waterproof picnic basket on the river bottom. He leaned just the smallest bit more out over the water to get a better look when there was a sharp pain in his rear end, and he pitched forward into the deep water.

* * ✹ * *

The shock of going face-first into the water was only amplified by the way Ripple fairly streaked through the water in his direction, her horn lit up with pale green magic. Turpentine would never have admitted it, but he screamed as he flailed about in panic, frantically attempting to reach the receding shimmer of the river’s surface. He was still screaming when his hooves touched the sand on the river bottom and he realized he had taken several breaths while not drowning as he thought he should have. He stood there and panted for a few moments, trying to get his wits back while Ripple circled with the terrified expression of somepony who thought they had such a good idea until it had gone horribly wrong.

“Are you okay?” she asked once he had calmed down, or at least was standing with his hooves outstretched in the riverbottom sand. He was still upset, but the initial jolt of adrenaline and panic had begun to recede almost the instant he noticed the way he could breathe in through his mouth, but the water passed out through thin slits between his ribs, much like gills. The logical and very earth pony portion of his mind wanted to drive his legs forward, up the slope of wet sand until he was all the way above the water again in blessed dry air, but the artist in him was entranced by the way the bright sunlight shimmered down through the surface waves, bringing motion and sparkle to everything it touched, including the young seapony.

Where Ripple was so awkward and seal-like above the water, down here she was a beautiful fluid. Her tangled mane flowed backwards down her neck every time she gave little almost-unconscious flicks of her tail and hind legs, which drove her forward and around and above until Turpentine felt as if he really needed to sit down for a while.

Or float. Floating was good.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” asked Ripple, drifting forward until she was nearly at the end of his nose with little bubbles still coming out of her coat and floating upwards toward the surface. “Mister Baron Gaberdine taught me the water breathing spell under the restriction that I never, never, never used it on anypony except in an emergency when they fell into the water. He even made me do this thing with a cupcake when I promised.”

“You pushed me,” said Turpentine, a little stunned at the way he could still talk while breathing water.

Ripple crossed her front flippers. “Well, if you had just fallen into the water, I wouldn’t have needed to.” She paused, looking at Turpentine with a hopeful expression. “Did you still want breakfast?”

Turpentine’s stomach did, and took that moment to declare its intentions with great volume.

“I’m still mad at you,” he grumbled while trying his best to be honest. “A little. Breakfast would help.”

“Great! Come on!” There was a swirl of water and Ripple was gone, leaving Turpentine with only a vague idea of which direction she had gone. A gust of silt blew into his nose while Turpentine tried to figure out which legs to wave to swim, and by the time he had quit sneezing, Ripple was back. “Come on?” she added in a rather impatient tone.

He waved a hoof at her. “I’m coming, I’m coming. Just let me get organized.” The water breathing spell had only given Turpentine the same gills he could see now on Ripple’s sides as she huffed in frustration at his slow pace, not her paddle-like flippers or tail. By moving his hooves in sort-of a circle, he could make slow forward progress, but it only caused Ripple to become more frustrated while she darted and swirled around him.

“We’ll starve before we get there,” huffed Ripple, blowing a little water up past her nose to make her mane swirl and the gold and silver maneclip bounce on her forehead. “Maybe if I pushed you.”

“No, no, nono! Eeep!” protested Turpentine as she nudged him on the rear, making him suddenly sympathetic with the way Ripple had not wanted him closely examining the same end of her. Panic precipitated thought in his noggin and he pointed up above him. “How about using that instead?”

* * ✹ * *

Their solution to Turpentine’s slow swimming speed was a little scary and a lot exciting. A short chunk of the rope being used to hold the raft together was untied, and Ripple gripped one end in her teeth while Turpentine held onto the other. He could not see or hear a thing while she swam, because the water roared past his ears almost like a waterfall and he had to keep his eyes tightly closed. Occasionally she would change directions, and once she even splashed up out of the water in a long, shallow dive that made Turpentine feel the light scrape of an underwater sandbar under his belly and the tingle of pinpricks all over his coat when they reentered the water with a massive splash and a suspicious giggle from somewhere in front of him.

She was just as fast underwater as Turpentine was slow. Faster, most likely.

Ripple eventually slowed to a halt in a tall forest of weeds which stretched far up above their heads. She spit out the rope end and laughed, rolling around in mid-water while holding her belly, which after a due amount of panting for breath, Turpentine duplicated.

“That was fun!” said Ripple once she could breathe again. “Every time I looked back, you looked like you inhaled a minnow!”

Turpentine snorted and coughed, waving a hoof as a small speck of silver sped out of his nose. “How did you guess?”

“Ewww,” she said, wrinkling up her nose. “Booger-minnows. Come on. Let’s eat.”

The water plants were delicious, although Ripple had to show Turpentine how to eat around the little bladders that supported them in the water because of the tragic potential for farting all day long. They laughed and played in the weeds between bites, with Ripple showing him how to best move his inefficient hooves to swim ‘like Gabby’ in the warm but slightly murky water. It was a side of the world Turpentine had never seen before, and he marveled as Ripple showed him the rest of the underwater meadow with all of the colorful little shells and snails scattered across the rocky bottom and excitable frogs who could be poked from the bottom and made to jump in giant leaps, much like springs. She even showed Turpentine her baby pet turtle named Aspidochelone, who really didn’t do much other than float in the shallows and sleep.

Afterwards, they had a game of tag, although Ripple had to use only one front flipper in order for the game to be even nearly fair, and by noon, they had worked their way over to a swampy area at the edge of the river where a small tributary flowed in, and a collection of spicy water peppers grew in huge random blotches.

“You’ve got it made,” said Turpentine, reclining on a scraggly tuft of water peppers which had been too tough to eat but made a perfect cushion. He had spent so much time underwater today that being on the surface like this, even though his soggy rump was still under the surface, felt oddly exhilarating and risky, with every pollen-filled breath being stuffed full of promise. “I mean you can go wherever you want, always have enough to eat, you’ve got a mother who loves you and who knows how many aunts, because you keep talking about them.” He brushed some pollen off his nose and burped, a deep and resounding noise much like a bullfrog. “This is great.”

“Yeah, it is.” There was just a moment where a dark cloud of depression shadowed Ripple’s happy face, then her cheerful sunny disposition came back out and she promptly splashed him with her tail. “Ha! You’re all wet!”

“So are you!” Turpentine attempted to duplicate Ripple’s movement with his own pony tail and sprayed a wide arc of water all around the swampy area, which of course led to retribution, and retaliation, or re-tail-ation as he remarked and got a much more effective tail full of water in return for his trouble. In the end, they both collapsed on their backs into an abused stack of the water weed which had been somewhat diminished by their efforts and laughed at each other while basking in the sunlight.

“Mother would throw a fit if she saw us,” said Ripple with an additional splash from her tail. “She says a proper filly does not show her tail to any colt without the approval of her father.”

Turpentine returned the wet tail splash with somewhat less enthusiasm while he wriggled his shoulders to get his back into a more comfortable position against the plant roots. The topic was painful, but the sun was warm and the shallow wetland plants comfortable, plus Ripple knew what it was like to be missing a parent. “Yeah. That’d be kinda difficult for both of us.”

“I know.” Ripple splashed him again and held her tail up afterwards, giving her the appearance of some five-legged pony waving their limbs around. “I don’t know why my mother has such a thing about tails. I mean she always has problems with her pony tail before she goes to see Mister Gabby. It’s like she doesn’t know which end to point at him.”

Turpentine scoffed and waved a hoof. “It’s something… well… You’re too young,” he stated in his best authoritative voice.

“I’m almost nine,” said Ripple. “I’ve got my cutie mark and everything. Besides, you said you were almost eleven, and that’s only two years older than me. And fillies are more ‘mothionally mature than colts, or at least that’s what Mister Baron Gaberdine says.”

“Well…” Turpentine shifted positions to give his morning breakfast and noon lunch a little free space to digest. He had time, and it was a good opportunity to show just how much smarter he was than the little filly. “Mother Windrow has gentlecolt callers.”

“Oooo,” said Ripple, rolling over on her belly and looking at him with sparkling green eyes. “Does she do up her mane in a ribbon and spend hours looking at her reflection, trying to get her face right?”

“That’s part of it,” admitted Turpentine. “I have to be on my best behavior at dinner, and she gives me this list of questions I’m permitted to ask. It’s not a very long list,” he added. “And then after I get sent to bed, they sit out on the porch and talk.” He lowered his voice. “Sometimes, I think there’s kissing involved.”

Ripple giggled and lowered her voice also. “Mother doesn’t want me to know, but sometimes she kisses Mister Gaberdine too. I don’t know why they try to keep it a secret. They spend most of their time at breakfast not looking at each other, even though he dresses in his best tie and she wears a fresh flower behind her ear. Then, if I leave early and go out to play in the lagoon…” She puckered up and made smooching noises while fluttering her long eyelashes, which sent the two of them into hysterics again.

“Adults are weird,” said Turpentine.

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Ripple. “I wish I could stay here and play with you forever. You’re a lot more fun than my stodgy old aunts.”

The idea set Turpentine’s mind reluctantly into action again, which he really did not want. Then again, it was an idea which had been scratching around at the back of his head all day anyway, and his mind was comfortably occupied with a full belly too, so he did not have to think too hard about it.

“I’m probably stuck on that sandbar for a few days,” he admitted. “Until I get the raft off it, I suppose I could spend some time with you. After all,” he added with a low belch, “you know where all the good places to eat are around here.”

“Really?” Ripple looked up with a happy grin, although it faded a little as she looked upstream. “I’ll miss you when you go.”

That warm feeling in Turpentine’s chest felt a chill breeze blow by, and he tried to shake it off with a grin of his own. “When I get established in Baltimare, I’ll make paintings of all the exciting places there and bring them back to show you. Then when Baron Gaberdine teaches you how to use your magic to change into a unicorn shape, he can bring you by to visit. It’s a big place, all full of ponies to see and sights to visit, like the docks and the art museums and the zoo, where they have all kinds of exotic anim—”

He broke into a quick coughing fit to hide his blunder, but Ripple only splashed him with her tail again. “You mean like in Quackers Goes To The Zoo where she meets the monkeys and the walrussesses and the eagles? That sounds fun. My mother says that seaponies really don’t have zoos. She says it would be difficult to know just which side of the fence all of the creatures would go on.”

“They could take turns,” suggested Turpentine. He snuggled down into the sun-warmed weeds next to Ripple and closed his eyes for a moment. “You know, you’re pretty cool. For a filly, that is. I’ve never had a filly as a friend before. The fillies in school just thought I was weird. There were a couple of unicorn colts in a family who tried to adopt me, but they never really liked me either.”

“You’re pretty cool too, Turpentine,” said Ripple, putting her head on his sun-warmed shoulder. They stayed there on their backs in the noon sun for a while as the breeze dried the parts of their coats that remained above the water and the swamp insects droned around them, still keeping their distance from the insect repellent Turpentine had so diligently applied to both of them last night. He was just nodding off for a brief nap when Ripple abruptly asked, “Do you remember your mother?”

“Huh?” The question felt much like a punch to the gut, reminding him again of how much Ripple tended to the unexpected. At least she had not bumped him into deep water again, but the pain was worse than catching some sand in the thin slots of the spell-generated gills across his chest. “Yeah,” he eventually said. “I try not to, because it hurts so much, but sometimes when Mother Windrow would wake me up in the morning, I would hope and pray that it was all a bad dream, and that she had come back to pick me up. I drew some pictures of my mother back then, but they don’t really look like her.”

Turpentine wriggled over onto one shoulder and looked at Ripple, who seemed to be lost in thought. She used her magic to pick up a thin blade of water pepper weed and waved it in front of her like a conductor in front of an orchestra. “I don’t remember my father at all. Mother says I was very small when he went off to the Lightless Deep and we had to flee. He was big and strong and brave… and dead.” She snuggled a little closer as a cool Fall breeze gusted across them. “Do you think Mister Baron Gaberdine would make a good father?”

“Uh… He sounds nice.” Turpentine waved away a curious dragonfly. “I’m not really a good one to ask. My record on finding new parents stinks as bad as my skill at driving rafts.” He frowned in thought, holding up a hoof next to Ripple, but dismissed the question after considering it for a while. After all, Gaberdine sounded like a nice seapony, and Pearl sounded like a nice seapony. Maybe they could make a nice family for Ripple while Turpentine went to Baltimare.

“I’m just worried,” said Ripple, holding up her foreleg next to Turpentine’s and looking at the way they contrasted. “I mean, what if my mother likes Mister Gaberdine so much that they forget about me?”

Turpentine snorted and bumped the back of his hoof against Ripple’s flipper. “How could she possibly forget about such a cool little filly as you? Maybe they’ll have a whole school of little seaponies and you can be a big sister over all of them.”

“Like tadpoles, only not for eating,” said Ripple, scooping an errant tadpole out of the water next to her and holding it over to Turpentine by cupping it in the hollow of her flipper. “Did you want one?”

“Eww,” said Turpentine. He wrinkled up his nose, but he still looked down at the little captive frog-ette. It looked so odd with big bulging eyes and a pair of tiny legs to each side of the tail, then it was gone when Ripple slurped it up and swallowed. “Eww!” he added with more emphasis. “Gross.”

“Yummy,” said Ripple, flicking a little bit of tadpole water at his face. “Mister Baron Gaberdine doesn’t mind eating fish. He says that someday he’s going to fry us up some frog legs, just like in the griffon cookbook he found. And someday soon he’s going to steam clams for all of my family.”

“That’s not nearly as bad,” said Turpentine, feeling more comfortable now that the conversation was going back to a topic which had been covered, although briefly, in one of his books. “In Daring Do and the Isle of View, the evil Ahuizotl’s minion captures her on a tropical island, and they have to join together to fight for survival in the terrifying jungle of the Fillyppine Islands. They wind up diving for oysters and roasting them over an open fire, just to survive. They ate a lot of oysters in that book, and in the end, the minion gave Daring one of the pearls they found.”

“Ooo,” said Ripple. “Did they get married and live happily ever after?”

“No,” scoffed Turpentine. “Daring Do flew away and Ahuizotl yelled at her like he always does. That way they can have a new book out in a few months.” He paused. “What were we talking about?”

“Families, I guess.” Ripple shrugged, making ripples spread out from their soggy resting spot. “Hey, did you wanna do something fun?”

* * ✹ * *

One of the tributaries feeding the river was a brisk jet of cool water, making it flow under the surface so rapidly Turpentine was unable to make any headway, no matter how strong he paddled. Well, admittedly his best paddling was not much, but when Ripple nudged him from behind, he cleared the surface of the water with a loud yelp.

All thoughts of a cold nose up his backside banished for the moment, Turpentine looked up at the cascade of water pouring down the rocky face of the streambank. It was beautiful in its own way, with a spray of mist making natural rainbows all up and down the face of the rocky outcropping as the stream jumped from pool to pool before sweeping into the warmer river water. There was even a little water vapor rising from where cool and warmer water met, making Turpentine suddenly get an intense desire for a sketch pad and his pencil.

“Come on,” said Ripple after surfacing beside him and taking a breath of air. “If we get right up by where it drops into the river, we can ride it all the way into deep water.”

“Have you ever tried to ride it from up there?” Turpentine pointed with one hoof at the top of the cascade of water where it first began its plunge down to the river.

Ripple raised one damp eyebrow and waved a flipper at him.

“Oh. Yeah, you’d have a rough time climbing up there, I suppose. Unless…”

* * ✹ * *

Despite the shifting burden of Ripple, who insisted on checking out every bush and butterfly while being draped across Turpentine’s back, he continued plodding up the narrow path they had discovered leading to the top of the series of squat waterfalls. His legs felt like lead, but it had just been so much fun the first time they had splashed down the water, from pool to pool, shrieking all the way until they were swept out into the warm river. It was just as much fun the second time, even though he banged one knee on a rock, and the third time, although it took him a few minutes to recover from being disoriented when he caught a hoof on the sandy floor of the river and cartwheeled.

He was getting a handle on this. Still, the fourth time was going to be the last time, at least for today.

And after they finished splashing from pool to pool and glided out into the warm river, Turpentine seriously considered a fifth. His stomach gave a questioning growl of digestion while he looked up at the setting sun, and he gave a sigh once they had finished giggling.

“It’s going to be dark soon, Ripple. I probably should get back to the raft. We can do this again tomorrow, though.”

“Oh.” It was a little shocking to see how quickly the little seapony went from giggling to morose. She swallowed hard and looked downstream before turning to pick up the length of rope she had been using to pull Turpentine through the water. “Tomorrow. Right.”

That was as many words as Ripple said through the whole swim back to the raft, with Turpentine towed along behind like a sack of flour. The little seapony even seemed to swim slower, with a repetitive up and down motion to her tail that seemed more rote than her original eager slicing through the water.

It was puzzling, but he could not really do anything about it while clutching onto the rope with his teeth and trying not to bounce off the riverbed. By the time she slowed to a halt at the edge of his familiar raft, the reason for her reluctance became obvious.

There was a unicorn stallion standing in the middle of the raft, looking rather disappointed while holding onto Ripple’s silver horn-ring with his magic.

5 - Uprooted

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Uprooted

"These yer orphans ‘ll git their house back agin, and that’s enough for them; they’re young and spry, and k’n easy earn a livin’. They ain’t a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think—there’s thous’n’s and thous’n’s that ain’t nigh so well off. Bless you, they ain’t got noth’n’ to complain of."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

The unicorn stallion standing on the raft did not really seem very important at first glance. He was plain, so ordinary that Turpentine could have painted his portrait using only shades of tan and brown. He was not wearing a suit or any sort of armor, or even showing a particularly militant cutie mark. A simple puzzle piece adorned his flanks, lit up in shades of orange and gold from the impending sunset.

The frown on his face was what had Turpentine’s attention. Mother Windrow had a frown like that, practiced on many little orphans over the years, himself included. There was a certain skill set involved in looking that disappointed, and the expression seemed to strike Ripple stronger than himself.

Turpentine paddled closer to the little seapony and put a foreleg over her back for support. It seemed to help, because she gave a damp sniff when he whispered into her ear, “Did we do something wrong?”

Ripple nodded, but she did not say anything.

The stallion did, looking between Ripple and Turpentine several times before clearing his throat. “Ripple. Please go to your mother. I need to talk to Turpentine.”

“Can’t I stay?” The little seapony paddled up to the edge of the raft and clung to the edge, followed by Turpentine. It had been such an exciting day that the old raft seemed dreary and cold to him, even though the campfire nearby had been built up into a cheery blaze again. It was an odd sensation, much like waking up from a particularly good dream only to find the window had opened in the middle of the night and covered the sheets in rain.

Although he was a big colt, Turpentine found his present position of being below an adult’s hoof-level oddly intimidating, as if he had regressed in age somehow. He paddled to one side of the raft, climbed up the damp riverbank, and walked back along the edge of the raft. Sitting down beside where Ripple was leaning up against the edge of the raft, Turpentine draped his tail out into the water so it would brush against her side for reassurance. It gave him a little bit more altitude, but at the expense of being closer to the stern unicorn, which was made worse when his horn lit up and the spell-induced gill slits on Turpentine’s chest faded away. Just for a moment, there was a glitter of silver around the base of the older stallion’s horn, much like the horn-ring Ripple had originally worn.

“We were having so much fun, Mister Gaberdine,” said Ripple, resting her chin on the logs of the raft and brushing up against his side.

“He needs to go home, Ripple,” said the stallion in a stern voice.

Ripple huffed. “It must not be much of a home if he ran away from it.”

That seemed to strike the baron much harder than expected, and while he stammered for a response, Turpentine spoke up. “Baron Gaberdine, sir. I’m headed to Baltimare to become a famous painter.”

“You’re too young,” responded the stallion almost instantly, although afterwards he glanced sideways at the painting on the easel, which had been uncovered while he had been waiting. “You’re talented, I’ll admit, but you’re far too young to go that far on your own.”

“I’m old enough,” said Turpentine with a little more snap to his words than he had intended. “I’m a big colt. I got this far, didn’t I?”

“And this is as far as you go,” said Gaberdine. “I’m sending you home.”

A spark of frustration broke loose in his chest and Turpentine lunged to his hooves. “I don’t have a home! How old do you think I need to be before I can go to Baltimare? Next year? The year after that? You say I can’t go to Baltimare, but can’t I at least try!”

The stallion took a step backwards, looking between Turpentine and Ripple, who appeared to be just one small step from breaking into tears. “I don’t know!” he snapped. “I’m not your father.”

“I don’t have a father,” growled Turpentine. “Didn’t you know that? I’m an orphan! My family is dead. Mother Windrow keeps trying to find other families for me, but I just don't fit any of them! That's why I want to go to Baltimare, where at least I'll fit in!”

The stallion blinked several times and seemed to calm down. Since Turpentine had the sun at his back, Gaberdine’s dark hazel eyes were drawn into thin slits against the light, but there almost seemed to be a tear at the corner of one of them for a moment. Gaberdine blinked several times again, took a deep breath and said, “Like a puzzle piece in the wrong box.”

“Right!” Turpentine took another look at the stallion’s puzzle piece cutie mark and several pieces fell into place in his head while his breathing slowed. “You can understand, can’t you, Baron Gaberdine? I’m going to find where I belong there. Please don’t send me back.”

The stallion paused for a very, very long time while the sun continued to set and the shadows grew longer. His lips had thinned out and he looked down at the logs making up the raft, glancing back and forth across the raft several times and once out to the river where a suspiciously immobile patch of river weed seemed to be keeping an eye on them before making a decision with a terse nod of his head.

“You’re right. I am the Baron of Fen. I have dominion over my barony and the ponies in it, and right now, I’ve got a mess that needs cleaned up.” Gaberdine looked down at the two little ponies and shook his head. “First and foremost, this raft is made up of logs floated down from the Upper Whinnia Sawmill. They are technically the property of the logging company, so this raft could be considered stolen property, and you, a thief.”

“I’m not a thief,” said Turpentine before his head could stop his mouth. “The logs were just floating there and… Uh…” He wilted under the stern gaze of the otherwise ordinary stallion and hung his head. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“No.” Gaberdine tapped the raft with one hoof and nudged one of the enchanted ‘snag flags’ Turpentine had carefully woven into one end. “Right now, this raft has been beached against one of the sandbars in my river, so it’s a navigation hazard, even with the magical beacon they put on it when they floated it downstream. That’s a problem. The logging company is not about to send one of their tugs this far downstream just to pick up a few logs, so as Baron of Fen, I’ll need to properly dispose of the obstacle, reimburse the logging company, and punish the thief.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” protested Turpentine much more quietly, although he could not help but look at all of the camping gear he had ‘borrowed’ from the orphanage back room.

“That remains to be seen.” Gaberdine took a deep breath. “Turpentine, as Baron of Fen, I’ll give you three days to get this collection of logs off my sandbar and delivered to my castle. If you succeed, I’ll consider your request to pass through my barony on your way to Baltimare. Until such time as you go there or return to your home, you will be my responsibility, as you will be residing in my lands.” He paused, looking around at the sandbar and the surrounding river. “Such as they are.”

The bright light of hope shone down on Turpentine while his stomach lurched with relief. It seemed too good to be true, and the only word that came to mind was, “Really?”

“Really.” Baron Gaberdine frowned at him, but somehow the expression did not carry quite the impact of his previous scowl. “While in my barony, I expect you to obey my rules. Is that acceptable to you, young colt, or shall I send you back home right now?”

One obvious problem with the fairy-tale offer was staring Turpentine in the face, or more correctly, supporting his hooves. “How am I supposed to get my raft off the sandbar?”

The stallion shrugged. “Not my problem.”

“Three whole days, starting now?” asked Turpentine.

“Starting tomorrow morning,” said Gaberdine.

“Deal.” Turpentine spat into one hoof and held it out, only realizing just exactly what he had done when he saw the startled expression on Baron Gaberdine’s face. The unicorn slowly spat into his own hoof, carefully shook hooves with the young colt, and resumed his previous stance, although it seemed as if he were attempting to rub the bottom of his hoof clean against the logs of the raft afterwards.

“Very well,” said Gaberdine. “Now for the second part of the problem. Ripple?”

The little seapony had been rising up beside the raft with every exchange between Gaberdine and Turpentine, swishing her tail and making little splashing noises, but when the baron’s hazel eyes swung in her direction, she sank just as if he had tied an anvil to her tail. After a few moments of relative silence, her green eyes slowly peeked out from over the edge of the raft, and she asked, “Yes?”

Gaberdine frowned, although the expression did not quite make it up into his sparkling eyes. “As Baron of Fen, I’m responsible for the actions of my sub— I mean the ponies who live in my barony,” he continued, obviously uncomfortable with classifying Ripple as a ‘subject’ of any sort. “You were assigned a task today. What was it?”

“Watch Turpentine while my mother and my aunts worked that big bunch of snags that just came out of the upper tributary,” she whispered.

“And?” added Gaberdine.

“Stay out of sight.”

She looked so dejected and Turpentine felt so relieved that a little giggle came bubbling up from inside him. Holding one foreleg across his eyes, he looked in her direction and said, “I don’t see anything.”

“It’s a very serious topic,” said Gaberdine, who was not smiling when Turpentine put down his foreleg and looked in his direction. “The seaponies are very shy for good reason. They’re refugees from a war in their ocean home, and there could be bad ponies here who would be willing to take advantage of their situation. You may be just fine with Ripple, and the sailors on the riverboats all treat the seaponies as good luck charms, but…”

And he did see. Some of the stories in his books⁽*⁾ had even been very specific about what happened to innocent creatures when bad ponies found them.
(*) The orphanage’s copy of Grinn’s Fairy Tales had very little smiling in any of the stories. The collection had been donated without any responsible adults actually checking the contents for little things like murder, mayhem, arson, and kidnapping.
—

“I’m sorry, Baron Gaberdine,” said Turpentine with his head hanging low as visions of an entire gallery of seapony paintings began to evaporate and blow away inside his mind. “I won’t say anything.”

“That’s quite all right, Turpentine. I believe the seaponies can trust you because of the way you acted with Ripple today. I’m a little more concerned about your accomplice,” said Gaberdine, who had turned back to Ripple. He looked down at her, then moved closer and settled himself down on the raft, gently touching her on the damp mane with one hoof. “You’re a very precious little pony, Ripple. You had one job, and if young Turpentine here had been some sort of hooligan or ruffian, he could have hurt you when you showed yourself to him.”

“He doesn’t seem like a bad pony,” said Ripple, looking down at the raft. “He didn’t even look at my tail or anything.”

That earned Turpentine a brief suspicious glance before Gaberdine floated Ripple’s silver horn ring in front of her. “Still, you’re going to have to be punished for that, young filly. You ducked your responsibility. You were listening when I talked to your mother so you knew I hired a pegasus cart to pick Turpentine up this afternoon, and you ditched your beacon so I wouldn’t be able to find you two when you ran off. Do you know what I thought when I showed up here and you were gone?”

“What?” Ripple looked up when Gaberdine gently touched her cheek with one hoof.

“I thought something bad had happened to you. I was so worried, and so was your mother. If a couple of your aunts had not been following you today, I think she would have had a nervous breakdown.” Gaberdine took a brief glance out into the river where that same patch of weeds Turpentine had noticed before still had not moved. The older stallion swallowed once and turned back to Ripple with a stern expression. “That’s why I’m taking you off the snag tagging crew until I think you can handle the responsibility again.”

“But I like going up and down the river with my aunts!” Ripple looked up with big, watery eyes, but Gaberdine simply shook his head.

“No, I’m putting you on leave and taking away your beacon ring for at least three days, young filly. Maybe then, you will have learned your lesson.”

Ripple drooped, then stopped with the most puzzled expression. She looked over at Turpentine, then back at Gaberdine, who seemed suspiciously smug. “Three days?”

“Yes.” While Ripple seemed to vibrate in place from suppressed emotion, Gaberdine nodded and continued without interruption. “Now I’m going to need somepony to keep an eye on this suspicious character—” Gaberdine shot Turpentine a sideways glance with what seemed to be a wink “—just to make sure he’s not going to try to weasel out of our deal.”

“Ooo! Ooo!” Ripple raced around in small circles, causing waves of water to splash up onto the raft. “Me! Me!”

Gaberdine brushed away a few drops of water that had splashed against his face. “Somepony responsible and old enough to follow the rules,” he added.

“Mee!! Mee!!” Ripple actually managed to stand up on her tail in the water while waving both foreflippers, which was considerably distracting for Turpentine.

“Hm…” said Gaberdine, tapping one hoof against his chin. “Ripple, would you like to—”

“Yes!” The little seapony vanished from sight, only to reappear in an ecstatic one-and-a-half flip of joy that splashed a large wave of water all over the raft when she landed, soaking Turpentine to the skin again. The baron seemed to have expected her response, and had put a protective spell over Turpentine’s easel and supplies just moments before the tidal wave had swept over that section of the raft, although he too dripped into a puddle around his hooves afterwards.

“Well, that’s about it, then.” The dripping baron nodded at Turpentine. “We will see you in three days time, or before.”

“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.” Turpentine nodded at the stallion, then looked around the brilliantly-lit island in the light of the sunset. “Um. Sir? Where is your chariot?”

“I sent it to your home town with a note to Mother Matron Windrow, telling her that you were fine and would be returning tomorrow.” Baron Gaberdine paused, looking pensive. “I will have to send another note again tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m very tired and have a rather long swim in front of me to make it back to Castle Paradise before morning.”

Ripple let out an excited yelp and dove under the water, returning in a few moments with the familiar length of rope. “We found a neat way to swim real fast, Mister Gaberdine,” said Ripple, somewhat muffled due to the rope in her mouth. “If you hold onto one end, I’ll bet my mother can pull you home faster than anything.”

“We are both going back to the castle,” said the baron, looking rather skeptically at the soggy rope. “Your mother has some things to say to you, Ripple. Nothing too bad,” he added when the little seapony seemed to droop again. “Your aunts said your behavior with Mister Turpentine was very proper and that you acted as you were taught but I do not think it wise for you to spend tonight on the raft with him.”

“I suppose.” The little seapony looked up at Turpentine, seeming both frightened and eager, so much like the first time he had seen her face barely a day ago. “May I come back tomorrow, Turpentine?”

“Yes.” Ripple’s exuberant grin made Turpentine blink and return the joyous expression. It was a little awkward, particularly with the warm glow filling his chest that followed, as well as a little pinking around the tips of his ears. “Yes, of course. Since you have your cutie mark in engineering, surely we can find some sort of engineering way to get the raft off the island.”

“Woohoo!” Ripple did a much more restrained tumble underwater before surfacing and floating the other end of the rope up to Baron Gaberdine with her magic. “Come on, Gabby.”

The older stallion gave Turpentine a backwards glance before pitching over the edge of the raft in an awkward dive. It was fairly easy to trace his horn-lit path as Ripple towed him into the river channel and they paused at the suspicious piece of immobile river weeds Turpentine had noticed before. Although he could almost picture the conversation going on under the water’s surface, it caught him by surprise when the light of the baron’s magic seemed to accelerate to a dangerous speed and he vanished downstream with only the lapping of the fresh waves at the edge of the raft to show that he had even been there.

Well, that and the thick collection of cattail reeds scattered across the raft floor where Baron Gaberdine had been standing, most probably as a cushion while he was waiting for Turpentine and Ripple to return. They made a nice pile for Turpentine to throw his blanket over, and most certainly would be softer and drier than the hard wet raft, but he was not ready to go to bed yet.

It took a few minutes for Turpentine to tuck the drying seapony painting to one side and get out one of his fresh canvases, but he worked as quickly as he could. He wanted to remember the way she looked when she smiled, and to make sure he would be able to remember even after he had gone to Baltimare. The pencil fairly flew over the primed canvas as he worked to capture every detail of her smile and the twinkle in her eyes, and he began to paint with a pressing sense of urgency driven by the unrelenting travel of the sun down toward the horizon. It was exciting in a way he had never felt before, much the same as the way Ripple had introduced him to a whole world of new experiences, and the paint fairly flew onto the canvas with the same energy the little seapony demanded out of life. He painted until the sun passed and the moon rose, only stopping adding little details when he could no longer make out the colors.

Cleaning his brushes by moonlight was new to him, and he took a good long look at the result of his painting afterwards. It was a nice smile, by day or by night, and it filled his mind with happy thoughts while he curled up and went to sleep, looking forward to tomorrow.

6 - Seek and Hide

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Seek and Hide

"It took away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Morning dawned.

Birds sang, insects droned, and the quiet lapping of the waves at the edge of the raft heralded the motion of another steam tug chugging up or down river with its load of barges.

Turpentine did not move.

The sun moved higher in the sky, covering the raft with golden light and illuminating the dim embers of the campfire to one side, while the last hoots of late owls faded and the butterflies once again began to flit over the water. The faint lapping of waves against the side of the raft grew until a larger splash sounded, heralding the arrival of a young seapony who poked her head over the edge of the raft. She had a tray held in her magic, which she produced and sat on the damp raft surface with a flourish.

“Good morning, Turpentine. Sen made me a breakfast but I didn’t want to wait to come out and get started this morning so I brought it with me since he always makes too much and are you awake yet?” Ripple peered at the immobile earth pony colt and nudged the tray closer to his nose before noticing just what was missing.

“Oh, no! Where did all of the food go? I had oatmeal and carrot slices and oranges and a bottle of hot cocoa because Sen liked it when I told him you were going to make me hot chocolate but it’s gone!” Ripple rummaged around on the water-covered tray and the few bits of soggy toast still clinging to it, lifting covers and checking underneath plates until she came to the obvious conclusion. The tray had all of the defining characteristics of a well-prepared breakfast with plates, silverware, and glasses, except for the critical ingredient of food.

Turpentine opened one eye. “Ow.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Ripple, moving the tray away from him. “Did I bump you?”

As a response, he coughed feebly several times until Ripple floated over a glass of water, which at least had remained on the tray, even though the contents of the glass most likely had been replaced several times during the trip. After a short drink and a skeptical look at the minnow in the bottom of the glass, Turpentine managed to say, “Everything hurts.”

“Did you get attacked?” asked Ripple, looking around the area with wide eyes.

“No. Yesterday. Swimming. Sore muscles. Lots of muscles I never knew I had.” He closed the one eye he had open.

“So are we going to move the raft this morning?”

Opening one eye again, Turpentine regarded the little seapony. She had put on the most mournful face, obviously guilty over causing him so much pain and wanting to make amends. Still, she was outnumbered by the vast chorus of aching muscles that had locked his body into near-rigidity. “No,” he managed to say without using his limited knowledge of profanity.

“Oh.” She drooped even further, then both ears perked up in a way that Turpentine knew was going to involve more pain.

* * ✹ * *

The thunder of the small waterfall pounding Turpentine into the gravel bottom of the streambed made it almost impossible for him to make his protests known, but while he shifted positions with considerably less pain than before, he really could not come up with any reason to move. It was cold, but he had been sweating most of the evening anyway, and being underwater was starting to feel oddly normal. After several positional maneuvers to get the last of the knots out of his abused muscles, Turpentine eventually floated over to the edge of the pool and let the warm morning sun soak into his damp coat while half-in and half-out of the water.

The gravel-lined banks of the pool seemed hollow and empty, spread in a large arc around the wet cascade of cool water as if it were waiting for an entire school of seaponies to be lounging around, brushing their hair and filling the air with song. Even unoccupied, it was still beautiful, with sparkling mist drifting through the air and the sound of the falling water soothing to his ears. While waiting for Ripple to return, he got up and stretched his stiff legs by striding around the outside edge of the pool and checking on the dark green vines twining their way up the sides of the little stone-lined niche. He didn’t nibble on them, but he did tuck a few of the little sprouts into the stone walls so they would be able to continue their ascent toward the sun. It would make a beautiful backdrop for a painting, provided the subjects were painted with hooves instead of flippers in order not to endanger the shy seaponies.

The warm air of the beautiful grotto seemed to chill with a breeze that evaporated some of the dampness from his coat, so he returned to the warm rounded gravel beside the pool to drink in the last gasps of summer. Someday soon, winter would turn the surroundings to a skating rink and the river into an ice-choked mess, with the seaponies swimming around under it, most probably enjoying the warmth of their temporary home far more than the lightless depths of the icy ocean. Turpentine had just begun to draw a sketch of the watery grove with one hoof in the sand when Ripple surfaced.

It was a mark of how accustomed he had gotten to seaponies that he noticed the convulsive motion she made to expel the last of the water through the gill slits on her chest before taking a breath of air to speak. The spell-created gill slits on his own chest acted much the same way, with the spell somehow managing to embed the unconscious reflex of Ripple into it. It explained the problem she had with transforming her own flippers and thick tail into pony appendages, as she could not push those natural features to another pony, but had to manipulate her own internal structure without something to compare it to.

Maybe if I did a comparison study of hoof structure against her flippers, it would help her with the transformation spell?

He was still holding one hoof up in the air while deeply contemplating just what changes would be needed to turn it into a flipper and back again when he became aware of little droplets of water being flicked in his direction. Ripple was resting stretched out on her belly on the shallow bank of the grotto while watching him, although the sun had snuck forward an hour or so while he had not been looking. He blinked several times, placed his hoof back on solid ground, and asked, “How long was I out?”

Ripple shrugged and flipped a few more droplets in his direction. “I dunno. Maybe an hour.” She held her own flipper up in front of her face the same way. “It was weird, but kinda nice. You get this really, really, really serious face on when you do that, like you can see through things.”

Now it was Turpentine’s turn to shrug. “It’s a painting thing. The best way to show something is if you know it inside and out, the way it bends, the way it looks in the light and shadows, how it moves, and what kind of perspective you are looking at it with. I must have drawn a couple hundred noses when I started. All the ponies in the town started getting really squirrely when I would come around and stare at their faces.”

“Mister Baron Gaberdine says it’s a lot like that for transformation spells. You have to know where you start and where you end or you can’t find your way between, and you have to want what it is you’re trying to do.” She splashed a little more water at him before asking, “So, do you want to try moving the raft now?”

“No,” said Turpentine. “Everything still hurts, and I’m hungry. All I’d do is get covered in sand.”

“Ooo, I know,” said Ripple. She splashed her tail in the grotto and darted off into deeper water, popping up and calling over her shoulder, “Come on! I’ve got something I want you to see, and we can get lunch too.”

Turpentine rather stiffly trotted to the end of the gravel bar and picked his way down into the water. It seemed so natural now to feel the spell-created gill slits in his chest open up when he became fully submerged and the first breath of water pushed out his remaining air in a cloud of bubbles. Even through his sore muscles, he could not help grinning while he paddled further down, following the flick and swish and swirl of Ripple’s tail as she darted back and forth and all around, waiting on his slow progress.

They traveled underwater for a short distance, through a ragged opening in the underwater rock wall and up into a larger open area behind it with light filtering down through cracks in the rock walls and the uneasy rustling of bats somewhere on the dark ceiling. The cave was not as inviting as the outdoor grotto, but it had a mystic shadowy quality with the illumination of Ripple’s hornlight making reflections from the water surface dance across the walls and the drip of water echoing off the glittering damp walls.

“I wish I had my sketchpad,” blurted out Turpentine. “This is beautiful.”

“Yeah,” said Ripple. “I wish I could take Mister Baron Gaberdine here.”

“Why can’t you?” asked Turpentine.

“Well, he…” Ripple frowned and fidgeted, then vanished under the water with only a tiny ‘bloop’ of disturbed water. Turpentine followed while the little seapony swam down to the bottom of the shimmering cave and stopped at a number of pony-sized indentations in the pebble-covered cave floor. “This is my home,” said Ripple, pointing with one flipper at a smaller ‘bed.’ “I sleep here, and my mother sleeps there, and the rest of my aunts sleep scattered around here. It’s very nice and cozy, except when the thunderstorms make the cave rattle and boom and crash. Then it’s scary, if my mother isn’t here.”

It did not take much mental effort to imagine the cave filled with seaponies curled up in the little gravel indentations. It was vastly different than his former little bedroom, in particular due to a broken spear driven into the pebbly ground next to where Ripple’s mother slept. The spear had a long steel blade with a thick shaft, which ended abruptly in a cluster of tooth-imprints and splinters, much as if a monster had bitten it in half with one snap of its massive jaws. A set of thin mane ribbons were tied around the short section of shaft remaining, giving somewhat of a macabre floating air to the underwater sleeping chamber as the various currents caused the ribbons to undulate like tentacles. If he had thought about asking for a sleepover before, the idea vanished.

Still, sleeping underwater with the water breathing spell was a weird enough concept that he really did not think Ripple would have invited him over to a sleepover anyway, even if her skittish aunts would permit it. A deep rumbling reminded him of the second reason Ripple was showing him around, and he drifted toward several dark shadows at the bottom of the cave. The slow but steady stream of mineral-tasting water flowing out of the holes in the cave wall felt chilly after being out in the warm river water, much like standing in front of some strange underwater icebox.

“Is this where you store your food?” he asked while paddling forward until he could look into the dark passages.

“No, it’s a bunch of caves,” said Ripple while drifting almost effortlessly up beside him. “Sometimes, we play tag or hide and seek in there. The caves go back for hundreds of furlongs, all twisting together and branching off. There’s big domes and crystal formations, and a couple of spots where there was some collapsing, but no monsters,” she added before Turpentine could ask. “Just a few white fish and crawdads.” She licked her lips and looked up at him.

“Not a chance,” he said, backed up by a low growl from his stomach which sounded more than a little creepy in front of the dark cave entrance. “Can we find something to eat first, then go back to the raft and try to figure out how to unstick it? Slowly,” he added.

“Slow is boring,” said Ripple, making a quick loop around him.

“If I wanted the excitement of being pulled at high-speed through the water, I’d go water skiing,” said Turpentine.

That triggered a whole series of questions from the little seapony, who had never seen the speedboat from near Turpentine’s home and the family of unicorns who liked to race it up and down the narrow tributary on weekends. By the time they visited a nearby collection of pickerel weed, and then ate their fill on a huge bank filled with elderberry plants, Turpentine was feeling much better with most of his sore muscle pain replaced by a distended belly and a desire to just lay in the warm sand beside the water and relish the sticky feeling of purple juice smeared all the way up to his ears.

“I bet you could make elderberry jam out of this,” said Turpentine with a quiet belch. “Bottles and bottles of it for winter. Jam on hot bread right out of the oven is great.”

“Do you think they have jam in Baltimare?” asked Ripple, spread out on the sand next to him and looking a little flattened, only with a round lump around her middle much like his.

“Yeah, but Mother Windrow said city jam isn’t like country jam. They make it in huge factories with a bunch of frowning ponies checking each jar to make sure none of them taste any better than any others.” Turpentine picked at an upper tooth which had picked up a few extra seeds. “They take all the seeds out too. Does Baron Gaberdine have any servants to make jam in his castle?”

“Just Sen, and he’s old, like a hundred or something. He does say something about going into Gravel Flats to get some sweet sugar sometimes, but he doesn’t seem to bring much back with him.” Ripple stirred the tip of her tail in the stream and turned enough to be able to look at Turpentine with her sparkling green eyes. “After we get the raft to the castle, could you show Baron Gabby how to make elderberry jam? It sounds yummy.”

“There’s more than just elderberry jam. Mother Windrow showed me how to make gooseberry jam, but the season is already over for that,” said Turpentine. “And apple butter, and blueberry, and a whole bunch more. Maybe when I become a famous painter, I can come back occasionally and we can make jam.”

“We could do that now and you could be a famous painter later,” suggested Ripple with a little splash of her tail. “Winter is always so quiet and peaceful under the ice, but Mister Baron Gaberdine said he’d make a nice, warm snowsuit for me if I wanted to come to the castle and play.”

It made an interesting mental image. Odd, but interesting.

“First things first,” declared Turpentine, rolling onto his side and beginning to draw in the sandy streambank with one hoof. “We have to get my raft off the sandbar before Baron Gaberdine sends me back to Mother Windrow.”

“Is she really that bad of a mother?” asked Ripple, who had rolled over to face him on the other side of his sand drawing. “She sounds like one of my aunts.”

After finishing drawing the island in the sand, Turpentine paused with his hoof over the sketch of the raft. “No, not really. She likes me, but we’re so different. She never had foals of her own, so she talks down to me, and doesn’t let me make my own decisions.”

“Like taking a raft to Baltimare?” asked Ripple.

“Eh. Yeah, I guess.” Turpentine finished drawing the raft into the diagram, even though it was not quite to scale. “She must have been so scared.”

“I know,” said Ripple. “One night during a thunderstorm when I was hiding… I mean… Well, hiding is the right word, I suppose.” She splashed her tail in the water and frowned at the drawing of the island in the sand. “I was hiding in the castle during a thunderstorm and my mother came looking for me the next morning. She was scared of Mister Gaberdine and scared for me, but she was most scared for me. But it worked out. She woke up Mister Gaberdine and he gave her breakfast and they like each other now, so she’s hardly afraid of him at all anymore.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that will work for Mother Windrow,” said Turpentine. “You know, I made a painting of her. I could show it to you and we could look at the raft instead of just trying to draw it in the sand.”

* * ✹ * *

Every time Turpentine returned to the raft, it looked more dirty and plain instead of the vessel of adventure and excitement it had been several days ago. Several of the ropes tying the logs together had little tufts of cocklebur spines on them from the many and diverse population of burrs on the island, making sitting down on the raft a somewhat chancy proposition. He decided instead to simply float around the outside edge with Ripple, ducking underwater to see if there was some sort of hidden spot to pry or tug on which would un-stick the quite stuck raft.

Nothing really looked obvious.

“What we need is a pulley out about here,” said Ripple, swimming a distance from the raft and splashing. “Then we can put another pulley on the raft and run a rope back and forth between them to get leverage.”

“All we have is this little chunk of rope here,” said Turpentine, holding up the tow rope, which was starting to look a little chewed on his end. “We can’t use all the rope from the raft, because it will fall apart.”

He paused, feeling like an idiot. “Well, that’s one problem fixed. I’m not sure if we can put the raft together again afterwards, though. The ropes are tied pretty tight.”

“We could float the logs downstream by tying them together in a long string, nose to tail like ducks,” said Ripple.

“What about my stuff?” Turpentine looked at the boxes and folders he had stacked up in the middle of the raft. It was not a lot of stuff by pony standards, particularly if he got rid of the camping gear and the scattered odd items he had thrown on the raft in the hopes they might be useful somewhere, but it was everything he held dear, including the paintings he was going to show off in Baltimare.

Ripple gasped, coming almost all the way out of the water and lunging up on the far end of the raft. “I know! We could bury it like pirate treasure and make a map and swear to come back next year and dig it back up and split it among our crew.”

He almost took her seriously, except for the impish sparkle in her eye and the quirky smile that crept onto her face. She splashed a little bit of cool water at him and waggled one eyebrow. “Had you going there for a minute, didn’t I, Captain?”

It was just so silly. Turpentine had to sit down before he fell overboard, without even a plank to walk. “River pirates,” he managed to get out between chortles. “Hoist the Jolly Roger and we’ll storm a barge full of brussel sprouts. Arr!”

Ripple joined in his carefree laughter, rolling backwards and making a quick jump out in the river which only splattered a little water back on the raft as she spun and danced over the sun-silvered wavelets. He remained sitting while being both entranced and bemused at the antics of the graceful seapony, taking the occasional face full of water in stride as payment for the entertainment.

Eventually she ran out of giggles to fuel her acrobatics and surfaced at the edge of the raft with a sharp salute of one flipper against her horn. “Captain, what are your orders, sir?”

“Aye, First Mate Splashy,” he replied with a giggle. He jumped up on the tallest box in his collection of stuff and struck an appropriate pirate stance. “Raise anchor and hoist the colors. We’re setting sail!”

* * ✹ * *

Admittedly, it was a lot easier to set sail in the books. It took most of the afternoon to carefully untie all of the wet knots and pick apart the raft, making sure not to cut or break any of the worn ropes. After all, it was going to take every scrap of rope they had in order to tie all the logs back together when they were done. The clever way the lumber ponies had tied the raft together left very little slack rope to spare, but as the sun approached the horizon, the new raft was bobbing at the end of a short rope, ready to be sailed down the river once more.

It could not have come quickly enough for Turpentine. The ache of splinters in the frog of each hoof was intolerable, and if he never tasted hemp rope again it would be too soon. He curled up on the edge of the New Horizons and alternated between splashing a hoof in the river water and trying to bite one of the many elusive splinters out from under his sensitive frog.

“Here, let me.” Ripple slipped up to the edge of the raft and lit up her horn, using her magic to gently probe the bottom of his ticklish hoof for the tiny fragment of wood. “Captain, you’re just lucky First Mate Splashy knows how to do ship’s surgeon stuff or we’d have to fit you with a peg leg.”

“I think I already have one from all of the splinters. I haven’t worked this hard in ever,” said Turpentine, trying to keep his face straight as the little seapony probed for the little bits of wood. “Everything hurts. Are you sure you know how to do that?”

“Mama did it once for Mister Baron Gaberdine,” said Ripple, looking very uncharacteristically serious under the pale green light of her horn. “He was cooking dinner for us when Mama smiled at him and he dropped a jar. Then he stepped on a little piece of glass when he was cleaning up. There was even some blood. She wouldn’t let me watch her take the glass out, though. Stop twitching.”

“I can’t help it,” said Turpentine, ruthlessly suppressing yet another spasm as Ripple’s magic touched him on the bottom of his hoof. “Ticklish. Kinda hungry too.”

“I’m starving,” declared Ripple while she plucked out splinters. “If you had a frying pan big enough, we could noodle some catfish and make fillets. Mister Baron Gaberdine showed me how to cook ‘em. Only we’d need some eggs too. And some flour. And pepper. And salt. You really need to soak catfish in salt water for a while before cooking it so it doesn’t taste as muddy as it does raw.”

“Noodle catfish?” Turpentine wrinkled his upper lip despite the tickling of his sensitive frogs. The thought of eating raw fish was weird and stomach-turning, but with as much as Ripple had talked about it over the last few days, it was less odd than whatever ‘noodling’ a catfish would involve, and it scratched at his curiosity itch. “How do you noodle a catfish?”

“I’ve never actually done it, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. Next.” Switching her ministrations to a different ticklish hoof, Ripple continued, “My aunts start by transforming a foreflipper into a hoof like they’re going up on land. Then she finds a catfish hole where they lay their eggs and kinda pokes at it until the catfish lunges out and grabs her!”

Turpentine frowned at the mental image. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not a lot.” Ripple shrugged while probing for a deeper splinter. “Catfish don’t have teeth. She gets a little scraped up sometimes, but she gets her foreleg back through their gill slits and lifts the catfish out of its hole. It’s more for fun than eating, because they taste all muddy without proper preparation, but Mister Gaberdine is gotten really good at cooking them. He doesn’t even turn green anymore when we dress them.”

Somehow, Turpentine did not think dressing a fish involved clothes. It most certainly involved knives, much like the one that Ripple removed from her mane and used to prod at the bottom of his hoof where the most painful of the wooden splinters had lodged. It was a slightly longer knife than the short single-edged blade Turpentine had in his luggage, and much larger than his pigment-stained palette knife. Unicorns did not need the larger grip an earth pony would use to hold it in his jaws, so Ripple’s knife was mostly slim and sharpened steel, tapered to an off-center rounded point and sharp all the way down to the short handle.

She wedged the tip under a thick wooden splinter and pried back and forth. There were little grating noises under his shoe and a sharp twinge in his frog as it popped free, and she ran the edge of the slim knife around the inner edge of his hoof in order to catch any more loose splinters. Switching to the next hoof, she sighed and tapped the long knife against his steel shoe while her stomach rumbled again.

“I wish we could at least steam some clams. I’m starving.” Cleaning out a few more minor splinters, she waved the knife and continued, “Normally, we just shuck ‘em out of their shell underwater and eat ‘em there, but I don’t think you want raw clams.”

“If you go get the clams, I can build up the fire,” suggested Turpentine, because his aching muscles did not want to move far from the campfire anyway, and there already was quite a bit of driftwood accumulated, even without the splinters he had gotten. He was not all that hungry, and clams did not really sound that tempting, but Ripple had shown him quite a few experiences he had never dreamed of in his life. Plus, time was getting short. When he would drift the raft down the river tomorrow, it could not be more than a day’s travel to the castle/steamship that Ripple seemed so enthusiastic about. Baron Gaberdine had promised to see him on the way to Baltimare afterwards, and it could be weeks or even months before Turpentine could return. It might even be winter by then, and the thought of swimming below the ice with her did not really appeal to him.

While Ripple darted out into the sun-drenched river for the main course, Turpentine arranged the campfire as best he could and soaked down the cattail reeds he planned on using as a grill. He had seen freshwater clams before in the creeks around home, ugly little brown things about half the size of a hoof, and with only about a mouthful of meat—

He shuddered and poked the fire with a thick dampened cattail to get it more level. At this rate, he would be growing his own tail by the end of the month and be a seapony by winter.

By the time the sun touched the horizon in smears of gold and orange, Ripple returned and dumped her findings on the sandy shore. The smallest of the clams she found was twice as big as the largest he had ever seen before, a ridged arc of shell he could not have covered with a hoof, and the largest…

“Are you sure that thing is good to eat?” asked Turpentine. The huge mollusk was the size of a pony’s head, and most probably had teeth.

“Um…” Ripple tapped the huge clam, apparently getting second thoughts now that she could see it in what was left of the light of day. “It’ll probably take forever to cook. I’ll just go put that one back. And… that one,” she added, picking up several of the larger clams in her magic before vanishing into the river again.

It took a little to arrange the damp cattail reeds over the fire, but Turpentine felt a little better about arranging the clams on their new ‘steaming’ rack once he realized the mollusks did not scream or thrash when he put them out on the thick mat of reeds. He almost had half of them arranged when Ripple came back, lunging up out of the water onto the sand at the edge of the water in a way that would have given him a panic fit a few days ago.

It still startled him into dropping a clam in the fire.

“Aren’t they done yet?” asked Ripple, adding her magic to the task of arranging the last of the clams across the damp reed mat. The last couple of clams she held back, getting out her knife and settling down in the light of the setting sun and glowing fire.

“I don’t know,” said Turpentine, unable to take his eyes off the silvery knife glittering in Ripple’s green magic. “Are you going to eat those raw?”

“Sure!” Ripple settled down with an intense frown and brought the first clam up to the blade. “You just gotta get the knife in between the edges, then go around all the way until it pops.”

There was something about the way she brought the knife up to the doomed bivalve that triggered a memory in Turpentine’s head, and he spoke out loud without really thinking. “Why then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.”

“What?” Ripple looked over at him, seeming slightly confused although her slim knife did not move from its position next to the clam.

“It’s something from the Merry Mares of Whinnydor, a book that the orphanage had in the library,” explained Turpentine. “I was bored, and it looked interesting. I was wrong. Go ahead.”

The magic-driven knife traced a path around the clam and the top shell popped off, revealing a goopy lump of yellowish flesh. Ripple tossed the empty shell over her shoulder and into the river with a forlorn ‘plop’ as she continued to scrape the remainder together, then slurped it up in one gulp. “Yummy!”

“Ewww!!” declared Turpentine. He shook his head and swallowed once while Ripple got out the next clam. “I mean it’s neat and all that, but eww just the same. It’s not anything like what I expected from the books.”

“Maybe you’ll like the cooked ones better,” said Ripple just before slurping down another one of the slimy things. It was worth some thought, and as he thought, a few of the clams on the fire began to open up just the way the books said. Besides, Mother Windrow had always told him to try something before rejecting it, even cooked beets.

“Maybe one of the cooked ones,” he hesitantly offered over the objections of his churning belly. “Two at the most.”

After Ripple finished her snacking, she took the damp cattail reed Turpentine had been using to poke the clams and used it to poke the clams in the way she wanted to. He could not see any difference in technique, because one poked clam looked very much like another, but he would not have been able to lift one of the lid-opened clams off of the steaming reeds and float it over in front of him, as he lacked her magic.

The clam didn’t smell that bad when cooked, sizzling and popping a little from the fire. He retrieved a fork and poked it a few times in a forlorn attempt to pry the meat free while it cooled, but eventually gave in to Ripple’s clam-eating technique.

He shoved his nose into the hot clamshell and slurped.

It was all over before he realized it, in and over his tongue and down his throat where the steamed clam meat made a warm glow in his tummy. It was so quick, in fact, that he could not even tell what the clam had tasted like other than ‘vaguely clammy.’

“Good, aren’t they?” said Ripple before slurping another steamed clam down and sucking cool air over her tongue afterwards. “They’re even better hot.”

“Yeah.” Turpentine managed to slurp down another clam. “I think I’m full. Well, of clams.” He nudged a toasted cattail out of the fire and blew on the steaming root before taking a large bite. “Much better.”

Ripple sniffed the offered root and took a bite too. “Not bad. Needs salt.”

While the evening grew darker and the fire died down to glowing coals, the two of them settled down on the remainder of the cattails and watched the stars come out. From his time outside watching the stars with Mother Windrow, Turpentine knew a little about what stars went where, but it was at least one area of knowledge where he knew a lot more than Ripple. They watched the night sky and traced the lines of the constellations together with the lapping of the waves and full tummies contributing to a slow reduction in conversation, and ever so slowly, the two of them drifted off to sleep together under the stars.

In the quiet, with the night insects chirping away in the darkness, a faint green glow surrounded Turpentine’s wool blanket. With great care, it drifted over the two young ponies and tucked itself in while a pair of dark green eyes out in the river kept watch.

7 - Fly, Flown, Flu

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Fly, Flown, Flu

"My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. "

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Dawn should have been more respectful to Turpentine’s feelings, in particular the throbbing aches stabbing through muscles that he did not realize he had before and the dull pain covering every single hair on his coat. In short, if discomfort were paint, he had enough to make a mural over the outside of a barn with enough left over to paint the insides with two coats.

The morning sun had just begun to warm the itchy wool blanket draped over his aching hide when Ripple lifted her head off his side where she had been using him like a lumpy pillow. Her motion left a cold spot, made only worse by the way the rest of the wool blanket followed her when she stood up and yawned.

“Oh, fishguts. I didn’t go home like I was supposed to last night. Do you think my mom noticed?”

Turpentine painfully blinked several times, his eyes tracing a glint of sunlit silver to the reassembled raft bobbing nearby. Everything was blurry and far too bright this morning, but the raft was fairly close and the shiny object sitting on it next to his ramshackle collection of camping gear was fairly obvious. He yawned and nudged Ripple.

“It looks like one of your aunts brought us breakfast, so your mother probably knows.”

The silver tray over on the raft was a lot larger than Turpentine had expected, but since he really had not expected breakfast to be delivered in the first place, he started to wonder if perhaps some of Ripple’s aunts were also going to join them. There were a lot of little silver domes concealing breakfast items on the tray, but before Turpentine could get up the willpower to stagger to his hooves, Ripple flopped through the sand and vanished into the river, reappearing over by the raft with a tiny splash. She used her magic to lift one of the silver lids and gave off a little gasp of wonder.

“Bag-etties! With honey!” The tray lifted off the raft with a glow of her light green magic and floated the short distance to shore while Ripple vanished underwater and surfaced in one rapid motion. By that time, Turpentine had heaved himself up to his hooves and hobbled over to the embers of the campfire.

“Can we get the raft launched first, Ripple? That way we can eat on it while drifting downstream.” Despite his ongoing pain, he kicked wet sand over the remains of the fire and tossed the ragged blanket back on the raft before working on the loose knot of the anchor rope. Ripple seemed disappointed that they would not be dining on the wet sand, but he really was getting a little tired of having a gritty rear end.

It felt good to see the island drift away once the raft had been released to float along on its interrupted journey, but a little sad too. So much of his ordinary life had turned extraordinary on that simple strip of sand, and it was all because of the young seapony who was lying half-on/half-off the raft and sorting through the silver breakfast tray. All he really wanted to do was collapse and go back to sleep, but Turpentine decided to at least try to appreciate the gesture Ripple’s aunts had made to bring them breakfast.

“So, Ripple. What did your aunts make?”

“Duh! My aunts can’t cook.” Ripple distributed a plate over to each side of the tray and started sorting through the rest of the covered dishes as if she did not know where to start. “My mother can a little, since Mister Gaberdine is trying to teach her, but they keep burning stuff whenever they try to cook together and we wind up eating apples or oranges.”

“So, this would be from Mister Sienna the Seneschal, right?” asked Turpentine. “The earth pony servant at Baron Gaberdine’s castle?”

Ripple nodded instead of speaking, because her cheeks were puffed out from two of the baguettes. When she finally got enough of them chewed to swallow, she added, “They taste a little stale, like they’ve been out here for a while. Did you want some pancakes?”

The pancakes tasted off too, even with the minced apples and lukewarm syrup. He suspected the clams from last night were still influencing his taste buds, and between the two of the young ponies, they did not do any more than make a slight dent in the amount of food on the tray. Still, when he settled down on the bare logs to digest in the sunshine, he was content to just stay put and not move. Even Ripple was less energetic, and flopped down with her front half up on the log deck while her tail and rear floated in the river. She gave a yawn and dropped her head onto the wadded-up blanket as a pillow.

“This is boring. It’s going to take all day and then some to drift down to the castle. After we take a nap, can we go swimming somewhere? I’ve still got a bunch of spots I haven’t shown you yet.”

“Probably not,” said Turpentine with a matching pained yawn. He pulled over a bag with the unused tent in it and cautiously put his head down on top of the lumpy and musty-smelling thing. It was too hot out to use the blanket, even if Ripple had not appropriated it for pillow usage, but at least this way he did not have to rest his head on the logs. “I should stay with the raft in case it gets in anypony’s way.”

“Part of our jobs is to drag floating logs onto the river sandbars so they don’t do that,” said Ripple.

Turpentine considered her statement. The reason behind the difficulty he had steering his raft away from the sandbar several days ago had just become obvious. There really did not appear to be anything to gain by asking Ripple about it, though. The events had turned out for the best, after all, and the last thing he really wanted was to be run over by a tugboat with a load of barges, even with the magical beacon tied onto the raft to warn them away. Besides, it was probably one of her aunts who had grounded his vessel on the sandbar.

He cautiously settled down on the raft and closed his eyes to the bright sunlight. The lure of a morning nap to make his aches and pains feel better was tempting, but after remaining still and breathing regularly for a while, he cracked one eye open and peeked at the length of rope he had left tied to the end of the log at the ‘front’ of the raft.

It was difficult to see in the morning sunlight, but there seemed to be a faint green glow much like Ripple’s magic around the rope, and it was nudging the raft away from the shore on its trip down the river, much as a mother duck would look over her little ducklings.

He closed his eyes. Seeing Ripple’s mother’s magic made a nice, warm feeling fill his chest, and combined with the warm morning sunlight made it easy to fall asleep again.

* * ✹ * *

By the time he woke up, Turpentine was fairly certain something was horribly wrong. His eyes burned, his throat itched, and he had to go to the bathroom so bad he could hardly keep it in. He shuffled to the other end of the raft away from where Ripple was still draped half-on/half-off, and squatted down to stick his rear out into the water. At least there were no riverside villages or tugboats within sight, or Turpentine would have died of embarrassment.

It took far longer than he had anticipated, because there was far more to deal with, but by the time he was done soiling the water, Turpentine expected that the seaponies in the river would never invite him back again. He took a few minutes to rest his abused rear end in the cool river, just watching the clear blue sky through runny eyes and trying not to cough.

His nap had not made him feel better. If anything, everything hurt worse than before and his chest gurgled deep inside as if he had not exhaled all of the water the last time Ripple had used her water breathing spell on him. Turpentine took an experimental cough that triggered several more, along with a little more poo and a sudden, abrupt need to turn around and throw up.

Much like his other end, once Turpentine started to vomit, he was unable to stop. Clams, if anything, tasted far worse coming up the other way than they did going down, and some of the stuff he saw drifting away on the river afterwards he was fairly sure he had not eaten. He spit through dry lips several times once he was done and had determined neither of his ends was going to start up again, then just sat there and looked at the still water slowly becoming clean again.

He really missed Mother Windrow. Whenever he was sick at the orphanage, the elderly mare would spend all day reading him stories or fussing over him despite his objections. She would make boiled milo tea and insist that he keep drinking it every time he woke up, even though the stuff tasted awful and had no health benefit he had ever found. And when he got better, she would always keep him in the house ‘just one more day’ until she was certain the outside air would not cause him to double over and die on her doorstep. She must have been so worried when he left their little home.

The water rippled and shimmered, feeling cool on his forehooves while he splashed the last evidence of his diarrhea and vomiting episode off the rough logs. The illusion that Ripple had an easier life than he did was a fragile thought, and he wondered just what it would be like if they had traded places. She certainly would have enjoyed the diversity of experiences that could be found in his little town, and with her buoyant personality, she would have had no problem attracting and keeping a family there. He, on the other hoof, would have been frustrated by the wealth of beauty to be found under the water with no easy way of preserving it in ink and paint.

He shuffled back to the front of the raft and regarded the little seapony who had barely moved from her initial resting spot other than a few twitches and the occasional shiver. Ripple even had the most adorable little whistling snore as she slept with her head turned away from the blazing sun and her ears twitching with the breeze.

At first, Turpentine was going to lie down next to her, but after suppressing another wet cough, he moved to a less infectious corner of the raft and allowed his aching body to rest against the damp logs. It should not be too much longer until the raft drifted downstream to the castle Ripple had been all atwitter about, and he would be going ashore to deliver the raft as promised. Maybe if he was still sick, he could ask Baron Gaberdine to put him up in a guest room for a day or two. After all, castles were big, impressive buildings with all kinds of servants and guards, and he was just one little colt. Even if he had to sleep curled up next to a fireplace in the servant’s quarters for a day or two until he felt well enough to head to Baltimare, that would not be too bad.

Of course, if Turpentine’s raft was going to be confiscated by Baron Gaberdine, he was going to need some other form of transportation to Baltimare. It seemed to be a very long walk, and he had no idea which roads actually led in that direction.

While the special talent of his cutie mark let Turpentine accurately remember and draw even the smallest detail on a landscape he had studied, it was a constant mystery to him how those pictures fit together into a map of actual ground filled with roads and paths. At least with a raft, he knew where he was going, and would make constant progress in that direction as long as it floated. But still, no raft meant no easy way to his goal.

While he stayed on his belly and looked down into the water under the hot afternoon sun, his mind wandered. What if his special talent was not urging him to Baltimare, but instead wanted him to travel up and down the river, finding all of the beautiful places and putting them on canvas so other ponies could admire them. He could get a job on a riverboat as… no, that would not work. Few if any riverboats would want a painter. They wanted somepony with Ripple’s skills, who could fix their engines and other parts of a tugboat, not just paint a pretty picture of the broken equipment.

Baltimare had to be his destiny. He would learn all of the techniques that professional painters used, and then once he had sold a few paintings for money, he could hire his own boat to travel up and down the river. Every fascinating place Ripple had shown him could be painted… no, that would not work either. The boat he would hire would be full of ordinary ponies who would frighten the timid seaponies and let the other land ponies know about them.

He took a deep drink of the river water, tasting the sun-warmed tepidness of it but swallowing anyway, as Mother Windrow insisted he drink fluids until he was about to pop whenever he was sick back home. At least the river water did not taste of milo tea. It still churned in his belly, and did not make him feel one bit better.

There was something peculiar about his reflection in the river as he drank, and the longer he looked, the stranger it seemed.

I’m pretty. And I’m a unicorn?

The pale pony floating like a ghost below the surface of the river had to be Ripple’s mother, if nothing else from the color of her sea-green mane floating along in the current, which matched tints almost perfectly to Ripple’s coat. Her every facial curve and shade seemed perfectly proportioned, matching so well against the beautiful mares of the fashion magazines which Mother Windrow purchased for the articles, except for the eyes.

There was something haunting about her dark green eyes that called out to his soul, as if she were holding back an immense flood of grief with a shaky dam of confidence and love for her daughter. It made him want to draw her and capture that elusive pain, but he was more afraid to move for fear of frightening her away. For several long minutes they stared at each other in motionless stasis, until little hints of concern and worry began to slip onto that perfect face, and with a faint motion that could have been a swallow to steel her timid nerves, Ripple’s mother began to move.

Ever so slowly, she floated closer to the surface, moving slightly to one side until she was barely underwater with only the tip of her short horn above the river. Her lips moved, and Turpentine could barely hear her soft, beautiful voice drift up above the water, like mist in the dawn.

“Are you feeling well, Turpentine?”

“I’m sick,” he managed to croak in response.

Ever so slowly, Ripple’s mother continued to rise up until her entire head was above the water. He could see the way she swallowed to make the gill slits on her chest flare slightly above her pale creamy coat, thereby allowing her to breathe air in and speak above the water in a low whisper almost quieter than before.

“Mister Gaberdine has the flu. I’m afraid he may have given it to you.”

The faint, raspy sound of Ripple coughing into her wool pillow brought a cold chill up Turpentine’s overly-warm flanks. He spared a look back over his shoulder at the little seapony, and the way she was also trembling just as much as he was in the warm sunlight.

“Us,” croaked Turpentine, turning back to Ripple’s mother.

For a brief instant, Turpentine thought the beautiful seapony was going to vanish into mist right in front of him. With a twitch, she looked over at her daughter who was sleeping in the afternoon sunshine on the edge of the raft and her expression grew even more terrified, as if she were afraid that at any moment the little seapony could breathe her last.

Then there was a quiet bloop and Ripple’s mother was gone, leaving nothing behind but a small ripple in the river that quickly faded away.

* * ✹ * *

The rumble of moving water and the slow oscillation of the raft woke Turpentine from a fitful dream about a terrible storm raging across the river. It took a moment for him to blink the sleep out of his eyes, and then several more moments to make sense of the real world. The raft was violently bobbing up and down, making a spray of mist flick into his face and a strange breeze blow through his sun-warmed coat in a sharp chill that baffled him at first, or at least until he raised his head further.

The shore is going past awfully fast.

The front end of the raft was at least a half-length out of the water and a spray of water hissed out to each side in a haze of mist. It was not the shore that was moving, but the raft, traveling much faster than Turpentine had ever gone before including the terrifying time the unicorn family from his home town took him water skiing. His first instinct was to look for Ripple, and to his relief, she was still on the raft, but had apparently been nudged closer to the center where she was awake and regarding her surroundings through bleary eyes. To the back of their raft—

Turpentine blinked again. There were eight seapony mares of various pale shades of blue and pink pushing on the back end of the raft, with their tails churning the water up into a froth behind them. The combined glow of their magic lit up the glistening logs in rainbow colors, which shifted abruptly as the raft turned to the right, or maybe starboard if his fevered brain was interpreting maritime directions correctly.

Ahead, it appeared the seaponies were pushing the raft into some sort of lagoon surrounded by tall cottonwood trees and illuminated by afternoon sun. It almost had to be where Baron Gaberdine had his castle, but there were no structures in view at all, just the trees and a beat-up old sidewheel riverboat tied up at the shore.

Maybe they’re going to use the boat to take us down the river to a Baltimare hospital. Or maybe...

He squinted as the raft continued its rapid progress toward the shore and considered the old riverboat, from the peeling paint to the fresh rigging of a radio aerial up the single mast. It was a far cry from the Castle Paradise which Ripple had described. He had been expecting some sort of huge stone structure with a speedy riverboat as a kind of taxi for carrying the baron out on inspections of his domain. This looked more like a decrepit boat about ready to sink into the swamp, perhaps being lit on fire first in order to illuminate its path.

The raft had barely touched the shore when all of the seapony mares pushing the raft vanished back into the lagoon, abruptly leaving him alone with Ripple in the growing silence. Their wait was not for long, because an elderly earth pony with a grey mane and a faded coat which once must have been the color of sienna was already hobbling down the path to where their raft was beached. He certainly looked like the seneschal to the baron that Ripple had told him about, right down to the concern in his eyes when he saw the two young ponies both simply remaining in place instead of moving to get off the raft.

“Land sakes.” Sen stopped at the edge of the raft and tried his footing cautiously. “What’s going on here? I’ve been tending to Gaberdine most of the day, and somepony goes and hammers on the bottom of Castle Paradise, shoutin’ like the world is comin’ to an end. Miss Pearl?”

Turpentine turned to see the beautiful seapony leaning over the deck of the raft, with her green magic just starting to cautiously envelop a groggy Ripple. She hesitated, with wide terrified eyes and just the slightest push away from fleeing back into the river. “Ripple’s ill.”

Sen nodded, and those sparkling topaz eyes glanced over at Turpentine once before the old earth pony nodded again. “Yep, the flu’s got ‘em both, just like the baron, it looks like. If’n you want, Miss Pearl, I can bed them both down in the castle and tend to ‘em along with the baron. Ain’t that much more difficult to make three bowls of carrot soup than one, I suppose. Can you walk, boy?”

“Yes,” rasped Turpentine, staggering up to his hooves, then slowly sagging back down to the damp logs of the raft. The world seemed to waver beneath him, and somebody had turned up the gravity on Equestria to a degree where he felt almost as heavy as the raft. “Well, no.”

“And how about you, Miss Ripple?” It took less ‘up’ for Ripple to stand, because her flippers sprayed out to either side and the flukes of her tail dragged along the back, giving her the awkward look of a seal on dry land. She made a few short waddles in the direction of the shore before sinking down at the edge of the raft and giving a damp cough.

“Sorry, Sen,” she rasped.

“It’s up to you then, Miss Pearl,” said Sen, looking at the frightened seapony mare. “You can take her home if you want, or we can give her a place to stay here until she’s over it.”

“Can I stay with Turpentine?” asked Ripple with a short cough. “I promise to do whatever Mister Sienna says, and I can help look after Mister Gabby too.”

“Are you certain?” asked the nervous seapony in almost a whisper. Her eyes darted over to Turpentine, then over to the old earth pony, who really did not look very medical to Turpentine’s evaluating eye. Taking a long look at her sick daughter, Pearl took a breath and a wispy green aura formed around her horn again.

Ever so slowly, one step at a time, Pearl moved toward the shore and began to emerge out of the river with little rivulets of water pouring down her sides and pasting her sea-green mane to the side of her neck. Her stride was so slow and deliberate that Turpentine wished he had a pencil to capture the way she moved and the grace in every hoofstep. Her deep green eyes were wide with suppressed panic, and if even a mouse had emerged to squeak at her, Turpentine was certain she would have been back into the water instantly. Still, she persevered, and moved to stand next to Sen with only the smallest of trembles in her creamy white hide.

It was the first time he had been in the vicinity of a seapony transforming their flippers into oversized hooves, and Turpentine wished he had been closer to actually observe the process. It gave him enough energy to scoot forward and pull the folder with his sketchpads and pencils out of his pile of supplies, then stagger to his hooves while Sen and Pearl helped the two of them up the grassy embankment and into the old riverboat.

* * ✹ * *

Inside the corridors and comfortable quarters of the riverboat was a decor far more attractive than its peeling outer skin indicated. The scents of wax and camphor drifted through the hallway, with the gleam of polished wooden paneling reflecting the lights from several small firefly lanterns. Even the doors were thick and well-constructed, swinging open on well oiled hinges when Sen ushered Turpentine into a small guest cabin and whisked the dusty tarp off the large bed inside.

The ship’s guest cabin was even more rich and beautiful than the hallway, with the dark wood and gleaming brass glimmering in the muted illumination of Pearl’s hornlight. The bed was soft as a cloud, and Sen apologized several times for the nonexistent mess and discomfort while stowing the folded up dust covers in the cabin’s unused cabinets. The seeming inattention by the servant gave Pearl enough courage to come the rest of the way into the room and arrange Ripple and Turpentine at opposite ends of the bed, but she cringed back when he was done and turned around to supervise her ministrations to the young patients.

“Sorry, Miss Pearl,” said Sen, touching his forehead with one hoof. “I’ll just slip out and get our young guests some juice.”

“I don’t mean to be a bother, sir,” rasped Turpentine through the sharp thorns that seemed to be filling his throat.

“You ain’t no bother, and neither is you, young miss,” said Sen. “I’m well over my flu, an’ I’m probably the one who gave it to the young stallion to give to you, so it’s my fault you two is sick after all. Jus’ a minute.”

He vanished out of the room to next door, then returned with a dark brown bottle and two large spoons. “Somethin’ to drop your fever and let you breathe a little better. It should work for seaponies jus’ fine, Miss Ripple, on account of it’s the same stuff that got used on a couple of your aunts a few years back. Open wide.”

“Yuck,” declared Ripple after the first spoonful. “It’s terrible.”

“Better than struggling on a coughin’ and a wheezin’ all day,” said Sen. “Asides, if’n it tastes bad, you’ll wanna get better fast so you don’t havta take it anymore.” He sat the used spoon on a table at Ripple’s end of the bed and got a clean one for Turpentine. “You get two spoons full, young lad, on account you sound so bad.”

Ripple was entirely correct. There was a sharp bite to the sluggish brown fluid like raw tannin, quite similar to several of his inks for the more darker shades whenever Turpentine had gotten a little sloppy while inking a drawing. After dutifully swallowing the allocated dosage, Turpentine got out his sketchbook and a pencil while settling in next to the lamp.

“What’cha dooin?” asked Ripple, awkwardly shifting position in order to crane her head in his direction.

“I wanted to do a quick sketch of your mom, but my paper is all damp,” said Turpentine out of the corner of his mouth. “Oh!” he added when Ripple lit up her horn and the sheets of damp paper promptly flattened out and regained their original dryness. “Thanks.”

“Can I watch?” The little seapony wriggled closer while he shifted positions so they could both see the paper at the same time. She remained perfectly quiet and still while he sketched from memory and Sen tidied up the room, getting out more towels and a bucket, just in case. There was a grace and symmetry to Pearl that Turpentine struggled to convert into dark lines, making several smaller sketches before his eyes watered so much he could not see the paper any more.

“That’s enough, young lad.” Sen picked the sketchpad out of his hooves and sat it on the nearby table. “The two of you need to get some rest. Miss Pearl was supposed to be back with some orange juice already, but—”

“I’ve got it, Sen.” The young tan stallion who Turpentine had last seen on his raft came cautiously into the room, using his magic to carry two large glasses of orange juice and a pitcher with condensation running down the sides. Baron Gaberdine looked a lot more tired now, with shallow bags under his eyes and a rumpled mane, as well as a wrinkled nightshirt in some sort of plaid print which was almost painful to look at. After Sen excused himself from the room, Gaberdine floated each of the glasses of orange juice to their respective young pony and nodded in an obviously false stern fashion. “Drink it all up, you two. I don’t want you getting dehydrated, particularly you, Ripple.”

It was fairly easy to obey the bedraggled baron, even if he really did not look very noble or royal at the moment, but more like somepony’s older brother who had been rather abruptly woken up in the middle of a nap. There was still some good light coming in off the glass-block windows on the side of the riverboat, and Turpentine figured that if he played along until the young stallion left, he’d still have some time to draw until it got too dark to see. The orange juice burned a little going down where the thick medicine had irritated his throat, but it sloshed down into his belly like liquid nectar, even if it did make him a little more queasy and glad that there was a bucket within reach, just in case it wanted to come back up again.

Once both of them had polished off their glasses of orange juice, the baron filled them up again and sat them on the little endtables in the room, Ripple’s at one end of the bed and his at the other. “The two of you need to take a nap now, and no staying up to draw,” admonished the baron, giving Turpentine a very stern look. “When you get better, I’ll see if I can get Miss Pearl to let you draw her, and not before.”

“Are you sure, Mister Gaberdine?” asked Ripple while she was fashioning her blankets into some sort of a nest-like structure. “My mother is awfully shy.”

“I’ll ask,” said Gaberdine with a faint smile welling up behind his impassive face despite his best efforts. “It would be nice to have a portrait of her around.”

The faintest of noises, much like a mouse clearing its throat sounded from the doorway, and ever so slowly, the pale seapony mare poked her nose around the corner. There was a hint of a smile on her face matching Baron Gaberdine’s expression almost perfectly, and her dark green eyes seemed to reach out and capture Turpentine in their timid but still firm gaze. “I think… I would like that too,” she said in a near whisper.

* * ☽ * *

Between the medicine and the orange juice, Turpentine was feeling better, and not even the slightest bit sleepy, particularly with so many things he needed to get down on paper before he forgot. Still, he closed his eyes and put his head down on the pillow for a few minutes and pretended to sleep so Gaberdine would leave the room, which would allow Turpentine to make a few more quick sketches in the afternoon sunlight before it got too dark.

When he opened his eyes again, the flaw in his plan was obvious.

It was already dark in the room other than the glow of the firefly lantern and the faint glow of silver moonlight coming through the window. All around him were the faint noises of a riverboat moored to the shore, from Ripple’s quiet and thankfully not as raspy snore, to the gurgle of water under the hull and the songs of the river’s nighttime inhabitants outside, which he had gotten quite familiar with over the last few days.

He blinked heavy lashes and coughed, which he had expected to be a quiet and polite noise in order not to wake up Ripple, but the first cough triggered a larger second one, and then another, until he found himself on the floor, scrabbling for the empty bucket.

It was not empty for long.

Thankfully, he did not have much in his stomach, but what little he had soon occupied the bucket in streams of orangeish fluid and green slime. He coughed and threw up and coughed some more while the room filled up, first with a concerned Ripple beside him, calling out to the rest of the boat just as loud as she could, then Sen, who brought a brighter lantern. Baron Gaberdine was close on his heels, with his horn lit up to illuminate the room, casting stark shadows dancing along the walls until a suspiciously dry Pearl also crowded into the room with her horn lit up as well.

“He’s running a good temperature, even with the medicine, sir,” said Sen with one hoof on Turpentine’s forehead. “Do you want me to get the thermometer?”

“No!” croaked Turpentine, in between spasms at the moment and with his tail tucked tightly to his rear. “Mother Windrow used to check my temperature every hour when I was sick. I hate it!”

“Then I’ll go make you a nice cup of milo tea,” said Sen before vanishing in the direction of the castle galley.

“Should we give him another spoon of medicine?” asked Pearl. She held the bottle close to her eyes and read the small print with her delicate lips moving to sound out the complicated words. Turpentine knew he was really sick because the sight of her concern did not even give him the urge to grab his pencil again and get it down on paper.

“He’ll just throw it up again,” said Gaberdine. “He needs a doctor. I’ll go into Gravel Flats and see if I can wake up Doctor Wallaby.”

“You’re still sick,” said Pearl, looking up abruptly from her examination of the bottle.

“I’m feeling a lot better,” countered Gaberdine, which was promptly undermined by him stifling a brief cough against his shoulder.

“You’re staying,” said Pearl with an unexpected hint of steel in her voice. Gaberdine made a brief show of resistance before shooting Turpentine a glance and retrenching his position.

“I’ll see if Sen can go wake up the doctor,” he countered. “You should probably take Ripple out of the room while the doctor’s here so she doesn’t find out about… you know. You can use my room again,” he added. “I’ll stay in here.”

Being surrounded by concerned faces was a new experience for Turpentine. At home, Mother Windrow had been the only one worried about him when he was sick, and that warm feeling of being loved was somewhat muted by having a thermometer shoved up his rear every hour so she could keep track of how sick he really was.

“Here we go, young lad.” Sen slipped back into the room with a cup of steaming tea from which the nauseating scent of boiled milo wafted into the air. “Up and over the gums, like my mother always said. It’ll help keep your tummy calm so we can get some more medicine into you.”

Turpentine wrinkled his lip and resisted as much as he could, but eventually gave in and took sips of the awful substance between weak coughs. It did not seem to calm his tummy the same way as before, but the faces of the three concerned ponies around him brought a warmth to his heart that no amount of tea could match.

Is this what it’s like to have a real family? They barely know me! How can they care so much about me?

Around his second cup of tea and his uncounted wet cough, he noticed an absence in his audience. At first, he thought Ripple had left because she was upset about the way he was monopolizing the attention of her mother and the ponies she had begun to think of as the rest of her family. It did not quite match with the caring little seapony he had gotten to know over the last few days. In fact, if she could somehow turn Turpentine into a seapony and have her mother adopt him, he felt fairly certain she would have done that already so they could play all day as brother and sister while growing up under the water. Not that the concept was all bad, but… Actually, that would not be such a bad thing, if he could somehow get paint to work underwater. Still, he wanted to develop his talent, to learn what his talent was capable of instead of doodling with watercolors until he was old and grey. For that, he needed to get to Baltimare, and for that to happen, he needed to get well.

A cold shudder traveled up his flank, turning into a similar wave of fire as it traveled back down. The tremors were getting worse, despite the warm blanket that Gaberdine draped over his shoulders and the spoonful of medicine that Pearl gently slipped into his mouth between coughs. Sen had vanished after a few whispered words with the baron and most likely was on the way to Gravel Flats to get the doctor. Not that he needed one. It was just a cold, and would go away in a day or two, even if he was more sick now than he had ever been before.

Through the shivers and the tea, he could hear Pearl call out, “Ripple? Where did you go?”

The distinct slither-flop of the little seapony could be heard coming down the hallway outside, growing louder until Ripple came into his cabin and promptly climbed up on the desk in front of the window. She did not say anything at first, but just kept looking outside as if she were waiting on something out in the moonlit darkness.

“Ripple,” said Pearl in a quiet reproach for her misuse of furniture. The pale seapony mare turned back to Gaberdine and smiled in a way that made Turpentine ache for a paintbrush even as sick as he was. “I’m sorry, Gabby. Will you be able to take care of Turpentine here while I take Ripple back to your cabin?”

“I want to stay here with Turpentine,” stated Ripple in a loud, clear voice, although she kept looking out the window.

Pearl winced almost as if she had been pricked by a pin. “You can’t,” she whispered. “We don’t know if the doctor will be able to keep our secret. Sen said Doctor Wallaby is fairly new, and she talks to ponies all over this settled area.”

“Turpentine is sick, really sick,” said Ripple insistently. “He needs a real doctor, not just some young filly just out of school.”

There was something about Ripple’s alert posture and the stubborn set of her chin that Turpentine recognized, even as sick as he was. Pearl recognized it too, as she sucked in a breath of air and her terrified gaze went to the window, making her next words come out in a bare whisper. “Ripple, what did you do?”

The moonlight outside the window flared up briefly, almost as bright as the sun for a moment, then the sounds of beating wings could abruptly be heard while the light faded back to normal.

“I sent a letter,” said Ripple.

* * ☽ * *

8 - Night Moves

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Night Moves

"She was at work on what they said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young mare in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with her mane all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with the tears running down her face…"

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

“Baron Gaberdine of Fen.” The female voice from the darkness outside of the riverboat was both strong and measured, as if the speaker were exerting the greatest control over her words. “Your Princess of the Night begs permission to enter your domain. With guests.”

With a mouse-like squeak of fear and a clatter of hooves, Pearl vanished out the cabin door that lead to the bathroom. From the sounds afterward, she might have also hidden in the bathtub too, but what drew Turpentine’s attention more than anything was the stunned and quite wide-eyed expression Baron Gaberdine was giving to the other door in the cabin.

The one that led outside.

“P-p-princess L-luna?” he stammered.

Ripple nodded and coughed once, covering her mouth with a flipper. “I used some of the enchanted paper you use to send Princess Celestia and Princess Luna reports about us, Mister Gabby. I wrote the note and put my magic to it just like you showed and it whooshed out the window on its way to them. She got here awfully fast,” added Ripple. “I hope she brought the doctor I asked for.”

Even though Gaberdine’s hooves seemed to be welded to the floor, his wide eyes turned to give Ripple a disbelieving glance, then turned on Turpentine, who was still wrapped around the bucket and splattered with specks of vomit. “It’s P-princess Luna,” he repeated almost automatically. “She came to…”

“Baron Gaberdine,” came the soft voice from before. “I’m waiting.”

“Yes!” yelped Gaberdine, scrambling forward toward the door and out of Turpentine’s vision as he galloped down the gangplank to the shore. Even if he were well, Turpentine would not have been able to hear the conversation going on at the shore from inside the cabin, but he tried to listen anyway. While he sat there, Ripple scampered down from the desk and padded up to him so she could put a cool flipper on his forehead, shaking her head much the same way as Gaberdine had.

“You’re really hot.”

“You didn’t have to write to Princess Luna to get a doctor,” rasped Turpentine.

“I was worried.” Ripple poured him a little more milo tea and sat there like a pale green lump as he drank it between coughing fits. “I have my mother, but I never had a good friend before, other than Baron Mister Miller, and he passed into the Eternal Pastures in his sleep because he was old, not sick. I didn’t want you to go there too, just like I don’t want you to go to Baltimare.”

“Going to Baltimare isn’t the same as dying.” Turpentine forced himself to take another mouthful of the vile tea. “I’d come back.”

Ripple moved closer and nuzzled him along his neck, her coat feeling almost ice cold against his blood-warmed skin. “My father said that too,” she whispered, remaining pressed against him until the door to the cabin cracked open and a very old unicorn poked his nose inside.

The doctor was more grey than sky-blue across most of his coat, with a nearly pure white fringe of a beard and twinkling grey eyes. The unicorn did not look startled or surprised at all at the way Ripple was nestled up against his side with her flippers spread wide for stability, but he lit up in a warm smile that showed a golden tooth while he slipped the rest of the way into the room. He was obviously a doctor, from the stethoscope around his neck and the wrinkled white labcoat which bore signs of being put on in a hurry, but he certainly seemed friendly enough when he addressed Ripple in a warm, deep tenor.

“Hello, Ripple. My, how you’ve grown. You’ll be as tall as your mother before long.”

Ripple did not respond right away, because Turpentine could tell she was suppressing a sniffle against his neck, but he looked up in her place and nodded a silent greeting to the old unicorn.

“And you must be Mister Turpentine who Princess Luna told me about,” said the doctor with a warm smile. “I’m Doctor Plover. Let’s see how you’re breathing before we do anything else.”

Ripple finished sniffing and watched as the old stallion put the cold end of a stethoscope against Turpentine’s barrel, moving it around with occasional instructions on breathing and introspective noises that doctors always seemed to make whenever they did not have anything important to say. She cleared her throat to get his attention, then gave a brief cough, but he continued ignoring Ripple as he worked, which was probably a bad idea.

“So, can I call you Turp?” asked the doctor as he moved the cold stethoscope over some particularly ticklish ribs. “Breathe.”

After as deep a breath as he could take, Turpentine said, “Please no. Some of the colts from home called me Turp the Durp.”

He coughed raggedly after speaking, which gave Ripple the opportunity to float the end of the stethoscope over to her and ask, “Why did—”

“Ahhahyea!” yelped the elderly stallion, jerking away and yanking the stethoscope out of Ripple’s magical grasp. “Ripple, don’t do that.” He rubbed his ears and added, “I saw you when you were very small and your mother brought you up the river. You needed immunizations to live in Equestria, and Princess Celestia made the arrangements.”

“Oh.” Ripple sniffed, still leaning up against Turpentine’s sweating side. “The immunimumizations didn’t work. I’m sick.”

“Not nearly as sick as your coltfriend,” said the doctor. “It sounds like you have some fluid in your lungs, young lad. Have you been underwater lately?”

“Yes, he has,” said Ripple while Turpentine was suppressing another cough. “I took him swimming and used the water breathing spell on him.” She sniffled again. “Did I hurt him?”

“Nothing a few shots won’t cure, since we caught it early,” said the doctor. “Let me get my nurse in here and we’ll have you both right as rain in a few shakes. It will take a few days for your lungs to recover before you can use that spell again, young lad, so no swimming for at least a week, just to be safe.”

Doctor Plover gestured at the door, which he had left open a crack, and a slim young pegasus slipped into the room carrying a bag in her mouth. She was as dark as a shadow, with well-shaped membranous wings and the furriest ears Turpentine had seen, topped with a white nurse’s cap over a woven dark blue mane that glittered and sparkled with faint threads of silver in the room lights. Both golden eyes had slitted pupils like a cat, giving her an entrancing gaze, although she quickly looked down into the doctor’s bag whenever Turpentine caught her looking back at him. Her cutie mark was a thin silver line, almost invisible against her grey coat and looking much like the hypodermic needles she was producing from the bag or putting away as the doctor used them. Turpentine almost did not notice the sharp pains of the shots while he studied the body shape and subtle tints of the batpony nurse, along with the almost fluid way she moved when responding to each of the doctor’s instructions.

“Ow!” said Ripple, which broke Turpentine out of his entranced study of the nurse. He rubbed his warm neck against his seapony friend in delayed reassurance while the nurse got out a second needle.

“Now Ripple,” chided Doctor Plover. “You didn’t hear Turpentine complain when he got his shots.”

“Yeah, but he was making googly eyes at your nurse like Mister Gaberdine does when he looks at my mother.” Ripple stuck out her bottom lip when the doctor gave her the second shot, but she cheered up after he put away the needles and got out a pair of colorful lollipops.

“No hugs,” cautioned the doctor when Ripple started to lunge forward. “Since I’m the official castle physician, I still have other patients to see in the castle tomorrow, and I don’t want to catch your flu. I’ve had my shot, but let’s not take chances.”

“Aw…” Ripple pouted briefly, then perked back up again. “Will you have to come back out again and give us a checkup like Quackers the Duck did when he had to go to the hospital in the book?”

“Ah, Quackers Goes to the Hospital,” said Doctor Plover with a smile. “I read that book to the little foals in the castle infirmary. Whenever we have any, that is.” He gently tousled Ripple’s mane with one hoof.

* * ☽ * *

After the doctor excused himself to go talk to Gaberdine and Princess Luna, the quiet batpony nurse tucked Ripple and Turpentine back into bed, although she seemed momentarily puzzled at the nest of blankets Ripple had made instead of curling up against the pillow with a sketchbook like Turpentine. Once she left the room, he drew feverishly, using a soft pencil as if it were a weapon against time, because he was still sick and trying to cough but as long as he was putting lines on paper, he could hold the impulse back. Something was happening outside, but it seemed as if the grown-ups were determined to hide all of the interesting things away from the sick little ponies.

Turpentine did not mind. He was drawing, and the rest of the world did not matter.

He was vaguely aware when another pony slipped into the room, but he was just finishing a tricky curve at the corner of the nurse’s eye and trying to get the shading just right when the soft voice from before spoke just to one side of his face.

“That is a wonderful drawing, young Turpentine.”

Turpentine looked up from his sketchbook and his heart stopped. Almost within nuzzling distance, the darkness of the star-strewn night flowed over Princess Luna’s crown, coiling down her neck in little whorls and streams sparkling with the glittering gems of tiny stars that almost matched exactly with the glitters of mischief he could see in her pale teal eyes. The smallest of smiles touched the corners of her narrow lips and brought the shadows over her tall cheekbones into a perfect contrast. The grace and beauty of the young batpony nurse suddenly looked crude and awkward by comparison, and Turpentine fumbled with his sketchpad to turn a page while lamenting his current state of un-wellness, as well as a lack of the specific tint of Luna’s eyeshadow in his painting supplies.

“You’re beautiful,” he blurted out. “Can I draw you?”

Luna’s magic smoothed down the page in his sketchbook he was trying to turn and she rotated the drawing of the batpony nurse for closer examination, although with the faintest shadow passing over her features while she scrutinized it. After a moment, the hint of sadness went away and she smiled, like the full moon emerging from behind a bank of clouds, and Turpentine could breathe again, even if it was just in short, raspy breaths.

“I… am flattered, young one, but thou art ill, and in need of rest. Lie down and sleep, for you are safe here. I have volunteered to watch over the two of you while the physician and young Ripple’s mother administer the rest of the flu shots among your family so no more may be affected by this distasteful plague.”

Luna’s magic lifted the sketchbook away from his desperate grab, although she seemed curious about the rest of his sketches, leaving Turpentine to settle for a careful examination of the seldom-seen princess from the edge of his covers. While Luna pretended not to notice his rapt attention, she paged through his sketchbook in silence with the occasional small smile or amused shake of the head.

It was curiously restful, even if Turpentine could not spend his time drawing. The peace and quiet of the riverboat cabin was broken only by the muted lapping of the waves against the hull and the distant cries of birds as they hunted through the night. Even Ripple did not say anything except a few small grunts when she settled down into her nest and a polite thanks when Luna floated a glass of juice over for her to drink. Turpentine did not ask for any juice because enough of Sen’s milo tea was still sloshing around in his belly for a few days, and far more importantly, he was watching Princess Luna’s face for every hint of emotion she showed as she paged through his sketch book.

It was entirely unfair the way the world simply faded away as he watched, until the eye-burning light of dawn broke through the cabin windows the next morning.

* * ✹ * *

“Good morning, sleepy.”

Someday, possibly soon, Turpentine really needed to teach Ripple about personal space. At under nose-booping range, her bright green eyes were so sparkling with happiness that he could see himself reflected in them. Twice.

“Morning, Ripple.” Turpentine’s voice was a dull rasp until he cleared his mouth and turned his head to cough into the provided tissue. At least the phlegm he hacked up was clear, because if it had been dark like Mother Windrow had always worried about, he probably would have thrown some sort of nervous fit to follow the cough. He blinked several more times, accepting the tissues Ripple floated over to him to get the crusty junk out of his eyes and one more cough until he felt like talking again. “Where’s Prin’ess Luna,” he croaked.

“She went home,” said Ripple, obviously conflicted by the concept from the way her perked-up ears drooped and then popped back up again. “She musta really liked your pictures, though. She took the sketchbook and said she’d bring it back in a week and pose for you. She was gonna have her nurse stay here and watch over us to make sure we’re getting better, but Mama didn’t like that.” Ripple lowered her voice and glanced all around the room before whispering, “I think Mister Gaberdine was watching her.”

“She was really watchable,” said Turpentine after another cough. “I’d love to see her fly sometime so I can see how her wings work. I’d never seen a batpony before, other than in pictures.”

He coughed again and shifted positions on the bed, moving to slide his hooves out from under the sheet on a slow but steady progress that necessity was driving. After taking a moment to let his legs get used to the unaccustomed weight of his body, Turpentine asked “So, is your mother going to watch over us while we recover?”

Ripple shook her head. “No, but Mister Baron Gaberdine and my mother had a talk and then they talked with Princess Luna, and then they—”

“Oh, you’re up, dear!” The elderly earth pony mare who scurried into their room with a pot of hot milo tea was a familiar sight to Turpentine because he had grown up under her roof for many years. The faded pink of Mother Windrow’s coat, as well as the contrasting purplish orchid of her grey-streaked mane had become so familiar to his painting that he most probably could mix the tints out of his limited collection of oil paints blindfolded. He had not realized her hazel eyes were the exact shade of Baron Gaberdine’s until she stopped in front of him and placed a hoof on his forehead.

“You’re still too hot, dear,” she said, nudging him back toward the bed. “Lie down and I’ll pour you a cup of tea. And one for you too, dearie,” she added with as much of a smile to Ripple as possible while holding a teapot in her mouth.

“I have to go potty, Mother Windrow,” he blurted out, although his ears burned with embarrassment after speaking. “I mean the bathroom,” he corrected. “Now?”

“Mister Sen says it’s called a head on a ship,” said Ripple before Turpentine vanished into the small room next door. “And that right is called starsboard, and left is ports, because sailors speak a different language.”

In whatever language, the toilet felt comforting and cold against his rear, far more than the scanty cover of a prickly bush, and the silky toilet paper could have been sculpted from clouds. His abused rear appreciated the caress, and afterwards he found himself casting an envious eye at the nearby bathtub, which also had soap and shampoo as well as other things like brushes and combs he had missed so much over the last few days.

“Could I take a bath before I lie down, Mother Windrow?” he called out after all of the wiping was complete and considering the embarrassing possibility that his orphan matron had brought along her thermometer.

Ripple squealed and burst through the door to the small bathroom, lifting herself up on her rear flippers and tail to look into the bathtub. He quickly flushed and put the lid down on the toilet, thankful that she had not come in a few minutes earlier.

“The water’s even hot!” declared Ripple after she stuck a flipper under the faucet and popped the cork into the tub. “Come on!”

In the orphanage, Mother Windrow had always overseen his bathing practices, with the iron-clad opinion of ‘Not frequent enough’ and ‘Not stringent enough.” She would check beneath the frogs of his hooves with a stern frown, inspect the inside of his ears for any speck of soil, and inevitably order him to remain in the freezing water while she applied a little more soap and elbow grease to the problem.

Also, he had gotten used to swimming with Ripple over the last few days, and learned to appreciate the almost liquid grace in the way she moved through water.

He had never thought those two experiences would ever be mashed together.

Mother Windrow obviously did not either, and although the frequent sniffles and occasional coughs of her two bath-ees restricted the inevitable splashing and bubbling between Ripple and Turpentine, it was a much more fun experience in the tub than he ever had before, even with having his mane shampooed twice. They splashed and sudsed through what felt like about a pound of sand and dirt getting scrubbed out of Turpentine’s tangled mane and coat, with Mother Windrow maintaining control over the long-handled bath brush with her steel-like jaws. There was even a faint smile leaking out from her grip on the wooden brush handle, and Turpentine could have sworn the elderly mare had intentionally splashed Ripple back with it once or twice during the bathing process.

By the time they were drying off, Turpentine could see two curious older ponies peeking through the crack in the bathroom door, both smiling. It was a fascinating scene for him, with Baron Gaberdine fairly bursting with pride and Pearl looking actually comfortable for a change instead of radiating an intense desire to be elsewhere. He soaked up the details revealed in their faces like a little watercolor sponge as related elements clicked together, much like the dot to dot drawings he had done as a foal and the brief experiment he had with Pointillism. Although he was tired and feeling sore everywhere, and certainly did not want to incite Mother Windrow into getting out her thermometer, he needed something to distract her while he grabbed one of his blank sketchbooks and wrote something down.

It was just a guess from the way Mother Windrow seemed fascinated with untangling and brushing the little seapony’s perpetually tangled mane, but he asked, “Could Mother Windrow braid your mane, Ripple?”

Ripple shrieked in happiness.

Mother Windrow smiled and got out her manecomb.

Turpentine slipped out of the bathroom, still a little damp.

* * ✹ * *

He managed to get almost three pages filled in his spare sketchbook before Ripple flounced back into the cabin, proudly displaying the way her mane wove into itself as it descended her neck. Mother Windrow had even found a few pink ribbons from somewhere to tie into her mane and flutter in the wind while she bounced around, still a little damp but mostly dry. She insisted on having Turpentine draw her with the braid, although it was quite difficult for her to hold still, look at the artist, and turn the back of her head to him so he could draw her mane accurately.

Thankfully, there was a mirror in the room.

As he worked, Mother Windrow slipped by with a spoonful of medicine and a glass of chilled milo tea for each of them, and after watching him draw for a while, forced Turpentine to lie down even though the sun was high in the sky and giving the perfect light for painting. The bed was a far cry from resting his sand-encrusted flank against wet logs, and he relished the relative quiet when Ripple slither-flopped out to the galley with Mother Windrow to work on a little bit of oatmeal and some juice for her recovering little ponies. It made a good time to think instead of drawing, or at least think of something other than drawing.

He was still looking rather contemplatively into a corner of the room when Baron Gaberdine poked his nose through the doorway, obviously expecting to see a little slumbering pony instead of Turpentine’s wide-awake eyes.

“Oh! Um… You’re awake,” said Gaberdine. He fidgeted, casting a plaintive look at Turpentine’s sketchbook, and then out the window. “I happened to see some of your work when Princess Luna was looking it over and I was just wondering… Since you were sketching just now…”

Turpentine nodded and Gaberdine lit up his horn, floating the sketchbook over and flipping through a few pages. “Very nice,” he murmured, although the next page he flipped over seemed to confound him briefly. “Very…” Gaberdine coughed once and swallowed. “You seem to have caught Miss Pearl…”

The sketch he was looking at was not really that good. Turpentine always had problems with getting eyes just right, so he had drawn Gaberdine and Pearl leaning together at the doorway with his eyes half-closed and hers all the way shut. The dark pencil could not reflect either of their manes well, with his straight and proper, and hers tangled and water-blown, but the mixture of them together had made a nice counterpoint to the sketch. The baron did not say much more other than to flip through the few pages in the sketchbook Turpentine had managed to fill while waiting for Mother Windrow to come in with the oatmeal, but there was a question, or more correctly a series of questions that was bothering Turpentine.

“Mister Baron Gaberdine, sir—”

“Gaberdine,” said the baron. “Please. And no sir. From Ripple, it’s cute. From you…”

“It’s sucking up,” said Turpentine. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to ask. Is Mother Windrow staying here for very long?”

“Only until the two of you are over your flu.” Gaberdine still looked a little distracted while he flipped over another page in the sketchbook. “She was very worried back when you ran away from her home, and when Pearl asked about finding somepony to help take care of you two, I thought it best to have somepony familiar with smaller children. In addition—” Gaberdine frowned and looked intently at the sketchbook instead of Turpentine “—I was not looking forward to informing her of your condition.”

“And since Castle Paradise only has three rooms… er… cabins, she’s staying in Sen’s cabin, right?”

Gaberdine waved a hoof in the general direction of town. “Sen is staying in Gravel Flats for the next few days with Madame Shutters… I mean at Madam Shutters Bed and Breakfast.”

“And Pearl is staying in your room, right?”

“Yes,” said Gaberdine, although he froze almost immediately afterwards and started backpedaling with the speed of a clown on a unicycle. “Not that there’s anything wrong with her staying in my cabin while her sick daughter is being cared for here. I’m sleeping on the floor. By myself. It’s perfectly proper.” He eyed Turpentine over the top of the sketchbook and gave a polite cough that had nothing to do with his own battle with the flu. “By the way, my father has made arrangements to meet me in Baltimare four days from now. If you would like, I can provide transportation and introduce you at an artist school there.”

“And I don’t mention this to your father?” asked Turpentine.

“And you don’t mention this to anypony,” said Gaberdine. “Particularly, my father.”

Turpentine nodded. “Good. That will give me a few days at school to set up for Princess Luna’s portrait.”

Author's Note

Blackmail is such an ugly word.

9 - What Lies Beneath The Surface

Drifting Down the Lazy River
What Lies Beneath The Surface

"Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Three days of enforced bed rest in Castle Paradise with Mother Windrow and Baron Gaberdine doing their best to keep Turpentine from spending all the time drawing should have seemed like forever. In actuality, it fairly flew by as the two of them seemed to compete with how many stories they could read to their sick little ponies or how much coddling they could provide. Turpentine got to experience every Quackers the Duck story in the castle library, complete with Mother Windrow doing the voices and descriptive quacks from Gaberdine.

The only ponies missing from their recovery were Sen, who was in town working on a project, and Pearl, who seemed to waver between being afraid of Turpentine and fascinated by him. She stayed mostly out of sight, but frequently during story reading time he could hear the faint creak of decking out in the hallway when the older seapony would drift up the corridor and take shy peeks inside the room, mirroring Gaberdine’s duck quacks with quiet giggles of her own.

It gave Turpentine a greater respect for the timidity of the rest of Pearl’s relatives, which although Ripple called them all ‘aunts,’ were actually second cousins and nieces and all kinds of connected-by-a-great-grandparent relations that boggled Turpentine’s orphan mind. ‘Aunts’ did seem to be a much better way of referring to them, although when he would stretch out on the sun-warmed deck of the riverboat and look out across the lagoon with his sketchbook, he could imagine them shyly just beneath the water, studying him in return while he drew.

And perhaps from the occasional ripple or bubble breaking the surface, he may have been right.

It took no effort at all to imagine Ripple in the same environment. She sprang back from her bout with the flu much faster than Turpentine, who spent most of the last day of his recovery watching her leap off the deck of the riverboat into the lagoon, then squelch-flop up the shore, back onto the riverboat, and back off the deck again. Mother Windrow was tickled pink at the way the little seapony played, and was so distracted she did not even take Turpentine’s temperature once before it was time for her to return home.

Home. The meaning of the word had changed for Turpentine, to the point where he was unsure what it really was now. After so many different families had attempted to turn their home into his, Turpentine was not sure if he ever could find his place in the world. Much like a bird or a pegasus leaving the nest, it was time for him to spread his wings and fly, but all he could see now was the very long drop in front of him.

On the morning Mother Windrow was to return to her home, it was somewhat of a relief for Turpentine to wake up and get out of the riverboat before dawn instead of sleeping as much as he had been ordered to over the last few days. Out of guilt, he had even volunteered to carry Mother Windrow’s rather limited baggage since Sen was still in Gravel Flats until his cabin became vacant again.

While he strolled silently behind the old mare and the young baron in the pre-dawn light, Turpentine could not help but feel torn. If Baron Gaberdine had not stuck his neck out, Turpentine would have been on that same pegasus wagon, headed back to the small house he had spent many years of his young life in. His dream of going to Baltimare and becoming a famous painter would have been dashed, or at least delayed a few years, and he never would have seen Ripple again. Instead, the young baron had been writing letters on his behalf in order to make Turpentine’s dream into a reality. He owed the baron far more than the five bits Turpentine still had in the bottom of his painting box, and he owed Mother Windrow far, far more than he could ever repay. Neither of them owed him a single bit, but they each in their own way had invested a lot of time and effort into making a young colt’s life better without any promise of reward.

It gave Turpentine a strange twinge in his chest while they walked through the cheerful town of Gravel Flats and its early-rising inhabitants. If things went the way Baron Gaberdine had said, Turpentine would not be going back to his home town other than for the occasional visit to Mother Windrow. She would have to do all of her household chores by herself again, like carrying the laundry to the wash house or bringing in the mail every morning. It made him feel guilty at leaving her behind, because she was almost fifty, and could not do all of the things she did at a younger age.

He thought he was concealing his worry, but before they went into the Speedy Cargo building, Mother Windrow took him aside for a brief chat.

“Hey.” She put a hoof under his chin and lifted until Turpentine was looking into Mother Windrow’s dark eyes. “Still feeling guilty about running away?”

“Yeah.” He tried to look down at the dusty ground again but Mother Windrow would not let him. She kept a constant pressure under his chin until he looked her in the eyes again, as he knew he was going to have to.

“I was so worried when I found you missing, terrified you were going to get hurt, and frightened that I had said something to drive you away. There’s been a lot of little colts and fillies through my house, and each one of them is special, but you…” She paused to wipe away a tear. “When I started the job, they told me you were all a bunch of heartbreakers, and that I was going to want to keep each and every one of you like some mother hen with a dozen chicks.”

“Chirp,” said Turpentine rather sullenly.

The old mare giggled and rubbed Turpentine on the top of his mane. “See. You can always make me happy. I’ve just not been able to make you happy in return.”

“And somewhere out there is a family where I’ll fit in, and make us all happy.” Turpentine sighed. “You gave me this talk before.”

“And I get the feeling this is going to be the last time,” continued Mother Windrow with a warm smile. “I had the opportunity to talk with Baron Gaberdine quite a bit over the last few days. If anybody can figure out where a complicated little puzzle like you belongs, it’s certain to be him. Now,” she added, straightening up and wiping her face quickly with the back of one hoof, “you be good for him and no more running away, or I will be most displeased. Missus Pearl is going to watch over you as long as you’re at Castle Paradise, so I told her all of the little tricks you’ve used to get out of chores.”

“All of them?” he asked with a sense of unfairness at the possibility of losing painting time. Still, he could not resist her warm eyes, and gave her a goodbye nuzzle anyway. “I promise to behave and not cause the baron or his… friend any trouble. I’m sorry for making you worried.”

“You’re forgiven.” Mother Windrow leaned her head into his neck harder than she ever had before. “I could never be angry at you for trying to find out where you belong. I know you’ll find your place, even if it isn’t with me.”

* * ✹ * *

After Mother Windrow made sure his mane was combed properly, they joined Baron Gaberdine in the Speedy Cargo building and were introduced to the two pegasus sisters who ran the place, a bright pink pegasus named Powderpuff and her sister, a lemon-yellow pegasus named Lemon Drops. The sisters seemed perpetually perky, and through their happy babbling, he learned they had a weekly cargo route around the area, as well as on-demand delivery trips to other small towns in the area through the week. Tomorrow when they went to Baltimare, he and Baron Gaberdine were going to share their ride with locally-grown radishes, carrots, and parsnips, but for today, Mother Windrow took her place between several crates of dry popcorn on the cob and gave a farewell smile with small wave to her young ward.

Then the sisters braced themselves and rose up into the air with smooth synchronized flapping, curved their flight to the west, and headed for Mother Windrow’s home. It normally would have made Turpentine dive for his pencil to capture the moment, but he just stood there and watched the wagon vanish into the distance instead, trying to make sense of the strange feeling in his chest. It could have just been some leftovers from his flu, but he did not think so. It was more like something that he had almost experienced several times before when he had been given away into an adoption for absolute certain that it was going to work this time.

While standing there next to the nondescript baron and watching the unblemished sky, the sensation in his chest was just about the way he had once imagined having a father might feel.

Imagination aside, Turpentine’s visit to the rather odd liquid barony was about over. He needed to get ready for his trip tomorrow, when he was scheduled to travel with Baron Gaberdine to Baltimare and meet with the teacher in the art school he had read about. Once he was accepted, he had a great number of things to do to get ready to paint Princess Luna’s portrait.

She was going to be a tricky one, with dark shadows and silver highlights making the picture appear to be in the moonlit darkness even when the watcher was standing in the light. She might not even like it. There must have been hundreds of artists already who had been begging to capture her likeness since she had been freed from Nightmare Moon’s power. His would just be another child’s scribble, not even worth being put on the icebox.

“Well, Turpentine.” Baron Gaberdine took a deep breath and looked back down at the young colt. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. We’ll have to pick out some of your best works to show off. You’ll knock the shoes off those stodgy old art teachers and have them begging to let you in. I was holding this back, but I received a response from Mister d’Or at the Baltimare School of Modern Art in last evening’s mail and he is willing to personally show us around tomorrow morning before I have to go have lunch with my father.”

“Will I get to meet your father, sir? I mean Mister Gaberdine. Gabby,” Turpentine finished, as he had been corrected several times over the last three days.

“With luck, no.” There was a faint twinge of emotion traveling up the baron’s tense jaw as he spoke, which piqued Turpentine’s curiosity. After all, the riverboat did not even have any photographs of Gabby’s parents, which struck him as odd. Mother Windrow had dozens of portraits of her around the house, and had started to gently complain that she kept standing in front of one of them, thinking it was a mirror.

“Don’t you like having a father?” asked Turpentine.

“Well…” Gaberdine paused again, although his expression relaxed. “I guess I’ve been taking him for granted. He’s always been there for me, right up until I came here. I mean I appreciate him, and I’m exceedingly glad to have him available. He’s just… difficult at times when our plans for my life conflict, and since I’ve moved here, he’s been planning a lot. I love him.”

In Turpentine’s decade of experience, a sentence like that was a walking pony, as it was almost always followed by a ‘but.’ He waited respectfully for the baron to continue, but after a short time and a glance back in the direction of his floating home, Gaberdine took the conversation in a different direction. “I’m not quite the pony I was a few months ago, Turpentine. Ripple is a large part of that.”

“And Pearl,” added Turpentine, watching as the baron’s cheeks flushed and he nervously twitched his ears. It was always nice to see the joy radiate out of the otherwise plain stallion, much like a lantern glowing with an internal golden fire.

“Most certainly,” said Gaberdine. He took a breath before turning and beginning to amble slowly back in the direction of the castle. It was a picturesque stroll through the middle of the small town of Gravel Flats for the two of them again, only this time with more of the dawn light spreading colors across the small houses and along the dirt paths. They walked for a while, greeting the pleasant early-rising ponies and passing alongside colorful flowerbeds before a nagging worry made Turpentine speak up.

“About picking out some of my paintings.” He took a breath as they walked, feeling a tight band around his chest as if the flu were just lurking inside, waiting to come back. “What if they’re not good enough? They’ll still let me in, Baron Gaberdine, won’t they?”

“With your talent?” Gaberdine let out a quiet raspberry. “They’d be fools not to. But…” He paused and looked down at Turpentine with a peculiar upward quirk to the corners of his lips. “If you don’t get a scholarship, have you considered how you are going to pay tuition?”

“Pay tuition?” Turpentine stopped cold in the middle of the dirt path. “You mean I’d have to pay them?” The brief surge of terror at the thought of how little education his last five bits might buy only lasted until Baron Gaberdine chuckled.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll pay for it.”

Despite being momentarily stunned, Turpentine asked, “You mean it?”

“Of course!” Gaberdine nudged him back into a brisk walk down the path as he continued, “You’re a talented young colt with a sharp mind. The world needs more ponies like you.”

It was sincere praise, the kind which Turpentine was only used to hearing from Mother Windrow and it stuck with him as a warm glow when he later settled down with his collection of drawings, sketches, drafts, paintings, and general doodles. He wanted to take them all to show to Mister d’Or tomorrow, but that might take several trips, and the compact crate with padded dividers that Mister Sienna had made for his trip would only hold so many.

He sat on the floor in ‘his’ room at the castle with all of the pieces spread out around the walls and across the bed while deciding. It was a very difficult decision, but he had help. Even Pearl hesitantly accompanied Gaberdine into the room, with Ripple’s encouragement. The older seapony turned out to be fascinated by a case study he had made of fluttering butterflies, with so many colorful wings across the painting it was difficult to tell where any of them started or ended. Despite Gaberdine’s faint protests, Pearl insisted on including the butterfly painting, and Ripple convinced him to take the painting Turpentine had done when they first met. She said it was a very nice smile, and he had captured it better than anything she could do by making faces into a mirror. Even Sen convinced him to take one of the paintings he had made of Mother Windrow sitting in her rocking chair in a corner of the room.

They stopped once the crate of art was generously full and went out on the riverboat’s deck to play catch, with Ripple out in the lagoon and Turpentine dashing back and forth on the wooden planking of the deck. It was a good way to burn off some of his excess nervous energy, but his recent bout with the flu left him gasping every time the ball bounced back up onto the deck and he had to headbutt it back.

Once it got dark, Ripple came up on deck and settled down with Turpentine to have Gaberdine read them both a bedtime story about pirates. The scent of bug repellent and the bright light of tiki torches filled his senses as they read about Stubhorn and the Pirate King with Pearl snickering somewhere out in the dark lagoon whenever Gaberdine tried to sound like a pirate and Sen lurking by the door to the galley with conveniently-timed snacks. That niggling sense of family was tugging at Turpentine’s chest again by the time Ripple vanished off into the dark lagoon with a splash smaller than a frog would make and two pale green unicorn lights of mother and daughter departed out into the night.

“Well, we better get to bed too, Turpentine.” Gaberdine got up after two tries and stretched, still holding the hardback book in his magic. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow for the both of us.”

“Yeah.” Turpentine took one last moment to lean on the riverboat’s rail and look out across the moonlit lagoon while Baron Gaberdine began putting out the tiki torches behind him. “I can’t help but think that was the last time I’ll ever see her again.”

Gaberdine paused with the door open to his cabin and looked back at Turpentine, still draped across the riverboat’s rail in the darkness. “Don’t worry. You’ll have breaks during the school year to visit, and I’ll be more than happy to pay for your trips. You’ll be back.”

Turpentine rested his chin on the rail and stared out into the night. “That’s what Ripple’s father said.”

* * ✹ * *

Dawn, or at least what could be considered almost-dawn came much sooner than Turpentine had expected. Their morning flight to Baltimare was supposed to be in the air before dawn in order to get everything done on their list, and Turpentine found himself regretting not having his own head-based light source like Gaberdine as they fumbled around the castle galley for breakfast before they left.

Limiting himself to a single slice of toast like the baron had prepared for his meal, Turpentine hefted the crate of art on his own back, followed the baron outside, and trotted down the dark path to the town. Sen had volunteered to get up with them and do the carrying, but the baron had insisted he sleep in, due to his lumbago flaring up. Turpentine had shouldered many heavier burdens, but the weight of the crate was more in memories, as every touch of the brush he had made on the paintings and sketches seemed to take up its own space. Some of his creations seemed so primitive, so crude now, as with every painting he had done, he had learned something which made all the rest cheap and tawdry.

What really made him drag his hooves was the realization of how much he missed a mischievous pair of green eyes as his first sight of the day. If this trip went well, Turpentine might not be back to the castle to visit before First Snow, and that most certainly meant his time swimming in the river with the little seapony had come to an end. At least until Spring. Late Spring, when the water warmed up.

The walk to town warmed Turpentine up, but it still struck him as a little odd on how close they were to town and only rarely visited. The lagoon was like a little world unto its own, much like his home town had seemed to be a bubble of existence he had popped when leaving. The heavy crate on his back shifted as he walked through town beside Gaberdine, nodding to the early-morning residents and trying to smile. After all, he was going to Baltimare to become a famous painter, which was his goal, so he should be happy.

Right?

Powderpuff and Lemon Drops already had the parsnips and radishes loaded for their trip to Baltimare, with a space on the wagon large enough for the crate of paintings and the rest of the shipment: Local Barons and Wandering Artists. It was not until the wagon became airborne with the powerful wingflaps of the two sisters that Turpentine remembered he had not ever flown before. Gaberdine was chewing on a piece of gum with single-minded concentration, and with little effort, he was convinced to give up a second piece for his fellow passenger. It did wonders to calm Turpentine’s queasy stomach, but he still felt a lead weight in his gut when he looked down from their altitude and watched the shrinking of the little town of Gravel Flats and the distant riverboat nestled into a cottonwood-lined lagoon.

And in fairly short time, they were gone, and all he could see was the green of the distant grass and the blue lines of rivers and streams knitting them together. Steam tugs chuffing up and down the river looked like tiny toys, although they became more numerous as they approached Baltimare and the criss-cross of train tracks headed in all directions away from the city. Even there, it seemed to be a far more dingy and dismal place than his imagination had painted, with grimy freighters tied up at the docks and shabby airships bobbing next to them as cargo flowed from one to another in endless lines like ants.

In less time than he was expecting, the wagon gave a little lurch when the drivers angled themselves downwards, shaking Turpentine out of his musings. Gaberdine had kept up a friendly conversation with the two pegasi during the trip, but Turpentine had been so distracted he had not even studied the way the young pegasus mares’ wings moved during the trip, even if the stiff breeze of their passage would have prevented him from sketching any accurate motion studies.

He would have dug out his most current sketchbook and tried anyway, if yet another object had not caught his attention and held it firm. The Baltimare School of Modern Art (because it could not possibly be anything else) sprawled out in an ungainly fashion over several buildings, each of which seemed to be finalists in an Ugly Architects’ contest, with the central and largest one the obvious winner. It was so pink and tan and brown and disfigured that for the longest time during their descent, his mind refused to stick the obvious label on it, but after several exaggerated blinks and a surreptitious glance at the tail ends of the two young pegasus mares pulling the wagon, he had to whisper to Baron Gaberdine.

“Do they know what that building looks—”

“Yes,” said Gaberdine, quite firmly.

“Was it intentional?” he whispered.

“Quite certainly,” said Gaberdine. “Just don’t mention it. To anypony. Ever.”

The landing was gentle as thistledown and far enough from the odd building that Turpentine could try to ignore its feminine attributes, so he hefted up the crate of paintings on his back and trailed along behind Gaberdine while the sisters took off and headed to the town market with their cargo.

This was the moment Turpentine had been looking forward to for years, but with every step, all he could think about was Baron Gaberdine headed back to his riverboat all alone in a few hours. It was like going to the candy store to get a banana lollipop only to find out it was sugar-free once you popped it in your mouth.

Mister d’Or was a middle-aged unicorn with spiky twists in his mane, several earrings, and a little stubble underneath his chin where his clippers had not trimmed very well. Turpentine had the feeling that all of the students in the school knew about the prim unicorn’s failed grooming but had not said anything for fear of being snubbed in some fashion, as the premiere of the school, as he preferred to be called, was a total snob.

The riverboat was looking better every moment.

The tour of the school was interesting, and totally different from Turpentine’s expectations. None of the students walking around the building seemed to be anywhere as young as him, and they all dressed like beggers or homeless ponies, with dirty tattered rags tied around their legs and greasy manes. Not all of them were painters either. There were quite a few sculptors, although the line appeared to be blurred somewhat as the application of stuff to canvas could technically be called painting, if not graffiti, or even wanton destruction of private property. If art was supposed to make one think, Turpentine supposed it classified as such, because he could not help but think ‘How many bits did somebody pay for this and were they drunk at the time?’

Most of it probably had not been paid for, because there were odd chunks of plaster or twisted metal all over the school, each with an informational plaque in front of it and a name which bore no resemblance to the object at all. There was even a structure in the process of being disassembled in the center atrium of the main building, which raised Turpentine’s hopes that the ugly building was going to be torn down, but that brief hope was extinguished by a sign that said ‘New Exhibit Shortly.’

The only painting ‘art’ he saw was in a classroom where the teacher in front was wearing a spotless white jacket, and all of the students were vigorously painting on their easels in brilliant oranges and bright violets, seemingly attempting to duplicate the garish explosion of color displayed at the front end of the room.

While they walked, Turpentine nodded whenever his opinion was asked for, which seemed to be the expected response. He really did not want to open his mouth and ask about… well, anything around the school from the eye-burning colors splashed across the corridor walls to the weird framed monstrosities placed here and there like cow patties after a good grazing. One of them even smelled like dung.

A sense of normality began to assert itself as they climbed a set of stairs into a large, open room with expanses of glass on all sides and paintings across each wall, edge to edge as they dried, or possibly decomposed in some instances. The light here was perfect, not the dry and blue-ish tint of the artificial illumination in each of the rooms, and although the paintings filling most every inch of wall space seemed like hostile explosions of contrasting confused flowers, it was the kind of room Turpentine could see himself working in. It would have to be cleaned up first, of course. The floors were dusty, and there was an enormous heap of trash in the center of the room with a few orange cones around it. Still, Mother Windrow had taught him how to clean quite well, and as a beginning student, he probably would have to earn his keep somehow.

All in all, after his first dismal impression of the school, things seemed to be looking up. A little.

One of the tables with display easels on it was empty, and after Mister Gaberdine took the lid off the crate Turpentine had been carrying around, Mister d’Or began removing the contents and putting them up. His upper lip curled a little more with every painting displayed, giving a particular sneer for the painting of Ripple’s smiling face.

“Rubbish,” he finally said, ignoring the paintings he had removed so far and flipping through the nearly-empty sketchbook Turpentine had planned on using later today, although he did pause for just a moment at the drawing he had done of the batpony nurse. “Ugly antiques. I thought you said he was an artist.”

Mister Gaberdine frowned just a little at the corner of his eyes in an expression which did not reach his lips. Turpentine’s heart had plunged down into his hooves when d’Or had delivered his condemnation, but picked up a little when Gabby said, “I did. He does magnificent work.”

“Puerile trash.” Mister d’Or tossed the sketchbook to one side, not even noticing when Gaberdine’s magic caught it before the pages hit the dusty wooden floorboards.

“Princess Luna liked his work,” said Gaberdine in a very quiet voice, only to have d’Or dismiss him with a derisive snort.

“Her tastes are a thousand years out of date, nearly as bad as this colt. It will take twice as long to teach him proper technique because he will have to un-learn all of his bad habits first. Still…” The unicorn made a peculiar circular motion with one hoof.

“Ah,” said Gaberdine. “I understand. Why don’t we talk about this in your office while my… guest packs his things away.”

“Wonderful.” Mister d’Or’s face lit up and he gestured back to the staircase. “My office is one floor down. Boy,” he added, looking coldly at Turpentine. “Come down when you’ve disposed of this trash,” he said with a sniff.

The two unicorns strode away and down the staircase while Turpentine packed his works away. It was a little heartening to see the way Gaberdine seemed to be optimistic about getting Turpentine a place at the school, although his opinion of artistic education was falling rapidly. He had reached his goal, and with Baron Gaberdine’s assistance, would be able to stay and learn how to paint the way professionals painted. He should have been happy.

At least he was going to have a nice place to paint, with good lighting and the kind of solitude he preferred, even if he had to send all of his old paintings to Mother Windrow. Nopony would interrupt him up here while he sketched or just stood and thought on a whole new collection of paintings. If he could move some of the tables around and get rid of that huge pile of trash, he would have enough space to even work on murals.

Sticking the packed crate of art to one side, Turpentine went in search of however the building got rid of trash. A chute at the end of the hallway labeled ‘Incinerator’ seemed to be the obvious choice, and it took several trips to haul the huge pile of trash Mister d’Or had wanted him to clean up over to it. Once the majority of the problem had been taken care of, he got a broom from a nearby closet and swept the room thoroughly, resulting in another pile of dirt to be tossed down the incinerator chute, and then mopped the clean floor afterwards with a little dribble of wax in the water to give the varnished floorboards a glossy shine.

It took a little while to find Mister d’Or’s office on the next floor down, because it was camouflaged between a bunch of upside-down bushes waving their bare roots in the air and a collection of brightly-colored machine tools in a bathtub. When he tapped gently on the door, Gaberdine opened it almost immediately and smiled.

“Ah, Turpentine. I was just going to look for you. Mister d’Or made a very tempting offer, but I told him I would discuss things with you before we made a decision.” He lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The adult unicorn had the advantage of long legs and no cargo while the two of them strode back down the stairs and into the atrium on their way out of the building. Gaberdine noticed Turpentine’s flagging progress and promptly picked up the crate in his magic, allowing it to bob along behind them while they strode for the front door at a faster clip.

“Why are we hurrying?” asked Turpentine once they had gotten outside and started heading for the pegasus landing area.

“Two reasons,” said Gaberdine. “First, time. I do not wish to keep Powderpuff and Lemon Drops waiting for us—” while crossing the lawn, he briefly waved at where the two young pegasi were waving back, harnessed to their wagon and ready to fly “—and the reservations at Mi Quintile are fixed in stone.”

“What’s the second reason?” asked Turpentine before Gaberdine nearly broke into a gallop. The baron did not say anything until the wagon was airborne and headed toward the central part of town, but he did look back over his shoulder as if he expected some sort of pursuit.

“Let’s just say I know you’re a very clean and tidy sort of pony and leave it at that.” Gaberdine took another look over his shoulder and did not quit looking back until the wagon descended into the busy downtown of Baltimare.

Author's Note

Author note:
“From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.”
― Hokusai Katsushika

Disposing of the 'trash pile' was Turpentine’s honest mistake, which others have made before. Seriously, Equestria is a better place now. He deserves thanks.

10 - Dinner and a Show

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Dinner and a Show

"Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty bits a month, and they don’t care a whit what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. "

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

* * ✹ * *

The restaurant Mi Quintile turned out to be in the middle of a very busy section of Baltimare, packed with busy ponies headed in all directions at the same time, most of them seeming to be pegasi who intended on running into the Speedy Cargo wagon, or at least it seemed that way to Turpentine. He clutched the edge of the rail while they descended into the chaotic mess, trying to figure out if he should close his eyes so he would not see the inevitable crash or keep them open so he could lean from side to side in order to help the pegasus sisters steer their unstable craft. At least it kept his mind off their recent trip to the art school for a little while, but after they tucked the wagon away in an underground parking area and trotted up to the surface street, Turpentine’s anxiety managed to push its way to the surface again.

And with the anxiety, came a return of the grumbling rumble in his tummy which reminded him of his short breakfast this morning. Eating had always made him feel better after a disappointment, so Turpentine kept quiet with his flank pressed up against the baron while they negotiated their path through hoof traffic to the ornate door of the restaurant and were quickly let inside by the ornate doorpony.

“Coo, this must be a fancy place, sis,” said Lemon Drops, trying to look at every corner of the quiet restaurant. “It’s got three hoofprints on the sign out front, so that means it’s got a real good rating.”

“Only the best for my father,” said Gaberdine. “Ladies. Turpentine. If you will please follow the server, I will pick up the bill as I promised. My father wanted a private lunch.”

“Oy, ya,” said Powderpuff. “Come on, kid. You can tell us all about how you wowed the socks off those stuffy unicorns at the art school.”

“If you don’t mind, ladies,” said Turpentine suddenly. “May I sit with you, sir?”

“I…” Gaberdine hesitated, obviously uneasy with the request but seeming to be impressed at Turpentine’s good manners.

“Oh, go on, Baron Gaberdine,” said Lemon Drops, making a coy flick with the tip of her wing that brushed up against the baron’s flank. “He’s such a polite young colt, and all we were going to do was talk about stallions anyway.”

“Eligible stallions,” added Powderpuff with a giggle before they followed the server away to a distant table, out of sight.

Turpentine remained beside Gaberdine and looked back at him while fighting an uncertain tremor in his bottom lip. Ignoring the impatient serving mare waiting for them, the taller stallion bent down and whispered in Turpentine’s ear, “Keep your chin up. That school wasn’t a good fit for you anyway.”

“How can you know that, sir? I mean, Gabby,” said Turpentine at the baron’s bemused look. The older stallion turned and pointed to his puzzle-piece cutie mark, then gave a short nod before following the second server with Turpentine tagging along, feeling puzzled.

- ☸ - -

“Duke Whinnysfield, your guests have arrived.” The tuxedo-coated serving mare stood beside the open door to the secluded dining room and gestured inside with one wing. “Please, be seated, Lord Gaberdine, and a waiter will be by shortly to take your order.”

“No need to trouble yourself, ma’am. I’ll have the special of the day with mineral water.” Gaberdine cocked an eyebrow at Turpentine and gestured him into the room.

“Spaghetti,” said Turpentine at the obvious prompt, “with garlic bread and some orange juice. Mother Windrow always said the orange juice cuts down on stinky garlic breath,” he added with a glance up to the baron.

Both Baron Gaberdine and the serving pony’s formal expressions cracked with a brief snort of amusement, although the server quickly regained her composure, made certain Gaberdine and Turpentine were seated, then whisked back out of the door with their order.

Whenever Turpentine had a dinner with a new couple wanting to adopt him, Mother Windrow had never permitted him to eat spaghetti, since there was a near-certainty of messy splatters on his infrequently-worn clothes. It had always been the time to make the best impression possible for the prospective parents, although when things had always inevitably worked out for the worst, after he returned to her little home she had always made him spaghetti and allowed him to eat until he was nearly spherical.

The friendly young serving mare who had just left reminded him of the adoption attempts he had been through, because she seemed to be trying so hard to be something she was not. She was stiff in her suit and obviously wanted to smile at him more than the restaurant owners wanted her to, much like a mother in a starched dress who was being told to act formal instead of rubbing him on the top of his head like Mother Windrow always did when he made her smile.

He did not like it, because that made it nearly impossible to see below the surface, to the pony she really was. He liked seeing ponies for what they were, although Turpentine had no problem with seeing the real pony when looking at Gaberdine’s father.

Duke Whinnysfield was a stocky short-horned unicorn with a seemingly permanent expression of great sincerity, and very few laugh lines on his face. He greeted his son with a brief hoof-clasp and spared Turpentine a scant nod before launching into a conversation with Gaberdine. Well, less a conversation and more a series of statements, each of which Gaberdine would either passively deflect or take under consideration.

The elevation of their dining area above the main floor of the restaurant gave Turpentine a good view of the diners through the beautiful clear windows, although it cut the sound down to a bare whisper. Since he was not participating in the conversation with Gaberdine or his father, Turpentine quietly got out his sketch pad and settled down to wait for the food.

He made a few quick line drawings of Duke Whinnysfield and the way he dominated the table with his aggressive posture and fierce expression, but the older stallion moved far too fast to make a very good subject. Instead, Turpentine turned to some of the patrons outside the room’s windows and found them to be much more interesting subject matter.

In particular, there was a little old mare with a tiny dog sitting on the table, who she was feeding right off her plate, as well as a pair of expressive businessponies seeming to argue over a small sheaf of papers with the food to their sides being totally ignored. There were few foals in the restaurant, or even young ponies of any type, but most of the patrons were a great number of old to really old ponies who seemed to be doing their best to be seen by each other while paying only minor attention to their food. It was a wealth of fascinating subjects he never would have found in his home town or even on the riverboat, all caught in place while dressed in their finest clothing.

All except for one.

When an old pegasus came through the restaurant door, Turpentine almost missed him. He was a natural grey with some brown mottling to his coat indicating Appleoosean ancestry, and a raspberry-colored mane flowing down his neck like a red waterfall. All in all, he was not that impressive compared to the peacocks and plumage on display from the rest of the wealthy patrons, and he would have never even noticed the old pegasus except for the reaction of the young serving pony from before. She seemed to light up with an inner fire when she caught sight of the old stallion and glided deftly across the room, shooing a different server away from the guest and escorting him to a smaller booth in a less-traveled section of the restaurant.

His clothing certainly could not have been what sparked the young pegasus server’s attention, because the old stallion was only wearing a simple white shirt and mauve vest, a little rumpled but nothing out of the ordinary even with the simple silver bracelet he had around one foreleg. Turpentine found his attention drawn in that direction while he sketched, because every time the server returned to the booth with the old stallion, they both smiled in a very drawable way. He almost missed it when the server returned to their own table with the three covered dishes, so intent was he on catching the way her mane flowed down her neck, but he looked up abruptly when the young mare cocked her head to look over his shoulder and gave a low whistle.

“Lord Gaberdine, your son certainly has a way with the pencil.”

“He’s not my son,” said Gaberdine, although somewhat slowly and with the most peculiar quirk at the corner of his lips. “Merely a young artist I was taking over to the school today.”

“Oh,” said the mare, although with a second look over Turpentine’s shoulder to add, “He doesn’t draw much like the local students.”

“He’ll learn,” said Duke Whinnysfield. “Now if you’ll excuse us.” The older stallion watched the young mare leave with only a fractional rising of one eyebrow until the door to their glassed-in room was closed behind her.

“Down, Dad,” said Gaberdine. “You’re married.”

“And so should you be,” said the duke. “Your mother and I have been receiving letters from quite a few interested families since your rise in rank. You can’t duck out on your social responsibilities by hiding out in the countryside any longer. It’s time you were introduced to some proper young mares.”

“But he’s already got a marefriend,” said Turpentine before he realized what he was saying.

“What?” Both of Duke Whinnysfield’s bushy eyebrows lowered to frame his blue eyes in a very strict stare that Turpentine was quite glad he was not the direct target of. Turpentine did flip over the sheet and drew a few quick lines to capture the emotion framed in the duke’s craggy face, though, and was still sketching while father and son continued their conversation as if he were not there.

“Father,” said Gaberdine in a disapproving tone, but his father was having none of it.

“You told us there were no mares of appropriate breeding in that benighted backwater you got yourself trapped in. No royals at all other than the East and West Fenwick families.” The old stallion sniffed. “Vinteers. Hardly quality enough for my son.”

“My life is my own business, Father.”

“Business is business,” scoffed the duke. “Your so-called barony is scarcely breaking even.”

Gaberdine shrugged. “Where would I put the bits, Father? At the bottom of the river? I have my new home, and I have a barony to administrate—”

“But no wife to establish a family and no bits to grow your estate,” said Whinnysfield. “You can hardly expect to be able to hold your head up at court if you wed some plain ploughmare from carrot country.”

“She’s very pretty,” said Turpentine abruptly, flipping through his sketchbook. The spaghetti on the table was probably getting cold, but this was more important. He had been very careful not to draw any flippers, so there was no real danger of exposing the seaponies with just a sketch. He picked the picture of Gaberdine and Pearl leaning against the doorframe and turned it around to show it to Duke Winnysfield, only to have Gaberdine’s magic grab his sketchbook and flip all the pages over.

“No!” Gaberdine and his father exchanged stern glares, although after a few moments, the father seemed to gain the upper hoof. Whinnysfield’s cheery yellow aura picked up Turpentine’s sketch book and floated it over to the old stallion, who flipped through it with the occasional appreciative grunt or evaluating squint.

It was only then that Turpentine caught the subtle way Gaberdine was looking at him, somewhat wide-eyed and a little panicked while his father leafed through the pages. Turpentine had thought he was helping, but after a little consideration, it was obvious Gaberdine’s father would not be satisfied with a simple sketch. The forceful and aggressive stallion would want to meet Pearl, possibly even bringing Gaberdine’s mother along for an extended conversation on Gaberdine’s riverboat. And if the two of them met Pearl, they might also find out about…

“Who’s this little filly?” said Whinnysfield, flipping the sketchbook over and showing the page to Turpentine. It was a very good flipperless drawing he had done of Ripple when Mother Windrow had been reading them a story, and it captured both of their personalities quite well. The old mare had been trying unsuccessfully to conceal her smile from the little seapony, who was bouncing on the bed every time she got to the end of a page.

Between the time Turpentine took a breath and speaking, inspiration struck. “Her Royal Highness, Princess Persephone of the distant sea-kingdom of Atlanteris, daughter of Queen Siliunas, the rightful ruler of her undersea lands and the pirate Captain Stubhorn of the Blighted Barnacle, home of the scurviest pirates of the seven seas. On account they don’t eat their lemons like they should, you see.”

“Oh.” The old duke looked at the drawing, then over at Turpentine, then back at the drawing before turning the page with a faint scoff. “Kids and their imaginations.”

- ☸ - -

The spaghetti was good, even if the portion was not as large as Turpentine had wanted. Something about bathtub-sized where he could eat until he could not move would have been more appropriate for the way he felt, although it would have been inappropriate for the situation. Still, it was far better than the two older stallions and their microscopic meals, which looked more like a few beans and a scrap of bread than anything worth eating. Near the end of their meal, Baron Gaberdine had taken to snitching Turpentine’s garlic bread whenever he could, and even Whinnysfield seemed to be eyeing the last few dinner rolls before they vanished.

After politely saying goodby to Duke Whinnysfield outside the restaurant and collecting the two young pegasus mares who had flown them to Baltimare, Turpentine really expected for them to travel directly back to the riverboat. It was a journey he was looking forward to with similarly mixed emotions, because it was a temporary failure to achieve his desired goal, but with the added benefit of getting to see Ripple again for a few days at least until Baron Gaberdine arranged things with Mister d’Or and he could return to the school.

The awful, hideous, terrible school.

“Ladies, if you would like to shop for a while, my… guest and I have some things to purchase before we return home,” said Gaberdine, reaching into his slim saddlebag and bringing out a small bag of bits for each of the mares.

“Ooo, so are you buying your marefriend anything special?” cooed Powderpuff with a flutter of her eyelashes before her sister elbowed her in the side.

“Cool it, sis.” Lemon Drops nodded at the baron in what almost could have been a bow. “Thank you, sir. Just let us know when you want to leave for home. We’re going to go grab something to eat and head down to the boutique at the end of the street.”

“Didn’t you just eat at the restaurant?” asked Turpentine, momentarily distracted from his morose moping by the question.

“We had lunch, yes. Ate, no.”

Powderpuff made a face and stuck out her tongue. “Five tiny flecks of cardboard and beans on lettuce. Rich pony food sucks. No offense, sir.”

“None taken.” Gaberdine made a casual salute, touching a forehoof to his horn with a playful twinkle in his eyes. “Have fun this afternoon, ladies.”

“Thank you, sir!” chorused the sisters before they trotted down the street, leaving Turpentine and Gaberdine standing on the corner.

“Now they made me hungry.” Gaberdine cocked his head slightly to one side as he regarded Turpentine’s obviously depressed face. “Cheer up, lad. At least my father bought lunch for both of us, and you got something to eat out of the deal. Now, let’s go get some painting supplies for your portrait sitting with Princess Luna. On me,” he added when Turpentine looked up.

He had left two of his last five bits as a tip for the serving mare at the restaurant, and Turpentine was not quite sure how far the three bits he had remaining would go. He might not have even been able to buy a brush without the baron’s financial assistance. “I really don’t see why you’re doing this, sir. I must be such a problem for you. Disrupting your river. Getting you in trouble with the sawmill about the logs. Goofing up lunch with your father.” Turpentine picked up his pace while Gaberdine began striding downtown.

“Don’t worry about the logs, my boy. Besides, you’re not a problem. You’re a project! I love putting together puzzles, and you’re one piece that has to have a spot somewhere other than that school.” He shuddered in an exaggerated fashion.

“You mean you’re not going to get me into the school?” Instead of the explanation Turpentine expected, Gaberdine trotted along in silence for a while before asking an unexpected question.

“Did you ever put together a puzzle in preschool?”

“What?” School in Turpentine’s agricultural home town had been somewhat limited, and there was no pre- in any of it.

“I mean when you were a foal,” explained Gaberdine. “Trying to get one of those little cardboard pieces in where it doesn’t belong. Maybe even mashing it to fit.”

There had been a lot of puzzles in the orphanage, most of which had been donated in somewhat of an incomplete state, and the rest of which had been made that way by decades of orphans with a preconceived notion of which piece went where, and strong young hooves to hammer it in.

“That particular school is not a place for you,” said Gaberdine firmly. “They would mash you and smash you until you fit into one of their ugly little slots cranking out ugly stuff to hang on the walls. No, you’re a puzzle. Admittedly, you’re not an edge piece, or you’d be a lot easier to fit. You’re more like one of those twisty inside bits that has to match up just right.”

Turpentine had slowed down somewhat while Gaberdine was talking, but picked up his pace as not to lose ground. “If you say so, sir.” They dodged a few fellow pedestrians and crossed the street, which frightened Turpentine enough to shut him up until they had gone nearly another block. ”I’m sorry about telling your father about Miss Pearl.”

“What’s done is done.” Gaberdine shrugged. “My father’s not a fool, and I’d be a fool to try to fool him. He knows I don’t want to talk about her, so he’ll keep quiet. Might even grumble a little about his son falling for a local.” They dodged across another crosswalk before he continued. “It’s probably a good thing, and should help keep some of the worst social parasites from flying out to the castle and trying to catch themselves a royal, even if he is all new and green with no estate to speak of.”

“If you say so, sir. I mean Gabby.” The chaotic surroundings of the big city were distracting Turpentine from being nearly as upset as he should have been, with all of the cabs galloping down the streets and the crosswalk lights. He kept one flank against the taller unicorn while they trotted briskly across the street and into a painting supplies store called The Painting Palette, where the noise and confusion of the city cut off with the closing of the door, but was replaced with a much more welcome atmosphere.

It was the powerful scent of the place which struck Turpentine the hardest. Oils and dry cardboard, canvas with the primer already applied, and the smell of his namesake turpentine over it all. He paused to take a deep breath, and when he opened his eyes, there was an elderly clerk standing in front of him and blocking Turpentine’s view of the rest of the marvelous store.

“Good afternoon, sirs. Can I help—”

“Brushes,” murmured Turpentine before taking a sharp left turn into an aisle filled with all kinds of bristles, both the short-handled variety for unicorns and the longer-handled type for ponies who lacked horns. His brush collection had always been made up of whatever Turpentine could find on sale or donated to the orphanage, leading to an eclectic mish-mash of all kinds which he treated as if they were made of solid gold. He moved to one particularly fine-haired brush with his mouth open to pick it up, then paused as he saw the price. A similar type seemed less expensive, but was made for unicorns, so it would take an awkward grip between his lips to achieve the same results. Then there was a packed collection which would be less expensive than buying them individually, but had a few brushes in it he had never worked with before.

“Do you need me to pick out a selection for you? You’re going to want the good stuff, since you’re painting a portrait of Princess Luna.” Baron Gaberdine’s voice cut through Turpentine’s indecision and made him realize he had been darting back and forth between the displays for quite some time without actually choosing a purchase. He blushed slightly with embarrassment, because Mother Windrow had used that exact tone of voice whenever he had been indecisive about which candy he could get at the market in return for carrying the groceries home.

“I’m a big colt,” said Turpentine, trying not to sound defensive. “I don’t need anypony to pick out my stuff.” He reached over to the nearby shelf and removed the first brush he had spotted, dropping it into the basket which Gaberdine floated over to him. Then, after a suitable amount of consideration, he looked up at the baron and asked, “How much can I spend? I mean some of the brushes and paints can be awfully expensive, and—”

“Whatever you want.” Gaberdine snickered a little at the acquisitive expression that must have passed over Turpentine’s face. “Try to leave at least one brush on the shelves when you’re done,” he clarified. “I’ll set things up with the owner while you shop. Do you need me to stay here until you’re done, or can I step out for a few minutes to do some shopping of my own?”

“I’m a big colt,” repeated Turpentine. “I’m almost eleven. I did just fine on my raft by myself, so I’ll be fine here.”

As much as he just wanted to run down the aisles while putting everything he could into his basket, he was going to have to carry his purchases back to the Speedy Cargo wagon, and the two pegasi were going to have to fly them home, so Turpentine restrained himself.

Well, mostly.

He really did not think he was going to need every brush he picked out for just one painting of Princess Luna, but he was seduced by their velvety softness and firm handles, all standing in rows while begging for him to apply them to canvas in the act of creation. There was just something so appealing about unwrapping a fresh brush, peeling off the protective outer layer and tasting the sharp tang of factory varnish. It made him drool despite his best efforts, and by the time he was ready to leave the brushes and head over to the canvas selections, he had an embarrassingly-large damp spot on his shoulder where he kept wiping his mouth rather than drip.

“Now, what size canvas do I want to use?” he mused quietly, looking at the vast array available.

“The baron filled me in on your assigned task, Mister Turpentine,” said the clerk from behind him. “Although he left out many of the pertinent details. A school project, I take it?”

“Uh… Kinda.” Turpentine twitched when the clerk swept past him and placed several canvases into a basket, then proceeded into the paint aisle where he continued to add items. “Hey, wait. I don’t need any acrylic paints. Where are the oils?” He cautiously put the items back on the shelves where they belonged and looked at the canvas in his bag. “Linen? I’ve never used that before. Maybe I should stick with cotton.”

“Linen gives a smaller grain for smaller details,” explained the clerk. “Her Highness is very complicated to paint, particularly for such a young colt, and more particularly with a difficult medium such as oil paints.”

“Oh,” said Turpentine, squirming a little at the thought of Luna’s displeasure.

“If you like, we have a selection of photographic prints for you to copy from, although they all look like she’s trapped in a room with the photographer in front of the door,” admitted the clerk. “Let’s go pick out a pose and we can build your purchase list from there. The baron insisted on the proper tools for the job, no matter the price.”

“I really had an idea of my own.” Turpentine pulled his sketchpad out and flipped through it before remembering the sketch of the grotto was on the pad Luna had taken with her. He settled down on the floor of the shop and began to draw it out from memory, from the way the water glistened as it struck the rocks and sprayed out into the sunlight all the way to the depth of the pool. It was difficult to frame Princess Luna’s proportions without having her actually there, but he sketched in the pose he was thinking of and the way the water would redirect around her body. It was a world of unknowns, because he had never actually seen what it was he wanted to turn into paint all at the same time, but he had seen the parts of the painting individually, and pieced them together in his mind much like one of Baron Gaberdine’s hypothetical puzzles.

It took several attempts and many pages of his sketchbook as he lost track of time, flat on his belly on the cool floor with the pencil between his teeth. The ratio of width to height would be important if he were to frame it just right, with the eye drawn to Luna’s body instead of the surroundings. He played with different wing postures as he drew, with the clerk occasionally pointing over his shoulder and offering suggestions such as sweeping the wings forward to emphasise her strength or having Luna tilt her head back for the water to run off her head, but not too far as not to have it run up her nose at the same time.

“Why do you have her eyes closed?” asked the clerk during one of Turpentine’s contemplative pauses.

“I can’t do eyes very well.”

Turpentine winced when the clerk placed several canvases in his purchase pile and turned back to the paint aisle to make more selections. “You’re going to need a few acrylics for the body.”

Turpentine shuddered. “No. I don’t see how I could paint Princess Luna in acrylic. It’s ugly, and she’s beautiful.”

“It’s useful,” insisted the clerk. “You need to diversify your experiences, or you will be stuck doing one thing wrong forever. You wouldn’t do an entire portrait with a Number Zero brush, would you?”

“I have before, when it was a very small portrait, and it was the only brush I had. I did one of Mother Windrow that—” Turpentine blinked several times as he took the time to look at the clerk instead of the surrounding store. “Oh. It’s you.”

The old pegasus stallion chuckled. “I was wondering when you’d recognize me. You spent enough time at the restaurant staring at me. May I?” He took the sketchbook and flipped back a few pages to the sketches Turpentine had drawn at the restaurant. He stopped, pursed his lips, and took a sideways glance at Turpentine, who felt it important to defend his activity.

“You were both very sketchable, sir.”

The stallion nodded. “It is a good thing you are not a few years older, or I would be suspicious of your intentions toward my married granddaughter, Sympathique. You seem to have captured her essence fairly well. Even the eyes.”

“It doesn’t come out in paint, sir.” Turpentine traced the pencil lines with one hoof. “I can feel it, right there, but it just won’t…”

The clerk grunted. “My name’s Caractère, by the way, not sir. Makes me feel like some old fossil.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I mean Mister Caractère.” Turpentine craned his head to look around the small shop, but the two of them appeared to be the only ponies still there. “Where did Baron Gaberdine go?”

“He’s been back twice since you started drawing.” Caractère shrugged. “He said he’ll be back again. Until he returns, pull that easel over by the store window and let’s see how you do with oils.”

It took little time to set up two easels, one for the drawing and one to prop his canvas on, allowing Turpentine to get comfortable with the familiar motions of getting ready to paint while Caractère nodded approvingly and watched his motions in the background. The linen canvas was a softer, more precise surface as Caractère claimed, and soaked up the pencil strokes of his outline in neat curls and wide arcs. The drawing of the two ponies, grandfather and granddaughter in the warm confines of the restaurant booth, was right and flowed naturally under the graphite of his pencil, although when he picked up a freshly-unwrapped brush to continue in oils, the old stallion held up a hoof.

“Stop. Is that how you would paint her?”

Turpentine glanced between the canvas and the old stallion before nodding with the brush still in his mouth.

“Watch.” Caractère got out a light pink acrylic and a wider brush, painting over the guiding lines of Turpentine’s outline of Sympathique in long strokes. After a similar process with a dull grey over his own sketched image, the clerk dropped his brush in the thinner.

“There. You want depth. Shadows. The old masters, they painted their underlying strokes first in oils and waited for days until they dried and could paint over them, and over again, until they had built up the surface to where it seemed more real than the subject.” After a quick swish and clean of the brush, he dabbed out some dark green and continued with parts of the restaurant booth, talking from between his teeth as he painted. “You want the eye to linger on the colors and shadows, but always travel to your subject, as if the viewer is watching the same scene. The eye is sensitive, able to pick out even one or two layers of paint at greater distances than you’d expect. The shadows, they have to fall naturally or the viewer does not believe in what they see.”

Caractère dropped the brush back into the thinner and snatched up a pencil between his teeth. He drew several straight lines to give perspective to the restaurant booth and chairs, talking all the while. “The sun, she comes into the picture here and here, reflecting to illuminate your subject. Do you know what your subject is, boy?”

“It’s both of you,” said Turpentine reflexively.

“But which is more important?” he pressed, still drawing short lines on the canvas to indicate light directions.

“Both of you,” repeated Turpentine, feeling a little confused. “It’s the way you were looking back and forth—”

“Wrong.” Caractère pointed with the pencil. “You are a colt. That is a young mare. You placed her near the center, where the eye lingers, as is only correct. The old stallion, he is important, yes, but the mare. Oh, the mare.” A smile formed around the corners of his lips as Caractère plucked the brush out of the solvent and began to highlight the flowerpots with a brick-red acrylic. “You may not know it in your head, but your heart knows. You remind me of Reiindear. Oh, he was a tricky one. Spent too much time on cutie marks, though. They should be there, but the eye should slip over them to the face, not linger. There.”

Caractère dropped the brush back into the acrylic solvent, cleaning it with a few experienced motions and placing the acrylics to one side while fanning one wing rather absent-mindedly over the painting without even looking. “Never use the same brush for oils as acrylic. They hate each other. Stains and seeps. Not good. Now what do you see, Turpentine?”

“It’s ugly. And skeletal. Like… a skeleton made out of shadows.” He tilted his head to one side before starting to dab little bits of paint onto his new palette. The taste of varnish on his tongue and the tang of fresh oils in his nose faded into near insignificance as he painted around the drying acrylics. They were still slightly tacky, but there was much to do away from them around the outside edge and the background.

While he painted, every once in a while the old stallion would reach over his shoulder to point, once even to push him to one side with a fine pointed brush in his teeth and give a little swirl to a paint point by her ears that Turpentine just could not get right. As he worked, the dry acrylic vanished under the oils and gave those sections of the painting depth, just like the old stallion had said. More tubes of oil paint found their way onto his mixing palette while he worked his way through the rest of the scene, feeling something deep in his chest open like a flower while he painted. Even if he had to work in ugly colors and plastic paints in school, he would still be able to paint like this when he wanted. The warm sun shining through the shop windows gave him a perfect lighting to work by, and although he could tell when other customers passed by behind him and the clerk had to go wait on them, his mind focused on the painting to the exclusion of all else until the sunlight changed to a reddish hue and he found himself working on trivial little bits like the dust motes in the air and the way the leaves of the potted plants reflected the restaurant's artificial lighting.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Baron Gaberdine’s voice distracted Turpentine from where he was washing out his brushes in the afterglow of creation, and he turned around to see the clerk nodding.

“Having him in the front window certainly brought in the shoppers,” admitted Caractère. “I hear he’s going to be one of d’Or’s prospective students.”

Turpentine was still not quite up to talking yet while the unrealness of painting was wearing off, so he nodded instead.

“I suppose that will smear if we try to take it home today,” said Gaberdine, cocking his head to one side to examine the painting of the pegasus mare. “The feathers aren’t quite… right.”

The old stallion snorted. “Feathers always give non-pegasus painters trouble. Even Cloudou never could get the joints in the wings right, always too short or too long.”

Gaberdine nodded while cocking his head to the other side. “Maritine back in the late Diaspora period did wonderful feathers. The Canterlot Museum of the Sun has some beautiful works of his behind glass.”

Caractère did not seem impressed and shook his head. “No, most of the works in there are fakes, done long after the period and magically aged. The real pigments of that age have faded almost beyond recognizing. Take a look at the Storm Glider period of Cloudsdale art, if you can find any that the humidity has not ruined.”

“Grand-père!” The young pegasus server from the restaurant walked in the front door with a hesitant smile for the two additional ponies in the shop. “Lord Gaberdine, was it? And your delightfully talented not-son.” As her eyes traveled upward to the painting, she stopped cold with the smile on her face freezing in place, then slowly, bit by bit, the corners of her lips began to lift further until her expression grew into an astonished grin. “Madre dios.”

“He didn’t quite get the feathers right,” grumbled the old pegasus.

- ☸ - -

It took a fairly short time to pay for the collection of art supplies Turpentine had used for the creation of the painting, plus the books and additional supplies Baron Gaberdine had picked out while waiting. The accumulated purchases seemed more than enough to make paintings of a whole flock⁽*⁾ of princesses and made both of them stagger a little under the additional load, although Turpentine could carry more on his muscular back than Gaberdine. The resulting slow walk back to the wagon for the flight home seemed like a good time to ask some of the questions still bouncing around in Turpentine’s head while he still had some privacy.
(*) Technically, two princesses is a Crisis, three or more is a Disaster.
—

“What did you mean when you told me the school wasn’t a good fit for me? It’s an art school, even if they paint… Um…”

“Art.” Gaberdine shook his head cautiously as not to disturb the packages he was towing in his magic field. “They take a perfectly good word and glue so many ugly things to it.”

“They glue some weird stuff to the paintings too,” said Turpentine.

“Like somepony with a puzzle who wants a piece to fit somewhere it doesn’t belong, and hammers it until it fits,” said Gaberdine.

“Yeah,” said Turpentine, who then paused and looked back at Baron Gaberdine’s puzzle-piece cutie mark. “Oh.”

Gaberdine chuckled while they headed over to pick up their drivers for the trip back to Gravel Flats. “Don’t worry, Turpentine. I’ve never had a puzzle with a loose piece that I haven’t been able to find where it goes. You just focus on your painting of Princess Luna and I’ll see about finding the you-shaped hole in the universe.”

Author's Note

Chekov's Waitress *and* customer.

12 - What Is Love?

Drifting Down the Lazy River
What Is Love?

"These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fan-tods."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

“Good morning, Princess Luna. We’re very glad to see you. No, that’s not right. Hello, Princess Luna. Please come in. We’re honored to have you as a guest this morning. No, that’s still not right.” Turpentine shuffled uncomfortably, trying to use one hoof to get a little slack in the collar of his unaccustomed suit jacket. “Mister Gaberdine, I don’t understand why I can’t just paint Princess Luna out by the waterfall like I wanted. Besides, I’ll get paint on the suit.”

“I had Sen borrow an apron from Missus Shutters for you too,” said Gaberdine while tucking in the bedsheets on Turpentine’s bed for the seventh time this morning, each time seeming to twist the sheets tighter and more rigid than the last until Turpentine thought he might need a crowbar to get into bed tonight. “Besides, this is an official visit. Many other baronies or duchies haven’t had one of the princesses visit in centuries. I wanted to do this the right way.” He gave a twitchy glance around the inside of Turpentine’s room, now with all of the woodwork polished to a mirror-like gleam. “I just wish I could have gotten the engine all the way put together and the outside repainted. What if she wants to take Paradise out for a short cruise? What if she brings a photographer? Maybe I should clean up…” His eyes drifted over to the oil painting of the batpony nurse, in the last stages of drying on the cabin wall before it could be framed, but Turpentine stepped in front of it.

“No, Mister Gaberdine. I’m not putting it away. It’ll smudge, and besides, I wanted to show it to Princess Luna before I give it to Syrette.”

“But it’s… um…” Gaberdine helplessly gestured with a hoof and struggled to find a word that better described the way the nurse looked while under the waterfall, but he was interrupted before he could finish.

“It most certainly is.” Luna’s soft voice from almost directly behind Baron Gaberdine rendered the young stallion rigid and almost speechless, except for a subdued whimpering.

“Good morning, Princess Luna.” Turpentine looked around his room, which would have been a little crowded with all three of them in it, as well as the paintings on the walls. “Do you want to come in? You’ll need to be careful. Some of these are still wet.”

“Certes.” Luna’s dark magic aura formed around Gaberdine and floated the immobile stallion back out into the riverboat hallway so there would be a comfortably larger space in the room for the somewhat larger form of Princess Luna. She moved almost as graceful and smooth as she had the night Ripple had summoned the princess, with only a few hesitations that could have been from her own recovery from the flu, or perhaps just caution with so much wet paint on canvas against the walls. “My, my. You certainly have been a busy little colt.”

“Thank you, Princess Luna. I’ve been practicing a lot for your portrait. Mister d’Or at the art school said my style was old and out of date, but I think they’re pretty good.” He carefully straightened an inked line drawing he had done of the lagoon and let out his breath in a long sigh. “Baron Gaberdine says we should paint your portrait in the castle galley, since there’s better light there through the day.”

“I see.” Luna’s interested gaze stopped at the batpony nurse painting, which was just almost dry enough to be packaged up for shipping. “Syrette said you were planning a surprise, and refused to tell me what it was.”

“Well, I was.” Turpentine wriggled inside his itchy borrowed suit, which seemed determined to strangle him to death before the portrait sitting. Missus Shutters’ son had outgrown it several decades earlier, and as much as Turpentine liked Sen’s elderly widowed marefriend, sometimes she seemed just a little too helpful for his own good. The suit’s unwelcome scent of mothballs conflicted with the much more preferable perfume of drying oil paint, but with Luna in the same room and looking over his most recent works, the somehow sweet scent of perspiration from her morning flight drowned all of them out, and was terribly distracting to his almost eleven year old mind.

“I thought about painting you out by Ripple’s waterfall. Before it got too cold, that is. Baron Gaberdine thinks that’s not a good idea. He’s been getting awfully nervous over the last few days about having you out here.”

“I see.” Luna stopped her intensive investigation of the drying paintings and turned that warm teal gaze on Turpentine. “You must understand that Baron Gaberdine is a Canterlot unicorn. They set great store on propriety.”

“What’s that?” asked Turpentine.

“Doing things properly in the traditional fashion,” explained Luna. “And as is proper, we would prefer our discussion with our portraitist to be private.”

Gaberdine had been lurking outside Turpentine’s cabin, looking as if he wanted to interrupt, but Luna reached out with her magic and firmly closed the door with a quiet click. It seemed a little rude, and with as much as Gaberdine had done for Turpentine over the last few weeks, he felt it necessary to stand up for the young stallion.

“I really wouldn't mind having Mister Gaberdine in here while we talk. He’s been very kind to me and very supportive of my work. Mother Windrow always said most of the Canterlot unicorns have a stick up their…” Turpentine considered his next words carefully. Princess Luna seemed to be pretty normal for a princess, considering just what he had read about Celestia in the weekend editions of The Canterlot Times. He had even expected Baron Gaberdine to be much like the haughty mountain unicorns, but once they got to know each other, Gabby was more friendly than anypony in Turpentine’s home town.

Luna’s friendly warmth to him felt much the same. It seemed almost impossible that the smiling mischievous alicorn was related to the Princess Celestia he had read about in any fashion, or that Luna had once been the terrifying Nightmare Moon.

“My sister hath an upcoming event called Chuckle-Lot or something silly like that,” said Luna with the subdued smile Turpentine wished he could reproduce half as well in paint. “In it, she doth act the fool, both in dress and in activity. She insists that I participate this year, and even hath given me permission to use her unicycle. It is supposed to loosen up the stuffy court ponies and make them—” Luna coughed into a hoof “—lose the stick for at least a day.”

The smile was back on Luna’s face complete with dimples once she finished and Turpentine stood watching, trying to commit every single detail of her face to memory, because this opportunity would not likely come around again. Far too soon for his preferences, that enigmatic smile faded back into the calm expression the princess wore like a familiar practiced mask to keep her emotions from leaking out all over the ponies around her.

“Is there something you wish to ask, young Turpentine?”

“I…” He really did not want to say it, but he had to know, and it was just the two of them since Luna had shut Mister Gaberdine out of the room. Still, she was a princess, even if she seemed enough of a scamp to be one of Ripple’s relatives. “Before I paint your portrait, could I ask you something really important, Princess Luna? I mean really, really important.”

“Please. You may call me Luna, young one. And you have my leave to ask any question you wish.”

“Well… Okay.” Turpentine took a breath. “What was it like being Nightmare Moon?”

The warmth of her smile vanished and barriers across Princess Luna’s emotional reserves shuddered. Turpentine could see the interplay of dozens of small muscles in her face, fighting to get out from behind the frosty shield of her powerful restraint, and he quickly added, “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why would I not wish to speak of my greatest failure?” asked Luna in a voice so cold Turpentine could swear he saw her breath in the warm air of the cabin. “It is quite simple. I was jealous of my sister and the love our ponies showered upon her. The Nightmare used that weakness to take advantage of my foolishness so that I would bring Night Eternal to our beloved world.”

Taken momentarily aback by Luna’s intensity, Turpentine sat back on his haunches, waved his forelegs, and talked rapidly. “No, no. Not that. I meant we read the newspaper articles and the history story that came out for school, and I’ve always loved Nightmare Night, but I always wondered about what it felt like. I mean all of the good villains in the stories in my books always do what they do because they feel it’s the right thing to do, but when I read the newspaper story I just couldn’t feel…”

The silence stretched for a long while until Luna let out her breath and closed her eyes. “I shall not justify my actions with lies, even to one young as yourself. You cannot know the jealousy burning within my breast during those dark days when my sister received the majority of our subjects’ love. Night Eternal was to be my victory, where all the ponies of Equestria would finally see the beauty of my night sky, and love me as they did her. Instead, it was a betrayal of the worst kind, as I threw away the love of my sister for the false hopes of a lie.”

“I see,” said Turpentine. “And when you reached the goal you fought so hard for, you found out it wasn’t at all what you expected. You did what you thought was right for yourself, even though it turned out to be very wrong for everypony.”

“And my sister paid the price for my foolish vanity.” There was a flash of something dark and dangerous in Luna’s eyes when she turned her gaze on Turpentine. “Why do you ask this of me?”

“Because I felt like that too. Well, except for the whole Night Eternal stuff,” explained Turpentine. “I was so convinced that running away to Baltimare was going to make me a famous painter that I didn’t realize how much it hurt Mother Windrow. I learned my lesson and she forgave me for it, but when I found out all the work I had put into achieving my goal and all the worry I caused was pointless, I didn’t know what to do.”

He looked down at the wooden flooring of the cabin and scuffed one hoof across the perfect waxed surface. “I lost my way, and I was hoping you could help me find it again. Only you can’t, because you’re just as lost as I am.”

The scuffing of his hoof back and forth stopped when Princess Luna gently touched his chin and lifted until his eyes met hers. “Verily, thou art a most peculiar little colt. Pray tell, why are these dark and distasteful matters a concern of yours for the simple task of painting my portrait?”

“Because Mother Windrow always told me a pony is made out of their life experiences, and Sen says everything we see can be used as an example to learn from, both the good and the bad.” Turpentine took a deep breath while swimming in the beauty of her gaze. “I like to paint who a pony is, and I can’t see any of Nightmare Moon in you at all.”

“Really?” The princess blinked several times, much as if she had a particle of dust in her eyes. “From the reactions of the Canterlot royals, it would seem as if they expect for me to resume my previous dark mantle of failure at the slightest provocation. Every shadow, every angered shout, and they recoil from us as if they wish to run about like frightened foals and scream in terror.”

There was a sense of suppressed rage behind those huge teal eyes, but a small sparkle of amusement too when Luna straightened up with her wings extended as far as they could go in the small room. Dark magic skittered across her coat, shifting her colors to an inky near-black while her eyes narrowed into oval slits, armor materialized across her head and legs, and lightning flashed outside the cabin windows to the deafening sound of an eerie laugh.

“Behold, little one! See the Nightmare which lurks within my—” Luna paused with dark wings extended and her fierce scowl slowly turning into an expression of puzzlement. “What are you doing?”

“Jus’ a second, Princess Luna,” muttered Turpentine through the pencil gripped in his teeth. He scribbled furiously on his sketchpad, looking up only long enough to add, “Can you do that face where you were cackling again? This is so cool!”

Despite looking as if she were about to burst out laughing, ‘Nightmare Moon’ held her position until Turpentine had finished sketching, even through several frantic efforts by Baron Gaberdine to poke his nose into the room and interrupt. As with all good things, it had to come to an end eventually, and Luna shifted back into her regular shape with a subdued chuckle and no sign at all of the stiff and unyielding mask she had kept over her expression earlier.

“We certainly hope that is not the pose you use in our promised portrait.” Luna attempted to peek over his shoulder while Turpentine finished a few smaller details in his sketch pad. “It certainly would be unique when placed upon the walls of our castle with the great number of my sister’s portraits.”

“No, I don’t think…” Turpentine looked up from his drawing to find himself nose to nose with the dark princess and almost poking her with the pencil. “You want to hang my portrait of you in the castle?”

Luna shrugged, although the twinkle in her eyes showed her good humor still remained. “It shall be a good start. In truth, were I to be painted or photographed every day for your lifespan, it would not match the number of her portraits which lie within the art galleries and corridors of our fair city. Sitting for a photograph is a less burdensome thing which I still fain would prefer to avoid, but your offer intrigued me.”

“Mister Caractère said the photos of you looked kinda like you were trapped in the room,” offered Turpentine.

Suppressed emotions flowed across Luna’s face like ripples in a fast-moving stream, but turned back into the reassuring impassive expression the princess wore like a mask. “Ah… Yes. Since our experience as Nightmare Moon, we have been somewhat… reluctant to be confined…” She trailed off, somehow looking faded and small in the filtered sunlight coming through the windows of Turpentine’s cabin. It somehow made Turpentine think of the time he had broken a priceless vase in one of his foster family homes, with the sharp shattering sound of porcelain shards skittering away into the darkest corners of the room, and how Luna’s feathered wings were now clutched tight to her barrel in the close confines of the small riverboat cabin. She deserved to be soaring through the sky, playing tag with the stars and laughing throughout the night, and he could think of no worse punishment for the beautiful princess than to be forced to sit in the stuffy riverboat galley for several hours during her sitting.

“Let me get my things together and we’ll go to the seapony grotto for some preliminary sketches.”

- ☸ - -

The warmth of the sun on Turpentine’s thankfully bare coat mixed with the waterfall to fill the grotto with a comfortable humidity. It was certain to turn within a few weeks to a chilly coldness, but for now, it was quite nearly the perfect environment to sketch. The trip to the grotto had been somewhat of a blur to Turpentine, as his mind had been filled with painting potential, but Princess Luna seemed to really enjoy it. The exciting novelty of Gaberdine’s new speedboat, which Ripple’s aunts pulled at a much more conservative velocity than before, even made her steal the old baron’s captain cap off his head and take a dramatic pose at the wheel with the breeze flowing through her starry mane.

It was just the three of them in the speedboat with Luna, Turpentine, and Ripple. Although Baron Gaberdine had wanted to come along, both Luna and Turpentine had discouraged it as there was not really enough space in the boat and nothing for him to do during the painting other than to watch.

Still, they were being watched quite well.

Once he had reclaimed his cap and gotten his ears situated in the holes, Turpentine set his easels up fairly close to the waterfall in order to get a better view on the way the water ran off Luna’s wings and down her neck. Close behind him, Ripple positioned herself where she could keep a waterproofing spell over his dry paper while he worked. And then, of course, there was a general sensation of an audience from the deeper water out in the grotto where the other seaponies were hiding.

The problem Turpentine was having was not being watched, it was his subject, who had donned her mask of royal detachment again once she had approached the waterfall. It was more than a little frustrating, and he probably could have dealt with the problem by drawing her elusive smile from memory, but he decided to try talking the smile out of her instead. Plus, he had some more questions.

“Princ’ss Luna, did you ever have foals of your own?” That line of questions did not work at all, because Luna only seemed to shut herself away further, and even withdrew slightly under the waterfall, becoming only a dark silhouette against the shadows of the morning. “Not that I wanted you to ado’pt me,” added Turpentine around the pencil. “I mean you must be awf’l busy around the castle, ‘n wouldn’t have much time for a colt.”

“Indeed.” Luna emerged from the back of the waterfall, although she still looked a little more like a half-drowned rat than the majestic sight Turpentine had intended. There was little or none of the mischievous scamp in her, and the smile she wore was so patently false that even Ripple seemed to sense something was wrong, and was giving him a worried sideways look.

He put the pencil back in the holder on the easel and tried to find a way to tell her that his idea for the sitting was not working. It was noisy with the water all around, but he was close enough to hear Luna give out a deep sigh, much the same as Mother Windrow did whenever one of the orphans would leave the house for a new family.

“Did you ever want to have foals of your own?” asked Turpentine on impulse.

This time, Luna did not retreat further into the waterfall. “Once,” she said after a while.

“So…” Turpentine squirmed inside at how nosy he was getting. “You had a special somepony?”

“Oh, yes.” It was amazing to see how a simple change in attitude made the wet and bedraggled pony into a true princess. Wings shifted, her mane flowed along with the sparkling water, and for one tiny brief instant, Turpentine could see what he wanted to capture in paint.

Then it was gone, and Luna slumped under the incessant waterfall. “But he is long gone, passed away into the ages. We were in love, so much in love. Have you ever tasted the sweet nectar of love, young Turpentine?”

“No, Ma’am. I’m only almost eleven,” he added. “Love is for old ponies.”

“Then perhaps it is best you never drink from that stream.” She swirled one hoof absently in the pool, looking down and away from Turpentine. “Nay, forget I said that, young one. Drink deeply of the love of family and others, rejoice in their presence, for your life is far too short for regrets. Live, love, and let your star shine bright, for soon it shall be gone, and never to return.”

Ripple spoke up abruptly, which shocked Turpentine, because she had been almost totally silent up to now. Her voice was cracking with emotion and a little sniffly, but she spoke up loud enough to be easily heard even over the sound of the waterfall.

“Mama says death does not end true love, for as long as we remember, our loved ones live within us. I was too little to remember my father, so she has to remember for both of us.”

There was a slow motion to Turpentine’s side when Pearl broke the surface of the grotto pool, her eyes downcast and her motions almost glacial. She emerged out of the water, taking small and hesitant steps on the wet gravel while shifting from seapony to unicorn form, but moved no further until Ripple spoke.

“Go ahead, Mama. Please.”

Ever so slowly, Pearl lifted her head up until she matched gazes with Luna, then took a hesitant step forward into the streaming waterfall while Luna stepped forward toward her, one small mutual step at a time until they rested their necks together and embraced.

It was a poignant and solemn moment that Turpentine did not want to break by attempting to draw it, but he did shift positions to be closer to Ripple for needed moral support. They sat and watched both love-lost princess and widowed mother hold each other together in the waterfall spray for a long time until Pearl drew back and sat down on the water-damped ground.

She was silent for a time as she built up her confidence, but when she spoke, her voice was far louder and stronger than Turpentine had ever heard from the timid seapony.

“His name was Tidal Surge. We were so different in so many ways, from our families to our desires, but those differences drew us together, like two parts of a broken shell. Where I was weak, he was strong. Where I was afraid, he was brave. Our life together was perfect, and from that perfection, our love brought forth a child. She was so defenseless, so weak that I begged him not to go to the Lightless Deep as was his duty.”

Pearl swallowed, then turned her face up to the sun and let out a quiet wail of despair that rose up above the sound of the waterfall. It was a wordless song of pain and grief that built and echoed from the surrounding rocks, shifting in tone as the seapony sat in the waterfall’s spray with the tears pouring down her cheeks indistinguishable from the surrounding water. The echoes seemed to surround Turpentine, an unbreakable sorrow crushing in from all sides that made Ripple press against his side and a cold shiver travel up his spine while the wordless song of grief grew louder.

With a jolt, Turpentine realized the growing chorus from around him was not from echoes, but the sweet voices of one seapony after another as they quietly lifted their heads above the water to join in the eerie song until the whole grotto was filled with their sorrow. The music did not so much surround him as fill his entire being with the sensation of loved ones lost, as all of the seaponies must have had friends or family taken from them before fleeing their homes to this unfamiliar shore. They were as lost and lonely as Turpentine, clinging to each other in order to make it through life until they could hopefully return to their familiar undersea world as he never could.

It made Turpentine recall the muted russet and gold colors of his own mother from his oldest memories. Her loving face, the way she smelled of lavender and strawberries when she kissed him and booped his tiny nose. The stillness of her form when he last saw her. The warmth of Mother Windrow as she held him for hours while he cried afterward.

The wordless song swelled and grew in his heart until he thought he would burst, then slowly faded away until only the everpresent sound of the waterfall was left and Pearl slipped into the grotto pool without even a splash.

At his side, Turpentine could feel Ripple lean away from him momentarily as if she wanted to follow her mother into the water, then lean again back into his side, pressed firmly against him and trembling just as much as he was. The rest of the seaponies including Pearl remained silent on the surface of the grotto, witnesses to both his uncomfortable support of his little friend and the motionless form of Princess Luna, still kneeling at the edge of the waterfall.

Then Luna looked up and spoke.

“His name was Stardust.” Luna’s voice sounded clear and strong, despite the falling water. She rose to her hooves and shook out her mane, sending sparkling droplets of water in all directions, even though the waterfall soaked it completely again. “When he died, I sent his body into the heavens so I would never forget the love we had together, but that was a mistake. For years, my sister had to talk me into raising the moon every night because I did not want to see his form in the night sky looking back at me, forever out of reach. I tried to block away his memory in order to return to the world, but a part of my heart passed with him and shall forever be lost among my stars.”

“Did you kiss?” asked Ripple.

“Aye, that and so much more.” Luna spread her wings and pirouetted around under the water spray. “We used to dance among the waterfalls of Canterlot as it was being constructed. Torrents of water not much more than ice from the snowpacked mountaintop, but it could not cool our desires.”

Princess Luna stretched under the pounding water, her wings spread wide and her head thrown back to luxuriate in the chill flow while she floated in the embrace of her phantom lover from centuries ago, but Turpentine did not say anything.

He was far too busy drawing.

- ☾ - -

“Um.” Baron Gaberdine stood in Turpentine’s cabin and regarded his most recent painting. “Um,” he repeated, as he had done so several times. “It’s…”

“Um,” said Turpentine. “You already said that.”

“Yes, but… Um…” Gaberdine gestured with one hoof rather vaguely.

“Um?” prompted Turpentine.

Gaberdine nodded. “Very much so.”

“I need to do a little touch-up work and put in a few of the finer details, but Princess Luna says she wants to put the portrait into the castle gallery,” said Turpentine with just the tiniest bit of smugness as he returned to looking at the painting.

“Oh,” said Gaberdine, which at least was a change.

“She says she’s going to drop by Castle Paradise next week with her sister to pick it up.” Turpentine studied his work, making a mental list of the tiny tweaks and details he needed to add before letting the oils dry for a few days. He did not want to ask, but after having such a successful sitting with Princess Luna, he had to. “Do you think… Princess Celestia would like me to paint her portrait too?”

“No!” said Gaberdine almost reflexively. “I mean… Um… Not in the same way, correct?”

“Oh, no.” Turpentine turned over a fresh sheet in his sketchbook. “She doesn’t seem like a waterfall pony. I really don’t know where I should paint her portrait. I don’t know anything about her.”

“I used to think I understood her, until I became a baron,” said Gaberdine. “Now, I’m not too certain.” He eyed the painting again. “I’ve never claimed to understand Princess Luna.”

“I think I do.” Turpentine took a deep breath. “She’s an orphan too, just like me. Her parents are gone, and all she has left in the world is her sister and memories.”

He stood and looked at the painting for a while, then added, “And us.”

Gaberdine stood in the cabin and looked in the direction of the painting also, but his eyes were focused off into the distance for a long, long while before he nodded his head.

“I made an appointment in a few days with Dean Emeritus Palette Brush, the present curator of the Canterlot Museum of Fine Arts and former Dean at the Department of Arts in Celestia’s school.” He paused and tapped his chin. “You know, it’s amazing how somepony’s response changes when you start a letter, ‘When I met with Princess Luna, she asked…’”

“It’s the weight,” said Turpentine. “In my home town, we moved the main meeting hall away from the river because of some erosion and flooding issues. It took every earth pony in town, all moving very carefully together, to keep from breaking something or hurting somepony. The princesses move a lot more than that every day. And night.”

Gaberdine gave an unconvinced grunt. “In any case, Celestia’s school turns out some of the finest artists in Equestria. They have a supervised boarding dormitory section for young students from outside of the city, or if you wish, I can talk with my father about letting you stay at the estate, since he’s so insistent about having the pitter-clatter of little hooves around the place again.”

“Will I get to meet with both of your parents?” Turpentine unconsciously flipped open his sketchbook to a blank page. “You don’t have any photographs of them around the castle.”

“Errr… Right.” Gaberdine nodded. “I need to fix that.”

“And you should tell them about Pearl. Mother Windrow always said a truth left unsaid is just another way to lie.”

“Errr…”

“And sooner the better,” added Turpentine. “Your father is kinda old. You should spend as much time with him as possible, because you never know when he might go away.”

For the longest time, it looked as if Gaberdine was going to argue with him, and since Turpentine was so young, he really expected to be ignored like his long string of foster parents had always done whenever he brought up a suggestion that seemed so obviously correct. It was a side effect of his one-pony-wide stubborn streak that Mother Windrow had complained about constantly, and normally combated with a stern phrase that ended in, “or no painting for a week!”

“You know, kid.” Gaberdine gave out an enormous sigh. “You’re right. Just like my father. I don’t know if it’s safe to have both of you under one roof. I mean, Canterlot is built off the side of a mountain, after all. It may not be stable enough for the two of you to share a house.”

“The dormitory doesn’t sound too bad,” ventured Turpentine. “Kinda like an orphanage, only with more kids.”

“Huh.” Gaberdine turned and left the cabin, returning with a single sheet of paper in his magic. “In any case, it would be impolite to visit Canterlot without informing Princess Celestia. And Luna. After all, it is their school we would be trying to get you into. Why don’t we sit down and write them a letter. I can show you the proper introduction and format, and how to phrase your request, as well as the proper form for…”

He sat there and blinked for a while before Turpentine hesitantly asked, “Sir?”

“Tell me,” started Gaberdine very slowly. “Did I sound like my father right then?”

Turpentine nodded. “Very much so.”

“I thought as much.” Gaberdine put the blank sheet of paper down on the small writing desk in the cabin. “Why don’t you write Princess Celestia and Luna a letter in your own words, telling them we will be in Canterlot four days from now… and include whatever else you want to tell them.”

* * ✹ * *

The next day, Ripple was uncharacteristically quiet during their afternoon trip to the cattail bog, even when Turpentine managed to get one of the ripe cattail seed pods and bonk her lightly on the horn with it. The resulting cattail battle was not conducted with anything near her normal level of energy, although it did carpet the immediate area with flying cattail fuzz to the point it was difficult to determine just where either of them were wildly swinging their explosive weapons of fluffy doom. It took until the two of them had collapsed against the sunny side of a grassy area in order to catch their breath and try to blow the cattail fluff out of their noses before Ripple finally blurted out what was bothering her.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Turpentine had a moment to think before responding because a fleck of cattail fluff had gotten into his eyes, but from the way Ripple was tearing up, her problem was far more than some errant cattail debris. “Mister Gaberdine says the next class wouldn't start until after Winter Wrap-Up anyway,” he started, trying to sound as reassuring as he could despite his own insecurities. “Even if… I mean when they let me in, Mister Gaberdine says he’d pay for Miss Powderpuff and Lemon Drops to bring me back for a few days every other week, which I think I’ll need. Canterlot is big, and all built up and the biggest crowd I’d seen in Tidewater wasn’t even a Baltimare street and the mountain is huge and…” Turpentine took a deep breath and put a foreleg over Ripple so he could give her a hug without looking too much like he was.

He did not want to admit he was afraid. Turpentine had built a mental image of Baltimare that was far, far different than reality, both in being so much larger and full of ponies than he had expected. Canterlot was even bigger, and full of snooty important unicorns who threw fancy balls and dressed in elegant outfits, which part of him wanted to paint so badly he could taste it, and the other part just wanted to dive under the surface of the river and hide.

But worst of all, when he went to Canterlot, he would have to leave Ripple behind.

Unless…

13 - The Heights of Culture

Drifting Down the Lazy River
The Heights of Culture

"And then one by one they got up and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the stallions looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every lady’s rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, and she looking like the most loveliest parasol."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

The sun was just barely peeping over the low hills around Gravel Flats when Baron Gaberdine trudged into the hangar of the Speedy Cargo office. Powderpuff and Lemon Drops were supposed to be loading the last of their packages for the morning trip to Canterlot, but the only thing he could see in the garage was the wagon. He stopped to look around, resplendent in his suit coat with well-brushed mane and polished hooves for the trip, although his confident air was somewhat offset by a nervous frown at the interruption in his schedule.

“Turpentine? Are you here?” called Gaberdine into the otherwise empty building.

“Just getting my box of paintings tied down, Mister Gaberdine,” came a voice from inside the wagon. “We’ll be all set to go then.”

“Hima, Bar’n Ga’dine!” Powderpuff fluttered in through the open doorway with a paper bag in her mouth and placed it inside the front of the wagon where the passengers were to ride. “Whew. Sis will be right here in a few, ‘cause she’s gotta pay for our breakfast over at Crullers. I got’cha some sodas and a couple of poppy seed bagels to chew on for the trip, too. Canterlot’s a little longer than just runnin’ down to Baltimare, an’ your passengers might get hungry.”

“I’ve had my piece of toast,” said Gaberdine, sounding a little uncertain about the concept of an in-flight meal of any kind. “And I bought an entire pack of gum for the trip. We really should be leaving if we’re going to make our scheduled meeting with Dean Palette Brush. Ah, good morning, Turpentine.”

Turpentine briefly nodded from where he had just stood up in the wagon bed with his captain’s cap snugged down on his head far enough that only the tips of his ears poked out of the holes on the sides. Mostly it was an attempt to keep his hat from blowing off in the slipstream, but he also wore a nervous smile on his face about the other thing he was bringing along with him to Canterlot. “Good morning, sir. We’re all ready to go now.”

“Yeah, come on up, Mister Baron Gaberdine,” said Ripple, popping up over the edge of the wagon beside Turpentine. “The bed of the wagon has these neat tie-downs so all of the cargo won’t shift. We should put some on your motorboat so the painting supplies won’t fly out if we make a sharp turn or hit a big wave.”

Gaberdine stopped cold. “Ripple?”

“I wanted to come along,” said Ripple, wavering a little between determined resistance and uncertainty. “You said if I got good enough with my transformation magic, we could go to Baltimare. Well.” She lifted one slightly oversized hoof over the edge of the wagon and waved before quickly setting it back down so she would not fall over.

“Yes, but…” The presence of a witness obviously upset Gaberdine. He kept casting panicked looks at where Powderpuff was buckling herself into the wagon harness and unlimbering the second set of straps for her sister’s imminent arrival.

“We practiced every afternoon,” said Turpentine, standing right next to the little seapony who was wobbling slightly on her newly-transformed legs. “You told me magic was a matter of willpower, and Ripple really wanted to go to Canterlot with me.”

“But…” Gaberdine waved into the distance with one hoof. “Canterlot.”

“An’ we wrote to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” said Ripple. “On account you said we should be nice and tell them we’re coming. Aren’t you happy?”

“Ecstatic.” Gaberdine scrambled onto the wagon and lit his horn in order to give Ripple’s legs and pony tail a quick examination, then stopped cold again. “Did you tell your mother?”

“Kinda-sorta.” Ripple cringed. “I wrote a note for Sen to give her. She said she was going to be so proud when I—” Ripple glanced at Powderpuff, who was looking back over her shoulder at the passengers.

“Is everything all right, baron?” Powderpuff wrinkled her nose up at Ripple. “I couldn’t help but overhear your little friend earlier. Do you think we might meet the princesses?”

“Oooo, really?” Lemon Drops dropped out of the sky and slid up to her sister’s side to start shrugging into her own harness. “I heard that you were going to paint Princess Luna’s portrait, Turpentine. Is that why you’re going to Canterlot?”

“He finished that days ago,” bubbled Ripple with a bounce in the wagon that made it rock on its springs. “It’s still drying so we can’t take it with us but Mama says it shows the softer side of Princess Luna she hides. And Mister Baron Gaberdine keeps looking at it and um’ing, just like he does the painting of the pretty batpony nurse. Oh! That one’s in the crate, so we can take it to her family in Canterlot today. Let me get it out and I can show you.”

“Can we please get going?” asked Gaberdine plaintively. “And hurry?”

* * ✹ * *

The trip to Canterlot was not that much longer than Baltimare, particularly with Ripple and the pegasus sisters to talk with and all of the scenery to see. Baron Gaberdine remained resolutely quiet, much as if he were thinking ahead to what would happen when they returned to the riverboat and had to face Pearl. Turpentine was not very enthusiastic about that upcoming conversation either, but until then, he was determined to soak up every single experience of their trip for future inspiration.

And when the shining towers and buildings of Canterlot swelled in front of them, he was so filled with inspiration that it leaked out all over. Ripple looked over his shoulder and used her magic to hold the sketchpad steady for him while he drew, but there was no way he was going to get even a small fraction of the city down on paper before they arrived. He wanted to tell the sisters to slow down, but even if they had hovered in place for several hours, Turpentine knew it would only interfere with the real reason he had for coming to Canterlot.

At least the architects here knew how to put beauty into their craft. Hopefully, the artists at the school did too.

Still, the wagon slowed as they approached the city and the lower commercial landing area Baron Gaberdine had selected for their landing zone as fairly proximate to both the art museum wing of the castle and his own family home. Turpentine was quite busy with getting the curves of an ornate roof just perfect, so he did not notice at first, but when the wagon changed course and began to climb, he looked up.

“What’s going on, Mister Gaberdine?” Turpentine looked at the two Royal Guard pegasi flanking their path and directing the Speedy Cargo wagon toward the castle. “Did we break some sort of traffic rule?”

“I’m not certain.” Gaberdine gave the stern guards a cautious glance before resuming his intent stare at the destination they were being guided toward. “I think that’s the private chariot landing spot for the Royal Sisters over there.”

“Guidance Flight to Big Perch,” said one of the guards with a hoof held up to his helmet. “Destination in sight and on final approach. Are Sunburst and Moonglow in position?”

Whatever the pony on the other end of the communication link said must have been positive, because the two guards spread further apart and gave the wagon a little more maneuvering room for the upcoming landing. Their destination ahead was obvious, and had such a starkly elegant simplicity that it took Turpentine’s breath away. The landing site was a plain disc of creamy white marble quite nearly the size of Castle Paradise held suspended over a huge amount of empty space by a simple cantilevered bridge sticking right out into the middle of the air with nothing supporting it other than its own structure and presumably a number of unicorn spells which Turpentine was finding a sudden distrust in.

It would have taken a considerable lack of skill for Powderpuff and Lemon Drops to miss their landing, but the two pegasi placed their worn working wagon right in the center of the stone slab and fidgeted about what was supposed to happen next. Turpentine could understand their discomfort, because the peeling wagon had most likely not been repainted for the last several years, and there were a few sections in front where the paint had been abraded down to the bare wood by constant tail-wind interaction. It probably would not have been as bad for the young sisters if not for their royal observer.

Princess Luna was standing patiently at the other end of the bridge, looking as calm and serene as ever despite the morning sun washing much of the color out of her coat. Her presence was an obvious invitation for Turpentine and Baron Gaberdine to move forward and greet her, but they both were hesitant to leave the secure confines of the wagon for the insecurity of the huge stone slab.

Ripple had no such hesitations. She scrambled right out over the sideboard with one of her normal leaps, only to slide across the cool stone with a clatter of hooves going in all directions, skidding along until finally stopping perilously close to the edge.

“Whoops. Watch that first step, Turpentine. Wow.” The little seapony scrambled to her unsteady hooves and looked over the precipitous drop to the city far below. “We’re up so high they look like minnows.”

Turpentine was torn between crawling over to Ripple to make sure she did not trip and fall over the edge or walking up to Princess Luna, who was watching the whole thing from beneath hooded eyes and with the tiniest hint of a smirk at the corner of her lips. Since Gaberdine was similarly frozen with indecision, he bumped the older stallion and whispered, “You take Luna. I’ve got Ripple.”

“Luna. Right.” Gaberdine scrambled over the edge of the wagon with Turpentine and both went separate ways as planned, although after a moment’s consideration of just how far above the city they were, Turpentine had second thoughts about his choice.

“Ripple.” Once he was closer to the edge where the fascinated seapony was, Turpentine flattened down on his belly and scooted up far enough to be next to her, just in case he had to make a sudden grab for a vanishing tail when gravity took its inevitable toll. “I think Princess Luna wants to talk with you. Over there.” In a burst of inspiration he added, “Remember, this isn’t like the water. You can actually get hurt falling.”

“Oh. Right.” Ripple turned to go over to Luna and Gaberdine, but promptly tripped and nearly went over the edge as Turpentine had feared. It would have terrified Turpentine out of his wits if he had not noticed both Luna and Gaberdine’s horns were lit up with a low shimmer of magic, as well as a unicorn guard tucked into a nearby alcove, and two pegasus guards who ‘happened’ to be flying in slow circles below the landing platform.

He was reminded again of the immense amount of planning that had gone into moving the town hall building to higher ground and how the mayor seemed to be just standing and watching unless you watched her very carefully to see how she was tracking every single pony and their actions. Equestria was far larger than his tiny home town of Tidewater, and the princesses had to keep track of far more things than a little colt could even dream of. And still, Princess Luna had taken time out of her scheduled activities for him and Ripple.

“Good morning, Princess Luna,” said Turpentine once he had helped Ripple over to the waiting princess and more stable ground. “We’re honored to…” He trailed off and looked around. “What are we doing?”

His confusion caused Luna to smile in an authentic fashion, much better than the artificial smile she had been wearing before to conceal her emotions. “My sister is a prat. First, she wanted to accompany your trip amongst the myriad of her portraits with the old dusty fossil who runs the museum. Then events interfered, and she asked me to stand up in her stead. We’re about on the seventh revision of her schedule so far this morn, and I can hardly wait to see how it turns out. In the meanwhile.”

She turned to the two pegasus sisters who were still harnessed to their wagon. “Miss Powderpuff. Miss Lemon Drops. The guards will show you a place to store your vehicle until it is time for your departure. Until then, you are honored guests in our residence, and we have instructed our guards to give you access to every area except our private dwellings.”

“You mean,” gasped Powderpuff, “we could go visit the—”

“Yes,” said Luna.

“And the—” started Lemon Drops.

“Of course,” said Luna.

Somehow managing to mix a bow/curtsey/takeoff into one motion, the sisters and their wagon rapidly dashed out of sight and Luna turned her attention to the rest of her guests.

“We thought it wise to introduce an element of security into your visit, young Ripple. These guards—” Luna gestured towards four rather intimidating pegasi in golden armor “—have been briefed on your unique circumstance and shall remain in the background while you are here.”

Luna motioned down a nearby path leading to an open doorway. “Young Turpentine, Dean Palette Brush awaits your presence.”

* * ✹ * *

The tour of Celestia’s school went far better than the one in Baltimare. Dean Emeritus Palette Brush, who insisted his name was “With one l and two t’s please,” was a warm and friendly unicorn with a magnificent white beard almost sheep-like in its depth and consistency. He even helped set Ripple back upright after she fell over trying to shake hooves with him, and shared a laugh with all of them about the feeling of light-headedness other ponies got when traveling to Canterlot’s altitude for the first time.

Palette Brush greeted Turpentine with a firm hoof-clasp and a clap on the shoulder, taking a few moments to leaf through his sketch book and comment positively about his skills before opening up the crate of painting examples much the same way a colt on Hearth’s Warming Eve would tear into presents. He gave little ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’ noises while looking through the collection of Turpentine’s paintings, holding the butterfly painting up close to trace the way the wings all seemed to blend together, and examining the painting of the batpony nurse with much the same expression as Baron Gaberdine, complete with repeated ‘um’s’ before declaring it ‘unique and visionary, worthy of a much older artist.’

On the following tour through the hallways and classrooms of the school, there were young unicorns about his age who greeted them, and Dean Palette Brush actually smiled on occasion, although it was difficult to see through his thick white beard. The group had to take several side-trips to get glasses of water or juice for Ripple due to the dry air, and one of the guards eventually vanished for a time in order to return with what he called a ‘Super-mega-big-gulp’ of strawberry soda. The monstrous foam container topped with a straw was just what the little seapony needed, and she slurped her way down it at an astonishing rate while they walked and Palette Brush talked about the advantages of a proper unicorn education in the field of classical painting.

“And now the art museum wing of the castle,” announced Palette Brush, which baffled Turpentine a little due to all the other ‘wings’ they had seen around the place. Any more wings and the huge structure could probably take flight. “Here we have the Celestial Gallery, filled with centuries of portraits and paintings of our beloved Princess Celestia—”

Luna cleared her throat.

Dean Palette Brush paused. “And… um… while efforts are underway to procure historical portraits of Princess Luna from various private collectors, they have been understandably reluctant to loan them out to our collection due to their recent escalation in value.”

“As well as other complications.” Luna let out her breath in a huge huff. “Many of the portraits painted before the time of Nightmare Moon were not flattering of my emotional state, or were stored away and forgotten upon my banishment.”

“Such a terrible loss to history.” The dean lit up his horn and floated over a brochure. “We have plans for constructing a Lunar wing of the gallery, as well as beginning the expensive process of restoring what few paintings we have been able to locate, but funding has been an issue. If Your Highness will note, a simple grant of a few hundred thousand bits—”

“Can’t you just put Princess Luna’s pictures in the same gallery with Celestia’s?” asked Ripple while pointing down the corridor with her enormous foam cup of soda. “I can see some pictures of her daughter.”

“Where?” Palette Brush whirled around so fast his beard nearly hit him in the face. “Oh! No, that’s Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. She’s…” The elderly pony paused while trying to find a word, only Luna found hers first.

“Special.” Turpentine could see Luna stick her tongue into her cheek a moment before continuing, “She is a young alicorn who was discovered several years ago and brought to the castle for my sister to raise. The Night used to be the domain of Love, but we have seen the advantage of permitting our younger ‘cousin’ to retain that title and associated duties. She seems to be bearing them far better than I ever did.”

The last words came out in a husky whisper while a brief wave of dark emotion swept across Luna’s face. Far too late to stop the conversation, Turpentine remembered the special edition of the Canterlot Times which had pictures of the new Princess of the Crystal Empire and her little foal. Flurry Heart was a tiny little pink thing with abnormally huge wings, much like the foal Princess Luna was unable to have.

“Oh,” said Ripple, missing Luna’s emotional cues totally. “You mean like sometimes late at night when my mother puts me to bed and thinks I’m asleep but then slips back to the castle and—”

“Moving right along,” said Gaberdine rapidly. “We should continue with the tour before adjourning for a late lunch at my family’s estate. You’re free to join us, if you wish.”

The invitation seemed to have been aimed at Dean Palette Brush, but Luna perked up and moved to intercept it faster than the elderly stallion. “We would be delighted, Baron Gaberdine. Ah, and here comes my dear sister, only a few hours late.”

Over his short span of years, Turpentine had seen the sun rise many times, but always outside with the growing light bringing life to the trees and fields, and activity to the happy ponies of his home village. Sunrise was a repeating joy to his heart, much like opening a new box of paints or fresh cookies right out of the oven.

That same sense of rising majesty overcame him now when he looked down the corridor to see the huge white form of the Princess of the Sun striding purposefully in his direction with her glowing pastel mane flowing behind her. The guards stiffened up in even more rapt attention, the elderly dean adjusted the thick mustache over his beard, and even a tired Ripple seemed to brighten up. The newspaper photos could not possibly do Celestia’s statuesque form justice, or capture the inestimable grace in her stride. If there was a mother to the entire country of Equestria, it was certainly her.

She stopped briefly to talk with Baron Gaberdine, who had swept into a deep bow upon her approach and seemed to glow with the same reflected joy as whenever Pearl graced him with a subtle smile. Even the air seemed warmer in her presence, and Turpentine was eternally grateful that the suit jacket Gaberdine had found for him had been ‘lost’ by Sen last night, or he would certainly have broken into a sweat under its itchy embrace now. She was indeed the Sun, and there was no way he could possibly paint Celestia under a waterfall without including a cloud of steam wafting off her long and smooth primaries.

Celestia continued to grow in his sight when she bent down to talk with Ripple, then greeted Luna with a soft sisterly nuzzle. The presence of the Day turned Luna’s soft colors into faded memories of her similar glory under the moon and stars, a mere shadow of her larger and older sibling. For one long heart-piercing moment, Turpentine could understand just exactly why Luna had succumbed to the temptation of the Nightmare after she had experienced centuries of shadow under her sister’s light.

Then the light shone down on Turpentine and all of his thoughts went away. Celestia bent down and leaned close, with the exact same playful smile as Luna while she spoke to him. Even her words were soft and gentle, rolling out in the precise cadence of a diplomat who had spoken to tens of thousands of creatures over her lifespan. In the midst of his delight, Turpentine despaired, for he would never be able to capture the gentle curves of her lips, the deep violets of her eyes and the way a small reflection of a small colt showed up in the deep blacks of her pupils.

Oh. That’s me.

“Turpentine,” the soft voice repeated. “Hello?”

“Yes!” Turpentine blinked his dry eyes and paused. “How long was I out?”

Princess Celestia’s giggle was almost identical to her sister’s, only deeper. “Just a few minutes.”

“He certainly is a dedicated little pony,” said a familiar voice which Turpentine could not place for a moment. “Most artists can’t concentrate on a subject half as well.”

“Caractère?” Turpentine blinked some more while taking in the sight of the old pegasus, still dressed in his maroon vest with the pencil and notepad in the top pocket where he would write down the prices while following Turpentine around his store in Baltimare. “What are you doing here in Canterlot?”

“An extremely good question,” snapped Dean Palette Brush, turning to Celestia. “What is this criminal doing out of his cell?”

Celestia seemed unperturbed. “Turpentine’s letters mentioned Monsieur Caractère quite favorably, which led me to check on his probation records. He has been a very law-abiding pony over the last few years and a positive influence on our young artist recently. Due to exigencies of my position, I may be called away at any time, and I thought it wise for Turpentine to have a friendly expert here in my place.”

Turpentine did not realize he was trembling until one of those huge white wings reached over and touched gently on his shoulders, feeling much like a sun-warmed blanket on a chilly night. It helped, particularly since he was so close to Palette Brush that he could feel little splatters of saliva when the old unicorn shouted.

“Why was I not informed! He was sentenced to many more years in prison than he could have possibly served by now!”

“Dean Palette Brush,” admonished Celestia. “Please control yourself. You once worked with Monsieur Caractère here in this very building. I thought you would be more forgiving of him, particularly due to his injuries. He was released early from his sentence due to ongoing medical probation.” She reached out with one gold slipper-clad hoof and tapped the thin silver bracelet around the old pegasus’ left forehoof. “He is well tracked, Dean Brush.”

The school dean bristled. “There is nothing medically wrong with him that a good flogging or two could not cure.”

Caractère started to make a response, but Celestia was faster, holding a hoof across his mouth and fixing Dean Palette Brush with a sharp glance. “I know you are still upset about Monsieur Caractère’s actions, but—”

“Upset?” exploded Palette Brush. “He betrayed the trust of our entire department! He stole from our collection, and used his position to defraud dozens of our patrons! There is no punishment severe enough for his crimes! He should be thrown into the deepest prison in Equestria for a thousand yea—”

It was fascinating to see the change in the elderly unicorn’s face while he went from incandescent to icy cold with fear, his eyes absolutely refusing to look in Princess Luna’s direction at all. The Princess of the Moon had faded into the background when Celestia had appeared, but now her silent presence seemed to fill the hallway with the bitter chill of winter.

“Go on,” encouraged Celestia. Her voice had not changed one iota, and her face still wore the polite smile like a mask. In fact, there was no sign at all that Celestia was anything but patient and kind other than perhaps a slight increase in the sunlight coming in through a nearby window.

“Excuse me, Your Highness. Your Highnesses.” Palette Bush bobbed his head in a brief nod while backing up. “I’m feeling ill and must go lie down for a while.”

Both alicorns turned to watch the old unicorn go clattering down the hallway in a near-trot, but remained silent until he had turned the corner and the sound of his silver shoes against the granite floor had died away.

Luna cocked an eyebrow at her sister. “One of Duke Prestigious’ line, I presume?”

“Yes.” Celestia let out her breath and Turpentine could smell the faintest tinge of something burning for a second. “I am so sorry, Monsieur Caractère.”

The old pegasus hung his head. “The fault is all mine, Mademoiselle, both in my original crime and my assumption that Palette Brush, that’s one l and two t’s, would ever find it in his heart to forgive my betrayal of his trust.”

“As I recall,” said Luna abruptly before her sister could open her mouth, “Duke Prestigious had a list of his grudges cast into the bronze cover of his mausoleum, and made it a requirement of his descendents that they keep the list well polished.”

“Indeed.” A small sliver of an authentic smile crept onto Celestia’s face. “For some reason, after the first century or so, the list was polished so briskly that the words became illegible.”

“Undoubtedly poor quality bronze,” put forth Caractère with a series of quick glances between the two alicorns. “Would that a mortal pony’s heart be so easy to change.” He transferred his full attention to Princess Luna, and when he did, the old pegasus seemed to shift slightly from nose to tail, his posture straightened, wings rustled as they settled back on his flanks, and he slowly went to one knee with only a few small pops of aged joints. “And you must be Princess Luna. I am so delighted to meet you, beautiful lady.” He placed a soft kiss on the proffered Royal Hoof and remained with head held low while Luna giggled.

“Arise, you old charmer. Mine sister hath put me wise to thy schemes. Let us hope that thy manners may fall upon young Turpentine without the addition of your criminal past.”

“Criminal?” asked Ripple very quietly.

“Yes indeed, young lady.” The old pegasus turned to Ripple and stiffly bent down on one knee in the same way he had for Princess Luna, and kissed the somewhat larger hoof the seapony filly offered. A look of enlightenment seemed to sweep over his face and Caractère hazarded a brief look at Princess Celestia, who nodded back.

After a brief cough to clear his throat and a few moments to stand back up, Caractère added, “You certainly have come a long distance from your home, young lady. And yes, I am a criminal of the worst sort. While I worked in the Canterlot Museum of Fine Arts as an art restorer for many years, I was never content.”

He gestured at his cutie mark, a pair of roses which were mirror images of each other. “My talent is in painting, which is true, but I could never capture anything new onto canvas and paint. I could only copy that which others more talented than myself had first created. I studied for years to master my talent, but I seemed doomed to remain in the art restoration department restoring old masters until I died.”

“So you copied paintings out of the museum and sold them?” Turpentine cocked his head to one side. “That sounds like you’d be caught pretty quick.”

“Meh.” Caractère waved a hoof back and forth. “There are always ethical collectors who hunger for quality reproductions, particularly if they are identifiable as one. It was good money to raise a family with, but after my dearest Gratuité passed away, something in me was unleashed. I ventured into the darker shades of morality, making better and better fakes for more unscrupulous buyers until one day I found myself unable to tell one of my creations from the original.”

“What did you do?” whispered Ripple.

Caractère shrugged. “I hung one back on the museum walls and sold the other. It made me consider something I had never thought of before. Perhaps, I could create. I threw all of my time and effort into making a new project. Something that would shake the art world to its rotten foundations. A Bledoe. A new Bledoe, something discovered in a dusty attic which all of the pompous art skeptics would hail as brilliant and original.”

“It most certainly was,” said Celestia. “Everypony was talking about it for months. When it went up for auction, the starting bid was supposed to be over ten million bits.”

Gaberdine frowned. “Wait a moment, Your Highness. My father told me about the Bledoe auction. He said you just walked up to the painting, gave it a good look, and told the auctioneers it was a fake.”

“The room went mad,” said Celestia with a giggle. “My guards caught Monsieur Caractère boarding the train with just a little over a million bits in a suitcase, and enough evidence in his workroom to prove the old master was anything but old.” She giggled again, but put a wide wing over the grimacing old stallion. “Do not despair at your lost art, but rejoice at your other creations. I understand your grandchildren are keeping you quite busy in Baltimare. How is Sympathique? Still teething?”

Gaberdine coughed quietly to break the silence. “Actually, Your Highness, she has turned into a fine young mare. She was a hostess at Mi Quintile during our recent trip there, and young Turpentine painted a very nice picture of the two of them.”

“I’ll bring it back to the riverboat so you can look at it when you and Luna come by to pick up her portrait,” said Turpentine abruptly. “And… can I paint you then?”

“Ah…” That sense of perfection wavered when the Princess of the Sun cast a quick look over to her sister. “I can attempt to get free that day, but things always tend to pop up at the—”

“Something always comes up,” said Luna.

“Not always,” protested Celestia. “We’re just a little behind schedule with being sick for a week.”

For some reason, the Royal Sisters exchanged a subtle glance and giggled.

“Are we about done here?” asked Ripple. “My hooves hurt.”

Gaberdine checked his schedule. “Well, Dean Palette Brush was supposed to run our tour through the Celestial Gallery for another hour and a half.”

Ripple whimpered.

“...and then we were going to visit the Statuary Hedge Maze to view every one of Equestria’s most famous sculptors’ works,” continued Gaberdine.

Ripple’s whimper rose in pitch.

“...before a leisurely stroll through downtown Canterlot on our way to my family’s estate and lunch.”

“Or,” said Luna, “If you wish for young Turpentine to continue his artistic tour with my sister, I could take you to the airship port and tour The Indomitable, the biggest Griffon Empire airship in the entire world. They’re here on a mission of goodwill and friendship, so I’m certain they would welcome visitors, particularly ones who appreciate their nation’s fine engineering talents.”

Ripple perked up. “Could we go with Baron Gaberdine by the batpony house and take the painting to Miss Syrette like Turpentine wanted to do today too? Maybe she can explain why he ‘hm’s’ at it all the time.” A little bit of the perk went out of Ripple’s ears and she tucked her tail down. “As long as she doesn’t give me another shot.”

“Of course,” said Luna. “Then we can go look at the grand engineering projects of Canterlot, like the crystalline pillars anchoring our city to the mountain. And I’m certain Baron Gaberdine would be willing to carry you when you’re fatigued. Meet you over at the Whinnysfield estate when we’re done, Celly?” She turned her sparkling eyes on Celestia and grinned.

“You may borrow our guests for a time, Luna. Caractère and I shall see to young Turpentine’s education in the artworks of Canterlot.” Celestia gave a short nod to Gaberdine. “You are dismissed, Baron Gaberdine.”

Gaberdine looked anything but dismissed when Luna trotted away with a perky and re-energized Ripple bounding along beside her. He looked at the departing seapony and back at Turpentine several times before Turpentine spoke up.

“I’m a big colt, Mister Gaberdine. Go with Ripple. I’ll see you at lunch.”

With only one plaintive backwards glance, Gaberdine hustled down the corridor Luna had used and within moments, the sounds of their departing hoofsteps faded to nothing. The silence stretched a long time before Turpentine took a tentative look up at Princess Celestia.

“Ma’am? Shouldn’t we be going? We’re blocking the hallway.” Turpentine looked up and down the empty hallway and wondered for a moment just why it was still empty of visitors, or even officials. After all, the mayor of his hometown had a secretary who followed her all of the time with a pencil and a notepad just in case she said something important which needed to be written down. A princess should probably have a dozen or more of them, but the hallway remained quite empty and somewhat cold.

“Luna told me a great deal about you, Turpentine.” That glass mask was back over Celestia’s features again, and although she was still projecting warmth and friendliness, it was impossible to determine how sincere she was. With centuries of experience in hiding her emotions, Celestia could easily have been simply toying with him, or using her time with Turpentine as an excuse to avoid other, less pleasant chores around the castle.

It was still hard for Turpentine to accept just how old Celestia was, except for the absolute sense of calm and peace she had drawn around her in inviolate layers until steel would have been soft and malleable when compared to her will. Even her posture seemed specifically arranged to make smaller ponies feel comfortable around her tall stature, and since every pony was smaller than her, she had to feel like she was forever living in a world made for children. It must have been frustrating, far more than for Turpentine living in a world made for larger ponies, because in time he would grow into the world while Celestia had outgrown it long ago.

“He’s just going to sit there and look at you until he figures out what makes you tick, Your Highness,” said Caractère. “We could be here for days. Months, even.”

The unexpected shock made Turpentine blink his dry eyes and turn his attention to a problem which would be more easy to solve. “How were you injured in prison, Mister Caractère?” he asked abruptly, which seemed to knock the elderly pegasus back a step and make him stumble for his words.

“Some of the individuals I sold forged paintings to took my fall from grace rather badly, because it meant attention from the authorities and confiscation of their ‘original’ artwork when I talked.” Caractère moved his head from side to side and turned it slightly. “They hired some of the prisoners to beat me up. Between age and injury, that’s about all the mobility I have left now. My days of forging masterpieces are over, in more ways than one.”

“I arranged for his early parole,” said Celestia. “He is no longer a threat to my little ponies, and with a locator bracelet, he can be found whenever needed.”

“Somepony put up the collateral for my store when I got out,” said Caractère without looking up at Celestia at all. He shrugged stiffly. “Guilt money or not, I have a job where I contribute to the community and have begun to pay off my debts.” He shrugged again. “Another century or two and I’ll be done.”

“What did it feel like?” Turpentine moved closer and peered deeply into the old stallion’s blue eyes. “When your Bledoe painting was discovered to be a forgery, that is. You worked so hard to accomplish an impossible task, and almost did. What did it feel like when your plans crumbled?”

“I…” Caractère looked back and forth between Celestia and Turpentine rapidly several times. For a moment, it almost looked as if he were going to flee out of the window at the end of the hallway when his wings raised up and he leaned into a starting position, then he slumped back and dropped his rear onto the cold marble tiles.

“I had plans. I was going to make sure my grandchildren were taken care of so they would never want for money. Endowing scholarships, building hospitals, high times with the important ponies in the world. Maybe my own airship. Living out the rest of my life on some tropical island, eating fruit and playing in the sand. I had entire worlds built out of glass, and with one word, they all shattered into a million pieces.”

“A truthful word,” said Turpentine. “Princess Luna said much the same thing when I asked her about Nightmare Moon. All of her plans for Night Eternal were based on a lie, and when they broke…”

“We shattered,” said Celestia almost under her breath. For just the tiniest fraction of a second, Turpentine could see the immense form of Celestia staring up into the moonlit night sky where she had just banished her sister. It was far more weight than even carrying the town hall back in his hometown had been, and no number of backs could make that dreadful crushing burden lighter.

Then the smooth mask slipped over her features again and Celestia smiled down at Turpentine. It was a natural motion, much as if she had practiced it for centuries, but no amount of emotional control could stop the single tear he could see tracking down her cheek.

“It is the past,” said Celestia, “and all that has come of it, good or bad, is still the past. Come, now. We have many portraits and statues to examine before we go to the Whinnysfield estate for lunch.” She lowered her voice. “Young Turpentine, do you think there will be cake?”

Turpentine nodded. “Gaberdine told me their cook always makes cake.”

“Good.” Celestia beamed. “Cake always makes me feel better.”

- ☸ - -

Luna might possibly have been exaggerating when she said how many portraits of Celestia there were in their castle, but not by much. Although they were spaced out with lots of empty wall around each one of them to accommodate a crowd of interested onlookers, the long corridors of the castle seemed to have hundreds of Celestias watching their slow educational path. The tour was supposedly for Turpentine’s benefit, but he found the lessons learned went far better if he remained almost silent and watched the back-and-forth between Celestia and Caractère. It was almost a contest where the old pegasus attempted to break down Celestia’s cool walls of self-restraint while the Princess of the Sun danced around his verbal jabs with all the skill of a barn swallow skimming across a grassy field and snagging airborne bugs. Still, while he sketched little snippets during their visits to individual paintings, his natural curiosity forced him to ask questions of the both of them in the middle of their odd verbal dance, even when the answers were totally unexpected.

“So the Canterlot castle has a name.” Turpentine thought about the revelation for a moment before asking the inevitable. “What is it?”

Princess Celestia looked strangely reluctant. “Yes, it’s rather silly, which is why I’ve discouraged its use over the—”

“The Heavenly Abode,” said Caractère.

That earned him a long flat glare from Celestia and a deliberate, “It was a far better choice than ‘The Nest of Heaven’ which certain members of the nobility seemed set upon during its construction.”

Now it was Caractère’s turn to nod knowingly. “That seems to have been a low bar to clear.”

“Nest?” asked Turpentine with his head cocked to one side.

Celestia blushed and nudged the little colt down the hallway toward the next portrait. “On account of several of the more poetic artists centuries ago referring to me as the… No, you don’t need to—”

“The Swan of Dawn,” said Caractère with an absolutely straight face.

“How many years do you have left on your parole?” asked Celestia.

“Fifty-three, Your Highness.”

Whatever retort Celestia was going to use in response was lost when a coil of smoke traced down from above, curled around her horn, and appeared with a sharp popping noise as a rolled-up scroll. She caught the message in her magic and held it to her side while giving a short bow to her guests.

“I’m sorry, but it seems Princess Twilight Sparkle has a concern. I was afraid things were going too smoothly today.” She let out a brief huff of frustration. “I had better go see what emergency has popped up that requires my presence. I'll leave the rest of the tour in your able hooves, Caractère.”

The old pegasus bowed. “On both of our behalfs, thank you, Your Highness.”

Turpentine stood by Caractère and watched the princess stride down the corridor toward a prepared servant peeking around the corner. Her movements were smooth and unhurried despite the interruption, placing each hoof with impeccable grace. He had never really understood that phrase before, but the way Celestia made each step and motion into a dance of sorts made it obvious that it had been created by somepony just like him many years ago who watched the Princess of the Sun walking just the way she was walking now.

“Equestria’s largest rooster.” Caractère shook his head. “Ruler of the roost and undeniably above all who she surveys. All that is missing is for her to crow while raising the sun.”

“No.” Turpentine squinted a little to watch Celestia talking with the servant at the other end of the corridor. “I see… a playful little filly, like Ripple. Then one day, she grew up. She bent her neck to lift a heavy burden nopony else could, and has been stuck beneath it ever since.”

“Right,” said Caractère. “A little filly who plays ball with the sun and moon.”

“It’s why she took time off from her schedule to be with us this morning.” Turpentine stood for a while, sketching the way the beams of light from the window played across Celestia and the distant mustached servant. Little flecks of dust danced in the breeze, making circles and starlit paths around the two of them, served and servant, but Turpentine could not tell which role they each played.

“She’s trapped,” Turpentine said after a moment. “She can never go back to being that little filly again, but she can spend time with us and live out her lost dreams in our lives.”

Caractère took a deep breath. “Thanks. Now I’ve got guilt. I should go apologize for that ‘Swan of Dawn’ comment.”

“No, I think she liked it,” said Turpentine from around the pencil in his teeth. “The muscles in her cheek tensed up to keep her from smiling. The whole castle is full of ponies who have her up on an untouchable pedestal, just like those statues we saw.”

“And all she wants to do is run around in the grass and play.” Caractère looked down the hallway full of portraits. “I think we’re done here. How would you like to go out and walk in the garden?”

“Is your neck bothering you?” Turpentine looked up at the old pegasus who had not seemed to be in pain, but some ponies hid their pain really well. “We just got started with the tour and I’ve only made a few sketches,” he added, “but if you think we should quit now…”

“Good news,” said Celestia with a happy smile while she trotted back down the hallway. “Just a minor detail involving a foreign diplomatic visit that Kibbitz can take care of, so we can continue our tour. And—” she lowered her voice “—have cake.”

While they continued their walk among the portraits, Turpentine could see little bits and pieces of Celestia appear from under her mask, much as if the close proximity of so many other oil painting images gave her some sort of shield of anonymity which she could never get in reality. The real Celestia did not really ‘let her mane down’ like Luna in the waterfall, but she was much more relaxed and conversational than her companion. Every time they approached one of the portraits, Caractère began to avoid small talk. Instead, he would list the techniques the artist used, how they compared to other masters of that period, and sometimes the subtle hints of context which the artist was trying to say.

Still, Caractère seemed to get tenser while Celestia relaxed and became more chatty. As they walked to and from each painting, she simply talked about the artist, waxing poetic at times about little details of the actual sitting or events of the time like some sort of living history book which fascinated Turpentine in ways that ordinary paper and ink never had. No small bit of information or odd occurrence happening during the painting escaped her piercing memory. Sometimes, it was the artist’s pet who would be distracting during the session, or their children, and one time it was a simple piece of fruit.

“To be honest,” said Celestia while they were looking at the portrait, “the Hustzchupokian ambassador brought a banana and I accidentally left it on the table during my sitting. Before I knew it, we had a trade route with Hutzchupokia dealing in nothing but bananas, twenty-seven varieties of bananas, express delivered to every corner of Equestria before they could spoil. That was two centuries ago, and Hutzchupokia still has over a quarter of its exports strictly due to the fact I wasn't very hungry before my portrait sitting. So yes, small things matter.”

“And to Celestia, all ponies are small,” added Caractère. “Well, smaller.”

“The smaller they are, the more attention they require,” countered Celestia softly.

“The fruit’s a distraction,” said Turpentine. He drew a quick outline of the painting and a few lines for reference. “It’s a focal point, but it’s a primary focus instead of being a secondary. The subject is supposed to be what everypony looks at.” He looked at the picture again without trying to stare at the banana. It was difficult, because the painting seemed to be staring back at him, and in a most disconcerting way.

In fact, nearly all of the paintings they had seen so far had Celestia portrayed with her eyes partially hooded and looking slightly past the observer. It was a little like every painting kept watching his cutie mark while they left their vicinity, and the accumulated attention was causing Turpentine to act a little jittery, as well as making him keep his tail tucked firmly against his rear. He asked about it, of course, and received the most peculiar response which he should have expected.

A portrait. A huge portrait.

“What is it?” Turpentine looked over the wall-sized painting depicting a grassy hillside with dozens of young foals at play and Celestia reclining in the middle of them. It was vibrant and alive with color, but somehow creepy right down in the pit of his stomach.

Caractère answered without taking the hoof from over his eyes. “Celestia Among The Flowers. It’s the most famous painting by Spiegelei, quite old, and preserved by generations of protective spells. It’s survived no fewer than five mysterious fires in art galleries, being stolen twice, and a bad case of Dragon Sneezles.”

“The Dragonlord emissary Carnage took a week to get over his illness before he could go home. We used to brew him huge vats of lemon and honey tea in the courtyard. That’s when we put the volcano into the Royal Baths for him to soak in,” explained Celestia as if it were only natural to put a volcano into one’s bathroom. “I never thought we’d use it again until Twilight Sparkle hatched Spike. He learned the backstroke in the lava there. Wonderful little dragon.”

Turpentine considered for the moment how many little freshly-hatched dragons available for painting might be found around the castle. After all, he had never drawn a dragon before, and the Canterlot newspapers tended to crop Spike mostly out of any pictures they had of Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends. It would be a challenge. Plus, he had never drawn scales before. Or lava.

“How do you teach a dragon to swim in lava?”

“Very carefully.” Celestia cleared her throat. “What do you see in this painting, Turpentine?”

“It’s… very detailed, Ma’am.” Turpentine found the little foals romping about the hillside a more comfortable subject than the immense bulk of Celestia laid out in bright white paint. There was a… theme to their play, with raised wings and sprawled limbs making them appear to be more dolls than ponies, much as if the painted Celestia had surrounded herself with a group of lifelike toys. It took quite some time for Turpentine to get a good look at all of them, because the painting was quite expansive, but he started at the outside and worked his way inward, taking notes on his sketchpad while he worked.

Even up close, the behavior of one of the subjects was nearly inexplicable. “What is that colt—”

“Nursing,” said Caractère, who still had one hoof over his eyes even though he was turned with his back to the subject.

“Oh.” Turpentine took a sideways glance at Princess Celestia, who seemed to fairly radiate an aura of divine tolerance. “Did you have a foal, Princess? Or foals?” he added, looking at the rest of the little colts and fillies.

“No.” Celestia nodded at the painting. “Herr Spiegelei painted me alone on the hillside.”

The layering of the pigments where the little foals touched Celestia or vice versa made that abundantly clear, but it forced Turpentine to look at the main subject despite his misgivings. He got up close and squinted, or took a few steps back at times, tilting his head from side to side while he considered the painted alicorn and compared her to the real thing just a few lengths away. He really did not want to say it, but despite the stylistic themes that each painter brought to their works, there was one thing that stood out enough he had to make a comment about it.

“I don’t like the eyes.”

“I don’t either,” said Celestia. She stood looking at the field full of little foals with an expression of deep regret. “I should have explicitly told him so at the time. All I said was ‘It’s perfect except for a minor detail’ and went off to another appointment. He took my comments entirely the wrong way. It was months before I had time to look at it again, and by that time, every artist in Canterlot was copying his style. I tried restricting any young ponies from the exhibit, but that only drew more attention. It got so bad for a time that parents would hustle their little foals away from me whenever they saw me approaching.”

“I see,” said Turpentine. “Were you the one who tried to set it on fire?”

Despite Caractère’s astonished gasp, Celestia nodded. “I couldn’t ban it, because that would only fuel the rumors about my—” she coughed “—activities to a fever pitch. Every century or two, I try again. It’s become a little bit of a tradition whenever too many paintings of my rump start stacking up.”

Turpentine nodded. “Mother Windrow sprays for crickets every spring. She doesn’t mind a few of them, but they’re awful noisy and get into the kitchen.”

“Your Highness!” spluttered Caractère. “You can’t mean you burn down your own art galleries?”

“I’m very careful to ensure nopony gets injured,” said Celestia calmly. “And I only burn the older ones that really need to be burned. Between the protective enchantments and the caution of the museum staff, this one has escaped the culling so far, but eventually it too shall pass.”

“Like all of us.” Turpentine turned away from the painting and regarded Celestia, who was sitting calmly in the beam of sunlight coming through the skylight above. “Mister Spiegelei really didn’t capture you very well.”

“Thank you, Turpentine.” A fraction of the authentic Celestia smile broke through her restraint much as the sun would rise above a cloud layer, and the beam of sunlight from above felt much warmer and more welcome.

“It’s close.” Turpentine stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked over the princess, who towered over him like the sun and just as bright. “The eyes are all wrong, but there’s a little something in there.”

“Arson,” muttered Caractère. “Ten to twenty years, at least.”

“I think we have enough time to visit one more exhibit.” Celestia turned and strode purposefully along the corridor. It was a short trip with only two turns before she stopped in front of yet another portrait of herself.

“Ah, here we go. The museum found this one a few years ago, but I just never had time to look at it until now. What do you think of it, Turpentine?”

He inspected the portrait while trying to watch both Caractère and Celestia out of the corner of his eyes. The painted Celestia’s pose was similar to several he had seen during their tour, and composed in what Turpentine was starting to think of as the ‘Cluttered Room’ period of art. Thankfully, there were no bananas, but something bothered him about it. Other than the eyes.

“It’s another painting in the Spiegelei period,” he ventured. “A Frühstück, it looks like. Done a little more recently than the other one we saw.”

“Good. And?” prompted Celestia. “Luna said you were a very perceptive little pony. What else do you see?”

One of the advantages of owning the building and the contents was that Princess Celestia had no problems at all with letting a little colt walk right up to a painting and put his nose almost on it for a close-up examination. The brushstrokes were perfect, just like the other huge painting, and layered in order to bring out the shadows and highlights in the room. He followed the lines and swirls of paint with a growing discomfort, breathing in the faint scent of antique paint and tracing the painted Celestia’s form while he worked. There was something wrong with it, but he just could not put a hoof on the flaw until he turned around and saw Caractère’s face.

Then it was obvious.

“It’s a fake.” He turned back to the painting and examined the portion he had first been suspicious of. “Right there. The way he did the tufts of hair inside your ears. That’s exactly the same way Mister Caractère helped me do on my painting. It must have been his practice piece he did before making the Bledoe.” Turpentine turned back again and looked up at Celestia. “That’s not why you knew, though. Every painting we’ve seen so far, you’ve posed for. You talked to the portraitist, learned about their families, their pets, their lives. You took the time to get to know the artist so…” He paused.

“Go on,” encouraged Celestia.

“So you would remember them.” Turpentine swept a hoof in a broad gesture down the hallway. “These aren’t pictures. These are memories. That’s why you knew Mister Caractère’s other portrait was a fake. You weren’t there for it. No matter how perfect he managed to duplicate Bledoe’s style, he could never duplicate your memory of the portrait session.”

“You sneaky little…” Caractère stood with his jaw agape and stared at Celestia, who was obviously suppressing an expression of supreme smugness. “You said you recognized the portrait as a fake but you never said why! I didn’t realize… You sneak!”

With her air of gentle restraint gone completely, Celestia giggled like a schoolfilly. “Oh, you should see your face,” she snorted.

Turpentine, however, was drawing.

Author's Note

Celestia Among the Flowers is a creation of Peter, in Jake and the Kid, in which a young girl comes to Equestria with her 'pet' horse. (Jake happens to be a Percheron draft horse, five years old, and comes through with an adult body (not in that way, you pervs), which causes no end of issues.)

Since then we've kinda batted the concept back and forth. Fore!

14 - High Cuisine

Drifting Down the Lazy River
High Cuisine

"I didn’t see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

One thing about Canterlot was that everything was somewhere else, and that somewhere was up or down, left or right, or some combination of all of them. The inside of the castle had been a complex maze which Turpentine could have been trapped in until he starved to death (or asked directions from one of the ever-present guards), but once Princess Celestia got outside and started trotting through the city on the way to the Whinnysfield mansion, it got at least a little easier to figure out just where they were going. According to Caractère, the city was roughly divided into thirds, with the unicorns being closest to the mountain and the castle, while the pegasi preferred houses out by the edge of the city with the astonishing view, leaving the earth ponies everything else.

There was a lot of everything else.

The bill of his captain’s cap did a wonderful job blocking the sun from getting into Turpentine’s eyes, which is probably why Baron Miller had worn it everywhere. Despite Sen’s best efforts washing and re-dying it, the cap still felt a little shabby and plain in the elaborate city, particularly while trotting along at a rapid rate next to Princess Celestia who seemed to attract the attention of every pony on the street. Some would simply wave, while others approached with a bow or nod of the head to exchange a few words with their divine goddess descended from her heavenly residence and to the little colt trotting along at her side. Caractère might as well have been invisible with as little attention he attracted, most likely due to his clerk’s vest making him look like a servant, but they all were introduced to Turpentine, ‘the young colt who drew that delightful Get Well card.’

Once they managed to get into a section of road where there were fewer listeners, Turpentine had to ask about it, of course.

“Oh, that.” Princess Celestia hid a mischievous grin behind one of her large golden shoes. “It was a positively adorable little card, Turpentine. We had to share it with the servants, and then the royalty saw it, and before either of us knew it, the Canterlot Times had printed it with some blank space under it and an invitation for their readers to fill in their own message and send it to us. We’ve gotten hundreds of them so far, and they keep coming, even though we’re over our little illness now.” Celestia coughed once, most likely just for form, and continued. “Luna and I took straight to bed and spent our entire recovery time writing thank-you letters to each of them.”

“Hundreds?” Turpentine blinked a few times at the thought of something he had just dashed off in a few minutes being sent to all of Equestria in the newspaper.

“It was a delightful gesture on your behalf, Turpentine.” Celestia giggled. “Very appropriate, too.”

Caractère nodded agreement. “Perhaps he can be contracted to do another one next year as a public health announcement to encourage ponies and princesses to get their flu shots early.”

“Undoubtedly.” Celestia’s smile smoothed out into the normal polite mask she wore before she stopped by a roadside bench next to a fountain and motioned Turpentine up onto the seat. “On a more serious note, I wanted to take a few minutes before we go into the Whinnysfield estate to talk, and don’t go away, Monsieur Caractère.” The elderly pegasus stopped his subtle shifting in position away from the upcoming conversation and stood uncomfortably while Celestia sat down next to the bench, bringing her eyes level with Turpentine.

“Ma’am, is this about your portrait?” Turpentine moved to get his sketchbook out of his saddlebag, only to have Celestia rest a hoof over the saddlebag flap.

“No. It’s about family.” Celestia reached out with her magic and brought back a shimmering ball of water from the nearby fountain, which she held in front of Turpentine while talking. “Twilight Sparkle and I used to have our little talks out in the garden next to a fountain. Ponies are the opposite of water. They go uphill, they fall in love, marry, and have foals. Ponies need other ponies, just the same as I needed Luna for so many years. All we have left of our family is ourselves. Our family ties are more important than almost anything else, and I would be willing to live in the dump and sort trash if it were the only way I could keep her.

“Every year in my school, I see young unicorns away from their families. They pretend to be happy, but I can tell. Lack of family makes them close themselves away from their teachers and their friends. I can help some of them, but others…” The globe of water in her magic shifted colors into a swirl of gold and crimson before turning back into ordinary water.

“I care very much about all of my little ponies, so I don’t want you to be at my school without a family. It can be very lonely for some of the students with family to be away from their homes, even though they can return for a visit at any time.” Celestia touched him on the cheek with the tip of one forehoof and looked Turpentine in the eyes.

“I know you’ve been adopted several times before. It can be very difficult for someone who has been rejected and alone for a long time to allow another into their heart, but I think you’re ready for it now. I think it’s time you had a family.”

“Oh.” Turpentine blinked several times, looking into Celestia’s deep eyes. It suddenly made sense to him, although not quite what he had expected. He nodded and tried to put on a smile. “Thank you, Princess Celestia. You’ll make a fine mother.”

The ball of water splashed to the ground.

Caractère snorted behind him, a brief and quickly choked off noise that Turpentine’s quick glance showed the old pegasus had suppressed by sticking his head under one wing, regardless of how stiff his neck was.

“That’s… not quite…” Celestia swallowed once and took a breath. The polite smile she had been wearing looked just a little strained, and it seemed to be taking a long time for her to continue her part of the conversation.

“I know you’re awfully busy running the country,” said Turpentine helpfully, “so Princess Luna can help. There was one of the orphans adopted by a family of two mares so I know it’s not that unusual, and that way you can share the responsibility, since Princess Cadenza is all grown up and moved out, and Princess Twilight Sparkle is living in Ponyville now.”

“Turpentine?” Caractère had taken his head out from under his wing, but he still looked rather peculiar, as if he was holding back a sneeze. “Princess Celestia wasn’t talking about her adopting you. She’s… a little old to become a mother.”

“Oh?” Turpentine frowned while thinking, but Caractère’s eyes suddenly grew larger.

“And not me,” he added in a rush. “I’m too old to be a father again.”

“Oh.” Despite his best efforts to remain positive, Turpentine’s ears drooped, only to perk back up when Princess Celestia placed a very motherly nuzzle across them.

“I’m not that old,” she insisted. “I raised Princess Mi Amore Cadenza to be a princess, and taught Twilight Sparkle to be a very powerful unicorn. If I were the best pony available to be your mother, I would be proud to call you my son.” She nuzzled back his captain’s hat and kissed him on the bare forehead. “But I’m not.”

The kiss made his ears fairly glow red with embarrassment, but he still had to ask, “How will I know? How am I going to find a family?”

She let out her breath in a huge huff that smelled vaguely of jasmine and rosebuds before nuzzling him around the ears again, giggling at the way his mane tickled her nose. “I have faith that one is going to find you very soon. Now come on,” she whispered into one ear. “We need to get going to the Whinnysfield estate before they put away the cake.”

- ☸ - -

As it turned out, Princess Luna and her tour group arrived at the Whinnysfield estate gates almost at the same time as Turpentine, and the sight of Sun and Moon rejoined after even the brief separation made him dive for his sketchbook and a pencil. After the Royal Sisters shared a mushy hug and nuzzle, Luna immediately began to talk without allowing her sister to get a word in edgewise.

“Oh, you should have seen the little foal,” cooed Luna. “We stopped by the nocturne clan house to drop off the painting of Syrette, and found out that Missus Windrow brought the new little nocturne colt up today.” Luna giggled. “We got to watch him sleeping. He does this cute little scrunched up thing with his nose. I’ll have to see if they’ll bring him by the castle later this evening, Celly, because I know how much you like the little ones.”

Celestia winced, but recovered with a warm smile directed at Baron Gaberdine, who had a sprawled-out young seapony (with hooves) draped over his back. “And good day, Ripple. Did you and my sister have a nice time exploring the city?”

“It was soooo cool,” said Ripple in nearly a moan of joy. “We went everywhere, even to the baths.” The little seapony turned to look at Turpentine and slowly waved one hoof. “Hi, Turpentine. Did you know Luna’s got a volcano in her bathroom? It’s a huuuuuge cave with a bunch of pools all different tempreatures an’ she said I could come by and swim in them sometime—” Ripple looked around for eavesdroppers “—once I get good enough to be sure I can switch back.”

“That will have to wait until later, young lady.” Celestia swept a hoof in the direction of the estate’s front doors. “Right now, Baron Gaberdine needs to introduce us to his parents, and I believe somepony promised cake for dessert. Oh, and just one more thing.”

- ☸ - -

Owning a good suit was starting to seem like a good idea for Turpentine as he sat patiently on the front steps of the Whinnysfield estate and waited for the results of Baron Gaberdine’s polite knocking on the thick oak door. A suit would give him something to hide behind, or use as armor against Duke Whinnysfield’s sharp glare, although Baron Miller’s cap seemed to be a good substitute. Next to him, Ripple struck a similar pose, without a captain’s cap, and whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

“This is so exciting, Turpentine. Thank you for inviting me.”

“You’re welcome.” The door was remaining very quiet and unmoving, quite unlike his rumbling tummy, so he added, “Do you think we’re too late for lunch?”

“Father will hold lunch for our arrival,” said Gaberdine very quietly. “The condemned stallion should eat a good last meal, after all. I don’t think Ripple’s mother is going to be very happy about our trip.”

For some reason, that set Celestia into a giggling fit where she was standing to one side of the door, just like her somewhat puzzled sister was on the other side where they would not be seen at first glance. It seemed to work fairly well, because when Duke Whinnysfield opened the door and looked at his son, he did not notice them.

“Well?” The heavyset duke frowned at Gaberdine, giving a short glance down at Ripple, then a second glance once the little seapony’s features seemed to trigger a memory. “Oh! Beg pardon, young miss. Son, it’s only polite to introduce your guests.”

“Of course.” Baron Gaberdine placed a hoof on top of Turpentine’s head. “You already know about the young artist staying at my estate. Turpentine, you remember my father, correct?”

Turpentine nodded. “Good morning, Duke Whinnysfield.”

“Good afternoon,” said Whinnysfield in a sharp tone just short of a rebuke.

“And this is a… friend of a friend,” said Gaberdine, moving the indicating hoof over to Ripple’s head and giving her a brief rub. “Miss Ripple of Gravel Flats.”

“Charmed to meet you,” said Ripple while extending one hoof and leaning up against Turpentine so she would not fall over.

“Young lady,” acknowledged Whinnysfield, bending over and giving the little filly’s oversized hoof a brief brush of the lips.

“And a friend of young Turpentine, Mister Caractère of Baltimare.”

The duke nodded at the elderly pegasus, who stiffly nodded back.

“And, of course, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” continued Gaberdine with an absolutely straight face.

Both princesses stepped out of their concealing position and took their places at Ripple and Turpentine’s side, much like large bookends around a pair of very small books. It made an amazing shift of emotions cross Duke Whinnysfield’s face, a collection of rapidly-changing motions that ranged from bafflement to sudden realization. He glanced between the two proffered Royal Hooves, quite obviously trying to determine which one to kiss first, before giving into tradition and placing his respectful smooches in order of seniority.

“Our house is your house, Your Highnesses,” said Whinnysfield, opening the door the rest of the way and gesturing inside. “Will you be joining us for lunch?”

“Of course.” Celestia proceeded forward with Luna at her side, moving as if they were one.

“We shall need to freshen up before we dine,” said Luna.

“Right this way.” Whinnysfield took a brief look over his shoulder at Gaberdine before vanishing around a corner with the alicorns right behind him.

It really was amazing. He looked just like Baron Gaberdine when he did that.

- ☸ - -

Between bathroom breaks and the tendency of larger ponies to look up at new things while Turpentine was below their line of sight, it had been easy to slip away from everypony else and travel where his instincts led him. The jingle of silverware and clink of plates attracted him to the dining room, because Turpentine had always set the table back at the orphanage while Mother Windrow prepared the meal. When he had gotten older and returned from more homes, Turpentine had been given more responsibilities in the kitchen, but their little table could not hold a candle to the magnificent wooden structure in the Whinnysfield dining room, all draped with linen and adorned with glittering crystal while the servants bustled around, putting an extra leaf in the table and laying out several extra place settings.

He drew the scene, of course.

It was easy to pick out Missus Whinnysfield, a slightly thickening older mare the shade of dusky rosewood, with a curled auburn mane spilling down her neck in a way that must have taken her hours to brush and style. She placed herself in the center of the busy dining room, pointing and gesturing while occasionally giving an extra swipe of polish to a piece of crystal or taking a tiny taste out of a passing dish. She looked happy in her environment much the same way as Duke Whinnysfield when he had been pressing Baron Gaberdine at the dinner table in Baltimare.

The Whinnysfields were action-ponies, as Mother Windrow would have described them, and he could see where Baron Gaberdine had gotten the idea that Turpentine would not have been comfortable in this house. He was more of a noun-pony, interested in things and stuff, and how they reacted to each other instead of being driven by actions, tasks and protocol.

He could not help but think about his recent conversation with Princess Celestia. Turpentine had always thought finding and using his own talent was more important than family, but when the Princess of the Sun said she would rather sort garbage than live in a castle if it was the only way for her to keep Luna, it really disturbed him on some deep, primal level. Being a part of a family was painful for him, and painful to admit. It reminded him of his dead mother and the missing father who never returned to raise him in her absence. He was jealous of families who seemed to do this ‘togetherness’ thing so effortlessly, and that had made him focus instead on his talent to the exclusion of all else.

Well, almost. As much as Mother Windrow tried to deny it, she had been his family up until now. A little odd, a little awkward, and not quite perfect, but always there when he needed her and always waiting when he returned from another failed family. No doubt Missus Whinnysfield would be there for her son if Gaberdine ever failed and had to return to his foalhood home, but Turpentine could not imagine himself calling her mother, and particularly not calling Duke Whinnysfield father.

There was a photograph of the Whinnysfield family on a nearby wall, with three young sons in suits dutifully lined up in front of their solemn and well-dressed parents, but it did not really reflect the actual ponies Turpentine had met so far. It was wrong in some fashion, and he bent his head over the sketchpad to draw what he could see instead of what was hanging on the wall.

It took some time and several sharpenings, as well as digging his colored pencils out of his saddlebag, but nothing else mattered while he was drawing. Lines and swoops, stubby little horns on mischievous little unicorn colts, parents gently chivvying their children back to the table. The varnished boards of the floor felt comfortably cool on his belly while he drew, alone in his bubble as the picture grew beneath his touch.

He was just finishing up drawing the dark lines of the wooden flooring when Turpentine became aware of the relative silence in the room. He looked up from his comfortable spot on the floor and met the eyes of at least a dozen ponies crowded around and looking down at him, all paused in rapt attention to what he was creating. Even Ripple was engrossed in his drawing while holding onto a celery stick she had snitched from the table, but was very carefully not-chewing in order to be not-distracting.

“My word.” Missus Whinnysfield scurried over once she was certain Turpentine had finished. “What an astonishing picture. You even got that little tuft of mane that Gabby never could get to lie down correctly.” Her hoof traced over the picture of a family at the table, all doing something different but somehow all together, from youngest Gaberdine building a tiny little lake of gravy in his mashed sweet potatoes to eldest Elderberry reaching across the table with his magic to lift a pot of creamed asparagus, and both parents trying to keep order.

The room murmured agreement, even the servants who had stopped work in order to watch.

“I told you he was a talent to watch, Celly,” said Luna with just ever so slightly the tiniest bit of snark. “Now will you make time to get your portrait painted next week?”

“We can discuss this later, Luna. Right now, we have a more important task.” Celestia’s ears flickered while she moved back toward the table, being promptly followed by the rest of the family and guests much like little baby swans after their mother. “If everypony will be seated. Turpentine, please put away your things and come to the table. I have an announcement before we eat.”

It took very little time for Turpentine to do the practiced motions of putting away his pencils and folding up his sketchbook, although he kept it close at hoof just in case an idea struck between plates. There was something odd going on, and it probably had to do with the sound of hooves in the other room, both the distinctive sound of the Royal Guards’ armored shoes and several other, lighter hoofsteps.

“We have some additional guests at lunch today,” announced Celestia. “I received a letter earlier this morning and dispatched my personal chariot to bring them. It’s an unexpected surprise, and I would like all of you to make them feel welcome. I apologize, Duke Whinnysfield, for not notifying you earlier, but I was not certain they would be able to make it.”

“That’s perfectly fine, Your Highness,” said Whinnysfield with a short nod. “Our house is yours.”

Turpentine was not quite sure Duke Whinnysfield was being entirely truthful, because a small muscle in his cheek twitched while he was talking, and the soup on the table looked suspiciously thinned out much the same as when Mother Windrow had unexpected company and added a few cups of hot water. Still, all of the books in the library back at the orphanage had been very specific about the dainty appetites of royalty, and between both alicorns, they could probably dine on a single lettuce leaf. Oh, and the piece of cake which Celestia had been so determined about.

“Thank you, Duke Whinnysfield.” Celestia turned to the open doorway of the dining room. “Mister Sienna, Seneschal of Castle Paradise, if you please.”

Sen strode slowly out into the open doorway, his thinning grey mane looking windblown and most of the normal grease stains on his coat having been washed out, which made him look ten years older. He nodded at the group and bowed briefly to the Royal Sisters before clearing his throat.

“Gentlecolts and ladies.” The elderly servant moved to one side in order to allow the new visitor into the dining area. “May I present the Lady Pearl of Fen.”

15 - Family Dining

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Family Dining

"The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Turpentine was not stunned when Pearl walked into Duke Whinnysfield’s dining room because he was too busy trying to figure out how to get his sketchbook back out to capture what he suspected was going to come next. Unlike his young guest, Gaberdine was obviously stunned, and stumbled getting up out of his chair, nearly winding up sprawled out across the floor. Ripple was stunned also, sitting in place on her chair with her eyes locked on the pale form of her mother striding ever so slowly through the dining room doorway. Princess Celestia was obviously prepared for Pearl’s entrance, but Luna had a faint quirk around her lips that indicated a mild distaste at her sister’s preference for theatrics.

Duke Whinnysfield was likewise apparently prepared for any circumstance, and in particular unwilling to show any sort of weakness in front of both of his sovereign princesses. He moved fluidly up out of his seat and took several steps in the direction of the shy seapony, only to stop once Pearl recoiled at his aggressive approach. Without even a pause, the duke sidestepped and gestured to his own chair, which was located between Princess Celestia at the head end of the table and Baron Gaberdine.

It had seemed to be an awkward table seating arrangement at Turpentine’s first glance before, with Celestia, the duke, Gaberdine, and Ripple in a row down one side of the table, and Luna, Whinnysfield’s wife, and Caractère on the other. Turpentine was supposed to be seated next to the elderly pegasus, but on seeing Ripple looking slightly uncomfortable on the other side of the table, he had swapped in a moment, leaving the table lopsided.

Taking one slow step at a time, Pearl seemed poised on the knife’s edge between terror and determination, with her eyes locked on Baron Gaberdine like he was the marker for a safe harbor in a world of terrible storms. There was no way she would have, or could have traveled to Canterlot on her own without her concern for Ripple’s well-being to drive her and Baron Gaberdine’s presence to reassure her. The combination made Turpentine both a little embarrassed and somewhat proud to be partially responsible for her trip here. He was going to get into trouble for it, but she was a beautiful mare, and Baron Gaberdine’s parents deserved to personally see who she really was instead of just looking at one of Turpentine’s paintings, no matter how well he could reflect her glory.

Guided by Duke Whinnysfield and Sen, Pearl settled into the chair next to Gaberdine much like a mother bird resting her feathered breast upon fragile eggs. Once he was certain the young mare was comfortable, the duke promptly moved over to the other side of the table, causing his wife and Caractère to each scoot down one chair and leaving Sen in the last seat on that side. There should have been an awkward silence at that point, but Celestia smoothly started up the conversation with a polite cough and a soft introduction.

“So good of you to join us, Lady Pearl.”

The older seapony might have said something, but Turpentine did not hear what it was other than a faint noise that could have just been somepony shifting in their chair. It could have even been from where she was pressed up against Gaberdine, and Turpentine suspected she would remain so until the lunch was over and quite possibly all the way back to the riverboat.

“An unexpected surprise,” said Luna in a perfectly calm and polite tone that still maintained a slight bite directed toward her nearby sister.

“A welcome surprise,” added Duke Whinnysfield. “The sketches young Turpentine drew do not do you justice.”

Pearl did not say anything at that, but blushed a bright pink under her pale coat.

“Are we in trouble?” asked Turpentine.

“Can we eat now?” asked Ripple almost at the same time.

Celestia nodded. “Of course.”

And that was the end of the awkward conversation for a while as the servants began to serve the meal. Thankfully, Gaberdine had been giving etiquette lessons to both of the younger ponies at the table or they certainly would have embarrassed themselves with all the forks and their obscure rules for use. There were several occasions where it just would have made more sense to dive into a dish nose-first, but both Turpentine and Ripple worked their way through soup, salad, and main course without any major spillage or disasters.

Although Turpentine thought Pearl would be quieter than their morning breakfasts at Castle Paradise, Duke Whinnysfield proved himself a masterful expert at teasing out little words and shy giggles from the reclusive seapony mare while Missus Whinnysfield remained mostly out of the conversation except to relate a few embarrassing foalhood stories about her son. After a slow start, it turned into a long and interesting conversation filled with pauses and abrupt changes of direction.

While the older ponies talked, certain sections of the conversational field were marked out with cautionary flags so that sensitive topics could be avoided, in particular, the fate of Ripple’s father. When Duke Whinnysfield made a cautious inquiry in that particular direction during the serving of a creamy strawberry dessert cake, both little ponies and Gaberdine shot such alarmed looks at the older stallion that he stopped cold in the middle of a sentence, leaving an awkward hole in the conversation.

“Princess Celestia,” said Turpentine in an effort to say something, anything other than talk about Tidal Surge and the dark underwater monster which had killed him, “I don’t recall seeing a painting of you and Princess Luna’s parents anywhere on our tour today. Did we miss a section?”

Celestia paused with a fork full of cake almost at her lips, swallowed once, then placed the fork back down on her plate in order to take a few deep breaths. Luna started to reply in her place, but stopped almost immediately at her elder sister’s quelling glance. There was a suppressed look about both of the old alicorns’ faces, both pain and pleasure in the memories that Turpentine had inadvertently stirred by his impulsive words, and by the time Celestia responded, her accustomed glass mask with enigmatic smile had slid back down over her features again.

“No, I’m afraid there are no paintings of our parents which have survived the years. And to answer your next question, no, I do not think you need to paint us one from our descriptions.”

“Oh.” Turpentine fidgeted and looked down at his somewhat smaller than expected slice of cake. “Do you miss him? Your father, that is.”

“Yes.” Celestia’s voice was nearly a whisper, and without a word, Luna slid her piece of cake over next to her sister’s plate before patting her gently on one hoof.

“Some pains are best forgotten,” said Luna.

“Like Nightmare Moon?” asked Turpentine before pausing and wishing he could unsay the words.

“No.” Luna pursed her lips, and for one timeless moment she was the only pony at the table except for the shadows. “My time with the Nightmare was a lesson which is best held close, so it is not forgotten.”

Turpentine nodded carefully and measured his words with great respect for both of the alicorns at the table. “Nightmare Night teaches all of the little ponies to face up to their fears, and to have fun out in the night instead of just staying home and playing with a pencil. Or at least that’s what Mother Windrow always said,” he added quickly. “I went as Clover the Clever last year, with a paper horn. This year…” He paused, trying to figure out just where they were on the calendar. Time had gotten away from him while out at Castle Paradise, and the single week he had expected to stay was now quite some time ago.

“What’s Nightmare Night?” asked Ripple.

Duke Whinnysfield smiled gently at the little filly and started to respond, only to draw up short when he abruptly realized the extraordinary nearness of the former Nightmare Moon. His eyes seemed to track sideways to look at Princess Luna despite his best efforts, and he almost jumped out of his chair when she spoke.

“It is an Equestrian celebration of the upcoming Winter, when small colts and fillies race about their neighborhoods collecting candy under the guise of sacrificing a portion of it to appease the spirit of Nightmare Moon, who otherwise would gobble them up.” Luna picked up a fork in her magic and used it to sneak a bite out of the still uneaten piece of cake she had slipped over to her sister. “Upon my return, I had considered doing away with the holiday as unneeded frivolity making light of my exile to the moon, but upon closer examination by a wise philosopher who had spent a great deal of his life studying the finer points of the celebration, I found the positives far outweighed any negatives.” Luna paused for a moment while chewing her bite of cake, but nopony else at the table interrupted before she continued. “We would have thought your education at the school in Gravel Flats covered such holidays and their customs.”

Ripple drooped from her ears to her tail, even though one of the servants placed a piece of cake in front of her at that moment. “I don’t go to school. Mama teaches me at home, and Mister Baron Gaberdine…” She stopped, and ever so slowly raised an oversized hoof over the edge of the table while her expression turned from dismal to anticipatory.

“No!” said Pearl abruptly, and louder than she had spoken at the table so far.

“But why not?” implored Ripple, leaning her head out over the table so she could see around a suddenly immobile Gaberdine. “Turpentine’s going to go to school all the way up here in Canterlot, so why can’t I go to school in the pony town? You’d take me to school in the mornings, wouldn't you, Mister Baron Gaberdine?”

“Um…” A trapped Gaberdine seemed to be paralyzed with every muscle in his body locked into position except his eyes, which flickered back and forth from Ripple on one side of him to Pearl on the other. Turpentine wanted to help the poor stallion, but he had made a mess of things by jumping in without thinking before. There had to be something he could do which would help all three of them, and the words just popped out before he could stop them.

“I could walk her to school, Mister Gaberdine,” said Turpentine. “At least until I start school in Canterlot.”

“A generous offer, young Turpentine.” The flicker of a smile formed at the corner of Celestia’s lips and she finally picked up a dessert fork in her magic. “I have seen your school transcripts from Tidewater, but when I sent an inquiry to Gravel Flats, they were unable to find any evidence of your attendance. My Canterlot school will need to see your educational progress before you transfer. Some of your grades are less than stellar. Mathematics, for example.”

“Math is easy,” scoffed Ripple.

Celestia made a noncommittal noise while making her second bite of cake vanish. “Lady Pearl, I can provide assurance that your daughter will be perfectly safe in the school at Gravel Flats, particularly with a friend like Turpentine to help watch over her.” Two more large bites vanished in short order and Celestia smoothly switched to the second piece of cake. “Ripple, I understand that Duke Whinnysfield has a simply marvelous model train set in his den. Since I would like to speak privately with your mother about your attending school, once we are done with dessert, I’m certain if you asked him politely he would be willing to show it to—”

Turpentine had never seen a piece of cake vanish so fast. One moment it was sitting innocently on Ripple’s plate, and the next it was gone with the little seapony scrambling out of her chair and around the table in the direction of Duke Whinnysfield.

“Mist’r Duke,” she spluttered around the cake packed into her mouth. “Can we go look at y’r train? I’ve alw’s wanted to see a train!”

Turpentine barely managed to get his cake eaten by the time Ripple had fairly towed the larger unicorn stallion out of the room, and after he excused himself from the table and darted off in pursuit, he could have sworn Celestia had somehow managed to steal Duke Whinnysfield’s unfinished piece of cake too.

Somehow, he suspected that was part of her plan.

- ☸ - -

There was a surprising amount of painting involved in making a model train set, from the detailing and aging of train cars to tiny little model houses and buildings around the tracks. Ripple was more interested in the complex little innards of the electric engines and the tiny couplers tying them to the following trail of cars, but to Duke Whinnysfield’s credit, he managed to entertain both of his little guests for quite some time before Turpentine managed to slip away. It was not the size of the train pieces or the complexity of the construction which made him find more interesting things to do in the huge house, but a nagging pain somewhere around Turpentine’s heart to see the large unicorn stallion and the small seapony filly with their heads together while peering through a magnifying glass much like grandfather and granddaughter.

It was unfair. It was also jealousy. Turpentine had never known his father, let alone any grandparents. He was not some cute little filly with a beautiful exotic mother who was falling in love with a baron. He was just a lazy colt who preferred to play with his paints rather than put in a good, long day pulling a plow.

The dark depression was all too easy to pull around himself as it always had whenever a new family was getting a little too close for Turpentine’s comfort. It was hard to keep it wrapped around his gloomy soul, though. The kitchen servants refused to let him wash dishes, and instead tried to bribe him with sweets and unending compliments about his colored pencil drawing of the Whinnysfield family. The library likewise was not a refuge because both Sen and Caractère were having a spirited friendly discussion in which Turpentine could hear his name repeated several times. Even going outside and finding a place in the garden to hide was a lost cause, because Baron Gaberdine and Pearl were proceeding slowly through the rows of flowers, and would most certainly be able to spot him wherever he hid.

In the end he managed to find Gaberdine’s old room, slightly dusty and a little disorganized from his abrupt departure several months ago and seemingly never returned to afterward. It made Turpentine feel useful to dust and put away the unshelved books, but after what little clutter he could find had been dealt with, he found himself drawn to the sun-drenched window with his sketchpad. It was probably not a great view by unicorn standards, but Turpentine could see dozens of houses before the long dropoff to the valley far, far below, and it kept him warm and busy with his sketchpad instead of thinking uncomfortable thoughts.

Some time later, the eventual creaking of the door jarred Turpentine out of his sketching, with the shadows in the room considerably lower than when he had started. Missus Whinnysfield stood in the doorway, her horn lit up to illuminate her path in the dark shadows left by the afternoon sun, peering into the room and looking at Turpentine with a false smile.

“Turpentine?” She moved quietly into the room and stopped at the edge of the warm sunbeam coming through the window. “Gabby said we’d find you somewhere with a big window. It’s getting late, and you should be getting back to Gravel Flats.”

She stood and watched while Turpentine put away his sketchpad and his pencils, waiting until he was done before asking very quietly, “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, shouldering his saddlebag while keeping his eyes on the varnished floorboards. “I don’t want to keep Mister Gaberdine waiting.”

“Oh, he already left,” said Missus Whinnysfield. “Princess Celestia had her Celestial Phaeton take him and that nice young seapony mare back to his castle. I’m sorry you missed it. They really looked quite the pair standing together on that huge golden chariot when it took off.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Is Gabby’s castle really just a riverboat, or is he pulling my leg?”

“It’s not just a riverboat,” said Turpentine, feeling a little better as he stood up for Gaberdine’s rather unique house. “It’s a Hampton and Smythe Rivermaster with a three-piston steam engine and a streamlined sidewheel which lets it skim over sandbars, and the rudder is on a spring, so it goes places you barely can get a hoof wet. Well, once he gets the engine put back together.” He paged through his sketchbook and produced a line drawing for the older mare’s examination. It was one of his better colored pencil drawings of Castle Paradise IV as it once had been, flying its Equestrian flag proudly with the old baron and his young crew out on deck enjoying the theoretical cruise.

“My. It’s certainly… a boat.” She flipped through a few more pages with her magic, fast at first, then slowing to a quiet examination of a sheet which really did not have much on it. “Gabby certainly seems happy with his… friend.”

“Yeah.” Turpentine tried not to let his shoulders slump. “Is Mister Caractère or Sen waiting on me? Or Ripple?”

“No, Mister Sienna and Miss Ripple went with my son, and Princess Celestia sent a special chariot to take Mister Caractère back to Baltimare. Your friend is a most accomplished art historian, Turpentine. I can see why he likes you so much.” Missus Whinnysfield settled down on the hardwood floor next to Turpentine and pulled over a cushion for him.

“Please. Sit down. I can tell something is bothering you. You’ve got that same look Gabby had when he walked into the house today, and somehow I don’t think it’s just because you didn’t get to ride home on Princess Celestia’s magnificent Phaeton. I promise, I’ll keep your secret just between us.”

With a subdued grumble, Turpentine settled down on the cushion and stewed. He probably would not have said anything if Missus Whinnysfield had not seemed so much like Mother Windrow, but the lump inside his chest would probably feel better outside, and the only way for that to happen was to let it out.

“I’m afraid.” Turpentine took a deep breath. “I’m afraid about everything. I’m afraid something will happen in my life that I don’t get to see, like Celestia’s big fate-on chariot. I’m afraid I’ll never find my place, and I’ll wind up growing beans for the rest of my life. I’m afraid of missing an opportunity, because once it happens, it’s done and I’ll never get another chance. I’m afraid of finding another family, because I’ll lose Mother Windrow, and she’s been the only family I’ve known since my m-mother d-died.” He huddled up closer to the older unicorn mare, who he had not realized was sitting quite so close. “Was Mister Gaberdine ever afraid?”

“Constantly. Particularly during thunderstorms,” she added with a tense giggle. “He’d come scrambling down the hall with snot coming out of his nose and trembling before climbing up into his father’s bed. When the thunder started to roll, I always knew he was coming, and I’d sleep over in my own bed on those nights.”

When Turpentine looked up with a puzzled glance, she looked down and added, “It’s an old unicorn tradition, having two beds in the bedroom. One of them always gets a lot less use than the other, but it upholds the dignity of our station, or so Grandfather Whinnysfield said when we moved in and Poppy took up the title.”

She let out her breath in a long sigh and leaned up against Turpentine. “I was so afraid back then. We were Poppy and Lily in love until one day we turned into the formal and proper Duke and Lady. Thankfully, it didn’t change him on the inside. He had a new coat of paint, but under the surface, he was still my old Poppy, just as fresh as when I met him.”

“It gave him texture,” said Turpentine.

Missus Whinnysfield looked puzzled, but after a moment said, “Yes, I suppose so.” She sat there by his side for some time, looking at the way motes of dust drifted in the sunbeam before adding, “Are you still afraid?”

“Yes,” admitted Turpentine. “But it’s better.”

“Good.” Missus Whinnysfield patted him on the shoulder. “I haven’t needed to be there for a little colt in some time. I was afraid I had lost my touch.”

He thought about the way the duke had enjoyed showing Ripple his model train set and decided that just because a pony was an action-pony did not mean they could not also have a solid stripe of noun-pony in them too, like he did. It did bring up a question, though.

“Missus Whinnysfield, if I stayed here while going to Celestia’s school, would I be able to talk to you about… stuff?”

The path of her nose was warm when she nuzzled underneath his captain’s cap and across his forehead much like Mother Windrow used to do. “Call me Lily, please. You can talk to me about stuff anytime,” she whispered into his ears. “If it were not for you, our son would have hidden his special somepony away from us forever.”

She paused and settled Turpentine’s cap back on his head, looking much more serious. “Do you think…”

“I don’t know,” said Turpentine rapidly.

“Don’t worry about your secret,” said Lily. “Princess Celestia told me that Pearl and Ripple are seaponies, and that I should keep it quiet. I was just wondering about… grandfillies, I suppose. Hooves or a tail.”

It was a topic Turpentine had considered at some length once he had discovered Gaberdine was an ordinary unicorn instead of a disguised seapony, as he had first thought. It had been more of a practical consideration for artistic expression rather than the poignant need for drooling and diaper-filling grandfillies like Missus Whinnysfield, that is Lily seemed to be implying. Still, he had come to a conclusion back then which had not changed up until the present.

“I don’t know if Mister Gaberdine… that is if Gabby and Pearl are ready to make that kind of a decision yet. Besides, if they do decide to have more little fillies like Ripple, would it make a difference either way?”

“No.” Lily rubbed him across the top of the captain’s cap. “Horn, wings, tail or not, grandfoals are still heaven’s gift.” She gave him one last warm hug before looking out the window at the diminishing sunlight. “Well, the pegasus sisters who are supposed to take you back to Fen will be here shortly. Do you need anything before you go? I could get Cook to throw together some of her famous muffins if you want. I know poor Gabby is lost around a stove. I’m surprised he hasn’t burned his new riverboat castle down to the waterline yet.”

“Sen cooks, and I help,” explained Turpentine rather defensively, but he wavered at the thought of some of the wonderful baked goods that had been served at lunch, and his stomach put in a low rumble to express its own opinion. “I suppose a few muffins wouldn’t hurt.”

“Anything else?” asked Lily with a smile. “Gravel Flats is such a provincial town, and we can get you anything you need in Canterlot.”

“Anything?” He devoted some thought to the wonderful word, so filled with promises of paint. “Well, Princess Celestia is going to show up at the castle in a few days, if Princess Luna can pry her loose. I’d like to…” A plan unfolded in his mind and Turpentine began to smile. “Can I get you to buy some painting things for us?”

16 - Cruise Shipping

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Cruise Shipping

"Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

A simple touch of the blade peeled off the white paint in long spirals, curling around his hooves much like the leaves which were just starting to come off the trees in ones and twos. It was probably a little late in the season to paint, but Princess Celestia was going to be at the castle in just a few days, and Turpentine wanted…

Well, he was not quite certain what he wanted.

Sunglasses would be welcome, due to the way the dawning sun was coming right through his narrowed eyelids just about no matter where he stood on the riverboat deck to scrape paint. He had just found a comfortable and slightly shaded spot to scrape when the sounds of an early-rising pony heralded the arrival of Sen, who looked at the long bare patches where Turpentine had already been hard at work.

“Paint for breakfast, lad?” Sen picked up another paint scraper and positioned himself to scrape the taller areas where Turpentine had been unable to reach, and scrolls of dull white paint began to spiral to the deck while the old earth pony pitched in. The two of them scraped in tandem for a time until a third pony holding onto an empty coffee cup stumbled out into the bright morning light.

Gaberdine looked at the two earth ponies, one large and one small, before wordlessly picking another paint scraper out of the collection of equipment Turpentine had brought back to the castle last evening under the cover of darkness. Using his magic instead of gripping it in his jaws, Gaberdine scraped even higher, working his way along the side of the ship until the black peeling paint of the smokestack caught his eye.

“Yes, I got s’me paint for that too, s’r,” said Turpentine from around the paint scraper. He spit the scraper out onto the deck and took a deep breath. “You weren’t kidding, Mister Gaberdine. Canterlot has everything, even ship paint, on the top of a mountain without a ship anywhere. And I got some black metal paint that’s supposed to stand up to dragon breath, so doing the smokestack shouldn’t be a problem. Paint and primer, not like whoever painted the castle before.”

Sen took advantage of the break to spit out his own paint scraper and stretch with a popping of aged joints. “About a decade ago, Baron Miller hired a couple of young unicorns who priced out the low bid. They got paid half in advance and tore out of here right after collecting the other half, but it all started peeling about a week later. Never got around to getting a professional to fix it up afore he up and died. Sometimes I think he liked it this way, all shabby and tore-up lookin’ in order to keep the looky-loos away.”

“Ripple said the paint flakes get into the water when the wind blows,” said Turpentine. “They sting when they get caught in a gill and taste terrible.”

“Hm…” Gaberdine’s horn changed hues when he pressed a section of his magic against the paint and began to run it back and forth. “At least it’s not lead-based. Oh!” The paint he had been pressing broke loose from the wall and slid down to the deck in a disintegrating sheet. A second application of his magic brought down a broader sheet and Gaberdine lit up with a gleeful grin. “This is a lot easier than the scraper.”

Sen exchanged a knowing glance with Turpentine and lowered his voice to the point where the happy unicorn, surrounded in sheets of falling dry paint, most probably could not hear. “Well, Baron Gaberdine always did say ‘The right tool for the job.’”

Turpentine gave a quick glance out into the lagoon and a series of inverted v’s headed in their direction. “We better get the trash bags and a couple of brooms.”

“No.” Sen patted Turpentine on the head, which the captain’s cap was doing a very good job of keeping free of paint flakes. “I’ll get the broom. Gaberdine had a meeting with the school teacher last night before you got back. Today’s your first day of school in Gravel Flats.”

“But—”

“Half-day,” clarified Sen. “Classes are morning-only until First Snow. You need your book bag and a towel.”

“A towel?” Turpentine turned to look at the departing servant with a puzzled frown, but figured out just what he meant when Ripple came bursting out of the water in a long arc and wrapped around him with all four flippers.

“School!” she cried. “We’re going to school today! Isn’t this terrifffically fantastically great!”

Turpentine could not immediately respond, because he was busy attempting to get a breath of air while trying not to be swept back out into the lagoon with the backwash from Ripple’s abrupt appearance. Likewise, he did not say very much while being dried off, or even during the fairly short trip into Gravel Flats while Ripple was attempting to skip and talk at the same time, which required quite a bit of support on his behalf.

School turned out to be not that bad at all.

* * ✹ * *

By the time they were walking back to the riverboat, Ripple was showing signs of fatigue. School was a place where she had to remain quiet until called upon, which reminded Turpentine a little of a closed-up boiler building a head of steam due to the speed at which the little disguised seapony could spit out words after having to remain silent for even a little while. It was a little disconcerting for him, because he normally would have thought of a teakettle as an analogy for her explosive energy, but the longer he stayed in Ripple’s vicinity, the more ‘engineery’ he had been thinking. She had even helped Turpentine out with some of the tricky math problems the teacher had assigned, with numbers being carried from column to column as well as his evil nemesis, the nefarious Long Division.

Someday, Turpentine would probably meet a colt with that name and get beat up by him. It seemed inevitable. It had not been today, though. All of the little colts and fillies at the school had been various degrees of friendly, and they all knew Sen, so it was a little like the school was… nice. Turpentine had certainly felt more comfortable with only a dozen names to remember, rather than the hundreds or even thousands who could be at Celestia’s school in Canterlot.

One of the colts, a trouble-making little pegasus with a cutie mark of a frog, had even asked if he could come out to the riverboat and play after school. He had even asked Turpentine instead of Ripple, which was really confusing, but he seemed to accept being told he would need permission from Baron Gaberdine.

I wonder if he’s the little brother that Powderpuff and Lemon Drops were talking about?

The constant flow of chatter between Ripple and Turpentine faded out into a long and expressive pause once the two little ponies crested the hill on the near side of the lagoon and got a good look at Baron Gaberdine’s floating castle.

“It’s… naked,” said Turpentine, almost in awe at the way the entire structure and smokestack had been stripped down to the bare metal or wood, depending on where he was looking. Even the cover over the sidewheel had been removed and placed on the grassy bank, allowing complete access to the bare wooden blades sticking up in the noontime sun.

“We missed it,” said Ripple, breaking into an awkward gallop that made her hooves fly in all directions at once, leaving Turpentine to follow at a respectful distance so he did not get kicked by accident. They both made it to the gangplank just in time to catch Baron Gaberdine staggering the other way under the load of several trash bags destined for the trash cart. The baron used to be somewhat of a tan-brown, but now looked more Appaloosean with the number of white spots embedded in his coat and mane, as well as the dark flakes of peeled smokestack paint.

“Ah, Turpentine.” The baron grinned, then spat to one side. “Yuck, that’s terrible. How was school?”

After waiting a moment to let Ripple respond, Turpentine spoke up. “It wasn’t bad. Did you get the whole ship stripped?”

“Yep.” Gaberdine heaved the filled bags of paint flakes into the trash cart. “We should be able to get the first coat of primer on this afternoon, and start painting for real tomorrow morning.”

“Did you wash the stripped surface with the soda phosphate?” asked Turpentine.

“Um…” Gaberdine stopped and looked a little guilty. “We did get out the primer and made sure it was stirred up.”

“Put the lids back on,” said Turpentine. “We need to wash and rinse the surfaces first, then fill any voids with caulking compound, then—“

“Paint the primer?” asked Gaberdine.

“Condition the wood surfaces with two parts linseed oil to one part turpentine or the surface will absorb too much of the binder.” Turpentine paused. “Then we can apply primer.”

* * ✹ * *

It had been a long time since Turpentine had worked up a good sweat while painting. Between school in the morning and painting the castle in the afternoon, both mental and physical muscles were well exercised, and his painting grew around him. Ripple still seemed to be a little put out that she had not gotten to help strip the old paint off, but Baron Gaberdine enticed her with the need for putting the engine together (again), so while Turpentine worked above decks, he could listen to the thumps and rattles of Gaberdine and his little helper doing whatever arcane wizardry they were doing to the ‘Steam Engine, Reciprocating - Model 57V with Triple-Action Pistons and Regenerative Steam Recapture’ that was so difficult to understand when he had read through that section of the manual.

By the time the weekend rolled around, passed by in a flurry of brushing, and approached again, his painting was taking shape. Far more progress had been made than he expected, because Turpentine had found working on one side of the riverboat made a correspondingly larger amount of work happen on the other side, particularly if he talked loudly about how to caulk holes in the siding or properly stroke in the conditioning formula or paint with the broad brush before switching sides. At times he could even hear Ripple’s aunts chattering between themselves or giggling at little jokes, and twice several of the busy seaponies were so focused on brushing on a smooth layer of wood conditioner or primer that they painted right past Turpentine without even a pause.

He was going to miss that kind of delicate acceptance in Canterlot. Ripple’s aunts were a contradiction, both powerful and talented, as well as timid and sensitive. They could not help but treat Ripple a lot like an outsider, while Pearl was somewhere in between, trapped between two worlds and unable to truly embrace either. It bothered him, and much like anything bothering Ripple, the words had to come out of Turpentine eventually.

It was nearing the evening while they were just finishing up some final bits of trim work. The rest of the ponies had gone into the galley to start dinner, leaving Turpentine and Pearl to paint alone for a few minutes. Pearl had a small brush for the light teal swirl pattern cresting atop the cabins like Celestia’s blowing mane, while Turpentine was following up with a smaller brush to tidy up the lines and add whatever flourishes struck his fancy at the moment. It took concentration to wait until Pearl had reached the end of the trim and was cleaning her brush, but Turpentine had gotten better at not ambushing ponies out of the blue, which was critically important with an already shy pony like Pearl.

“Miss Pearl. I was wondering.” Turpentine shifted the brush to the side of his cheek and kept his eyes on his work, because he knew looking at her would only make her more nervous. “Are you and Ripple ever going to go back to the ocean? Not that I want you to. I really don’t. I mean… You don’t have to tell me if you are. After what you said about your husband…”

The words had been a lot easier to say and made more sense when Turpentine was only thinking about them. Once they got out of his mouth, they started flapping around like crazy butterflies, taking off in all the wrong directions and only getting worse when he tried to fix them.

“I don’t know.” The quiet words made Turpentine relax a little. He had expected to only hear a splash when Pearl fled back to her underwater home, and he really did not expect to hear the words that followed. “Are you ever going to find a home, Turpentine?”

Now it was his turn to be flustered. Turpentine took a deep breath and almost inhaled the paintbrush, but covered for his action by wiping it clean and quickly dunking it into the solvent. “Yes,” he muttered finally. “I just need to find the right parents.”

Behind him, Pearl gave out the smallest of giggles, sounding almost like the tinkling of fairy bells in the cool evening air. “Princess Celestia would make a nice mother for you. She told us about your… misconception. It was very touching.” Pearl giggled again. “Prince Turpentine.”

Turpentine was grateful that the captain’s cap allowed his ears to stick out, because they turned bright red with embarrassment and itched uncomfortably. If they had been stuck under the cap, he would have needed to scratch or else. As it was, he hunched over the solvent bottle with the brush until the gentle touch of an oversized hoof on his shoulder made him look up.

Those dark green eyes were only darker and more entrancing in the evening shadows. Gaberdine had confided once that he was first attracted to the beautiful seapony from her voice, but Turpentine was fairly certain that those fascinating eyes had a powerful role in his infatuation, and possibly if Turpentine was reading his eleven years of worldly experience correctly, something far more permanent in their relationship. They were so much like Ripple’s eyes, only with most but not all of the mischief faded away and considerable pain mixed in. Still, the pain seemed muted, even missing whenever Gaberdine was in the immediate vicinity. And over the last few weeks, that same pain had faded slightly whenever Turpentine was around too.

His introspection was gently cut off by a soft but persistent touch on the end of his nose. When Turpentine blinked his way back to awareness, he saw Pearl with her own small smile as she continued to boop him until he moved to push away the hoof with a protest. “Hey! Did Mother Windrow teach you that?”

“Yes.” She giggled again, a musical noise that Turpentine could never tire of listening to, and much the same as Ripple’s happy laughter, but quieter. It was also far too short, and although her smile remained, there was considerable regret in her eyes when she turned the unwelcome nose-booping into a more familiar caress along his cheek. “I will miss you,” she added. “I feel safe when Ripple is with you. I worry about her so. She’s all I have left.”

“Uh… Thank you, ma’am.”

“Pearl.” The seapony’s smile thinned, and the hint of a tear appeared in the corner of one of those beautiful eyes. “I wish you could stay,” she whispered. “I wish I could turn you into a seapony and steal you away to live with my Ripple forever beneath the waves.”

“What about Mister Gaberdine?” asked Turpentine. It was a question he had not intended to ask, but his mind was still deliriously scrambled by Pearl’s beautiful eyes, and he had to say something.

“I…” That terrible pain crept back into her eyes again, and Turpentine reacted by instinct. He reached out and wrapped his forehooves as far around the mare as possible, only instead of holding the hug for the absolute minimum in the way he always had done with Mother Windrow, he clutched her just as tightly as Ripple would have, and kept holding her until she started breathing regularly and relaxed her own crushing grip.

“Better?” he asked hesitantly, not certain if his ribs could take another aquatic hug.

“Better,” she reassured him from where her nose was pressed into the top of his cap. They could have remained holding each other for longer, except for the sound of a familiar sharp beeping of the smoke alarm from inside the riverboat galley and some associated commotion.

“Oh, fishguts.” Pearl cocked her head to one side and looked at the trail of smoke leaking up from the galley vents. “Gabby was baking your birthday cake.”

“Birthday?” Turpentine glanced between the embarrassed mare and the trickle of smoke, which was rapidly dwindling while Ripple and Gaberdine dealt with the source. The days had snuck up on Turpentine despite his best efforts, but it was only a birthday, and nothing really special. Normally, Mother Windrow would bake them both a few tins of cupcakes and they could apply whatever sprinkles and icing desired. And she bought him some new paints, which were normally not the ones he needed but he never complained. A whole cake…

He eyed the suddenly shy seapony again. “Were you supposed to keep me out here so I’d be surprised?”

“Yes.” She tried to look down, but Turpentine slipped under her chin and wrapped her up for another hug instead. After a considerably gentler squeeze and some thought, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and a smile.

“Thank you, Pearl. That’s one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten for my birthday.” He chuckled, because giving in to an urge to giggle was not a very eleven year old colt thing. “I’ve never had somepony tell me they wanted to turn me into a seapony and steal me away before. I think it’d be fun, but I’d miss painting.”

“We can’t have that.” Pearl lifted his captain’s cap up and arranged Turpentine’s mane before putting the cap back on his head and settling it down. “Just as long as you don’t invite any more of those kind of pegasus over to paint anymore.”

“Do you mean batponies?” asked Turpentine, still feeling a little giggle-y inside. “Or female ponies.”

“Princess Celestia is a female pony,” said Pearl very sincerely despite the smile that kept trying to sneak into the corners of her mouth. “You have my leave to paint her this weekend, only if you don’t put her under the waterfall.”

“Oh.” A little of the levity in his heart lessened at the thought. Princess Luna’s rescheduled visit was the day after tomorrow, during a period of time where Celestia had punched a temporary hole in her schedule and might be able to come along. Baron Gaberdine and Ripple had worked from dawn to dusk on Castle Paradise’s engines, so there was supposed to be what he called a ‘smoke test’ tomorrow that did not involve cooking, and if it succeeded, the riverboat would be able to take a short cruise up and downstream all decked out in bright white paint with the pastel colors of Celestia’s mane on the trim like some giant celestial swan out for a daytime paddle. Everything was all in waiting except the most important part of all.

Where was he going to paint her portrait?

He had not put any thought into the problem over the last week, due to the immense amount of work it had taken to get the castle properly painted. He couldn't just paint her alone and fill in the background later, because that’s how that terrible, awful, creepy painting in her art gallery happened, and all of the paintings over the years that followed with those eerie eyes. Turpentine did not think his portrait of Celestia would become that popular, but it was best to err on the side of caution, particularly since his get well card had wound up being printed in the newspaper, and he had not expected that either. He really needed to find somepony with an answer to his question.

By the time his birthday party was over and he settled down in bed, he knew just exactly who he was going to ask.

17 - Fatherhood

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Fatherhood

"…because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!—bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum—and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

The adventure book which had given Turpentine the idea to drift downstream on a raft had a scene in it where a fierce storm rocked the character’s raft, all crashing and booming with thunder and lightning filling the night and the wind screaming along. It was all fantasy, of course, because no pegasus competent enough to get on a weather team would ever let a storm get out of control like that, but it was something to fantasize about while he would lie in bed at the house of whatever family was trying to adopt him and listen to the rain fall in long, gentle sheets. The families always tried to give him his own room, mostly painted in what they considered creative patterns with appealing colors. It never really made him feel comfortable as they had hoped.

When the nighttime thunder rumbled at the orphanage, Turpentine would always creep down the hallway and sneak onto the little rug right next to Mother Windrow’s bed, listen to her soft snores until the storm was over, then sneak back to his own bed without anypony noticing. He never did that at the foster parents’ houses, no matter who it was attempting to adopt him or how colorful they had made his room. He was a big colt. He did not need to go hide from the thunder like Ripple when the storms were rolled in. Hearing from Gaberdine’s mother how the brave and kind baron acted when he was Turpentine’s age had been a little disconcerting. After all, Turpentine was eleven now. Next year he would be twelve, and the year after that, thirteen. Someday he would be old, like twenty or something, and with that age always came nose-dribbling and stinky-ended foals who would be afraid of thunderstorms and want a big strong father to hold them like he had never been held.

The unwelcome realization really would not have been that bad if Turpentine had not been in the bed of the Speedy Delivery wagon while the pegasus sisters descended into the rainstorm covering Baltimare, and might not even have been so bad if the rain slicker they loaned him had not been only slightly worse than useless, and seemed in an oversized way to be funneling all of the pouring rain into the insides of the waterproof garment. At least there were wingholes in it to drain, or Turpentine thought he might drown from all the water he had picked up during the trip.

He heaved himself over the edge of the wagon to land with a sodden splash in front of The Painting Palette and scurried for the relative dryness of the overhang. The traffic was thin, which was why they managed to drop him so close to the store, but Turpentine only had time for a brief wave over his shoulders to the sisters before they hopped back up into the air and vanished into the driving rain. The marketplace they were headed to was covered, and therefore dry, but Turpentine would much rather be inside and dry than try to keep himself warm with the outdoor firepits scattered around the market stalls which let the native Baltimare residents enjoy their fresh vegetable and fruit shopping even in the upcoming winter snow.

It only took a moment for Turpentine to shoulder open the door and stand dripping in the atrium of the paint store, which made it obvious why there were hooks by the door. He shucked out of his oversized rain slicker, hanging it on the second hook to drain into the loose grating under his hooves, and most likely into the sewer system below. Likewise, Turpentine also dripped, or more correctly streamed water off his sodden coat in a way that somehow felt even wetter than when he had been swimming with Ripple in the lagoon.

The store was quiet, but it had been so both times Turpentine had visited before, plus one of the hooks already had a rain slicker on it and the store lights were on, so somepony was in. The difference this morning was in the clerk who came around the corner and spotted Turpentine, giving him a brief frazzled smile before darting back into the store.

“Hold on, little dude!” The young pegasus returned, bearing a fluffy towel over his back, and winged it over to the sodden little earth pony still dripping in the doorway. “You better dry yourself off before you catch a cold.”

Turpentine had really been expecting the much older Caractère. This young pegasus was just barely out of his teens if that, and had a number of metal or plastic objects jutting out of his face and body which made him look somewhat like an unfortunate victim of some sort of explosion, even if they did go well with the dark blue of his coat. It would have been easy to stare, but Turpentine restrained himself and tried to get dried off as much as he could while sneaking glances in the direction of the teenaged store clerk, who he could not help but think looked a little like one of Mother Windrow’s pin cushions.

“Sorry we’re not quite ready for business, little dude.” The young clerk had scurried off to the back section of the store and his voice sounded oddly muffled. “The old lady had to go into work this morning and I’m covering for Gramps. Just go ahead and pick out what you want to buy and I’ll ring you up in a minute.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to Caractère.” Turpentine finished drying his mane and hung the towel on a nearby empty rack next to another damp towel. “Is he in?”

“Naa. Grandpa-in-law went to do physical therapy this morning. He’ll be in this afternoon, once the rain is over.”

Turpentine followed the sound of the clerk’s voice, and far too quickly found a familiar scent wafting on the stale air of the shop and competing with the much more preferable scent of fresh paint. The teenaged pegasus stallion was hunched over the floor and engaged in a wrestling contest with a little half-diapered foal, a match in which he seemed to be winning, although a few poop-smeared wipes in the general vicinity made Turpentine stop cold and eye the ground for potential land mines. Just in case, he looked behind him before stepping back out of the potential splatter zone. Mother Windrow had been very determined to share the experience whenever she had to take care of a newborn foal, and his reluctant education had included—

“Just a minute, little dude. Do you want to help diaper?” asked the clerk.

“No!” Turpentine took a breath at the sudden surge of guilt that swept over him and quickly moved to clarify his position. “I mean, let me help… pick up.”

The young stallion was obviously unpracticed at this odious task and unwilling to go diving in nose-first, which really was understandable. The few foals who had passed through the orphanage were all endlessly hungry or poopy, even the little foals from the town who Mother Windrow foalsat on occasion. It really did not make Turpentine resentful of the way that they soaked up most of the attention in the house…

Actually, that might have been it.

He sat nearby and helped out with the wet wipes, watching foal and father work their way through the process and even holding the wriggly little pegasus filly while the clerk rolled up the changing mat. She seemed to have an unfair advantage in number of limbs to wriggle with the wings included, and even managed to thwap Turpentine across the nose, although she looked apologetic afterward and made it quite impossible for him to be angry about it.

“Thanks, little dude.” The clerk shoved the diaper bag and foal carrier combination pack under a nearby shelf and took a deep breath. “I didn’t think she’d be that hard to get cleaned up— Hey!”

The clerk lit up with a metal-punctuated smile and stuck out a hoof, which thankfully did not have any jewelry sticking out of it or any poop still sticking to it. “You’re the little dude Gramps has been talking about! Cool beans! I’m Pierce, and this is my daughter, Gleaming Dawn, but you can just call her Dawn because like most little pegasus fillies get a name like that because like weather and stuff.”

Turpentine cautiously shook hooves before Pierce scooped the little filly up in the crook of one leg and took off across the quiet store over to a corkboard next to the window. There were a number of photographs stuck there under the title of ‘Budding Young Artists’ in several rows, including his familiar paintings as well as two empty spots labeled for the past painting of Luna and the future painting of Celestia.

“You’ve got some righteous vision, little dude. Grandpa says you could probably sell your pictures of him and my old lady for a bunch of bits, but he’d rather take them home and hang ‘em on the wall,” bubbled Pierce happily while boosting Dawn up to look at the two paintings. “Still, dude, it’s your decision. Look at your mama, Dawn. Say ‘Mama.’ Come on,” cajoled the young stallion, but all he got out of the little filly was a toothless yawn.

Both paintings Turpentine had made of Caractère and Sympathique were still up on the wall with the precautionary ‘Wet Paint’ signs to discourage any unwanted touching, although there was an additional ‘Not For Sale’ sign added more recently. He could remember Baron Gaberdine asking for permissions to photograph some of his pictures and Sen taking the resulting used film into town to have it developed, but Turpentine had never really considered showing them to Caractère or anypony else, for that matter. He had always been thinking of his next painting instead of what happened to the one he had just done.

“We’ve gotten a lot of requests for prints, and some mare from the restaurant said she’d give you a hundred bits for the second original painting with the wings done up so good,” said Pierce, stating the impossible number as if it were pocket change. “I dunno, though. I get upwards of a thousand for my stuff when I get a painting commission, and you’ve got some primo colors and stuff.”

The young pegasus pointed with a wing at a set of other photographs showing colorful hot air balloons soaring through the sky. They looked like they had been vigorously bombed by pegasi with paint buckets, but after a moment of introspective observation, Turpentine could see a certain attractive vigor to the explosions of color splashed across the aerial vehicles. Since most ponies could not fly on their own, there was a prideful appeal to showing off their purchases to their fellow ground-bound brethren. When he had surprised Powderpuff and Lemon Drops by secretly repainting their wagon one night last week, the sisters had been overjoyed and insisted on covering his cheeks with kisses, so even pegasi were not immune to wanting to fly in style.

“Whoops,” said Pierce when the bell over the front door of the shop chimed. “Can I get you to watch Dawn for a few minutes thanks I gotta go—”

The yawning filly was abruptly passed to Turpentine when Pierce darted past, headed for an important-looking unicorn carrying a magically-levitated umbrella, which she was just tucking to one side of the door. The additional weight of the filly was a little unbalancing, but Ripple had provided good practice for keeping his balance over the last few weeks, so at least he did not tip over. He took a quick trip back to the counter to grab a blanket and some toys, then went back over to his windowed painting spot with the intention of doing what he always did with something new. After all, the little filly smelled of poop and spoiled milk, so Turpentine would have been much more comfortable behind his painting easel at a safe distance. A few miles would have been nice.

He settled Dawn into the store window display on a pale blue blanket with more than a few frazzled spots and a patch on it, showing that the young stallion must have purchased it secondhoof. According to the Rules of Foals, she was supposed to want to sleep now that she had a new diaper, or at least curl up and look paintably cute, but every time Turpentine managed to get the pencil into his teeth, there was a rumble of thunder outside that attracted her intense attention and made her look away. Either that, or she would look up at Turpentine, all bright-eyed and alert to the scratching of his pencil while moving forward toward the edge of the window sill and a certain tumble onto the hard floor. It took five captures before he gave up on drawing and settled for just keeping her caged in the window display, splitting her attention between him and the ponies splashing by in the rain.

Since he could not draw or paint, Turpentine thought. Since Caractère was not around, and the concept of where to paint Celestia if she showed up tomorrow was a topic he had beaten to death in his own mind to no result, he thought about other things.

And since Dawn seemed determined to play instead of napping, he thought about little fillies, and in particular, how Ripple would react to her mother bringing another little seapony into their lives. It seemed to be an inevitable addition to the riverboat in the future. Once older ponies started sneaking off for activities they did not want younger ponies to see, foals happened. Pearl was a fine mother, and had proven it by raising Ripple, which certainly could not have been easy for the shy seapony. Gaberdine, however…

The baron seemed to get along just fine with older ponies like Pearl and medium ponies like himself and Ripple, but little fillies were difficult. They pooped and cried and needed bottles and all kinds of things Gaberdine had never done before. Pearl could help teach him, but it still seemed about as awkward a situation as if Gaberdine were to paint Celestia’s portrait while Turpentine tried to put the steam engine in Castle Paradise back together again.

“Hey, little dude. Thanks for watching Dawn.” The young pegasus clerk plunked down on the floor right next to Turpentine and held out a pacifier for his infant daughter.

“That’s not how you do it,” said Turpentine with an authoritative air. He took away the binkie and stuck it with the small stash of foal toys he had brought over to the window display area. “She’s not hungry yet, so you’ll spoil her by giving her a pacifier. How old is she?”

“Four weeks,” declared Pierce proudly. “She sleeps through the night and everything.”

It made Turpentine think about what really made up a family, and how his own definition had changed over the last few weeks. The little batwinged foal who Mother Windrow had taken care of for a little while was now in Canterlot with a whole family full of ponies just like it, while Turpentine had not even been able to find a pair of parents. That was not the end of it, though. Somewhere, there was a little foal just like this one who had been traded for the batwinged brother or sister she had never met, and that foal would also be raised by strangers who had no real connection to her. It would be accepted for who he or she was and not have to go from family to family like Turpentine had.

The unfairness grated on him. Dawn had it easy. She had her own father and mother without having to go looking, even if her father was kinda-sorta young and had odd chunks of metal sticking out of him in weird places. There had to have been some sort of class he passed to become a father, with tests and study guides since it was such an important job, but Pierce seemed like he had skidded through with a barely passing grade. Still, it looked as if he liked having to deal with the heavy responsibility, and did not have the expression of strained patience that so many foster parents had gotten after only a few hours with Turpentine.

“What’s it like being a father?” asked Turpentine during a brief lull in Dawn’s game of Hoof-Pounce.

“It’s cool.” Pierce moved his hoof back and forth, making the little filly angle her wings back and crouch as if she were some sort of hunting cat, watching the elusive hoof for a weakness to pounce upon.

“No, I mean what’s it like?” asked Turpentine. “You’ve got this helpless little pony depending on you for everything. She can’t eat on her own, or clean up her own poop, and she sure can’t tell you what’s wrong if she gets sick, and you’ve got years before she’s a big pony like me and can be left alone for any length of time. You’ve got to watch her so she doesn’t eat any oleander leaves or gets into the pantry and dumps the flour or hurts herself with a fork. There’s shots and school and teaching her everything she’s going to need in her life, and it’s all on you.”

“Whoa.” Pierce stopped moving his hoof. “Grandpa was right. You are a deep little dude.”

Turpentine nodded, but with a frown. “Yeah. I like to know things. It kinda makes families a little weirded out, so I haven’t gotten adopted yet. Well, none that stuck.”

“Bummer, little dude.” Pierce scooped up the little pegasus filly and rocked her in the crook of his foreleg. “My old man and lady were never there or drunk, so I grew up all on my own, like an eagle, flying free. Worked a few odd jobs doing weather or delivery when I could. Ran with a rough flock for a while, until I met Sy and she made me straighten up and fly right. I’ve never really had a father before, but that don’t matter now.” He brushed a strand of mane back from the foal’s forehead and smiled in such a way that his entire face seemed to light up, even the little bits of golden metal in his lips and ears. “She’s gonna be different. I’m gonna be the father I never had, and it’s all for her.”

“So… were you afraid?” It was a very practical question, because Turpentine knew he would have been terrified in the same situation, but the young stallion nodded too.

“Buck yeah. When Sy told me we were going to have a foal, I freaked. No job, no family, and school was going to kick me out anyway. Gramps really came through for us. Set me up with a couple of artist gigs from some old friends, and cleared out his workroom so we could use it as a bedroom. We’re packed into that apartment tighter than— Um, really tight.”

Dawn did not look sleepy enough to finally take a nap, but Turpentine tried to keep her entertained while his mind whirled along. He really wasn’t concentrating on his work or even his upcoming portrait session with Princess Celestia. An unexpected perspective filled his head, because he had never really thought about the adoption process from the other end.

If he were to have a father for the first time in ever, somewhere there needed to be a stallion who wanted to have a son, and to complicate matters, they both would need to be the same pony. Just like Gaberdine’s puzzle piece cutie mark, the two pieces of father and son would have to match. It was obvious that Pierce loved his daughter, but she was a pegasus just like him, much the same as Pearl loved Ripple in their home under the water, but finding the elusive match for himself seemed both closer and further away than ever.

“I have another question. It’s about batponies.”

Turpentine described as best he could about the adoption process when a nocturnal pegasus was born into a non-nocturnal family and vice versa, which was made more difficult by the way Dawn constantly attempted to pull the conversation into how cute and adorable she was with flutters of her tiny pink wings. What was worse, every time Turpentine was about to ask his question, the bell over the front door would ring and Pierce would have to scurry off to help a damp customer. Earth ponies would hang up their extensive raingear, unicorns placed umbrellas to one side, and pegasi…

The first time a sodden pegasus stopped in the glassed-in atrium between the street entrance and the front door, Turpentine expected him to take a brisk toweling instead of the sudden explosion of shaking feathers and mane that sprayed water in all directions until it was streaming down the glass walls and into the slots in the floor. Afterward, the ruffled pegasus proceeded into the store and made his purchase, with the only concession made to the constant rain outside being a plastic bag to carry the results.

“Don’t they know it’s raining outside?” muttered Turpentine when Pierce darted away for the umpteenth time. The only pony listening to his complaint was Dawn, who was more interested in the sharp cracks of lightning and the low rumble of thunder that followed, giving each loud noise an enthusiastic applause of beating winglets and giggles. It was a far cry from what Baron Gaberdine’s mother, that is what Lily said about her son’s reaction to thunder and lightning.

“She’s gonna be a flier, that’s for sure. Wants to be right out there in the action.” Pierce slid down next to where Turpentine was entertaining the little foal and gave her a quick wing-ruffle across the mane. “So, what was it you were wanting to know again, little dude?”

Quickly, before the next customer showed up,Turpentine blurted out, “I wanted to know if you would be able to be a father to an adopted pony just as well as you’re being a father to your own.”

“Oh.” The pierced pegasus seemed set back at that. “Err… I dunno, little dude. I mean if Sy hadn’t gotten pregnant, I don’t think I’d ever… I mean we wouldn’t have adopted. It’s a big step. I aged about ten years in the last few months.”

“Me too.” Turpentine thought back on the last few weeks and how his life before Ripple seemed faded and fuzzy. “I don’t want to grow up wrong, though. I mean… not like you, I mean. Not like that. Sorry.”

“Chill, dude. I don’t mind.” Pierce held a dark wing across his chest. “The hard cases I ran with a few years back? Didn’t none of them have fathers worth a drizzle. I don’t think I’m the right pony to be your father, though.”

He had done it again. Turpentine winced inside, but kept his external expression down to a thoughtful nod. He had not really thought about being adopted by a pair of ponies just barely out of school, because it would be too much like having a big brother and sister. Or in Pierce’s case, a really strange big brother.

At this rate, I’m going to be in a cardboard box beside the street in Baltimare with a sign. Free to good home.

- ☸ - -

Once the leftover clouds had been cleared away and the sun shone down, the little filly curled up in a sunbeam coming through the window, most likely saving up her energy for sometime late at night when she could keep her young parents awake.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Turpentine eased over to the easel and began to work in earnest. Gentle touches of pencil against canvas made too little noise to awaken the little filly, but when he switched to the brush and began to work on the texture layer in acrylic, she settled down into the most perfect pose of pure pegasus happiness imaginable.

He had to admit spending time dozing in a sunbeam was pretty awesome, because Turpentine had spent quite a few hours of naptime in the same position, but he had big colt work to do now, and as much as he would have liked to curl up with her and take a nap, capturing that elusive moment was his goal. Images of that horrible portrait with Princess Celestia surrounded by little foals kept coming back to Turpentine while he painted, and he concentrated as hard as possible to keep his mind on his subject. The last thing he wanted to do was make a portrait of Dawn looking like that.

The shadows and sun made Dawn’s pink coat seem dappled in shades of gold, which was devilishly difficult to reproduce in paint even with several trips over to the store’s paint selection, and even a few tubes of the really expensive tints. Price did not matter, because he still had quite a few bits in the bag Gaberdine had given him, and he would have spent his way down to his bare hooves in order to make this painting the best he had ever done. It was a long and difficult process, but Caractère’s advice was a great help when he pointed over his shoulder and gave little suggestions on tint mixtures, as well as giving Dawn a bottle when she woke up and started to get fussy. It was a warmer and more pleasant experience than Turpentine had expected, and little thoughts of what an infant seapony might look like kept creeping into his head.

What kind of older sister would Ripple make? She’s certain to get them both into trouble or get hurt.

For a while, Turpentine was slightly tempted to add seapony flippers to the portrait, but there were quite a few ponies outside the store window who stopped to watch, and his caution overrode any mischievous feelings he had. Celestia must have looked like this when she was young, a sun-warmed little filly who had to grow up far too soon, and with a little sister so different from herself, cool ice to her burning fire but still sisters to the heart. Regret would have made it far too easy for the immortal alicorn to hide away in some cave for the centuries that her sister was imprisoned in the moon, but she remained with her little ponies instead, taking the doubly heavy burden of guiding and protecting them on her own shoulders.

How much guilt must she have felt after defending herself against her own sister and hurting her that way even though she had no other options. Turpentine had only known Ripple for a few weeks, but he would rather chew off one of his own limbs than hurt her, even if she turned into some sort of seapony Nightmare… Ocean or something. Regardless of his own will, his mind skipped forward several years and tried to imagine Ripple the same age as Caractère’s granddaughter. Someday, the seaponies’ war beneath the waves would be over and she would be old enough to go home. Ripple was just as brave as her father, and would be able to protect Pearl when they…

Turpentine put his last brush into the solvent and bent his efforts into cleaning up his workspace. The fumes were getting into his eyes, and it was difficult to see the places where he could have dithered on touching up for hours. There was a time in every painting project where the brushes needed to be put away and the painter needed to move on.

“Something bothering you, s—” Caractère cut off with a sharp coughing which almost woke up the little filly he was cradling in the crook of one foreleg. “Turpentine,” he added much quieter, “is there something wrong?”

“Oh!” Turpentine had been concentrating so hard on the painting he had not even really realized the old pegasus had returned to the store. All of the ‘wrong’ that had been building up in his head for the last several weeks fought to get out, but thankfully stacked up in the back of his mouth because Turpentine could not immediately decide which one of them was the most important. After a few moments of spluttering, he decided to state his situation first, then the problems in whatever order they came out, followed by the goal he was attempting to reach. Baron Gaberdine had taught him the technique while they were painting Castle Paradise, side by side and all covered in white paint drips. It had worked fairly well then to deal with minor painting panics, and it was worth another try now.

“Princess Celestia says I can go to her school in Canterlot and become the famous artist I want to be, but I need to find a family first. That means I need to find an orphanage in Canterlot and start searching the prospective parents there, but I’m… afraid.” Turpentine finished washing his clean brushes and put them to one side to dry. “I’ll never become as great as I know I can be if I don’t get an education. There are so many things I don’t know.”

“Ah. It is a wise pony indeed who knows how little they know.” Caractère’s eyes crinkled up as he fought to keep a straight face instead of smiling. “First, what do you fear?”

“I’m… afraid of failing,” said Turpentine in a very small voice. “And succeeding. Painting has always been the only thing I’ve been good at, other than making families give me back to the orphanage. If I goof up, I know I can always go back to Mother Windrow, but that’s where I always went when I failed before.”

“And if you succeed?” asked Caractère. “If you become the famous painter that I tried to become and failed. What then?”

There were no words. Turpentine had always imagined his fame as being in an art gallery, surrounded by cheering ponies admiring his latest painting, but now that goal seemed as false as artificial sweetener, and tasting just as bad.

“You know,” started Caractère, “you’re already more famous than I ever dreamed of. You have two princesses wanting to put your work in their museum gallery. I had to sneak my first painting in by deceit and failed miserably on my second.”

“Really?” Turpentine could feel his ears perk up from where they had flattened against his skull unnoticed.

“You have something I never could understand until it was too late.” Caractère settled down on the floor with his foreleg still crooked around his sleeping great-granddaughter, who was making cute little snoring noises and twitching her nose. “Tell me, do you paint your pictures for yourself or for the pony you’re painting?”

The obvious answer was also obviously wrong. Even the study he had done on butterfly wings was somehow directed as thanks to the colorful insects, who liked to flutter around him to be admired instead of escaping. Nearly every painting he had ever done wound up being taken home by the subject, even the batpony nurse and Baron Gaberdine’s parents. Something inside of Turpentine was aware that paintings were supposed to be paid for, but they had always seemed to be a gift to the subject in exchange for putting up with being stared at by a little colt with a paintbrush in his mouth.

“I want you to have both of the paintings I did of you and your granddaughter,” said Turpentine abruptly. “When I get famous, they’ll be worth a lot of bits. And I want Dawn to have this one. After I touch it up a little in a few spots. Next week. She can sell it when she’s bigger and it will pay for any school or training she needs for whatever she wants to do.”

Caractère shook his head slowly. “I’ll never sell your painting, Turpentine, no matter how many bits it will bring. You were right about Celestia. Paintings like this are memories, and I never want to forget what you taught me. After all, I don’t think you really want to be just a famous artist. It sounds like you want to be a great artist, and greatness can come from the most unexpected places.” Caractère swept a little strand of mane out of the little filly’s eyes and remained looking down at her while he talked. “I forged that Bledoe because of me. I wasn’t doing it for anypony else. I tried to justify my actions that way, but in the end, it was just me. When I see you paint, you’re painting for the subject, not yourself, and… I’m a little jealous.”

It did make a lot of sense, but Turpentine took some time to mentally chew on this tough vegetable. The portrait of Baron Miller was a gift for Sen, and painting the castle was a farewell gift to both Ripple and Baron Gaberdine. It made Turpentine uncomfortable to think that he had been considering his portrait for Princess Celestia as some sort of bribe, like he was trying to buy his way into someplace he did not belong.

I’ve never found a place where I belong. If I ever do, how will I know what it feels like?

It was a disagreeable thought, but the school where he would learn how to truly utilize his gift was in Canterlot, so therefore, that was where he needed to go. Undoubtedly, as Celestia had said, a family would find him there. A little colt… that is a big colt with a talent for painting should find it a lot easier to locate a family in a city where there was so much art that even Princess Celestia had to burn some of it once in a while to make space.

“I can see why Sen likes you so much.” Caractère’s voice was a shock to Turpentine, who found himself staring out the window of the shop in the general direction of what he thought was the distant riverboat castle. The old pegasus was nearly in the same position as before, only Dawn had been moved to a blanket coiled up on the floor next to his forehooves and the sunbeam illuminating her had moved a little closer to horizontal. “I like having you drop by every week. You actually think about what I say. Whenever I talk to my grandchildren, I can see the words bouncing off their hard heads. They’re too much like me, I suppose.”

“I like visiting you every week too,” said Turpentine in protest. “You’ve been a lot of help with my painting, and… I like talking to you. And your grandchildren. Pierce is a lot smarter than you realize. He’s going to be a really good father to Dawn, and he’s really got…” Turpentine glanced sideways at the colorful pictures of hot-air balloons in flight, particularly one called Raspberry Sunrise which seemed unusually aggressive, possibly even to the point of wanting to jump out of the photograph. “Does he actually paint those with a brush, or drop buckets on them from the air?”

* * ✹ * *

Holding a brush between his teeth meant idle conversation had never been one of Turpentine’s strong points, but he found talking with Caractère different than his usual awkward speech between clenched lips. Later this afternoon, the pegasus sisters would return to pick him up, but for now he just relaxed and let the time flow along much like the rain had done this morning. The concept of fatherhood mostly drowned out his normal questions about painting technique, and Turpentine sat in rapt attention while Caractère talked about his younger years when he and his wife Gratuité had been trying to raise four troublemaking children in Canterlot. It did seem as if brothers and sisters were meant to fight for the limited resources of parental affection, but on the other hoof, there never seemed to be a shortage of that affection to go around, even after Gratuité died and left Caractère in an empty house. It was weird to hear about fatherhood from the other side after Turpentine had been looking at it from underneath for so many foster families.

The arrival of Powderpuff at the front door of the shop signaled the end of Turpentine’s visit, and he quickly picked up his purchases to get ready for departure. It had been a worthwhile trip, with a pretty good portrait of Gleaming Dawn on the wall to dry and a few additional paints for his portrait sitting with Princess Celestia tomor—

Oh, fudge.

“Mister Caractère,” said Turpentine quickly while Powderpuff was chatting at the counter with Pierce and cooing over his tiny daughter. “When I paint Princess Celestia tomorrow, where do you think I should… I mean how should I have her pose… I mean—”

“Why ask me?” The old pegasus reached out and poked Turpentine gently in the chest. “It’s your life. I don’t have answers to your problems. The answer is right in there. You just need to follow your instincts instead of listening to the advice of old fools.”

“Hey, Turp!” Powderpuff strolled up to him and eyed the small bag of paints and things by his side. “Did you find everything you were looking for?”

“Yeah.” Turpentine nodded while running his tongue around the inside of his teeth. “I think so.” He looked up at the drying portrait of the little filly, all cute and innocent. Dawn only cared about the now, so she was happy. She had no idea what awaited her out in the world, success or failure, and it made no difference to her at all. Someday she might become an alicorn and bear the weight of the world on her pale pink shoulders, but for now she had a family to love and toys to play with, and nothing could make her happier. “Thank you, Mister Caractère. I know how I’m going to paint Princess Celestia now.”

“You’re welcome, Turpentine.” Caractère smiled just the slightest around the corners of his eyes even though he was trying to keep the straightest face possible. “You may make it my gift to Her Highness as well.”

“Great.” Powderpuff shook her attention away from the portrait of the adorable little foal and picked up Turpentine’s bag. “Let’s go home.”

18 - Home

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Home

"And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn’t look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked with me a long time."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Everypony loves a parade, particularly in a small town, and wherever the princesses went, a parade seemed destined to follow behind them. The guests of honor had not arrived yet, but there were still speeches out in the Gravel Flats oval-ish town square, while the town’s brass band was busy playing for the crowd between speakers, despite a certain lack of tuning and having to borrow instruments and players from several surrounding towns. Booths had been set up all around the circular square to sell custom small-town items, games were on display to entertain all the curious travelers, and a showpony who specialized in magic tricks put on her act to one side of the street. There was even a banner stretching across the main street of the town proclaiming ‘Welcome Princess Luna and Princess Celestia’ in huge letters, the order of the princesses determined by the possibility that Celestia might cancel and therefore a brief bit of editing might need to then be done on the banner to make it a little shorter and more applicable.

Turpentine had been quite busy all morning since dawn, because the arrival of the Royal Sisters was scheduled for ‘Midmorning-ish depending on workload’ and he had certain arrangements to make before they showed. He would have preferred a quieter visit, but the town seemed to be bursting with civic pride and quite excited, which upon further consideration only made sense. Many of them had never seen a princess before except for photographs in the newspaper. Even the Duchess of East Fenwick had dropped by to make a speech and greet Celestia, which was only fair since Gravel Flats was inside her domain. With a little bit of consideration, Turpentine could easily think of their visit as sharing his own good fortune, because he certainly would have been upset if a princess had visited his hometown and nopony had told him until she had departed.

So once things had been all arranged, he took his place with the two other Very Important Ponies in the general vicinity of the Gravel Flats Town Hall, a somewhat large-ish building for a house and small-ish for a town meeting hall. It never would have been able to hold all the neighboring city ponies who were visiting for the festivities, so the unveiling of his portrait of Princess Luna had been moved to the front porch where at least most of them could see.

His part in the earlier section of the visit was fairly limited. The sisters would arrive, be greeted by the mayor and duchess, there would be the inevitable speeches, and then the unveiling. Afterward, there was a tour of the town scheduled, and once lunch had been taken care of, the rest of the afternoon was all his to spend with Celestia and his paintbrush.

“Are you nervous?” Mayor Knothole grinned in a very insincere fashion while glancing around at the rest of the local lesser notables who were over by the street and looking to the sky for the incoming chariot. “I know it can be a such an honor to meet Princess Celestia. When she spoke at the mayoral conference in Canterlot three years ago, I even got to shake hooves with her and my knees were weak for hours afterward.”

“She’s not that intimidating,” said Duchess Calyptra, an elderly earth pony mare who smelled slightly of dye, which was probably how she kept her deep magenta coat free of grey hairs even though her mane was nearly white behind the glitter of a thin gold coronet on top of her head. “Whenever I’m at court during Parliament, Princess Celestia is the model of warmth and acceptance for all of us. I’m certain that your Baron Gaberdine expended a great deal of political capital to bring her here under the excuse of you painting her portrait, but that does not mean you should be worried about offending your patron. I’m certain she will be accepting of whatever kind of painting you produce.” Her pale grey eyes slid sideways to pass a quick glance at the covered portrait. “I’m certain Princess Luna will be just as forgiving as her sister.”

“No, I’m not going to let you look at it before it’s presented,” said Turpentine. “I’m more worried about how—” He shut up quickly, taking another look around the crowd. There still was no sign of Baron Gaberdine or Sen, even though they had promised to show up. Their absence did not make him nervous, because every step of Turpentine’s actions had already been stage-managed by the two other important ponies. It did make him curious, because Ripple and Gaberdine had been very conspiratorial last night at dinner and refused to tell him anything about their plans. Even Sen had simply nodded along, as if he were a party to their conspiracy.

The three troublemakers really needed a responsible adult to keep an eye on them. Pearl might have been able to keep them under control, except she was obviously biased, and just giggled a little whenever Turpentine attempted to appeal to her mothering nature and tell him what was going on.

In any event, the Royal Phaeton with four Royal Guards pulling it was soon spotted on approach to the small village, and Turpentine fell in beside the mayor and the duchess like he was supposed to. After the huge chariot landed and the princesses emerged, he stepped forward with the rest of the delegation, shook hooves when prompted, then stood quietly with the rest of the ponies while the duchess, the mayor, and anypony else who seemed to want to make a speech got up and said very little in quite a few words. Princess Celestia and Luna did not speak, but took their places and roles much the same way as Turpentine, although with considerably more grace and poise because they had most likely gone through much this same kind of routine more times than Turpentine had cleaned his brushes.

In fairly short order, it was time for Turpentine’s brief presentation. He did not make a speech, but the mayor was perfectly happy to speak on his behalf while he got ready, and then step out of the way when Turpentine swept back the cover from the painting of Princess Luna under the waterfall.

At that point, the machinery of formality and routine seized up and ground to a halt.

“That’s a very nice—” Celestia cut off abruptly once she had gotten a good look at the portrait and just stood there afterward with her jaw hanging slightly open. In contrast, the muscles on the sides of Princess Luna’s cheeks tensed up into nearly steel cords to prevent her polite smile from breaking into an extravagant grin, and she nodded politely to Turpentine.

“An extraordinary portrait, young sir. I can hardly wait to see how Celly’s turns out.” Shifting positions to her right, Luna continued, “Mister Mayor, what do you think of my portrait? Didst young Turpentine capture mine essence, and that of the Night which I represent?”

“Um…” Mayor Knothole stood almost frozen, with a look on his face that seemed remarkably like the first time Gaberdine saw the painting.

“Ah…” Duchess Calyptra mirrored the mayor’s pose, but after a short time, a wave of joyful realization swept across her face, and she leaned up closer to Princess Luna to whisper something into her ear. If Turpentine had not been so close and the crowd so silent, he would have missed it, but he could barely hear the duchess ask, “Who was he?”

It was obviously the question Luna was looking for, because she also lit up and giggled just as much as the duchess. After exchanging a few brief words with Calyptra, Luna turned to the crowd who were all looking at the painting with varying degrees of emotional confusion, cleared her throat, and gestured in the direction the tour was supposed to be headed next. It took a few minutes of confused scrambling around and backwards glances, but while she herded them along, the group began to wander in fits and starts in the correct general direction.

Celestia was almost left behind, but after giving one last glance at the painting, she lowered her head and whispered into Turpentine’s ear, “I hope you don’t—”

“I’m not going to paint you under the waterfall,” said Turpentine quickly. “Unless you really want me to, and I get permission. Princess Luna seemed just right there, but you’re… not really a waterfall pony, I don’t think.”

A faint twitch appeared in Celestia’s cheek and she gave another quick glance back to the portrait of her sister. “I could be a waterfall pony,” she said in a tone of slight protest. “I’ve been a waterfall pony before. It’s just… undignified.”

“Celly!” Luna’s voice drifted back on the wind from where the tour group was headed up the street. “We’re headed to the bakery. Hurry up, or there won’t be any cake left.”

“Coming, Luna!” Celestia lowered her voice and turned her attention back to Turpentine. “I have every confidence that you will paint my portrait… well,” she finished almost apologetically. “I can hardly wait to see how it turns out. Now, we need to catch up with the rest of the tour.”

* * ✹ * *

The tiny town of Gravel Flats had a lot more ‘tour’ in it than Turpentine expected. The blacksmith shop had the davits for Gaberdine’s speedboat almost done and put out front on display, while the greenhouse had put out one of every kind of flower they grew and seemed to expect Celestia and Luna to graze down through them all. Even the Speedy Cargo wagon was out in front of their delivery hangar, all gleaming in dark green with golden letters under several coats of fresh wax. The wagon painting was a gift that Turpentine was extremely proud of, and he tolerated the additional kisses that the sisters gave his cheeks today with all of the adult poise of his eleven years and several days of age.

Turpentine had to admit he was not paying as much attention to the town tour as he should have near the end, but his ears perked up when he heard the mayor say, “And thanks to Baron Gaberdine and his generous gift, our town now has a brand new dock.”

It was an impressive riverside dock, all fresh and covered with spar varnish to prevent rot. They had even sprinkled sand across the varnish before it dried so hooves would have a good grip on the wooden planks when they got wet. The whole construction was quality craftsponyship, much like the compact crate Sen had put together on short notice for Turpentine to carry his paintings, and it was a worthy replacement for the rotting wood he could see just a little distance under some tarps, awaiting disposal.

The new dock also looked very familiar.

“Do you like it?” whispered Missus Shutters from right behind Turpentine. Sen’s widowed marefriend seemed overflowing with happiness at Turpentine’s stunned expression and patted him on the captain’s hat she had given him when they first met. “Sen and a bunch of the townsponies spent almost a week driving new pilings and putting it together.”

“It’s… very nice,” admitted Turpentine. “Sturdy.”

The elderly mare had a youthful twinkle in her eyes when she swept him up in a brief hug, complete with an additional nuzzle across the captain’s cap. “Sen said you’d appreciate the use we found for your raft. He talks so much about you every time he comes over in the evenings, particularly about the portrait you did for him of Baron Miller. He won’t admit it, but he’s an old softie and your gift hit him right in the heart. If we were fifty years younger, I think the two of us would adopt you in a moment.”

“Thank you,” said Turpentine in what was becoming a reflex. It was not an unwelcome offer on her behalf, because Missus Shutters had been very welcoming, and several times over the last few weeks had sent particularly tasty desserts for Baron Gaberdine’s dinner table by way of Sen. He started to respond further, but something had caught the elderly mare’s eye and she was looking upstream with a growing expression of fascination matched by others in the crowd.

Although Turpentine was a big colt, he was still short, and all of the rest of the adult ponies in the crowd were far taller than he was. It took until he had wriggled through the crowd to the fairly empty area around the princesses that he managed to see what was so interesting, and then it was his turn to stare in open-jawed amazement.

Castle Paradise was steaming downstream, all bright with new paint and trailing a thin stream of pale grey smoke from her tall smokestack. Baron Gaberdine had managed to find triangular white pennants to fly on each side of the cabin, which when combined with the pastel pinks and blues of the trim paint, did actually make the majestic riverboat look like a larger version of Princess Celestia proceeding grandly down the river.

Or an enormous swan, if Turpentine squinted and turned his head just right.

It was impossible for Baron Gaberdine to look any prouder while standing behind the ship’s wheel, although at first glance, Turpentine could not tell if the source of his pride was the beautiful riverboat working the way it was supposed to, or the beautiful pale mare at his side. A few weeks ago, Turpentine would never have guessed that Pearl would be willing to be seen out in public, and he was fairly certain that Gaberdine’s presence at her side was the only reason she was there now, but she was smiling more than the baron, and there was a certain appeal to the scene that Turpentine was determined to immortalize in canvas and paint soon.

Even though he was a beginner pilot, Gaberdine managed to get Castle Paradise nudged up to the new dock with only a few small thumps, and once the townsponies had tied it up, the town tour took on a more aquatic nature. It felt odd to have other ponies climbing all over the place Turpentine had called home for the last few weeks, but he adapted in short order by showing the little ponies from school around the riverboat and cautioning them to keep their hooves and noses away from any of the dangerous parts. The most popular part of the tour was the whistle, of course, with short toots from each student, but when Celestia and Luna took up Gaberdine’s offer of a short cruise up and down the river, all of the little whistleblowers took their place behind the rails to wave at the older town-bound ponies.

Although he wanted to be on board for the short cruise too, Turpentine stayed behind in town to make final arrangements for the painting (and to sneak a bite of Missus Shutter’s pecan pie out of the buffet). It was a little lonely, standing on the new dock and waving to the departing riverboat and the waving students, but it allowed him to catch the exact moment Princess Luna sounded the whistle and the stentorian honk of a giant swan came out instead. It was a moment of great levity for everypony involved, particularly when Princess Celestia unceremoniously tossed her sister overboard before the echoes of the enormous honk had quit echoing from the surrounding landscape.

* * ✹ * *

In a few months, the snow would cover this section of hillside with a downy whiteness that would be great fun for ponies of all ages, providing material for snowball fights and snowponies, little ponies making snow alicorns and big ponies using it as an excuse to drink hot cocoa drowned in marshmallows. Right now, it was carpeted in white dandelion fluff from Mister Pectic’s fall crop of seeds, which Turpentine had purchased… well, promised to purchase before the vintner found out about his plan and promptly donated the use of the entire field to him.

The crate that Sen had made to carry Turpentine’s painting equipment securely also made a pretty useful something to stand on, and he raised his voice in order to be heard by all of his classmates, as well as the four Royal Guards who had been convinced to pile their armor to one side. Since they did not have to pull the Celestial Phaeton back to Canterlot for a few hours, there was no reason to leave them out of the fun too.

“What I want you all to do this afternoon is to go play in the dandelions,” said Turpentine in as authoritarian voice as he could muster. “That includes the princesses, and… yes, Mister Guard?”

“Specialist Pinion,” said the broad-shouldered white pegasus, who seemed acutely uncomfortable with the twenty of Turpentine’s classmates scattered around him and the two princesses he was responsible for guarding being likewise separated from their crowns and armored shoes. It was a very awkward time with everypony looking at everypony else, but the guards looked even more hesitant than some of Ripple’s aunts considering a trip onto the shore. Without being able to hide under the river’s surface or behind his armor, the fidgeting pegasus looked much like a rabbit after a shadow passed over him from above. “You want us to… frolic?”

“I’m not sure I remember how,” mumbled one of the other guards.

Some ponies follow. Others lead. What kind of pony am I?

“I’ll show you. Come over here, and Princess Celestia, if you could lie down here.”

“I’ll stain,” said Celestia abruptly with her knees locked together and her ears laid back. “You have no idea how hard it is to wash grass stains out of a white coat.”

“You’ve been rolling in the grass before?” asked Pinion reflexively, only to freeze up even more rigidly than Celestia when her cool gaze swept in his direction, and not relaxing a smidgen when she turned her head back to Turpentine with all of the powerful sincerity she had acquired over a lifetime of diplomacy.

Before she could get a word out, Turpentine quickly asked, “Before Princess Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, the two of you played a lot?”

With considerable trepidation, that noble head nodded once, not taking her eyes off Turpentine for a moment. “Oh, certainly. But our times together got shorter—”

“And after you had to banish her to the moon, you didn't have anypony to play with, so you just worked all the time,” continued Turpentine.

“Not… all of the time,” said Celestia, sounding somewhat guilty and not looking to where Luna was standing by her side.

“And now that she’s back, you don’t play together at all?” pressed Turpentine.

“We have—” started Celestia.

“Not,” completed Luna with an air of absolute finality.

“I’ve been quite busy,” protested Celestia. “And rolling around in the grass is a little beneath the dignity—”

“Chuckle-Lot,” said Luna quite firmly.

“Once a year,” countered Celestia. “And not rolling around in the grass. Or dandelions,” she added with a glance at the waving field of whiteness.

It put a snag right in the middle of Turpentine’s plans, but he had one final option to try before giving up.

“Oh,” he said, trying to sound as disappointed as possible. Turpentine turned to the rest of the school ponies and kept his chin down in order to look dejected. He had quickly practiced this with Ripple and the rest of the students several times earlier, and it seemed like cheating, but it was cheating in a good way. “I’m sorry, guys. We can’t romp in the dandelions without Princess Celestia. I guess we’ll just have to go back to town.”

“Awwww…” The sheer force of twenty young ponies all projecting their best mournful eyes over his back and in the direction of Princess Celestia made his mane stand up and the hair between his shoulder blades prickle. It was probably an unfair advantage to bring all of his classmates when he only needed Ripple to break through Princess Celestia’s tough crust, because Turpentine could even hear the Royal Guards whimper with the impact of that many begging eyes.

“I’m not going to do it,” repeated Princess Celestia behind him, although her voice faltered once a few practiced sniffles sounded from the crowd of school ponies. “More than once,” she finally offered.

“Good!” Turpentine turned back around to the cheers of his small school companions. “Now lie down there in the grass at the top of this hill.”

“I can do it if you’re frightened, Celly,” offered Luna with a smirk.

“You’re next in line,” said Turpentine, nearly missing Luna’s stunned blink at the news. “Now, keep your legs stuck out in front and behind, and… uh… keep your wings tucked in, I guess.”

“I feel ridiculous,” said Celestia while stretching out a considerable distance in both directions. “Are you quite certain that I need to go through with this in order to have my portrait painted, young Turpentine?”

“Yes.” Turpentine nudged the ‘volunteer’ Royal Guard into position. It took a little poking and prodding to get Specialist Pinion rather uncertainly set up beside his prone princess, looking as if he really wanted to be on the other side to keep Her Highness from rolling down the hill, but he looked up abruptly when Turpentine said, “Now, push.”

“Push?” echoed Pinion.

“Like this!” Luna promptly demonstrated the proper technique for rolling a rather large alicorn down a shallow hill covered in dandelion fluff by giving a solid shove and laughing uproariously at the result.

“Luna—!”

The effect was really more dramatic than Turpentine had expected. Celestia fairly vanished into a moving cloud of dandelion fluff, but her tumbling path was easy enough to trace, both vocally and by the constant explosion of fluffy whiteness trailing out into the area where the hillside flattened out.

“My turn!” proclaimed Luna, flinging herself down and getting into the correct hillside tumbling pose. This time, Pinion really did give her a push and watched in fascination while the second princess whooped and shouted on her way down the hill.

“That looked like… fun.” Pinion turned to look at Turpentine. “You know, this was never in the Royal Guard Manual.”

* * ✹ * *

The middle of the field was almost foggy with flying fluff when Turpentine took a break from rolling around in the dandelions in order to carry his painting crate down to where the largest lumps of giggling ponies were located. His plan had not really included playing in the fluff with the rest of the students, but the princesses needed some time to unwind and tire themselves out before he started painting. It made for a little free time on his behalf, and it looked like so much fun. When he would go to Canterlot next week to start looking for a family, it was most likely none of them would have dandelion fields like this, and this would be his last opportunity to have fun with Ripple while doing something silly they both had never done before.

Besides. Dandelions.

Celestia and Luna had been playing in the fluff even more enthusiastically than any of the colts or fillies from school, with wingfulls of fluff dumped over each other’s heads and dandelion fluff blowing contests that left both of them out of breath. They were obviously out of practice and had tired out quickly, finding a slight rise where they could both recline and watch the Royal Guards and school ponies frolic instead.

“Oh! Turpentine!” Celestia started to rise, only to have her sister dump a wingfull of dandelion fluff on her head, making her look like Celestia the Bearded until she shook most of the fluff off.

“Sister! Just relax and let young Turpentine paint.”

“But I’m such a mess!” She was too, with green smears of grass all along her sides and a thick coat of dandelion fluff stuck even in her flowing mane, making little waves as it was carried around in swirls and ripples much like an immaterial river. Celestia obviously braced herself before looking up at Turpentine with an expression of mixed worry and pleading, although the note of command in her voice was almost absent. “You’re not going to paint me like this, are you?”

Without even a hesitation, Turpentine said, “No, of course not.”

“He paints what he sees, silly.” Luna took a moment to blow the contents of a particularly fluffy dandelion over her sister’s face and smirk at the resulting uncomfortable twitch. “It’s not like a photograph.”

“Oh. I suppose.” Celestia looked up again, more subdued this time and a little plaintive. “It’s just that I’ve never been painted outside in the grass since Herr Spiegelei.” She took in Turpentine’s instinctive shudder and seemed to finally relax a little.

“You could close your eyes,” suggested Turpentine while setting up the easels. “You’re always busy around the castle, so you never get a chance to just relax.”

“Should I move?” asked Luna, although she did not make any preliminary motion to get up from her perfectly comfortable position snuggled up against her sister’s warm neck.

“No,” said Turpentine. “You could probably close your eyes too. Mister Caractère said I should paint you both with your eyes closed, since I don’t do eyes very well.”

“Do you mean,” asked Celestia while shifting positions slightly and leaning back against the fuzz-covered grass, “that you want the both of us to just lie here in the sunshine with our eyes closed and not move?”

“I can do that,” said Luna, who had already closed her eyes and snuggled a little further into her sisterly pillow.

“But I have important things to do,” protested Celestia faintly.

“Getting your portrait painted is an important thing,” stated Luna.

Although she opened her mouth to protest, after spitting out a few little bits of fluff Celestia closed it again. And then after a period of contemplation while Turpentine drew his initial sketch on the canvas, she closed her eyes too. “Just for a little while,” she stipulated.

- ☸ - -

Frolicking, gamboling and playing leapfrog was quite tiring for Turpentine’s young peers, who had abandoned the field of battle after several hours of intense play for home, hearth, and most likely, sincere scrubbing at the hooves of displeased mothers who would appreciate their little colts and fillies to be somewhat closer to their original colors. Even the guards had looked a little embarrassed at the number of green stripes on their snow-white coats, although their dour expressions cheered up whenever they took a subversive peek at the two giggling greenish alicorns striding onto the Celestial Phaeton and the drifting swaths of fuzz they were carrying along behind them.

At times like these, Turpentine was rather disappointed at not having a naturally greener coat like Ripple or even a darker green like her unicorn magic tutor, even though it had not kept Ripple from being gently herded back to the riverboat by her mother once the flying fuzz frolicking had died down to a few little fillies making dandelion alicorns. Before Pearl had gotten out of sight, she had sent a glance in his direction which seemed to somehow be encouraging and disparaging at the same time, as well as estimating how much soap it would take to get both of them clean. There seemed like no escaping the bath in his future, but the more important item of the moment was the damp canvas which Baron Gaberdine was floating along in front of him while on their way back to the riverboat.

“Careful,” urged Turpentine for the umpteenth time. He had his own burden, because Turpentine did not want his painting and his equipment carried by Gaberdine at the same time. After all, he might get distracted and drop one or the other. So the heavy crate of paints and the collapsable easel had been hefted up on his own smaller back while he supervised the painting’s move. It felt a little strange to be ordering the older baron around, but Gaberdine did not seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to enjoy their walk through the afternoon streets of the small town and toward the new dock where Castle Paradise was moored for the moment.

“I’ve got it,” repeated Gaberdine, carefully walking one step at a time down the street. “Did you get everything the way you wanted?”

“Almost. Just a little touch-up left for tomorrow. There’s a raised cobblestone here, so be careful.”

“I told you, I’ve—” Gaberdine caught the tip of his hoof on the cobblestone and stumbled a half-step, making a smooth recovery and giving a short snort of irritation. “Okay, no more questions until we get this hung up in your room.”

The quiet stroll gave Turpentine a chance to think while walking. In a few days once he was in Canterlot, the small room in the riverboat would not be ‘his’ any longer. The contents would all have to be packed up and stored somewhere until he found a family there, a search that Turpentine was looking forward to less and less as time went on. He would miss his weekly trips out to Baltimare and talking with Caractère about painting, although Baron Gaberdine would be making occasional trips to Canterlot for sessions of Parliament, and might be willing to stop by and pick the old pegasus up for a visit.

No, that would take Caractère away from his employment, and besides, Baltimare was almost in exactly the opposite direction. Also, long trips by air were probably not good for the old stallion. Even Sen had expressed his intense interest in remaining groundbound for the rest of his short career as seneschal, and had offered the services of a distant relative of his for Gaberdine’s Canterlot visits, but only for there. Friday Haystings had no intentions of stepping into Sen’s professional shoes and moving to Castle Paradise. He was a proper Canterlot gentlecolt’s gentlecolt, and had responded to Sen’s letter of invitation with such dry wit that the letter had to be shared among the five ponies at the castle’s dinner table, as well as being posted on the icebox for humorous contemplation whenever needed.

When Gaberdine reached the gangplank going up to the riverboat, Turpentine carefully dropped off his crate of painting materials on the dock and held castle doors open to guide his wet painting to the bedroom wall where it was going finish drying. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief once the wire on the back had been looped over the stout hook and the painting of the Royal Sisters was secure. After a period of close examination of the damp paint on both of their parts, with Turpentine looking for smudges and Gaberdine just looking, the baron reluctantly spoke up.

“It’s a fine portrait, but I think you may have lost a few… years for the Royal Sisters.”

“Centuries, more like,” mused Turpentine. “I wanted to show the way they were at their happiest, and I couldn’t have painted Celestia without her sister.”

Balancing their ages had been the hardest part, because Luna had to look young, but not helpless, and Celestia had to seem older, but not old. In the end, he had decided to show Luna at about Ripple’s age, young and filled with energy and mischief, while Celestia was more his own age, old enough to know better and to protect her younger sibling from harm. But still young enough to have childish fun, like rolling in dandelions.

Turpentine flicked an ear, which was playing involuntary host to at least three pieces of fluff and considered that perhaps a bath this evening would not be all that bad. After all, the sounds echoing around the riverboat revealed Ripple was already in the tub being vigorously scrubbed by her mother. From the way Gaberdine smiled and glanced toward the closed door to the bathroom, he also enjoyed the sounds of mother and daughter sharing his floating house.

Adding a stallion-like chuckle to his smile, Gaberdine said, “What a day. Fluff and grass stains everywhere. Oh, you have a couple on the paint.” Gaberdine leaned forward and squinted at the troublesome little bits of fluff. “Don’t worry. I can get them.”

The baron lit up his horn, but Turpentine held a hoof across his nose. “No, sir. Leave them.”

“But—”

“No,” said Turpentine in his most authoritative voice, although quiet enough not to disturb the bath going on next door. “Please.”

“Hmm… I suppose.” The baron cast a mischievous glance Turpentine with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Looks like you could use a bath too. Are you sure you don’t want to go hop in the tub with Ripple while the water’s still warm?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Turpentine shook his head. “I don’t think it’s very… properity. I mean… she’s a filly. And I’m eleven now.”

Gaberdine’s mischievous smile calmed down to a faint echo of itself. “How quickly they grow up. Well, there should be plenty of time this evening after we get the castle docked back in the lagoon. Sen is staying the night with Missus Shutters again, but he laid out fresh sheets so Ripple and Pearl can stay the night here too. That way we can talk for as long as you want tonight, before… You know.”

“Before I go to Canterlot.”

Whatever Turpentine was going to say after that was lost when the sound of seapony voices began to rise from the bathroom next door. It started with Ripple skipping merrily up the musical scale in a glissando of fluid notes, leaping and dancing through the melody the same way she could dart through the water. Then Pearl joined in, supporting her daughter in a resonant harmony that made Turpentine’s heart ache, a powerful chorus of both joy and sorrow that simply cried out for a strong tenor counterpart.

The music swept through the bedroom where Gaberdine and Turpentine stood in silent witness, holding them spellbound as it surged and ebbed against the walls of the riverboat like a tidal wave of music until the older stallion leaned forward and opened his mouth. Gaberdine held that pose for an impossibly long time, although it was only for a few seconds before he settled back onto his hooves and blinked away tears. Turpentine knew just exactly what the older stallion felt like because he too had wanted to join in. The pang of yearning in his soul begged to be released in song, to the point where if there was a way to sacrifice his entire painting talent in exchange for the ability to capture the moment in any fashion at all, he would have given it up in a heartbeat.

Then, after a period of timeless beauty, it was over, and all that could be heard from the bathroom next door was mother and daughter giggling over the bubbles again.

- ☸ - -

Sitting on Gravel Flats’ new dock beside the riverboat was a good place for both Turpentine and Gaberdine to recover, since there was a quiet breeze from the north and a hint of upcoming frost in the air. They had both almost crept out of Turpentine’s bedroom on the tips of their hooves and did not exchange a single word until they were out in the fresh fall sunshine for several minutes and the feeling of reality had finally sunk back into their skins.

“Wow,” breathed Turpentine almost in a whisper.

“You said it,” echoed Gaberdine after a few more calming breaths. “Wow.”

After due consideration of the late afternoon sun and the way the clouds near the horizon promised an unforgettable sunset for the evening, Turpentine took a deep breath. “You’re a very lucky stallion, Mister Gaberdine.”

“Far more than I deserve.” Gaberdine turned his head slightly to look at the distant mountain peak of Canterlot, just barely poking up above the horizon. “It’s hard for me to believe that was my home, until I came here. I thought it was where I belonged, but I was wrong, and I didn’t realize it for…” He chuckled and shook his head. “A week. That’s all it took. A short lifetime of growing up and working my way up the bureaucracy, all gone away in less time than it takes to check the numbers on a budget.”

“Maybe I’ll find my home there,” said Turpentine while trying and failing to sound enthusiastic about the possibility.

“Doing budgets?” Gaberdine laughed again, but this time in a much more carefree and relaxed manner at Turpentine’s instinctive shudder when faced by his mortal enemy. “Sorry,” he added with a smile that indicated very little regret, but it was perfectly fine with Turpentine, who promptly proceeded to laugh too. It was the perfect end to a wonderful day, and it was not even all the way over yet.

“By the way,” said Turpentine, trying to sound older and mature with the secret entrusted to him. “I talked with Princess Luna about you after the painting was over. She said there was going to be a surprise meteor shower this evening in your honor.”

“Really?” After a moment of consideration, Gaberdine gave a short nod. “I’ll have to make lemonade for while we’re out on the deck tonight appreciating it.”

“I’ll make lemonade,” said Turpentine with a brief snort of amusement. “I talked with Princess Celestia too. She said Luna is just as bad with cooking as you are, or worse.”

“I’m not that bad,” protested Gaberdine without much sincerity.

“Luna admitted she once managed to set ice cubes on fire.” Turpentine rubbed his nose to get out the dandelion fluff he had accidentally inhaled. “She also said she thought you were cute, and that it was too bad you were taken.”

“Oh?” Gaberdine nodded and took a quick peek over his shoulder at the riverboat. “She’s a magnificent mare. Whenever I saw that painting you did of her, I could see the stallion who was worthy… The stallion I could never be for her.” He took a long, shuddering breath and looked back up at the cloudy horizon, but did not say anything else.

“I talked with Pearl before my birthday party,” said Turpentine, somehow triggered by the distant expression in Gaberdine’s eyes. “She wished she could turn me into a seapony so I could go live with her and Ripple beneath the waves. I thought it was… nice.” Turpentine took a moment to rub a fleck of irritating fluff out of his eyes before they got too watery. “She needs you. She needs you to protect her, and to be with her, and never to be apart.”

“I know.” Gaberdine wrinkled up his nose and wiped away a piece of dandelion fluff.

“They need you.” Turpentine tried to put as much emotion into the words as possible, but he could not help feel them backlash on himself. All he could think of was the good times of the last few weeks, from diving through all of the secret underwater playgrounds with Ripple to feeling the glory of creation while painting princesses. It was like he had stumbled on some secret garden full of magical beauty, and if he ever left, he would never be able to find his way back.

“I’m going to miss this.” It was actually Gaberdine who said what Turpentine was thinking, and he kept silent while the older stallion continued. “Ripple is a joy to be around and Pearl is… Pearl, but having you here really makes my day, Turpentine. You’ve given me a look at life I’ve never seen before.”

“So have you, sir. I mean Gabby.” Turpentine glanced back at the riverboat and lowered his voice. “One of the first things Ripple ever asked me was if I thought you would be a good father for her. I wasn’t sure at the time because I’d never met you, but… I think you are.”

“No, I’m not,” said Gaberdine slowly, somewhat as if it were a mental path he had trod many times. “A father should always be there for his children, from when they’re born until they no longer need him.” He paused for a long time after that, still looking off into the distance at the clouds until with considerable reluctance, he added, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” said Turpentine, who had been waiting for the inevitable apology, like everybody tried to apologize after saying something awkward about his absent parent. “A real father should be there when his children need him, just like your father tried to help you. He was wrong, but he tried, and that’s what is important. It didn’t matter to him when you said you didn’t need his help. In his eyes, you did, and he’ll always be there for you, no matter what. Ripple trusts you, and treasures her time spent with you as much as she loves to play with me. You may not be Ripple’s father from birth, and you may think you’re not ready to be a father, but when she needs a father—” Turpentine blinked back something that had gotten into his eye “—you are an excellent one to her.”

“Hm…” The corner of Gaberdine’s lips twitched ever so slightly and he gave Turpentine a sideways look. “I did say you saw things in a way I couldn’t, didn’t I?”

“Sometimes, you get too close to things and you can’t see them very well.” Turpentine patted the logs of the dock they were sitting on. “When I saw this raft, all I could see was an exciting trip with Baltimare and my destiny at the end of the river. I knew the happiness I was looking for was there, and all I needed to do was drift downstream until I found it.”

“I would say happiness found you first,” said Gaberdine with a chuckle. “She tracked you down on that little island, suffered through the flu at your side, and gave you years worth of material to paint. And I’ve got to say, you’ve spread a lot of happiness here too, between getting Ripple to practice her transformation magic enough to be seen in public, managing to get Pearl to meet my parents, and having both princesses at your beck and call. You got Celestia to roll down a hill full of dandelions, of all things. Fluff and grass stains everywhere, and I’ve never seen her happier.”

Gaberdine’s words seemed faint and distant to Turpentine, because something inside his gut seemed to explode into fireworks and fountains that held him frozen in place even more than the seapony song.

He was happy.

There was no time in his life where he was happier than this moment, not when he got his cutie mark, or his faded memories of his mother, or even just after the first time Ripple had nearly drowned him. It had slipped up on him so quietly and grown by one seapony giggle and drop of river water at a time, but it was there now that he knew what he was looking for, filling his chest with a warmth that he had searched in vain for without knowing how to recognize it.

All of the times he had been adopted, he had been looking for happiness to be given to him, just like the other gifts the prospective parents had insisted on giving to him. He had never given back to them with his own heart and soul, not like the paintings he had done for the strange but recognizable family on this old riverboat. He had only felt safe opening his heart to Mother Windrow, whose words now resonated through his head all the way to his tail.

You can always make me happy. I’ve just not been able to make you happy in return.

It was a moment he wanted to cherish forever, a full circle from the time he had first stepped onto the log raft and pushed it away from his old home until now, where those same logs had been given as a gift to this town. There was risk of failure on all sides now, with the newfound happiness in his heart in danger of being snuffed out if he made the wrong move, but it did not worry him in the slightest. Caractère had encouraged Turpentine to follow his instincts while painting the princesses, and those same instincts drove him almost effortlessly into his next words.

“I don’t think I’m ready to go to Canterlot.”

Gaberdine seemed a little set back and cocked his head to one side before responding, “You mean this week?”

“No. Like…” Turpentine’s eleven year old mind churned with words, kinda-sorta overwhelmed by thinking forward in time and grasping for some solid point of reference that would make him sound less like he was babbling. “Like this raft, sir.”

“Gabby, please,” said Gaberdine.

“Sir,” insisted Turpentine. “Please let me finish. You see, I’ve been drifting through life just like this raft, waiting to see where I’ll wash up. I thought that would be Baltimare, but I know better now. I need to be somewhere I belong, somewhere I’m happy. A place where I can practice my painting and learn the skills to become the famous painter I can be, even if it’s not the way I thought about it at first. A place where others need me as much as I need them. Here.”

There was a very long pause while Gaberdine soaked up his little speech, and although the baron looked reluctant, there seemed to be some sort of spark in the back of the older stallion’s mind urging him onward too, and making his discouraging words in return lack a great deal of sincerity. “You know I really don’t think I’m ready to become a father yet, Turpentine.”

“I know,” said Turpentine rapidly. “I’m not sure if I’m really ready to be a son yet either, and I don’t think Miss Pearl is ready to be a wife again, or a mother again either. But time has a way of sneaking up on me. Someday, you’re going to be a really good father. Maybe you could… try?”

At least Gaberdine was thinking about it, even though he was slowly shaking his head from side to side. The glow of happiness in Turpentine’s chest flickered a little, but did not go out, because there was something familiar to Gaberdine’s expression which he had last seen on this same raft several weeks and a lifetime ago, during an afternoon much like this. It reminded Turpentine of the stressed unicorn that Gaberdine had said he used to be, and how life with the seaponies had made him a better pony.

It was difficult, but he was still happy, so Turpentine took a deep breath of the river-scented air, trying his best to look at things from Gaberdine’s point of view. It only stood to reason, because if some pony had walked up to Turpentine and asked to be his little brother, it would take some time to get used to the idea and not turn him down immediately. Plus, he had practically ambushed the older stallion, and possibly frightened him much the same way Pierce had been frightened when he discovered he was going to be a father.

From somewhere under the dock, a bullfrog let out a raspy croak while a few dragonflies buzzed by on iridescent wings. It was a rich environment of sight and sound he had gotten accustomed to in rapid order with Ripple’s helpful assistance, and one in which he could feel the little corners and notches of his life fit, not perfectly, but with time...

Giving a noncommittal noise halfway between a grunt and a sigh, Gaberdine finally shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

It was difficult, but Turpentine nodded. “I understand. It was a dumb idea, anyway.”

“No, it’s a good idea,” said Gaberdine, still looking thoughtfully across the river. “The timing is just a little off. I mean, you said it yourself. I’m not really ready to be a father and Pearl really isn’t ready to be a mother again. And Ripple—” Gaberdine cut off with a chuckle.

“Ripple is ready for anything,” said Turpentine. “Sometimes, too much so.”

“You said it.” Gaberdine shook his head again. “She’s going to be a problem when I go to hire my next seneschal.”

Turpentine nodded. “Sen is getting a little old. He seems to spend more time at Missus Shutters’ house than out at the castle with you.”

“Missus Shutters has a softer and warmer bed,” said Gaberdine, looking like he was concentrating on something else and the words just slipped out without him realizing it. “You see, I’ve been thinking about taking Castle Paradise up and down the river this spring to survey my barony, but Sen is getting a little old to be traveling for days at a time. Since he and Missus Shutters have… well, an arrangement of sorts, I was considering hiring a new seneschal on a training basis for the barony while I was out and about.”

“Oh,” said Turpentine, trying to think of what the riverboat would be like without the old earth stallion. “He or she had better know how to cook.”

“True.” Gaberdine nodded. “They would also have to be aware of the… special nature of Miss Pearl and Ripple.”

“Absolutely.” Turpentine nodded. “The seaponies need to be protected.”

“I doubt I’d be able to find an experienced seneschal who would be willing to move to the castle. Management skills and sailing experience is an odd skillset to find around here.” Gaberdine pursed his lips and looked up at the bright white riverboat. “She’s a magnificent place, but a little smaller than most employees would prefer, and moving around on the river all the time would be a strain. Most experienced seneschals have families, and there’s just no room on board for more than four or five ponies. So I was thinking about hiring a cabin colt to do the work Sen can’t do, just like when Baron Miller hired Sen to help out Seneschal Sentinel.”

“That makes—” Turpentine’s mouth stopped, but his mind kept working. He examined the idea carefully from all sides, giving it little pokes and prods to see if it was going to fall apart.

“It would be a part-time job,” explained Gaberdine, who seemed to be looking downstream at a distant steam tug chuffing along down the river. “Sen may not retire fully for several years yet, so whoever I hire as cabin colt is going to have a lot of spare time when they’re not studying for their promotion.”

“Would there be math involved?” asked Turpentine hesitantly.

“Most certainly, in order to keep the books up to date,” stated Gaberdine. “However, I have a young and talented engineering assistant who can help out with the training, so I don’t see that as a problem.”

Nothing was ever as easy as it seemed, but having to work his way through math did not seem quite so much of an obstacle anymore. “Would I… I mean would this cabin colt be able to make trips to Baltimare on occasion?”

“Yes, as well as traveling with me to Canterlot when Parliament is in session,” added Gaberdine. “Several of the nobles there are quite fascinating, and would make a trip very educational. Not to mention Their Highnesses, who have always been willing to assist young talent along with a gentle nudge or two.”

Turpentine thought back to his hometown and the busy mayor when she had been supervising the moving of their town hall to higher ground. To even think the alicorns who moved the sun and moon would take the time for a young colt like himself would have been ludicrous a few weeks ago, but he had not one, but two paintings which proved otherwise.

Princess Celestia had been so completely right, much like he suspected she was most of the time. A family had found him. A little strange, somewhat awkward, and not anything like he had expected. He would have to grow into it, but he was going to grow anyway, and like a plant growing toward the light, he would change for the better.

Speaking of changes…

“Mister Gaberdine.” Turpentine reached up and took the captain’s cap off his head. It really was not his size, and he turned it around in his hooves before extending it forward to the older stallion. “There’s something I noticed when you were piloting Castle Paradise. You’re a captain, and that deserves a hat to go with it. Princess Celestia has her crown, and Duchess Calyptra has that little golden circlet in her mane. If you’re going to be a captain, you should look the part, just like Baron Miller.”

Gaberdine’s horn stuck up at an odd angle, so the symbolic gesture did not go as well as Turpentine had hoped. The hat still fit, but did not look as natural as a new one from the store would, and despite the gesture, he made a mental note to buy one at the earliest opportunity. Besides, Gaberdine looked good in a captain’s cap. Decisive. Taller, somehow.

“About that job, sir.” Turpentine looked up and fought the mischievous grin which was trying to sneak onto his face. “Is Captain Gaberdine accepting applications today?”

“For a limited time.” Gaberdine cocked an eyebrow at him. “Can you think of any applicants?”

“Just myself, sir.” Turpentine tried to look as serious as possible. “I’m done drifting through life, sir. I need someplace to… I need a safe harbor.”

Gaberdine nodded, although he seemed to be blinking more than usual. “I’d be happy to provide you that safe harbor to drop anchor in, Turpentine. I may not be ready to be a father just yet, but I think I can be a pretty good captain until we’re both ready.”

The smile that Turpentine was holding back could not be denied any longer. He saluted, or at least held a hoof to his face like some of his storybooks had shown. “Permission to come on board, Captain Gaberdine?”

“Aye, aye.” Gaberdine saluted back. “Welcome aboard, son.”

- ☸ - -

Barony of Fen
Official Census (Revised)

Permanent Resident(s)

Castle Paradise IV: Five inhabitants

Baron Gaberdine of Fen

Sienna, Senechal of Fen

Lady Pearl of Fen, and her daughter, Ripple

Turpentine, Cabin Colt for Castle Paradise

Transient Residents

Four (4) Ducks (one adult, three adolescents, currently out of the vicinity to return in the spring)

Your faithful servant
Baron Gaberdine of Fen

P.S. Correction

One turtle, ‘Aspidochelone’ currently hibernating in the mud by the castle.

Thank you both, from the bottom of our hearts.

Gabby and Pearl

Epilogue

Drifting Down the Lazy River
Epilogue

"...and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more."

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Beauty in Equestria can be found everywhere, but the skills to capture those sights and events are rare indeed. The artistic world is always looking for new talent in the galleries and ballrooms of the rich and powerful, in concert halls and receptions of the well-connected, and the bistros and coffee houses of the cultured, but over the last few years, a number of paintings have emerged to fascinate and frustrate even the most serious collectors. First there were, of course, the inevitable paintings of the Royal Sisters, done in a fashion no other artist had ever attempted, but when the artist was sought to claim the fame which they deserved, none stepped forward.

Then there were the other places these strange and captivating pictures began to appear, from both noble and common houses around Canterlot, to a restaurant in Baltimare which soon had more of the new artist’s pictures on their walls than any other location in the world.

To this day, the artist has yet to be found. But there is one tiny hint to their location.

Of all the strange places to find artistic talent in Equestria, the rural Fenwick valley ranks among the most peculiar. If a traveler is very lucky on their journey through the vineyards and farms of the river valley, they may find a home or business along the riverbank with one of these treasured paintings, done in the same stunning style that no other artist could possibly match. It may be a painting of a family member, or their home, or even a sunset, but just like the rest of the recipients, no matter how many bits they are offered, the owners always refuse to sell.

Some say the mysterious painter is an alicorn who paints with the colors of the sky, while others claim she is a water sprite, because the paintings always seem to crop up near the river somewhere. Still, the owners of the paintings refuse to say just who the artist is or where they hang their easel.

However, it is rumored that if one is very lucky and happens upon a small riverboat working its way up or down the river, a miracle may occur, and one of these miraculous paintings will find its way to your home. The description of the mysterious boat is different in every telling. Some say it sails without a crew, a mechanical spirit of the river itself. Others claim it is really a haunted castle, and the ghost of a beautiful pale mare walks its halls, vanishing without a trace when confronted. A few even say the rumor is false, and the riverboat is just an ordinary speedboat, piloted by a young earth pony diver and his unicorn engineer wife who travel up and down the river to mark the underwater snags for the river Fen’s barge traffic.

Still...

Inspiration, Author's Notes, and General Stuff

What a long and wonderful trip this has been, drifting along through the last year while working in bits and pieces on something that would compare well with the original story.

I think I did it.

Inspiration for the story goes to Mark Twain, otherwise known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and of course the story The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (pdf link) In particular, I would like to thank Andy Thomas Studios for their permission to use the painting ‘Huckleberry Finn’ in this story. As it is commercial art, all rights remain with the artist, I just have permission to show it to you here on a limited basis. The original painting is $29,000, but you can get 8x16 signed prints starting at $35 here (which I’m going to, as soon as I can talk my wife into it).

(Ain’t it pretty?)

And of course a second thanks for Pen Mightier and Manifest Harmony for their great (and only slightly late by a day or two) cover art of Turpentine and Ripple on the raft.

Moving right along, interesting things happen in the margins while writing. Odd conversations you never see in the finished product (unless Georg adds them, which I am here)

(On Pearl and Ripple’s ‘aunts’ in the river)
Tek: Ok this line of talk just makes me wonder if Ripple has any other siblings or cousins either living or deceased from the conflict they are refugees of. Their names being oh I don't know Tsunami, WaveFront and Big Kahuna.
Hmm that last one meeting Big Mac could be amusing. Maybe they can form a Big Club.

Me: Gabby: So, you're Big Kahuna. Pearl says you're her brother, right?
Gaberdine tried to smile while waiting for a response, but the only thing he could think of was how much the huge seapony looked like he had some blue whale in his family tree somewhere, or perhaps a megalodon shark who had eaten a blue whale.

(after the scene where Turpentine throws the coffeepot out into the river)
Tek: Wilson!
TheMaskedFerret: Noooooooo!!!!
Me: Sigh.

(Or on occasion, my editors leave little bits of knowledge for me)

Tek: Maybe he starts to think the island is a Aspidochelone
Georg: Even I don't know what that is. I'm trying to keep the reading grade level down.
TheMaskedFerret: Giant sea creature, often a turtle the size of an island.
Georg: Maybe I should slip in a baby Aspidochelone.
Turp: It's a turtle.
Ripple: It's a baby Aspidochelone.
Turp: Is that some kind of turtle? (eyes the turtle) And how can it be a baby? It's about twice the size of any turtle I've seen before. How big do they get.
Ripple: Greece? Of course that's centuries from now. He's just barely big enough to have some dirt on his shell. It'll take a least a hundred years before he's big enough to get even a small town on his shell. So do you have a pet?
Turpentine: Not really. I had a cricket back a few years ago, but it got away.
Ripple: I'll share, if you want. He's not much of a bother. He eats water lettuce and pond weeds, mostly.

(Since I’m mostly a discovery writer, there are times when my plans don’t work or I find something better while I type. Example in point: I had not *planned* on Pearl going to Canterlot. I had planned on having the confrontation when they returned to the riverboat, but while I was writing, it made a much better theatre to have her overcome her fears and show up, using the dragonfire parchment and Celestia’s authority as background plot point ‘movers.’ Here’s what the original plan showed)

I have this mental pic if Ripple ever gets to Canterlot.

Gabby: Ripple convinced my father to let her play with his train set. They spent the whole afternoon in there, messing around with the locomotives and adjusting the scenery.
Pearl: Is that.. bad?
G: Wel... No. Although she got busy with a screwdriver when my father's back was turned... (produces small box that rattles) Once Ripple gets the locomotive put back together, we need to bring it back to him.
Pearl: (long pause) All the way to Canterlot?
G: Yes. (pause, eyes slowly track to Pearl) Not that you have to--
Pearl: Yes. If you'll go with me. And Turpentine.

rest of the day, Gabby is a little foggy, drifts

(Back in the section where Ripple first saw Turpentine)
Tek: yup he never saw her, it’s not like he has a painting to prove him a liar on that, I wonder if you'll make him smart enough to hide it
Me: Well, he is still a little in shock. First female unicorn he sees it will be like
"I didn't see her."
"Who?"
"Your daughter."
TheMaskedFerret: Snerk!

(On the hissing of the waves against the shore of Turpentine’s Island)
Tek: I thought waves lapped not hissed?
Me: These are very snaky waves.
TheMaskedFerret: I had a sudden mental image of all these little water snakes crawling out onto the bank for mating rituals. XD
Me: Small Town Charm with snakes. Brr.

(On the use of the phrase ‘mountain unicorn’ for the Canterlot nobility.)
Tek: may want to use Noble or Canterlot. This mountain bit had me thinking of Gabby as part mountain goat for a minute, after all I believe that Canterlot nobles say ‘bah’ often enough :)
Me: I like that mental picture. I’ll have to see if I can introduce some goat-like climbing into it later as Turp thinks they do. And yodeling, of course.

(On Gaberdine hiring Turpentine)
Tek: what he's not going to ask or Gabby going to state the benefits package?
Me: What, and look a gift horse in the mouth? (sorry! No, not really.)

(On a discussion about Ripple and any future siblings)
Tek: a case of to many cooks spoil the broth I assume, though Ripple not understanding a reference to them trying to put a bun in her mother’s oven could be cute.
Ripple: that doesn't make sense Mom doesn't even have an oven
Me: (I gotta stash that one away for later)
Tek: Ripple: Gabby's the one with the oven, so the bun should go in there :) hmm would a seahorse (where the male incubates the eggs) be to much with this joke?
TheMaskedFerret: Not at all

(On the pegasus sisters and their names, particularly Lemon Drops)
Tek: yup that what I want in a pony's name who is hauling cargo. Drop :)
Me: Who who's your cousin? Horrendous Crash.
Tek: What's her Aunt? Terminal trajectory?
Me: If Rainbow Dash ever has a foal, she's naming it Escape Velocity.
Tek: That or Rainboom or Awesome, since it’s something she produced :-)
Me: And these are the triplets, Awesomesauce, Rainboom, and Are You Kidding!!
Tek: naw the third would be Prankasaurus Rex

(On the discussion of their landing spot in Canterlot)
Tek: shouldn't proximity to the school where their appointment is be a bigger priority than the castle or is the school in the castle, I never did get that aspect of Canterlot geography straight
Me: Yeah, I was jumping the gun.
Tek: Umm when or why did the school become a museum?
Me: (I have to use this) Well, it does house this one ancient old fossil…

(On where Turpentine is touring the castle art gallery)
Tek: reminds me of an old Rupert bear episode which features the "dove of dawn", of course it could be worse they could have referred to her as the worlds largest rooster crowing to bring up the sun :)
Me (in my head): Chicken Boo, Chicken Boo, you don’t do like the other chickens do...
Twilight: She’s a chicken, I tell you! A chicken!

(On the painting of Celestia and Luna in the dandelions)
Tek: one would think being in a field with a bunch of foals and Turp about to paint her would have alarm bells ringing for Celestia
Me: Heheh
Tek: I was thinking of 'that' painting and not just hijinks
Me: "Ok, now who wants to be painted nursing?"

(On Celestia's little arson every century or two)
Tek: sudden vision of Celestia stabilizing a wobbly table with a Rembrandt under a leg just because
Me: Luna: Celly!
Celestia: What? There's a couple dozen of them still in the gallery.
Luna: No, I mean you could have used one of the Renour's. The closet is full of them.
Celestia: (sigh) I guess I better go find the matches.

(On the Royal Sisters and their plot tinkering)
Tek: Sudden vision of the sisters playing croquet or pool with ponies as the balls.
Me: (Celestia aiming her pool cue) Baron in the side pocket, and artist over at the end.

(On naming a young pony Long Division)
TheMaskedFerret: Ah, yes, that evil beast.
Tek: I suddenly have a vision of that pony's job or special talent not being math but the old saw a pony in half trick :)

(On the seaponies helping repaint the riverboat)
Tek: making me think of helpful elves like those that help that cobbler in those old tales.
Me: Why are all these shoes flipper-shaped?

(When Turpentine put the infant Dawn in the store window)
Tek: how much is that pony in the window :)
Themaskedferret: The one with the fluttery wings n_n

Well, that’s all there is for now. I hope you enjoyed our little trip down the river Fen and meeting all of its interesting inhabitants, both above and below the waves. A big thanks to all of the readers and staff on FimFiction.net without which so many quality stories would not have been told, and of course the biggest thanks to Hasbro and the staff of My Little Pony, who have created this wonderful world in which we are privileged to enter.

Thank you all.

— Georg

11 - The Hardest Teacher

Drifting Down the Lazy River
The Hardest Teacher

"It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the right way— and it’s the regular way. And there ain’t no other way, that ever I heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things. "

— The Adventures of Buck Fin

Turpentine wanted to sleep until noon the next day. After all, he and Gaberdine had gotten back from Baltimare in the dark, far later than expected. Although the trip back had given him time to examine the way pegasus wings looked in the moonlight, the Speedy Cargo wagon had still been in the air when the sun set, and Gaberdine nearly had to carry him into the riverboat half-asleep. The image of moving feathers glittering in the silver moonlight even pursued him into his dreams, and when Sen gently shook his shoulder in the light of the morning sun peeking through the cabin windows, Turpentine was momentarily set back by trying to figure out where the old stallion’s wings had gone.

“Good morning, lad. Breakfast is almost ready and I thought you would like to be up and awake when Ripple and Pearl arrive.” A small muscle twitched in Sen's cheek when he added, “Baron Gaberdine has been helping cook this morning.”

“Is anything on fire?” Turpentine held a hoof over his mouth when he yawned, but he was all the way awake now. Gaberdine was the only pony he knew of who could burn orange juice. “At least we have lots of water to put it out.”

“I hope we don’t need it.” Sen took a quick glance over his shoulder and sniffed the air. “Better go back and help him before he figures out I unplugged the toaster.”

Breakfasts on the riverboat were almost as good as Mother Windrow could make, at least if Gaberdine had not burned things too badly. Turpentine hurried through his morning brushing and combing to get to the table, only to be chased out onto the deck by Sen until things were ready. It was probably for the best, because something had gotten into Gaberdine’s coffee this morning. He was as twitchy and jittery as Mother Windrow always got before one of her gentlecolt callers came over, constantly darting to the galley window overlooking the entrance to the lagoon.

So Turpentine went out on the deck and flopped down on his belly to look out across the sunlit lagoon without even his sketchbook to keep him company, only a poppyseed bagel he had snitched off the table. It was a tough, contemplative food worthy of Turpentine’s present mood while he thought about his goals, both short and long-term.

“I probably would have wanted to make my preliminary sketches next to the waterfall at Ripple’s grotto anyway,” he mused out loud to help order his thoughts. “There wasn’t really any place at the school where I would have been comfortable painting her. All of the students would have wanted to watch a princess, and Mister d’Or would have… annoyed her by calling her old or something, like he annoys everypony, I suppose.”

He chewed some more on the tough bagel while watching the morning breeze make little glittering ripples all across the surface of the lagoon. It was peaceful and relaxing until he spotted a pair of v-shaped wakes out in the river inlet. Turpentine had gotten better at being able to spot the motions of underwater seaponies due to their abovewater ripples, and since one of the ripples was smaller than the other, it was most likely Ripple and her mother, here for breakfast as usual.

He checked the sky out of reflex, because the seaponies seemed to have an uncanny ability to spot passing pegasi, then got up to watch for when mother and daughter would emerge from the river, move up the grassy riverbank, and over to the gangplank. He liked to watch every morning, because there was something magical about the way Pearl transitioned from graceful underwater seapony to graceful unicorn, although with large hooves which at first glance would seem horribly ungainly.

Whenever Ripple would flop onto the shore, there was nothing graceful about her energetic motions. Still, she could move like lightning on land, even encumbered by her flippers, and Turpentine was looking forward to seeing just how she would look once she managed to get her transformation spell to work as her mother could do so effortlessly.

He just barely managed to catch a glimpse of the growing wave out of the corner of his eye while turning, allowing Turpentine not to be caught completely flat-hooved when the speeding form of Ripple fairly erupted out of the water next to the riverboat. Soaring through the air with flippers wide open, she caught him around the middle in a flying tackle and sloshed across the deck with Turpentine locked in her vice-like grip. A near tidal wave of water followed her up onto the deck, enough to nearly wash the two of them back over the side again, but he managed to get his hooves on the deck first, spluttering and coughing while Ripple squeezed him with all the energy she could. The world was just starting to go dim when he became aware of Sen standing over them on the deck, gently tapping Ripple on the shoulder and speaking in a low, soothing tone.

“Ripple, you may wanna let go of Turpentine before you squeeze all the air out of him. He’s looking a mite pale.”

“I’m sorry!” Ripple managed at least to relax her wet constrictive hold enough for Turpentine to get a breath of air, but she trembled while holding him and did not move her face from his neck.

“I told you I’d come back,” he managed to gasp.

Ripple did not respond at first, or at least not until her mother glided quietly across the decking to put a hoof on both of their shoulders. She patted them a few times, obviously wishing she could just go jump back into the lagoon again, but eventually cleared her throat and asked in a near-whisper, “Did your trip to Baltimare not go well, Turpentine?”

Her mother’s soothing voice relaxed some of Ripple’s waterlogged grip so Turpentine could afford to talk while breathing, but he really did not know quite how to respond to the question. “Sorta, I suppose,” he managed to say. “Baron Gaberdine… I mean Gabby says the school isn’t quite right for me, and the more I think about it, the righter he seems. I don’t know where he would look, though.”

“Canterlot,” said Sen, who was still dry because he had been standing to one side in order not to get soaked by the recent tiny tidal wave out of the lagoon. He passed a fluffy dry towel to Pearl and two to Ripple before giving them all a short nod. “I’m off to town to mail a few letters, now that we have the kitchen extinguished. One of them is to the Canterlot Prestigious Institute for the Arts, and yes, ‘Prestigious’ is part of their name. Apparently, Duke Prestigious endowed it soon after Canterlot’s construction, and there’s been a member of his family in charge of the place ever since.”

“Canterlot?” Turpentine grimaced as Ripple began using the towel to dry his mane. “That’s an awful long way away. And up on the mountain, all full of high-class unicorns.”

The self-doubts only grew while Pearl and Ripple helped towel him off after his inadvertent bath. Turpentine had seen pictures of the legendary city, and Mother Windrow got the weekend edition of the Canterlot Times for the crosswords and cryptoquotes, so he had read articles about the fancy galas, balls, and parties. The top of Mount Canter was even visible on a clear day if you looked in the right direction and squinted a little, and Mother Windrow had let him stay up late the night Princess Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor were married, so he had seen the fireworks off in the distance, looking like tiny sparks of light. Thinking about going to fabled Canterlot made him feel like a little colt again, and just a little bit afraid.

Still, if he was going to be the famous artist he wanted to be in the future, Canterlot seemed to be where he needed to go. But for now, the present demanded his attention.

The oatmeal only had a few burnt flecks on the surface and the orange juice just had two pieces of peel in it, showing that Sen had caught the baron fairly early in the cooking process, but the rest of breakfast was just as delicious as ever. The only thing out of the ordinary was the way Gaberdine kept running over to the galley window every few minutes as if Santa Hooves were about to arrive on Hearth’s Warming morning.

And right at the end of breakfast, he did. Or at least somepony who Gaberdine treated much the same way. The Santa’s Little Helper in question was riding in a large, speedy riverboat with a smaller boat towed behind it as he sailed across the lagoon. The boat pilot, a cheerful yellow unicorn with a captain’s cap, waved while he pulled his boat up beside Castle Paradise and called out in a loud voice.

“Baron Gaberdine! I got your purchase right here. Ain’t she a beaut?”

“What?” Turpentine looked up at the grinning baron, who was staring entranced out the window, then over at Ripple and her mother. The seaponies seemed conflicted at the sudden appearance of another pony in their isolated lagoon, but at Turpentine’s nod, they both scurried away from the breakfast table to the cabin to hide until he was gone.

“Isn’t she beautiful,” said Gaberdine in an abstracted voice. “I saw her while waiting on you in Baltimare and wrote a check right there. You told me about going water skiing, and I thought that would be a more efficient way to cruise up and down the river than trying to swim the whole length of my domain.”

The motorboat in question was a sleek red model, looking fast even when bobbing beside the much larger riverboat like a baby duckling next to a giant swan. A giant broken-down swan, admittedly, since Gaberdine was overly-optimistic about getting the riverboat out of the lagoon before winter for a test… float, or whatever it was called when a riverboat went out to test all of the repairs done to it over the last few months.

Hopefully, Castle Paradise IV would not sink as several of its predecessors had.

It was more comfortable to watch Gaberdine crawl over his new purchase from the castle deck, even though Turpentine was fairly confident that if he had fallen into the lagoon, he probably would not even get damp before several of Ripple’s aunts would save him. It took remarkably little time for Gaberdine to tie the speedboat up and see the salespony on his way, but he remained in the bobbing craft afterwards, looking into all of the little drawers and doors with all the excitement Turpentine remembered the Hearth’s Warming morning several years ago at the family where he had gotten a paint set.

“It’s got everything,” bubbled Gaberdine. “The most current traffic monitoring enchantments with automatic braking in the event a snag flag is detected, dynamic stabilization for high sea states, and—” Gaberdine pushed a button on the dash with a growing grin that faded ever so slowly until he was frowning. “That’s funny. It’s supposed to blow the horn. Maybe the button only works when the engine is running.”

“Where’s the engine?” asked Turpentine.

“Um…” Gaberdine looked around, then began flipping through the sheaf of papers the salespony had left with him. Turpentine had not seen many small speedboats other than the one the unicorn family upriver had let him ride, but that one had a large and quite noisy engine on the rear.

“Is the salespony gone?” whispered Ripple, peeking over the ship’s rail and looking around the lagoon.

“Yes, I think so.” Turpentine pointed down. “Baron Gaberdine bought a speedboat.”

“Oooo,” said Ripple with a low whistle while she peeked over the rail. “It’s a pretty shade of red. Does that make it go faster, Mister Baron Gaberdine?”

Turpentine rested a hoof on his forehead and sighed. He expected Gaberdine to be irritated or even angry at buying a motorboat without a motor, but the look of consternation on the unicorn’s face only lasted until Ripple’s comment had a chance to soak in, then turned into a sardonic grin and short snort of Gaberdine’s own while he called back up to the two of them.

“No, I think it’s going about as fast as it’s going to go for a while, at least until I buy an engine. I wanted something to carry Turpentine’s painting supplies so he could go paint the areas on the river the two of you visited. The river’s a beautiful place, and I think other ponies deserve to see it through both of your eyes.”

“Really?” asked Turpentine, looking down at the smiling baron. “You mean it’s not for you?”

“Ah… Maybe a little,” admitted Gaberdine.

- ☸ - -

When Turpentine got up enough courage to scramble down the ladder and inspect the speedboat closer, he had to admit, it was cool. There was enough space in it for four ponies in close proximity, or two with Turpentine and his painting gear, and it certainly seemed safe enough, particularly since it would not move without a set of oars or…

“Do you think Ripple could pull the boat, Mister Gaber— I mean Gabby?”

“That’s a great idea!” Ripple bounded out of the little boat and vanished into the lagoon with a quiet splash, quite nearly followed by Turpentine as the motorboat rocked with her departure and he stumbled up against the side. In a few moments, she reappeared with a rope in her magic and floated it over to the boat. “There’s a big ring on the front there, Turpentine. Tie it up there.”

He scrambled up to the front of the boat and began tying the rope to the ring, putting in extra knots to to be safe. When done, he took a step back (a short one) and looked over his work next to Gaberdine while the speedboat began to bob out into the lagoon, pulled by an underwater force. “That seems to work even if it is a little slow,” said Turpentine. “Why am I worried?”

“Experience,” said Gaberdine while spreading his legs out for a more stable stance to counter the bobbing of the speedboat.

Turpentine duplicated his movement and tried to bend his knees with the waves. “I guess it must be what that ring is for, right?”

Gaberdine shook his head and looked back over his shoulder at the castle/riverboat. “No, it’s for attaching a winch so you can bring it up on deck. There’s one on the back too. They’re fixed above the center of gravity so…” The baron paused, his eyes growing wide. “Ripple! Wai—”

The rope went taut.

The front end of the speedboat went forward, but it also went down while the back end of the boat went up. With one loud ‘gloop!’ of outrushing air, the speedboat vanished underwater, leaving Gaberdine and Turpentine paddling on the surface.

Managing to keep his nose above water, Turpentine gasped, “I guess the red ones do go faster.”

“Down, at least,” added Gaberdine while the two of them swam to shore. Fortunately land was fairly close and also fortunately did not have any witnesses to their embarrassment other than Pearl, who was looking over the rail of the riverboat and snickering into one hoof. Ripple popped up behind them and paddled up to match their speed with the tow rope still grasped in her magic and the soggy speedboat surfacing like a red whale behind her.

“Oops?”

Gaberdine chuckled and blew a little water out of his nose while getting to his hooves onto the sandy floor of the lagoon. “We’ll work on it.”

The fix was both easy and complicated. The first solution Gaberdine suggested, buying an actual motor for the motorboat, turned out to be less than optimal, as every motor in the catalog the salespony had helpfully dropped off was labeled ‘Out of Stock’ or ‘Backordered’ in large letters. While Gaberdine and Ripple worked on an engineering solution to their propulsion shortage, Turpentine took a break on the sunlit deck of the riverboat to dry out and talk with Sen.

There had been a crane on the side of Castle Paradise to winch a boat onto the deck, but Sen said it had broken a decade ago and the pieces were stored below decks. They both dutifully tromped down the stairs and took a look at the components, which did not look that badly-bent except in a few spots, and there was a blacksmith shop in Gravel Flats which could probably piece them back together. After a side-trip to examine the disassembled steam pistons which Gaberdine was on his third attempt at reassembling, Turpentine took a long look around the engineering space of the riverboat and sighed.

“It just seems too complicated for one pony to operate. How did you and Baron Miller manage for all those years?”

“Ain’t really that complicated.” Sen brushed a hoof across a nearby dented blue pipe, then swept into a grand gesture across the greasy and dark equipment all through the room. “Everything has its place and its purpose, jes’ like them puzzles Baron Gabby keeps goin’ on about. I started as Baron Miller’s cabin colt about the same age you are now and took over for his seneschal when the old coot retired. Seneschal Sentinel, that is, not Baron Miller. He was a retired Royal Guard, an’ loved goin’ all up and down the river with the baron. A mare in every port, or at least until they caught up with him and dragged him away to be married. Still don’t know which one tied him down, on account I was kinda-sorta promoted to be the seneschal in his unfortunate absence. By then, I nearly had the whole manual memorized, an’ a pretty good grasp on the way the parts of the ship that weren’t in no manual worked too. You can’t just expect to walk in and know everything from teachers, young lad. You gotta go out and live it for yourself. Reckon you thought art school in Baltimare was gonna teach you everything, am I right?”

“Yeah,” admitted Turpentine. “Until I met Ripple. Still, I thought there’d be at least something I could learn from the school.”

“Everything and everypony is a lesson.” Sen reached out with one hoof and tapped a nearby pipe, which was color-coded a dark blue. “After Sentinel quit, Baron Miller tried hiring himself a engineer. Nice young colt with a talent for fixin’ stuff, but he was color-blind. Couldn’t read the color codes and wound up cross-connecting the steam pipes with the septic tank. Blew Baron Miller right off the toilet one morning. If’n he had paid any attention to what I was sayin’ while he was working, he wouldn’t have screwed up. So what lesson does that teach you, Turpentine?”

“Listen when others try to tell you things, and think before you act.” After chewing on his bottom lip for a while, he added, “He didn’t sound like a very good example of an engineer.”

“Everypony’s an example. You. Me. Princess Luna.” Sen patted the pipe again as if he were reassuring a loyal dog. “Some ponies are just bad examples.”

“So we learn from both the good things and bad things that happen to us.” Turpentine thought about his trip to Baltimare, and the ponies he had met. “Like three hooves over a restaurant doesn’t mean the food is any good, and just because an art school is famous, doesn't mean it’s a good place to learn about painting… That is, a good place to learn positive things about painting.”

Sen had a quirky way of smiling where only one corner of his lips turned up and one eye squinted. It made him look almost like a pirate, or at least a happy pirate. “I can see why Gabby thinks so much of you, lad. Most ponies, when the words go in one ear they don’t do much inside the noggin, but with you, they come out in unexpected ways.”

“Painting helps me get my thoughts together.” Turpentine nudged the pieces of the boat crane to see how heavy they were. “While Ripple and Mister Gaberdine… I mean Gabby. While they work on the boat, why don’t we take the broken crane into town and see if they can fix it. I should be able to make a drawing for the blacksmith to show how it’s all supposed to fit. And,” he added quickly, “I’ll carry the pieces so you don’t have to strain your back.”

- ☸ - -

He should have been using his time to prepare for Luna’s upcoming portrait sitting, but Turpentine found it more enjoyable to follow Sen around for a few days, getting the parts of the boat winch over to the repair pony in Gravel Flats, shopping for groceries at the market, and getting up early to help with breakfast. Sen was a lot like a male version of Mother Windrow for Baron Gaberdine, but Turpentine did not bring it up, because he was afraid of being laughed at.

Besides, Turpentine could cook.

Spending mornings with Sen was not as much fun… well, it was a different kind of fun than going out in the afternoon with Ripple to explore places in the river he might want to paint. The water seemed to be getting colder by the day, but it was still fun to be towed at high speed through the river to the various brooks and estuaries filled with colorful pebbles across the streambottom or overhanging trees making shaded tunnels to play tag inside. Eventually, it would be too cold for Turpentine to spend time underwater, and Ripple would be alone under the ice with her aunts again. Even if Gaberdine could get a new motor for his fancy new motorless-boat, it would not be a very usable substitute in the cold weather. Until then, in the afternoons Turpentine found himself in the rather strange position of helping Gaberdine test just how his motorless motorboat performed with a substitute power source.

“We got an eye bolt stuck through the centerline post on the boat,” explained Ripple, pointing at where the back end of the bolt came up out of the floor and was supported by a substantial washer. “A couple of my aunts volunteered to pull, and Mister Baron Gaberdine found a sound spell to make a motorboat noise, so anypony watching won’t get suspicious.”

“That doesn’t explain why I’m here. Why am I here? Why not somepony else?” asked Turpentine through the grip he had on the wooden handle of the tow rope. He shifted positions uncomfortably, with the two water skis strapped to his hooves making him even more awkward than Ripple.

“We need an excuse to go out and cruise up and down the river so we can test the boat configuration,” said Ripple as if it were the dumbest question in the world. “It’s perfectly safe. You can always adjust the throttle by screaming. If it goes too fast, just scream and my aunts will slow down.”

“Can I start screaming now?”

Ripple giggled and booped him on the nose with one flipper. “You’re silly.”

- ☸ - -

In the end, Turpentine did not scream very much, mostly because he found out a good, loud scream meant letting go of the tow rope with his mouth open when he pitched forward into the churning wake behind the speedboat. That did not keep him from whimpering a lot while being pulled up and down the river with Baron Gaberdine proudly steering his new purchase. Turpentine even got to sit in the boat and pretend to steer when Gaberdine decided he wanted to see what water skiing was like too, which went about as wet as expected.

Still, the little boat did make a good way to transport Turpentine’s painting equipment. He managed to get a part of the afternoon to sketch a few drawings of the little seapony grotto while Ripple watched and Gaberdine went off with Pearl to do something else. Over the next few days, they visited the grotto several times, finding it both a relaxing place to just sit and talk, as well as an inspirational place to paint using the shading technique Caractère had taught him.

And before Turpentine realized, the morning of Princess Luna’s scheduled sitting had arrived.

- ☸ - -

To be honest, Turpentine had expected Princess Luna to arrive sometime early in the morning, most likely after breakfast, when Baron Gaberdine would have the speedboat ready for their fairly short trip upriver to the grotto. He really did not expect to be awoken by a pair of glowing golden eyes just a few inches from his face, but after having Ripple wake him up that way several times, at least he did not panic. In fact, the slender batpony mare who was intently staring at him seemed familiar, even in the dim light of his cabin.

“Miss Syrette? Is Princess Luna here already?” Turpentine rubbed his eyes and suppressed a yawn. “Let me get my brushes and—”

“Go back to sleep, Turpentine.” The nurse put a hoof onto the center of Turpentine’s chest and pressed down slightly as he tried to get up. “I’m just here a little early for your checkup, and I wanted to see how you were breathing after your little bout with the flu.” She giggled, but in an extremely quiet fashion to keep her voice from being heard outside the cabin. “When you woke up, I was afraid you were going to scream.”

There was just the tiniest flicker of regret in those big golden eyes, as if the nurse had frightened a lot of little foals who were not perceptive enough to see the soft and kind soul behind those sharp teeth and strange oval pupils. Turpentine put one of his own smaller hooves over hers and patted gently.

“That’s okay. I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep anyway. Why don’t I get breakfast started and we can wait for Ripple. You’re going to want to check up on her too, right?”

“I…” The nurse blinked, and her somewhat artificial smile smoothed out into a real one. “Yes, of course. I’d be more than happy to join you for breakfast.”

- ☸ - -

It was not that much earlier than Turpentine had been getting up anyway, and he had wanted to try out the waffle maker in any case. The slender batpony mostly stayed out of the way and watched him work, although she did offer to get the blueberries out of the icebox and helped smush the oranges. It made Turpentine curious after a while, because he had not seen any other of the nocturnal ponies other than Miss Syrette, and eventually he had to ask the question which would not leave his head.

“Do batpony families adopt?”

It seemed to catch Syrette off-guard, and Turpentine quickly moved to clarify. “Not that I want you to adopt me. I mean it would be nice, having a nurse as a mother, but I don’t think I would like staying up at night and sleeping during the day.”

Syrette nodded. “You’re not the only one. You know what it’s like when a unicorn is born into an earth pony family, or a pegasus has a non-pegasus foal? Most of the families can adapt to differences like that, but when a foal wants to sleep all day and be awake all night, even the best of parents can get a little…”

Turpentine had never been adopted by a family with a newborn of their own, but he could remember when he had to share the orphanage with the occasional foal who had been given up by the natural parents or taken away due to abuse. Most of them had at least slept partway through the night, but to have one with a sleep schedule completely inverted from his own would have been a continuing nightmare.

“So, do batponies even have families of their own?” Turpentine squinted a little as he thought, because it helped, or at least it felt that way.

“Big families, called clans, who all live in one house and help share the various family responsibilities.” Syrette tousled his mane and grinned. “We adopt nocturne from all over Equestria whenever the original parents can’t take care of them, and in return, we… um…”

It was a fairly short logical step to his response. “So batponies with non-batpony foals give them up for adoption in exchange?” Turpentine sprinkled some water on the waffle maker and decided to wait until it heated up some more. “It makes sense, but it sounds a little like trading hoofball cards on the playground. We never had anypony come by the orphanage to make an exchange. Well, other than when they brought me back.”

It was obviously an uncomfortable topic for the both of them, but the nurse let out her breath and continued. “Maybe it is a little awkward. I’ve only met with my birth parents twice in the last few years, but my sister… well, my sister by another mother, she’s doing well. Sells insurance in Fillydelphia, has a foal and one on the way. Day ponies, of course. We write.”

“Oh.” It sounded even more complicated than Ripple’s family. “What about your clan in Canterlot?”

It was as if the moon had emerged from behind a cloud. Syrette fairly radiated happiness from the way she fluttered her lashes, even though she looked down at the table. “Just over thirty of us now, with one on the way. That’s one of the reasons I came down here today. Your Mother Windrow is taking care of a little nocturne colt whose parents are giving him up for adoption. As soon as I give you two a clean bill of health, I get to fly up there and give him a quick once-over.”

- ☸ - -

After he woke up and saw Nurse Syrette at the breakfast table, Sen seemed pleased that his tiny little kitchen was being put to good use. The rest of the ponies had somewhat different responses when they took their plates of waffles and sat down to eat with their guest. Baron Gaberdine made a rather strange statement about how he did not realize how being a sailor attracted so many beautiful mares or he would have run off to join the navy when he was Turpentine’s age, although Pearl was somewhat cool to the nurse, and Ripple still seemed to be holding a grudge over her flu shot from last time.

It took until Sen and Gaberdine were washing dishes in the bright light of dawn for Syrette to speak up, probably from the way Turpentine kept opening up the curtains to look nervously out the window.

“Princess Luna’s not coming out today, Turpentine.” Syrette rooted around in her saddlebag while looking for something and eventually came out with a pair of her sunglasses. “There, that’s better.”

“Oh.” Turpentine tried not to look as disappointed as he felt, but he could feel his ears droop down and he could not look in the young nurse’s direction. “That’s okay, I guess.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Time out.” Syrette nudged his chin up and looked him in the eyes, or at least as much as the dark sunglasses allowed. “What’s wrong? Are you still sick? I need to do both of your one-week checkups and give you each a last booster shot.” Syrette held a hoof up to Turpentine’s forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a fever, but—”

“That’s fine,” insisted Turpentine. “I’m fine. I knew she didn’t want to come out and be painted by me. You don’t have to make excuses for her.”

Instead of acting as Turpentine expected, Syrette giggled, going so far as to bring one dark wing forward far enough to cover her face. She fairly quaked with suppressed mirth, much like one of Mother Windrow’s fruit salad gelatin desserts, and gave out a brief snort before attempting to regain her composure and look back at her subject.

“Is that all?” The nurse gave a brief sideways glance at Pearl, who seemed somewhat confused by the attention. “Pearl was right. You are a serious little colt. No, the reason why Princess Luna is unable to sit for a portrait today is—” Syrette giggled again, but kept it short “—she’s sick.”

“She’s sick? echoed Turpentine.

“With the flu.”

“Oh, no.” Turpentine tried to think of something apologetic to say, but the nurse just giggled some more.

“Oh, yes! Alicorns make the worst patients. She won’t go to bed, she won’t stay there, she keeps dragging herself out to court, and all of the royals scatter whenever she shows up all coughing and wheezing. They’re calling her ‘Princess Fluna’ now.”

“It’s my fault. She must have caught it from me,” said Turpentine, but the nurse refused to let him mope about it.

“It’s her fault. She didn’t get her flu shot this year, and she won’t rest so she can get better.”

The early-morning glow of the dawn suddenly got much brighter as the sun fairly exploded up into the sky and hung there, vibrating in place. “Celestia caught it too,” explained the nurse.

- ☸ - -

After the batpony nurse gave Turpentine his booster shot and went out to find Ripple wherever she was hiding this morning (most probably in order to avoid her own preventive punctuation), Turpentine went to his room to get out his watercolors and a fresh piece of paper. Seeing the sun move back to its correct location with what looked like an embarrassed shuffle had given him an idea. It only took a few minutes to rough out a sketch, but while he worked, Baron Gaberdine stepped into the bedroom behind him.

“I talked to Syrette just now when we cornered Ripple in the engine room and got her booster shot administered. Sounds like our royal reception will be delayed until Princess Luna has recovered enough to reschedule. What are you doing?”

“Working on a get-well card for Princess Luna, since I’m the one who gave her the flu,” said Turpentine. “Mother Windrow always had me do one for anypony in town who got sick. Said it made them get better faster.”

“Let me get you something first.” Gaberdine slipped out of Turpentine’s room for a minute and returned with a thick and most probably extremely expensive piece of high-quality paper. It held the ink of the line drawing almost perfectly while he converted his rough sketch into a more finished form, drawing with long, sweeping lines.

The new art materials the baron had purchased for him in Baltimare really made a difference, being smoother and higher-quality than anything Turpentine or Mother Windrow had been able to afford before. Even the watercolors flowed well as he filled in between the lines with as close to the coloring of the two princesses as he could.

At the orphanage, the magazine articles Mother Windrow collected had made a lot of references to Princess Luna, but more as if they were promoting some new product, like she was a doll for little fillies to buy and comb her mane. The photographs of Luna had always bothered Turpentine, because they all seemed to show a hesitancy and timidness the young mare had been unable to hide.

Certainly, the sisters he had met in school never acted that way. Sisters should be frivolous and mischievous, and while he finished up the painting of Celestia and Luna in their sickbeds, each with an ice pack on their head and one of the more preferable thermometers in their mouth, he could not help but draw the busy nurses surrounding them with the same patient and tolerant expressions on their faces that Mother Windrow wore whenever he had been ill. He even decorated each bed with a cartoonish drawing of the sun and moon, both also with red cheeks and thermometers just like their royal guardians.

He finished by writing in the white space left behind, “Stay in bed, drink lots of fluids, and listen to your doctors. T.”

It took until he had put the ink pen back into its holder before Turpentine realized he had an audience. Four ponies were crammed into the back of his room, even though Pearl had just her head poking in the doorway and Ripple was sitting on his bed.

“Very nice,” said Gaberdine. He used his magic to pick up the ink pen and added a script ‘G’ next to Turpentine’s message, and passed the pen to Ripple and Pearl, who each added their own letters. “Watercolors, I presume?” asked Gaberdine once the signing was over.

“Yes, sir. I mean Gabby.” Turpentine put the pen back away and started cleaning his new brushes. “It’s still a little wet, so I’m glad I wrote the cover on the other side before I start—” The pale blue of Gaberdine’s magic covered the watercolor painting, and in an instant it was perfectly dry.

“I’ve gotten very good at that spell over the last few months,” said Gaberdine. “I know not to use it on oils, but it should be just fine for watercolors.” He checked the cursive ‘Get Well’ written in broad strokes across the other side of the paper, then took a long look at the painting of the two alicorns, depicted with bright reddish noses and boxes of tissues scattered around them. After a moment, he shook his head with a muffled snort which might have been a laugh. “Perfect. They’ll love it. Ripple, do you want to do the honors?”

The light green of Ripple’s magic touched one corner of the paper which promptly burst into fire, consuming the entire painting before Turpentine could blink. The smoke rose up and drifted through the door while Turpentine whirled around, his eyes wide open but unable to speak due to the conflicting emotions churning around in his head.

“Dragonfire imbued paper,” said Gaberdine with a calm smile. “From here to Celestia in just a few seconds. It’s how Ripple sent a message to her when you were so—”

“Celestia? Princess Celestia?” Turpentine looked frantically out the door with the hopes of being able to find a jar and catch the smoke before it got away, but he was far too late.

“Luna’s a princess too, even if they’re both royal stinkers. I’m thinking it’s just what those two need.” Syrette giggled again and pointed to his initial sketch. “Can I keep that?”

“I…” Turpentine took a deep breath and tried not to panic any more than he already had. It was only a silly drawing, and he was a very young artist. Certainly Princess Celestia would not be too angry. The nurse did not look as if she was worried. It was her fault, after all, with those mischievous eyes making him all scramble-brained after waking him up so early.

“I suppose,” he said while a plan blossomed inside his head. “On one condition.”

- ☸ - -

The morning sun lit the rock-lined grotto with a welcome warmth fighting against the chill breeze leftover from last night. The trip to the seapony relaxation spot had been without incident, as several of Ripple’s aunts pulled the motorless motorboat with Syrette sitting inside next to Turpentine. Ripple had suggested that she use one of the water skiing ropes to be towed like a glider, but the idea was vetoed, because the curious ponies along the riverbank would probably ignore a speedboat, but not one with a batpony in tow.

It took a little while to get all of his equipment set up, but after both the sketching and painting easels had been set up and Turpentine framed out the scene on both of them, he called out to the nurse, “Miss Syrette, if you could please stand over by the waterfall?”

“Since you asked so nicely.” The batpony took her directions well, backing up into the waterfall and extending her wings as requested. It took a while to get her arranged just the way he wanted, but the river was warm even this late in the season and she seemed to be enjoying both the attention and the sensation of water cascading off her. Between the pencil and the paintbrushes, Turpentine was fully engaged with his work for a long time, long enough that the seaponies started to come up out of the water around him in order to talk to Syrette about minor medical issues and peek over his shoulder while he worked.

His jaw was cramping up by the time he had gotten the lines and the colorful way trickles of water sparkled when they ran off the nurse’s mane just the way he wanted. He put away his brushes while Syrette took a peek at his paper, with her mane and tail draped in several dry towels.

“That’s… um…”

“Sexy,” said one of the seaponies over his shoulder, which nearly made Turpentine look back to see who it was if not for the certainly of all of them vanishing back into the river. He cocked his head to one side and took a longer look at the unfinished painting. With the shading provided by the acrylic undercoat lines, it popped out of the canvas better than anything he had done before, but it did not look sexy. Admittedly, he had painted Syrette in a pose much like some of the undergarment models in Mother Windrow’s magazines, but had not drawn any clothes. He looked back and forth between the batpony mare and the painting with a thoughtful frown.

“Do you think it would look better if I painted some underthings on you?”

“No!” blurted out Syrette, although she blushed at the titters of amusement from the watching seaponies. “That… um…”

“I wish I could have painted it at night for more realistic shadows,” said Turpentine. “Princess Luna just comes to life in the dark.”

“That she does,” agreed the nurse. “But I don’t think you should be painting any underthings on her either. It’s… um…”

The painting did seem to be quite ‘um,’ as Syrette looked at it a long time before she gave a definite upward jerk to her chin and a small smile crept onto her face. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think if you paint Princess Luna this way, with feathers and without underthings, of course, she will love it.”

- ☸ - -

The next few days fell into an awkward routine for Turpentine. As a guest at Castle Paradise, he was treated… well, as a guest instead of the young working pony he had always been before. It bothered him far more than he told anypony, so he made his best effort to be useful around the castle while waiting for the results of Baron Gaberdine’s letter writing. He got up in the morning with Sen to help make breakfast, and helped as much as he could below decks while Baron Gaberdine worked on the steam engine, or just stayed on deck and painted if Ripple was around, because she was a much better mechanical helper than he was.

After the two of them had lunch with Ripple, she would take Turpentine out to another one of her beautiful places on the river for the afternoon, which was an awful lot guest-like, but he excused it under the principle of diversifying his experiences, as Caractère had suggested.

In the evening over dinner in the small but efficient castle galley, Ripple would tell Baron Gaberdine all about their afternoon and any work out on the river she had done in the morning, although Turpentine suspected Pearl had already informed him while they had been out having fun. All of them including Sen would spend some time playing boardgames or reading out on the castle deck until the sun went down, and then Ripple would vanish off with her mother to their underwater home while Turpentine would return to his cabin to make a few more sketches before going to bed too.

It made Turpentine feel more like an odd duck than ever, or perhaps the misplaced puzzle piece that Baron Gaberdine considered him to be. It was bad enough that when he was in the middle of an underwater landscape one morning and Sen had dropped by to say he was going to town to get groceries, Turpentine had dropped his brush into the solvent and trotted right after the elderly earth pony, catching up with him just as he left the gangplank.

“Wait up, Seneschal,” called Turpentine, even though the call was largely superfluous, due to Sen’s slow pace.

“Ay, lad. That I’ll do willingly.” He did not stop his slow trudge, but he did look over his shoulder when Turpentine drew up beside him and slowed to his pace. “Going a little stir-crazy on the ship, young lad?”

Turpentine really did not know how to respond other than nodding briefly.

“Ya, ya. The old girl can wear on you,” said Sen. “I’ve been walking her decks nigh on fifty years now, ever since she was a new ship straight out of the Baltimare yards. The old baron, he tore the bottom out of the Paradise III on some rocks, and that took some doin’ I’ll tell you, on account of the riverboats don’t draw much more water than a cup. Then he up and died when he slipped on a gangplank while shopping for a new one in Baltimare, an’ his grandson took that as a sign.”

“A sign of what?” asked Turpentine. “Slippery when wet?”

Sen chuckled. “On Sale, Price Reduced. Got ‘em to knock over fifteen percent off. Oh, it was a wonderful time. Up and down the river, with mares wavin’ to us in every port. Baron Miller, he was a cagy old cuss, but he could pinch a bit until it squealed. When somethin’ needed fixing, he made sure it got fixed right, but if it were just some gee-gaw cluttering up the ship, out it went.” Sen eyed the little colt strolling along to his side. “But I suppose you don’t want to hear about some old stallion, do you boy?”

“Actually… yes.” Turpentine made an abortive wave of one hoof after a passing mosquito while hopping on three legs for a second. “Baron Miller taught Ripple all about the boat… I mean ship, but I’ve never seen a picture of him. I thought I could maybe paint one for Baron Gaberdine as thanks for putting me up while he looks for another art school for me. Once I get my picture of Princess Luna done, it sounds like he may have another school he wants me to try.” Turpentine caught the troublesome mosquito landing on his rear and squashed it with one precise flick of his tail.

“Practical.” Sen nodded in agreement. “Most likely if you offered him money, he’d turn you down, but a portrait, that’s a coin of a different denomination.”

- ☸ - -

Although Sen did not have any recent photographs of Baron Miller, he did have a way of describing the old pegasus stallion that brought him to life in Turpentine’s head. While Sen reminisced about their river journeys together, Turpentine sketched out a few line drawings of the baron’s square chin, his steely eyes, and the awkward way his feathers always stuck up on both wings, due to a birth defect that made flying difficult for him. A few of the town residents added their own tidbits of information, including Madam Shutters at the stall and breakfast, who had inherited his captain’s hat. It was ratty and stained, with the white top being more an ivory shade and the black bill having faded to a patchy grey, and nothing left of the golden thread but holes, but it brought a youthful smile back to Sen’s face, particularly when Madam Shutters gave it to Turpentine by putting it on his head and refusing to take it back.

“You wanted to see what the old reprobate was like,” said the old mare with a wink. “He wore that old hat every day I’d ever seen him. Said it gave him luck, an’ you’ve got the look of somepony who needs a little luck of their own.”

It was really too large for his head and made Turpentine’s ears bend down in an uncomfortable fashion from where they stuck out of the holes in the sides, but it did feel ‘lucky’ in some small way. The old stallion had seen so much of the top side of the river, and Turpentine had just gotten a little glimpse of the underwater side, which made him feel a little like a reflection of the gentlestallion when he looked in the mirror and gave the hat a generous rake to one side.

After he helped carry the groceries back to the ship, Turpentine managed to convince Sen to dig out his old photograph collection, which soon attracted Baron Gaberdine, all grease-splattered and dirty from working on Castle Paradise’s piston rebuilding. It baffled Turpentine how a unicorn who held things without touching them could get so greasy, but whenever Ripple helped out with the ongoing rebuild, she was just as smeared with oil or even more.

One picture in particular caught Turpentine’s eye, slightly blurry and out of focus as if the camera user had moved while shooting, but it showed the old baron posing in front of the steamboat with a much younger Sen in the background. They both were sporting mustaches of generous volume and length, with straw boater hats and matching vests, making them look as if they were in a singing group of some sort.

“That’s from the Mill Stream’s Winter Wrap-Up Song and Dance Contest,” explained Sen. “Every year, we’d pick up a dozen or so partygoers from downriver and shuttle them to and from the contest. Let ‘em blow the whistle and everything. That’s where I met Missus Shutters back when she was still married. We did the trip every Spring until the old baron sprained an ankle and couldn’t dance any more. Still stopped by once in a while just to watch. Those were the days.” Sen chuckled as he held the photo, lost in his memories.

- ☸ - -

Several days later, Turpentine had reached the end of his patience with his project. Using the photograph of the old baron, he had tried to make a painting of Sen and Baron Miller, but every time he hit the wings, things just went sideways. After his third attempt had ended with the unfinished painting floating in the lagoon, Turpentine had been coaxed out from under his bed with the most sincere promise from Baron Gaberdine that he would ‘fix it.’

The ‘fix’ apparently involved a pre-dawn wakeup call and a brisk walk through Gravel Flats to the Speedy Cargo office, whose wagon was loaded down with radishes and parsnips for the sisters’ weekly trip to Baltimare and the surrounding vicinity.

“Here you go, girls.” Baron Gaberdine dropped a pouch of bits into Powderpuff’s outstretched hoof and patted Turpentine on the head. “Have fun in Baltimare. I’ll see you this evening.”

“Wait!” Turpentine’s eyes could not decide whether to look at the wagon or the departing tan stallion, who was not stopping. “You said you were going to fix how I can’t paint feathers.”

“You said you’re a big colt now,” said Gaberdine over his shoulder. “Powderpuff is going to drop you off at The Painting Palette before they do the rest of their deliveries. They’ll pick you back up when they’re done with their delivery route and you can tell me how it all went this evening. Sen packed you a lunch, and there’s bits in your bag for supplies and bribes for that old codger who runs the place. Last week, it sounded like he really knows how to paint feathers, so have him show you. Enjoy your day!”

And with that, the young baron passed around a corner and vanished, leaving Turpentine alone with the two pegasus sisters.

- ☸ - -

“Can’t believe he just left me,” grumbled Turpentine as he shouldered open the door to The Painting Palette. “Sending a little colt into the big city with a bag full of bits. It’s irresponsible, that’s what it is.”

“Good morn, Turpentine,” said Caractère from where he had been opening the shades to the large front windows of the store. “I thought you said last week you were a big colt.”

“I am! It’s just…” After a brief consideration of his vanishing logical high ground, Turpentine dug into his saddlebag and got out Gaberdine’s bag of bits. “Here.”

The old pegasus took the bag and looked inside with a low whistle. “So, you have robbed a Baltimare bank and are looking for poor, old Caractère to hide you until the polizia have finished searching, yes?”

“No.” Turpentine was trying to scowl, but his eyes kept getting caught by bits and pieces of tempting floor displays, and an entire spectrum of oil paints out on display like some overly enthusiastic rainbow. “The date for my sitting with Princess Luna got pushed back, and I need to get more supplies for my practice piece. I was going through canvas like it was paper for a while, even scraping off the old failures. I just can’t get feathers to come out right!”

The storekeeper snorted deep in his throat, then coughed twice into a kerchief which he tucked back into his vest. “Sorry, getting over a cold. Don’t be embarrassed about painting over your failures. The old masters did it all the time. Didn’t you read any of those books your friend bought for you?” At Turpentine’s incriminating silence, Caractère pulled one of the books off a nearby shelf and leafed through it. “Foolish children, always wanting to make their own mistakes. Here. Read before you do anything else. You can read, can’t you?”

Grumbling to himself, Turpentine settled down at the table. It was just a dumb old history book, even if it was about artists and their works, but the longer he read it, the more interesting it got, particularly the section on Cloudsdale artists. He took to doodling in his sketchbook while reading, with the old pegasus owner dropping by the table every once in a while to see how he was progressing. Most of the time at school, Turpentine had only figuratively nibbled at books, but he fairly devoured this one, using the book’s example diagrams to make notes and little practice drawings as he went.

“They all did feathers a different way, but they all worked,” he said to Caractère when the elderly stallion dropped by the table during a break from helping customers.

“Everypony does feathers different. Here, come look at your painting from last week and tell me what you did wrong.”

The painting of Caractère’s granddaughter looked different to Turpentine’s eyes now that it had a week to dry and his mind had some time to wrap around the concept of feathers. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Turpentine, squinting with his nose almost against the dry paint. “I didn’t really do anything. Can I borrow a brush and some paint again? I’d like to fix it.”

“I thought you might.” The old stallion reached behind the display of art supplies and pulled out a primed and outlined canvas, which he put on the second easel. “I was going to see if I could do your painting in the style of Cotton Boll, but I only got this far before my neck cramped up again. Let’s see what you can do from scratch. Again, but better this time.”

- ☸ - -

Time slipped away from Turpentine while he sat in the front window of the store and painted, trying to make the feathers in the portrait breathe the way the photographs in the books had. Caractère dropped by to offer encouragement and advice whenever he had a break between customers, and by the time he broke for lunch, there were several ponies outside the store window just watching the young colt work.

He barely tasted the sauerkraut and mango salad Sen had packed before he was back with a brush in his teeth and the flowing lines of wings filling his mind. The owner of the store was a great help with the finer details, making several references to various old masters and their techniques, each of which he seemed to be able to describe and demonstrate with ease. Still, none of the styles matched exactly what Turpentine wanted to do with the sweeping rows of feathers, even after having Caractère bring his own wing over for a nose-length examination of the faded feathers. A fusion of techniques fit Turpentine’s own painting preferences better, with little flicks of the fine brush for details and vanes, and dry brushing for the way the light glistened off the oils on the surface layers of the secondary feathers.

It was almost a shock when Powderpuff touched him on the shoulder, making Turpentine realize the shadows in the streets were starting to get long and the store should have closed nearly an hour ago.

“Coo, you’ve got a sweet touch with the brush there,” said the pink pegasus with her head cocked to one side while she looked between the two different paintings of Caractère and Sympathique in the restaurant. “Yer gettin’ better too. It’s worth gettin’ home late tonight. Princess Luna’s gonna be awful proud of bein’ painted by a sharp colt like you.”

“He still didn’t get the eyes right,” grumbled Caractère before carrying Turpentine’s bags over to him. They were stuffed to the top, with a half-dozen primed canvas blanks in a bag to one side, and he hoofed them over while escorting his last two customers to the door.

“Since you were busy, I took the liberty of packing your purchases. Your change is in your saddlebag, and I’ll let the painting dry here so you can pick it up next week. Just do me a favor.” The old shop owner paused once Turpentine and his older escort were outside of the door. “Just… paint Princess Luna with her eyes closed.”