Tales of an Equestrian Mare

by Durandal

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Adventure
Length: 56747

A stranded unicorn adventurer passes the time with tales of the far-flung countries she has visited.

Hearthfire, unicorn adventurer, and her intrepid cat, Cas, are left stranded deep in the Saddle Arabian desert after crashing her plane. There, she is rescued by a band of nomadic pegasus ponies, who offer her passage back to civilization.

To pass the time on their journey, Hearthfire tells stories of the places she has seen, from the ever-changing floating city where the enigmatic sea ponies co-exist with their terrestrial cousins, to the frozen wastes at the edge of the world where the hardy cow-folk do battle with the elements and terrifying monsters, to the high castles of the mountain-dwelling griffons, and even to the ephemeral city of spirits.

* * *

This is my attempt at National Pony Writing Month. I'm intending to post each day's content as it comes, so we'll see how that works out, I guess. Unfortunately it means that each chapter likely won't stop or start in very sensible places, so I apologise for that in advance.

Fifty-thousand words in one month, so the target word count per day is 1,613.

If I can be bothered, I'll see about throwing together a cover image this month as well. Until now, have a semi-unrelated bit of art from the previous version of this character.

Published 2012-08-03 00:44:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-09-08 23:02:09 UTC

Chapter 2

The night passed without much discomfort, between Hearthfire’s canvas serving as a groundsheet, and a pair of loaned animal hides coupling with her own thick cloak to keep off the night’s chill. Along with the warmth of the fire embers and Cas snuggling up beside her, it was almost pleasant, and the pair slept soundly, undisturbed by the gentle sounds of other ponies snoring or talking in hushed tones around the perimeter of the camp.

It had been a gruelling week of brief stop overs and even briefer naps while waiting for her tiny plane to be refuelled. She had slept in cheap inns, on concrete hangar floors, by the side of tiny airstrips, at whatever time of day or night she ended up making her landing. To sleep an entire night, in a quiet place, with actual blankets, was practically a luxury.

By the time she was gently shaken awake by a grinning Cloud Flower holding a bowl of porridge and a smattering of dried fruit, the camp was beginning to dissolve back into its constituent parts. The fire was gone, sand scuffed over the charcoal remains, and in every direction figures were moving about their morning tasks with a busy determination that put Hearthfire in mind of a swarm of insects, all working individually toward a shared goal. In the light of day, she realised that there weren’t just pegasi here, but also a handful of earth ponies and even one or two other unicorns; in fact, the band was not even composed solely of ponies. What she had taken to be unusually shaped rocks or piles of luggage in the dark turned out to be bulky-bodied, spindly-limbed camels.

Standing up, the creatures were giants, easily twice the size of the average mare, perhaps even taller than the rare alicorns, the largest of the pony breeds. To a pony seeing them for the first time, they might appear monstrous, all gangly legs and odd, lumpy bodies, but you couldn’t go a day without encountering one in this part of the world, and Hearthfire had always found them pleasant company, if somewhat rough around the edges. They were far better adapted to desert life than any pony, and were often highly sought for their expertise in survival and navigation in one of the most hostile environments in the world, as well as their great stamina and strength.

In the midst of the departure preparations, Hearthfire found herself lost and bewildered. Cloud Flower had made ‘good morning’ sounding noises and vanished back into the maelstrom, and while she was no stranger to travelling with caravans, it was obvious that this was a group who had been living together for a long time, and knew their jobs inside and out. She felt that she should be helping out, but had no idea where to begin.

Instead, she jimmied open a tin of cat food from her supplies for Cas, wolfed down the porridge as quickly as she dared, and set about making good her own belongings; a task which took under five minutes, and left her sitting uselessly by the remains of the fire, waiting until the caravan was ready to leave.

As she waited, Hearthfire became slowly aware that she was being watched. While most of the folk around her were too busy for curiosity about last night’s newcomer - at least for now - there was one little face peering out at her from behind the wheel of a nearby wagon. It vanished when it noticed that it had been spotted, only to appear again a few seconds later, looking sheepish. Hearthfire put on her best dealing-with-foals smile, and motioned for the watcher to come closer.

The foal, when it emerged, was a light green unicorn filly with a wavy hay-coloured mane and the very round, oversized eyes common to young ponies, rendered in a soft violet shade.

“Hello, there,” Hearthfire began, with an exaggerated, friendly hoof-wave. “I am Hearthfire. What’s your name?”

Pantomime pointing, to indicate each pony being talked about. She was rewarded with a string of Saddle Arabian, in the same unfamiliar dialect. Completely unintelligible to her when spoken at full speed. Of course.

The conversation went back and forth, with Hearthfire unable to work out if any of the words flying past her ears were supposed to have been an introduction. The filly didn’t seem to get why Hearthfire couldn’t understand, and was beginning to pout from frustration. Hearthfire, for her part, was beginning to panic. She wasn’t the best at dealing with children under normal conditions, had almost never felt a mothering instinct in her life, and was now totally out of her depth...

And then the filly caught sight of Cas, dozing on top of Hearthfire’s luggage, causing a magical transformation to take place. The mouth became an ‘o’ of excitement, her ears noticeably pricked up, and she let out a cry that Hearthfire presumed to be the Saddle Arabian for kitty! as she gamboled over. Cas opened one eye suspiciously, but it was already too late. She was scooped up into a squeezing embrace by the foal.

“Ah, no! Gently! Gently!” Hearthfire lunged and missed in her attempt get the pair separated, leaving herself splayed on the ground in a spray of grit. The instantly furious Cas turned on her unintentional attacker and twisted, contorting in a blur of feline gymnastics that somehow slipped her free of the hug. As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and Cas was sat calmly on top of Hearthfire’s flank, smoothing down her ruffled fur and preening, one watchful eye on the filly. The other party of the brief fight sat down hard, eyes wide in shock, tears beginning to well up, with a trio of scratch marks across her muzzle where Cas had exacted clawed retribution.

“Oh, pony...” Hearthfire picked herself up, dislodging Cas in the process and earning herself a disapproving look, and did her best to dust her coat down. “Come on, it’s not deep.”

The commotion had halted much of the activity immediately around the three of them, and Hearthfire was uncomfortably aware of being stared at, and an undercurrent of muttering propagating through the traders.

“Um.” She tried to put a comforting hoof around the filly’s trembling shoulders, but the shock seemed to wear off just enough to allow the little unicorn to bolt, head down and bawling, back towards the wagon she had originally appeared behind. A unicorn mare stepped out of the crowd, shot Hearthfire a dirty look, and galloped after the fleeing young one without a word. Something was shouted from the back of the crowd, and the rest of the gawkers seemed to take this as a sign that the show was over, and went back to work.

“...Well, that was staggeringly awkward. And you, Cas, I would have thought you’d know better.” Cas had the decency to look slightly embarrassed in the face of her scolding. Hearthfire sighed, “I suppose neither of us are very good with children, are we?”

* * *

Sandwhistler and Cloud Flower seemed to have either been appointed, or to have self-appointed themselves, as her guardians. They found her as the ponies and camels on wagon-hauling duty were assisted into their harnesses and the caravan prepared to move off.

“Hello, Hearthfire, how are you today?” Cloud Flower greeted her. Sandwhistler had a stupid grin plastered over his features; clearly whatever his punishment had been, it hadn’t been enough to dampen his good spirits.

“He was reading books all night, try to learn. Father has books of... Equestrian words.”

“Hello, you two. That’s very good, Cloud Flower.” Cloud Flower looked panicked for a moment, his wings flexing nervously, before settling on:

“Yes, I am fine, also. This is lovely weather we are having.”
His friend burst out laughing and made some derisive comment in Saddle Arabian, causing Cloud Flower to scowl and shut his mouth.

“Maybe I should see if your dad has anything I could use to brush up on my language skills,” Hearthfire mused, half to herself.

The day’s march was long, the caravan setting off early in the day, before the heat had time to really build up. Hearthfire made her way up and down the caravan as they went, picking up her pace or letting it flag as needed, always escorted by the two she was beginning to think of as ‘the pegasus twins’, despite their differing appearance and lack of actual blood relation. She chatted to the ponies and the camels, in an attempt to find out as much as she could about the way the caravan worked. There were, it turned out, enough folk in the group who spoke passable Equestrian that she could usually find someone who could understand her, or who was willing to translate.

“So each of the wagons is owned by a family?” she had asked, as she trotted side-by-side with a burly pegasus colt towards the middle of the convoy. He was pulling in the traces of a diminutive cart, loaded with wax-sealed firkins, its fabric canopy dyed a gay sky-blue colour. Sitting daintily by the cart’s tailgate, his wife, a pretty young pegasus mare with quick hooves, was counting silver from a pouch into a large leather bag.

“Yes. But some families have more than one wagon.”

“Sandborne called himself the ‘head of the tribe’. What does that mean?”

“It means that out of all the family-heads, the other heads have most faith in his experience. His word carries more weight than the others when decisions are made. He has been a trader longer than anyone else.”

Most of the members of the caravan walked, only the few with specific jobs to do or who were too young to manage the day’s trek rode. It was dusty and achingly hot, and those who were not pulling the wagons instead stuck to the shadows they cast. The youngsters had spent the first hour or so dashing around and playing games up and down the line of travellers, occasionally being shooed away when they got under the hooves of other ponies, but by mid morning the rising temperatures had sapped all the bounce out of them, and they had retreated into the wagons to curl up amongst their parents’ wares.

It wasn’t until all the children were napping and a relative peace and quiet had descended over the travellers’ toils that Hearthfire realised she hadn’t seen the little green unicorn from the Breakfast Incident. Feeling she perhaps should explain herself and try to make peace with the filly’s mother, she set off along the line once more, looking for the glaring unicorn mare from earlier.

It didn’t take Hearthfire long to find her, trotting towards the front. She was three carts back from Sandborne’s lead position. Her coat and mane colouring were more or less an inversion of her daughter’s, perhaps a few shades less saturated. She had the same soft violet eyes, but there was nothing soft about her expression as she spotted Hearthfire, with her two local shadows in tow. She seemed to entirely discount Sand Whistler, focusing all her ire on Hearthfire and Cloud Flower. Hearthfire decided to gamble on Equestrian.

“I’m sorry about earlier, ma’am, but you see, it -”

“Hmph. You are bad news for my family.”

Well, that was blunt. At least we can understand each other, I suppose. Hearthfire didn’t relish being corralled into defending herself when she was manifestly not in the wrong, but there weren’t many other ways she could answer the accusation.

“Now, ma’am, your daughter wasn’t entirely blameless in this -”

“Yes, yes, I know.” The unicorn cut across her again, with an irritated roll of her eyes. “Neither can you be blamed for my son choosing to wander off into the desert without telling anypony. All the same, you have been like a bad omen.”

“Excuse me... your son?” Even as she opened her mouth to ask she had already worked it out, from Cloud Flower’s guilty expression, and the way he averted his eyes from the unicorn’s gaze. There was the look of a young pony who had recently received the sharp of his mother’s tongue.

Oops.

Chapter 4

Standing on the small dock outside Swift’s berth, her pouch a few coins lighter, Hearthfire began to get a sense of the true absurdity of Whinnycia. It was not simply an island city, or even a just a city of waterways. The wooden boards of the dock beneath her hooves swayed, almost imperceptibly. Looking up and across, the buildings on the far side of the street were also moving, slightly out of synch with the dock, their rocking motion exaggerated by their height such that, if she focused, she could just make out the metronome tick-tick-tick as they swayed back and forth. The moniker of ‘Floating City’ was no mere hyperbole; the entire city was constructed on a mind-boggling array of rafts, pontoons, and barges, ingeniously lashed together and secured in a vast network that formed the apparent whole of the city. It was a fascinating and slightly nauseating sensation, even for a pony who had no trouble with turbulence, or the ordinary motion of the sea.

Finding a gondolier willing to accept Equestrian bits turned out not to be as difficult as Hearthfire had feared, and in short order, she and Cas were being expertly rowed down the aquatic highways and byways of the city.

“Would ma’am like the tour, or is there some place specific she needs to go?” the oarspony had asked as she stepped gingerly into the long, slim boat. She had immediately felt like she might capsize it at any moment, and resolved to sit very still during the trip; it was hardly surprising that she had been immediately marked as a visitor to the city. Equally unsurprising was how entirely unphased Cas was as she trotted to the prow and took up a lookout’s post at the front of the gondola. Hearthfire swore the cat would adapt to anything in under five minutes.

“No tour today, thank you. I need to find a place to stay, first.” The oarspony had shrugged, and pushed them away from the wooden jetty and out into the still waters of the canal.

A modestly priced inn wasn’t difficult to find. The establishment Hearthfire chose was clean and relatively plain, and fronted onto the main waterway leading to the heart of the city. It was three stories high, a slender building with an elegant plaster facade in white and pastel pink. She had initially asked the proprietor for a room on the ground floor, or at least what would have been the ground floor if there were any ground in Whinnycia, with her mind on the potentially unpleasant rocking motion that being higher up might entail. He had assured her that his building was very stable, the most stable on the whole street, and besides, on the ground floor, there was no peace and quiet. ‘The waterways,’ he had intoned, like a mantra, ‘do not sleep.’

Hearthfire compromised, braving the second floor in exchange for the promise of a more restful environment, and with her luggage stashed inside her newly acquired room, Hearthfire set off to explore. She had decided to begin at the centre, and work her way out to the more out of the way areas of interest. Being that it was almost noon, and breakfast had been some time before dawn, one of Whinnycia’s two famous markets seemed the best place to start.

By navigating the narrow walkways and bridges that littered the sides of the canals as one approached the heart of the city, she might have been able to reach the larger of the two, the Council Market, situated in a broad plaza outside the city’s largest government building, where matters of state were decided, but she was far more curious about the second, the Water Market, and reaching that would require another boat ride.

* * *

The Water Market was a microcosm of the city. It was located in what would, in a drab, ordinary city, have been a public square, but Whinnycia being as it was, the public square could more accurately be described as a public lake.

The space was huge, and from water level it was impossible to see the buildings on the far side, completely obscured as they were by the tangle of boats that were jammed into what seemed like every last inch. Vendors hawked their wares from a huge variety of different shapes of vessels: gondoliers picking up a few extra coins selling this and that straight from the bottom of their flat-bottomed ferries; fishermen displaying baskets wriggling with the day’s catch; purpose-built floating stalls with folding display counters selling anything you could imagine, from trinkets and baubles to woven baskets and furniture, herbs, spices, clothes or fabrics, and more things than Hearthfire could recognise. The air was a cacophony of shouts and entreatments, the creak of ropes, and the spit and sizzle of hotplates as delicacies from hundreds of different nations were prepared for waiting customers.

Hearthfire’s oarspony navigated the veritable scrum through a combination of seasoned experience, blind luck, and the stubborn-headedness to occasionally ram any boat that refused to get out of the way fast enough. There was rarely enough room for the pony to deploy his paddle, and instead most of the propulsion was provided by the simple expedient of bracing himself against a nearby obstacle and pushing. Hearthfire was beginning to acclimatise and learn that the gondolas were not nearly as unstable as they looked, but the constant marine jostling still set her heart racing on more than one occasion.

They had hardly gone ten lengths of the gondola into the scrum before Hearthfire spotted to first of them: what she initially took to be the head and mane of a pony swimming in the water popped suddenly into view, just to one side of the boat. It looked around as if getting its bearings, then seemed to catch her eye. It winked at her, and dived. It wasn’t for another moment that she realised what she had just seen.

Now she was aware that they were around, she could see that there were sea ponies everywhere. They bobbed to the surface next to stalls, their crest-like manes trailing water, and called for the vendor’s attention by banging on the hulls of the boats with their flippers. Coins were passed from flipper to hoof, goods were passed down, and the ponies would dive once more in a spray of water and a flash of prehensile, rudder-like tails.

“Looking for something in particular, miss?” the oarspony called, jerking Hearthfire out of her daze.

“Oh. Something to eat, please. Do you know the market well? Where would you recommend?”

“Know it? I practically grew up here! Let’s see...”

They navigated deeper into the market, the gondolier pointing out stalls and describing the kinds of food they served as they passed. Seafood of every kind featured heavily on the available menus, and although she resolved to see everything that was on offer, it wasn’t long before her traitorous stomach had furnished her with a sturdy paper box containing a black cuttlefish risotto, a cob of sweetbread, and two grilled eels, one for herself and one for Cas. As the gondola pushed away from the smiling food vendor, she tossed the eel to Cas, who caught it with ease and pinned it to the boat’s wooden boards to begin gnawing.

“Careful, it might still have bones in it,” Hearthfire warned, as she settled down for her own meal. She lifted the fresh-baked bread to her mouth -

There was a shout of alarm from somewhere behind her, before cat, lunch, and ponies flew briefly through the air to crash into the water in a plume of spray, as a second boat struck the gondola amidships. The gondola rolled under the impact.

Hearthfire surfaced, spitting out water and flailing wildly. Pieces of her anticipated cuttlefish risotto floated around her, but it was Cas she was looking for. She needn’t have worried; the cat, while soaked, had already managed to clamber onto the upturned hull, and was shaking herself off. The gondolier had grabbed onto a nearby stall, and was climbing out with the assistance of the owner.

“Here.”

Somepony thrust an oar towards her, and she snatched onto it with one limb. The boat rocked as she was hauled out of the water, dripping, to stand shivering. The air didn’t seem cold until you were dunked in the chill of the canal, but now, she could definitely feel it.

Taking stock of her surroundings, she became loosely aware that her rescuer was, if she was any judge, an attractive earth pony colt, well built and well toned by hard work; the deep ruby red of his coat was well offset by a naturally curled chestnut mane. He bent his legs in a well-practised bow.

“Please. Allow me to offer my services, m’lady,” he began, in utter deadpan seriousness. It was all Hearthfire could do no to burst out laughing; here she stood, with cold water soaking her to her skin, and some local noble had the nerve to patronise...

“I’m all right,” she managed, when she had regained control, “A little water never hurt anypony. Cas! Come on over here!”

“All the same, I can’t help but feel a little responsible...”

She was on another gondola, larger and more lavish than the one she had just so unceremoniously left. There was a covered portion - a felze, wasn’t it? - to protect passengers from inclement weather, and the oarspony was sporting an expensive-looking uniform. Some local nobel?

“I’m quite allright. No harm done save for the loss of my lunch. It was just an accident.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to fix,” he offered with an easy smile, “Would you care to join me?”

Chapter 5

Behind him, the bout of angry hooficuffs which had - it was now clear - upset more than just Hearthfire’s boat, was turning into a full scale brawl involving several vessels and maybe dozens of ponies. Shouts and cries and splashes were spreading through the market as boats dominoed into each other, sea ponies surfacing here and there to help floundering swimmers keep afloat in the chaos.

“Perhaps somewhere a touch quieter?”

* * *

“So, you are aware Whinnycia is sometimes known as the City of Architects, yes? Do you know why?”

Hearthfire was still periodically dripping water onto the immaculate floor of the open-air cafe, as she sat sipping tea and nibbling at thin biscuits by the canalside. She had dried off a bit since her unplanned swimming session, and she had been provided with a small towel by their waiter, but by the time she had done her best to dry off Cas, there was scarcely any dry towel left. The Water Market had seemed almost on the verge of collapse as they made their escape, and the patrol boats used by the city guard were already swarming in to put a stop to the riot. Her rescuer, who had introduced himself as Stonefeather, assured her that the market had suffered far worse upsets over the years, and somehow continued on.

“I’ve heard folk say it’s about the rival schools. Everyone competing to construct the most impressive buildings.”

“While respecting the artistic integrity of the city as a whole, yes, yes,” he waved a dismissive hoof, “...but?”

“I’ve also heard that it’s named for the city’s ruling body, known as the Council of Architects. I don’t know if I’m willing to believe the stories I’ve heard about that, though.”

“Ha ha, no, not many ponies are. It’s no secret, but I think everpony outside our borders thinks it’s too ridiculous to be true. Whinnycia moves, Hearthfire. The city that stands here today is not the city that will stand here in a decade, or even a year.”

Hearthfire smiled that certain smile reserved for ponies who aren’t sure if they’re being made fun of.

“The founders of the city... well, probably not the founders, but probably some ruler a very long time ago, decreed that some day, Whinnycia would one day be a perfect city. This pony, or maybe this council of ponies, realised that they had a golden opportunity. An ordinary city shifts and changes over time, yes, but it is very gradual. A block falls into disrepair, the decay spreads to nearby streets, and creeps out until some great civil engineering project reclaims the damaged section. And once a decision has been made, the city is more or less stuck with it; if there is a road here, it is very hard to un-make it, if you wish to, for example, build more houses...

“Anyway, my point being: once a year, the Council of Architects votes on a Plan, a new map for the city, and the buildings are moved. Every new arrangement is, in the eyes of the Council, better than the last, and someday we will find an arrangement that is perfect.”

Ridiculous.

“Oh come on. I’ve seen how those towers sway at their peaks. They barely stay upright as it is, and you expect me to believe that you just, tug them around to rearrange the city?”

“Why in the Heavens would I lie to you about this? And besides, doesn’t it just make you even more curious to know what this has to do with your swim?”

“Fine. What does the Council of Architects have to do with my swim?”

“Well, the short answer is: those were two of the Council’s most honored representatives brawling in the market. You could have picked a better time to visit fair Whinnycia, honestly.”

Hearthfire smacked a hoof into her forehead as creeping suspicion overtook her. “The next - what did you call it? - the next Plan is going to be voted on soon, isn’t it?”

“Very prescient of you. And...?”

“I suppose the Council doesn’t always come to a unanimous agreement, does it?”

“I believe in the past five hundred years, the Plan has, on each occasion, been passed by no more than a margin of three. There are two families, who have over the years come to control every last seat on the Council, and have different visions for the city and half of the vote. I will not delve into the bizarre process by which a majority is actually reached. Sometimes it is by bribery and betrayal. Sometimes, one family manages to force a vote while a member of the other family is in the restrooms.”

“It’s a unique system, I’ll admit that.”

“It’s ridiculous, and an embarrassment. What usually ends up happening, far from the founders’ vision of an incremental utopia, is that one family will simply reverse whatever changes were made by their rivals, perhaps with a little fiddling around the edges, and so it goes back and forth for centuries.”

Stonefeather sighed a defeated sigh, staring off into space.

“I know my family. The Feathers are a stubborn, insular tribe, and our opponents, the Verdants, are no better. Zealous and judgemental almost to the last pony. I’m afraid that one of these days we might just pull the city down around our own ears.”

“The way you’re talking, I’m lucky to be here while the place is still standing,” Hearthfire said, in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. “Look, not that I’m ungrateful for being fished out of the river, but why are we having this conversation?”

“Why? No, you’re right. It’s stupid. You’re an outsider, you’re not interested in our petty squabbles. I just wanted a chance to vent my frustrations, perhaps. I’m so sick of it all.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that I wasn’t interested. The opposite, it’s fascinating. Every new thing I find out about the city makes it all the more unbelievable. It certainly wasn’t a waste of time to come here.”

“I mean it: things might get bad in the city in the next few days,” Stonefeather predicted, darkly. “I’d tell you to leave why you still can, but I can already tell anything I say is just going to make you more determined to stay. The vote is in a week. I was going to spend the next few days trying to convince some of my more hard-line relatives to be sensible, but after that little display in the market between Dancing Pinion and Wild Reed, I don’t think I have the stomach.”

“You’re certainly right that I’m not going anywhere,” Hearthfire confirmed, pushing back her chair and getting to her hooves, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Thank you for the tea, Mr. Feather, and for fishing me out of the canal.”

“Ah, leaving already?” He rose from his own chair, “If I might make one suggestion? Though perhaps it is a little forward.”

Hearthfire paused, not sure what to expect next from her new acquaintance.

“You are intending to travel the city? Let me be your guide. I know a lot about, oh, all sorts. I know all the major landmarks of the city and their histories. And if... if somepony were to make a rash decision, and things got out of hoof, I’d feel a lot better knowing where you were.”

She was a heartbeat away from dismissing him without consideration. It felt a lot like being patronised, but she clamped down on the I’m a big filly now, I can look after myself reaction before it had time to take root. He seemed pleasant enough, and it would be good to have a reliable tour guide. And he was probably exaggerating the risks; if nothing happened during her stay, the fact that he was clearly intending to be her knight in shining armour wouldn’t matter.

“...All right.”

“Really?!”

* * *

It turned into something of an outing.

Stonefeather’s friends were an eclectic bunch. Some were distant relatives from other branches of the Feather family, others were from various parts of the Verdant family. They were all in their teens, and it didn’t take long to find that all of them were vehemently in agreement with Stonefeather’s gloomy assessment of the state of the city. Social rebels, of a sort that Hearthfire recognised from her own youth in Equestria, flying in the face of their elders’ logic and daring to cross boundaries. It was slightly depressing to see, but they had the decency to understand that she wasn’t really interested or invested in their cause, and proved to be a fun bunch in their own right.

They spent the day hopping around the city. True to his word, Stonefeather was a veritable font of information on the history and culture of Whinnycia, and where his own knowledge faltered, his friends were there to pick up the slack.

“This tower was constructed in secret, and towed into the bay after its completion,” a petite, solemn unicorn mare named Rainbow Plume was lecturing. At her back, the building under discussion rose perhaps two stories above the average height of buildings in the area, “Why, you ask? Because at the time, it was the largest tower ever constructed in Whinnycia, and the architect responsible wished to hide the secret of its construction. At the time, conventional wisdom held that three or four stories was the greatest height a building could reach; or, more accurately, that the maximum ratio of height to width -”

“You’re all very well versed in Whinnycian history,” Hearthfire whispered to Stonefeather as the master class in local architecture went on.

“What can I say? We might not approve of our families’ rivalry, but we don’t have to be ashamed that we’re the descendents of some of the greatest architects in the world.”

“- so, with the creation of the first sub-surface stabiliser fin, the path was opened to create the modern architectural schools, and, even more importantly, laid the groundwork for the creation of the sea pony districts of the city.”

Chapter 6

There was a small round of applause as Rainbow Plume rejoined the group, blushing modestly.

“So, where are we going next?”

“Opera house?” somepony suggested.

“Go and see the sea pony districts! I know a unicorn who can do the waterlung spells on the cheap!”

“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll get soaked, and it’ll be freezing up here by the time we get back. How about the Old Quarter?”

“Cursed bridge! The cursed bridge!”

“Oh, not bad. It’ll be getting dark soon. How about it, Hearthfire? Ready for something a little different?”

Hearthfire grinned and rolled her eyes. Their enthusiasm was totally infectious, not that she needed any more.

“Sure. But if you think I’m going to be scared by some stupid bridge, you’ve got another thing coming. We Equestrians are made of sterner stuff.”

“All right!” Blossom, one of the older ponies in the group, took to the air, turning a loop in excitement, “Hang on a minute...”

“What?” Stonefeather asked. Blossom was gazing off towards the mouth of the bay, but the walls of the buildings around them blocked those on the ground from seeing what had caught her eye.

“Looks like there’s a big storm brewing. You guys go ahead. They might need all hooves on deck for this. Plume, you coming?”

“Um. Okay. I’ve been to the bridge before, anyway.” Rainbow Plume hadn’t seemed thrilled with suggestion for where to go next, and now looked positively relieved despite her attempts to pretend otherwise.

“You know, maybe you shouldn’t go?” she called back as she took to the air, “If this storm hits, you won’t want to be out in the open water.”

“We’ll be fine! The storm’s not going to be allowed to get anywhere near the city, right? No problem.”

Plume’s reply, if there was one, didn’t carry down to ground level, and the two pegasi were already wheeling about to head south west. Stonefeather sighed as they vanished from sight.

“She’s probably right, though. It would’ve been cool, but better safe than sorry. We can go another day.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been on my hooves for ages anyway. I think I’ll go back to the hotel, and we can go tomorrow night if the weather’s settled.”

There was a half-hearted clamour of disappointment, but it was more for show than anything. Blossom had looked pretty rattled, and if there was going to be a big storm, nopony really wanted to be out and about.

“Meet you in the Council Market tomorrow? Nine o’clock. We can get breakfast and see some more of the city. Maybe even get those waterlung spells cast and dive to visit the sea ponies?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

The group said their goodbyes and split apart, each pony hurrying their separate ways with an eye to the sky.

* * *

The storm did hit in the night, and hit hard. The seaward side of the city bore the brunt of it, but the choppy waters caused instability across the city. In her second-floor room, Hearthfire couldn’t even imagine managing to sleep; the floor, and by extension her bed, shifted in a most unpleasant fashion. The sound of rain hammering on the shutters was an endless counterpoint to the wind and interludes of thunder.

Cas and Hearthfire huddled under the duvet, supremely grateful for the day’s lessons in Whinnycian engineering. If she didn’t know just how sturdily constructed the buildings of the city were, she would probably have been screaming her head off all night. Instead, she clung to half-remembered explanations of triple-keeled support rafts and centre of gravity calculations. Oh, it would be nice to be a sea pony right now, safe in their bizarre underwater structures...

To take her mind of her queasy stomach, she tried to imagine what they must look like. Stonefeather had said that the city was almost mirrored, underwater. For each building that extended up from the bay, its opposite plunged down towards the sea bed, counterbalancing and steadying its twin. That was where the nickname, the Twin Cities, came from; pegasus, unicorn and earth ponies living below the sky, sea ponies below the waves, and the two meeting at the surface, the intersection of the two halves...

Another rumble. Hearthfire tried not to imagine a tower overbalancing, the rumble of falling masonry as it collapsed onto nearby rafts, spreading the carnage across who knew how many streets. No, definitely just thunder.

Eventually, the efforts of the pegasi seemed to be paying off, and the storm began to calm. Hearthfire managed to fall asleep, but her dreams were full of rushing water, falling towers, and cries for help.

* * *

They were still alive and the building was still standing when she awoke. Cas was pawing at her muzzle to wake her; she realised that there was already a strong line of sunlight coming through the crack in the shutters, and it must be after eight. She threw back the covers, and trotted over to the window.

Outside was not the complete scene of carnage she had feared. It was true, there was a lot of damage, but she couldn’t see any obvious gaps in the skyline or serious structural damage to the buildings across the street. Shredded awnings, bits of broken timber, and partially flooded or overturned boats littered the waterway, and here and there she could see relieved looking ponies bailing out or struggling to right their craft.

“Oh, pony, I hope Swift is all right.” There was no time to check on the boat shed immediately; she was already likely to be late to her appointment at the market. There didn’t seem to be many gondolas braving the debris-strewn waterways, so she would have to try and navigate the tortuous hoof route across scattered bridges and narrow walkways, and hope they were still intact. She ran a basin of water and dunked her head to dampen some of the tiredness, and made her way downstairs.

“Nothing damaged in your room, was there, ma’am?” the hotel’s owner asked, as she emerged into the lobby, “I’m sorry your first night had to be so rough.”

“No, not that I could see. Do you know how bad it is out there?”

“Not as bad as it might have been. The pegasi did good work on such short notice... the sea ponies are still combing the waterways, but as far as I’ve heard no one’s been reported missing. Be careful though, ma’am, there might still be strong gusts now and again.”

“Does this happen a lot, then?”

“Not often, but enough that we have learned to cope with it when it does.”

She had been right in her suspicion that getting a gondola ride would be difficult. There didn’t seem to be anyone on the waterway this morning. She let lighter and far more agile Cas lead the way, and watched her own hooves closely, wary of walkways that could have been damaged in the night. Aside from a tense crossing of a dangerously swaying timber bridge that creaked with each step, the route was without incident. Whinnycian architecture apparently incorporated a lot of natural give into its designs, to accommodate the tendency of adjacent buildings to shift in relation to each other, and the philosophy had served them well under the brunt of the storm.

By the big clock on the front face of the city hall, it was just coming up to twenty past nine when she reached the market square. Most of the shops that fronted onto the square had their doors open, even if they were mostly devoid of customers, but in the square itself there were only a handful of stalls set up.

However, the thing which truly caught the eye as Hearthfire emerged into the open ground was the group of about ten ponies stood silently on the city hall steps. It was too far to see them clearly, but they stood as still as statues, grim determination carved into their stances. Arrayed around them, standing to attention, were several dozen armed ponies in uniforms she recognised from the Water Market, the same one worn by the oarspony on Stonefeather’s gondola.

Something was very wrong.

“Psst!” She looked back and left, and there, in a narrow cut-through between two buildings, she saw Stonefeather and most of his friends. “Get in here!”

“Stonefeather? What in hay is going on?” She and Cas ducked quickly out of sight, sensing that she didn’t want to be spotted loitering by the grim-looking ponies on the steps.

“Rainbow Plume’s not been seen since the storm, and my uncle... Dancing Pinion’s completely lost it!” Stonefeather was on the verge of panicking. The rest of the ponies huddled in the gap looked equally lost.

“She’s missing?”

“There’s search parties out looking for her all over, but no one’s found her yet! After she went up to help try and clear the storm with Blossom, she... I don’t know what happened! But she’s gone, and Pinion says Blossom set her up.”

“What! Why?”

“Why not? Half the pegasi in the city were up there last night, he’s got dozens of ponies who’ll swear they were together last time they saw Rainbow Plume. He says the Verdants knew they were going to lose this week’s ballot, and decided they’d get the upper hand by making sure one of ours couldn’t show up to vote!”

“He managed to convince some of the city watch to go along with it,” one of the other chimed in; Arbor, if Hearthfire remembered correctly, “He’s had Blossom arrested!”

“What are the Verdants doing about this?” Hearthfire asked, suspecting that she probably had an idea of what the answer was going to be.

“Wild Reed says Blossom had nothing to do with it, and that it was Feather ponies who arrested her, not members of the watch, that it was basically kidnapping. He was talking like he was coming here for a showdown. He’s absolutely furious.”

“Oh, buck...” Stonefeather was peering around the corner, into the marketplace, where a flotilla of boats loaded with more armed ponies was storming up to the quay. “Here he comes.”

Chapter 7

The few ponies who had ventured out into the marketplace scattered quickly as the two sides squared off against each other. Wild Reed had brought at least as many ponies as Dancing Pinion, such that there were now close to a hundred grim-faced ponies, separated by ten meters of open flagstones. In the silence, the drop of a bit would have rung like a bell.

“You’ve brought a lot of ponies for a simple apology, Dancing Pinion,” Wild Reed called, his tone laced with venom. “Of course, we hope for the safe return of your family’s youngling, but by now you have surely determined that we had nothing to do with it. If you release your hostage, perhaps I will argue that you should suffer no worse punishment than banishment for your crimes.”

“And you have some nerve showing your face here, Wild Reed!” Dancing Pinion’s reply was a roar of pent up fury. “Let me make a counteroffer: tell me if Rainbow Plume is still alive, and what you have done with her, and I will not cut you down where you stand!”

“A member of your family is missing, and here you are posturing in front of the town hall instead of looking for her? Have an innocent pegasus arrested rather than making every effort to find one who is lost?” Wild Reed paused for effect, as if unwilling even to voice the next thought. “To an outsider, it nearly seems that you are more interested in securing your position in the coming ballot than in finding out if Rainbow Plume is safe.”

Back in the safety of the alleyway, Hearthfire cuffed the frozen Stonefeather.

“They’re about ready to kill each other! Get out there and tell them... I don’t know! Tell them Blossom and Plume were friends, that Blossom wouldn’t do it!”

“They won’t listen. It’ll just make the Verdants even more sure they’re in the right, and Pinion will accuse me of betraying the family!”

“So? You have to try, darn it! Look, how are you going to feel if this turns for the worse, and you sat here and did nothing? You wanted to do something to help, this is your big chance. Either get out there, or you go and help the ponies looking for Rainbow Plume!”

It was a cheap shot of the lowest order, but it worked. Stonefeather stood up. “No, you’re right. I can’t do much to help find Plume, but I might be able to do some good here.”

The small contingent of ponies trooped out into the square like Bronco Cassidy and the Sundance Colt. The angry confrontation had devolved into a shouting match. Some of the ponies on either side were doing their best to restrain the two leaders, but others were baying for blood. The two contingents of guards eyed each other nervously, gripping their weapons tightly. Neither side noticed Stonefeather and his friends until they were almost between the two groups.

“Hold it!” Stonefeather screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Stay out of this, Stonefeather! You think I don’t know you’ve been hanging around with that murderer Blossom?”

“Arbor! Get away from those Feathers! They’ve already kidnapped one pony! Do you want them to have two hostages?”

“No! Both of you shut up! You said it yourself, uncle, ” Stonefeather roared, “Blossom is my friend! I know she wouldn’t do this!”

Hearthfire surprised herself with an involuntary flinch. Stonefeather had an impressive voice, when he chose to use it to its full force. Unfortunately, the silence he created lasted hardly a single stunned breath before the old Feathers pegasus and Verdant unicorn snapped out of it.

“You can’t trust them, you foal! Rainbow Plume trusted them too, didn’t she? And who knows where she is now!”

“You hear that, Dancing Pinion? Even your own flesh and blood is on our side!”

With a furious cry, Dancing Pinion broke free of the ponies trying to restrain him, wings beating the air as he lunged over the heads of his followers towards his adversary’s triumphant smirk. Hearthfire watched open mouthed in horror as the pegasus sailed across the gap, sensing rather than seeing the way guards on both sides tensed to spring forward, weapons raised.

Stonefeather and Arbor moved at the same instant, breaking into a headlong gallop to try and intercept the raging pegasus. With a flash of sudden insight, and far more presence of mind than she could possibly have imagined under ordinary circumstances, Hearthfire sprang into action, shoving Arbor hard to one side as he passed her. He stumbled, and Stonefeather surged ahead.

Leapt.

The pegasus and the earth pony hit the ground part way between the two camps and rolled over and over. Stonefeather ended up on top, his younger, stronger earth pony frame letting him easily pin his uncle.

“You call me a foal?” he asked, his words dangerously quiet. No pony was moving aside from the pegasus’ feeble struggles; Arbor and Hearthfire were sprawled on the ground, and Pinion’s guards seemed unsure of what to do next. “You’d rather tear this city apart than acquiesce to any single thing asked of you by another pony. You oppose everything the Verdants propose, not because you believe that they’re wrong, but because they’re not one of us.”

“My wing! I think it’s broken. You’ve broken my bucking wing, you -” Stonefeather cuffed him around the muzzle, just hard enough to shut him up.

“Now. Tell them to let Blossom go. She had nothing to do with this. If you really cared, you’d have been out there all morning with the other pegasi, looking for Plume, not wasting your time here.”

“You don’t understand anything, do you?” the pegasus spat through gritted teeth, when he found his voice again, “I care. I care more about this family than you can imagine. What are you going to do if I refuse?”

“I don’t know.” He released his elder, and picked himself up, looking around as if daring any of the assembled ponies to touch him. “And the same goes for you, too, Wild Reed. This isn’t a demand, just a suggestion; leave. Blossom won’t be found guilty. She can’t. You don’t need to do anything rash to save her, if that is what you’re really here for. Leave it to the Watch, and the magistrates.”

He helped Arbor and Hearthfire up, and turned to his meagre band of rebels. “We’re leaving. There’s nothing else we can do if they don’t want to listen.”

They turned, and trooped away, leaving the eerily still tableau behind them. Some ponies turned to watch them go, others were still watching their opponents or gawking at the fallen and injured Dancing Pinion.

“Faster, please, mares and gentlecolts,” he muttered as they trotted away.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because if we’re very lucky, Wild Reed will be smart enough to back away rather than brawling on the town hall steps. And as soon as that happens, there’s a chance that uncle will realise he can send his guards after us. Oh, buck it all, why did I have to go and smack him in the jaw?”

“Language, please. Well, I thought you did pretty well, in the circumstances,” Hearthfire offered, as they picked up the pace to a canter. “There would have been a full scale fight if you hadn’t moved so fast, and now, there might not be. That’s worth something. What happens now?”

“Who knows? I’m making it up as I go along.”

They made the cover of the buildings at the edge of the market place before Stonefeather let go. He was shaking from head to hoof, and Hearthfire hadn’t realised until that moment how hard he had been working to hide the fact that he was limping.

“Oh, buck, I’m screwed.” He leaned against the wall to take the weight off his front left shoulder. “I thought we were all going to die right there. We still might! He’s going to... I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s going to do now.”

“For now, let’s find someone who can look at that shoulder,” Arbor cut in, earning himself a glare from Stonefeather. “What? You said yourself, there’s nothing more we can do here. Most of the pegasi are already looking for Plume, so are the sea ponies. What can we possibly do to help? We just have to hope somepony else can talk sense into those two. We already tried our best.”

“...All right. You’re right.” He tried a grin, but it came out as a grimace. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

“I think everyone might already be in this. Everyone from both families. Maybe everyone in Whinnycia.”

Chapter 8

The city was quiet for the rest of the day. There were reports of heated arguments and the occasional scrap between small groups, but for the most part the two families seemed content to lick their wounds and hole up in their own territories. The city Watch made a show of force, putting as many hooves on the streets and waterways as they could manage, but given the persistent rumours of house allegiance being rife amongst their number, it was hard to say how much use they would be in an emergency. The ordinary ponyfolk of the city, sensing that they had not seen the last of the previous night’s chaos, stayed indoors.

With Stonefeather’s shoulder bandaged - it had turned out to be nothing worse than a nasty sprain - Hearthfire, Stonefeather, Arbor and Cas trotted their furtive route back to the Hearthfire’s hotel room. No pony suggested that they go anywhere. A repressive air of tension pervaded the cramped room, and even simple conversation felt forced. No pony was really listening to each other, just talking to fill the space.

“Two days,” Hearthfire sighed, restlessly, sometime around the sixth hour. “I almost managed to last two days in a new city without anything going wrong.”

“I just wish we knew what was happening out there. Whether they’ve found Rainbow Plume or not,” Arbor complained.

“They will. I’m sure of it. She probably... got blown off course by the storm, and ended up miles away. She’ll find her own way back, you’ll see.”

“You don’t think maybe, somepony did do something to her? I mean obviously,” Arbor added hastily, “not Blossom. But some of the ponies in my family get pretty scary when they start talking about the Feathers.”

That gloomy thought hung over the group like a cloud for the rest of the afternoon, and persisted until Arbor announced that he should go home.

“Mum and dad will be worried about me if I’m gone all night without letting them know I’m all right, especially with things being as unsettled as they are.”

“Won’t they be angry after what we did today?” Hearthfire asked.

“No, they’ll understand. They’re good ponies.”

“How about you, Stonefeather?”

“I’ll stay the night. Ah, if you don’t mind. I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“His parents live with that prat Dancing Pinion,” Arbor supplied.

“...Yes. If we could afford to live on our own, we would! But -” Arbor held up a placating hoof.

“Sorry I mentioned it. I didn’t mean anything by it. Please let him stay here, Hearthfire. At least for tonight.”

* * *

The next day dawned grim and overcast. The pegasi were working hard hold back the worst of the wind, but over towards the mouth of the bay, dark clouds were gathering, preparing for another storm.

Something was wrong with the skyline.

“Stonefeather, you might want to have a look at this.”

“Hmm...?”

He flexed his neck and shook his limbs, stiff from sleeping on some blankets on the bare wooden floor, and trotted over to the open window.

“There.” Out towards the edge of the city, one of Whinnycia’s countless clock towers was sliding inexorably sideways. The top was swaying perceptibly, but it was staying upright. Hearthfire thought she could just make out the distant silhouettes of pegasi clustering around its peak. Now that she was looking for it, there was other, smaller towers moving, too. And a warehouse, out towards the docks.

“Oh...” Stonefeather took a second to process what he was seeing. “No no no no. They can’t. It’s not time yet! Not for days! What in hay are those two clowns playing at? Come on!”

“What? Where are we going?”

“Whichever one of them is responsible for this madness will be co-ordinating it at the city hall. The archives with all the building records are in there. They’ll have to have access to those to have any hope of avoiding a complete disaster!”

“All right. Cas! Wait here, this might be dangerous.” She shouldn’t have wasted her breath. Cas had absolutely no intention of staying behind.

Word was spreading through the waterways already, as those who had noticed the morning’s events streamed over to get a better look, and others joined the flow to find out what was happening. Finding someone going towards the city hall, almost directly away from the edge of the city where the excitement was occurring, turned out to be almost impossible, and the three of them instead found themselves once again navigating the after-thought pedestrian routes towards the city centre.

Upon reaching it, they found that the city hall was a mad whirlwind of activity. Ponies galloped in all directions, some in the uniform of one family or the other, some bearing city watch badges. The common theme was that all those flowing away from the city hall were carrying bulky cardboard cartons, which were being piled into two flotillas of barges waiting at the wharf. Wild Reed and Dancing Pinion - his wing splinted and bandaged - stood by their boats, screaming encouragement at their followers.

“We’ll beat them yet, my Feathers! Go like the wind! Forget the ballot! Our Plan is the right one, we’ll do it ourselves!”

“Hurry, hurry! We’ll show the dirty cheaters whose vision for glorious Whinnycia is superior!”

There were fights breaking out all over the market, and likely inside the hall too, as ponies squabbled over the cartons. Already, the market square was littered with spilled papers as roughly handled boxes burst.

“This is insanity,” Stonefeather wailed, “What can doing this possibly achieve?”

He ran forward, shouting to be heard over the din, “Uncle! Stop this, please! What are you doing?”

There was a glint in Dancing Pinion’s eye as he caught sight of his nephew. The wounded pegasus threw back his head and roared with crazed laughter.

“We’re done, Stonefeather. They think they can beat us by resorting to cold-blooded murder? We’ll show them that we don’t need to stoop to their level. If they are willing to go that far to win the vote, we’ll show them what we can do without even needing to consult them! Our engineers are already starting to dismantle the city! We’ll implement our Plan, our way, and Heavens help any pony who stands in our way!”

“You stupid old bastards! There’s no way this can work! Everypony, listen to me, please!”

He dashed from pony to pony, trying to wrestle boxes from them, stop them being carried to the boats, but no sooner than he had snatched one away, three more would carry on passed him, unheeding, with fanatic determination etched onto their faces. In minutes, he had exhausted himself, taking boxes, breaking up fights, running back and forth like a mad beast; he slumped on the city hall steps, wheezing in huge gulps of air, almost in tears at his own impotence.

“Sometimes, you just have to let things take their course,” Hearthfire advised, put a comforting hoof on his shoulder, but he shrugged her away, looked up at her with pleading eyes. “I’ve learned that lesson many times, but it never gets easier.”

“Ponies are going to get hurt.” His voice was almost deadpan. Hearthfire nodded:

“You can’t do anything to stop it.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to take from this? That I can’t do anything?”

“Sorry. I wish I had a better answer for you. Sometimes ponies are greedy or stupid or stubborn, and nothing you say will make a blind bit of difference to them.”

“That’s the worst lesson I can imagine.”

“That’s fair. Like I said, it never gets easier.”

The two of them were a brief island of silence and calm in the chaotic battle to secure the city’s archives. Out in the bay, the storm seemed to still be growing, despite the efforts of the pegasi working out on the cloud bank. Hearthfire resolutely refused to think about what would happen if the pegasi failed, and the storm was allowed to strike the city, with teams of engineers already working furiously to rearrange the interlocking parts that made up Whinnycia.

Stonefeather stood up.

“No way.”

“Hmm? They won’t listen, you know.”

“I know.”

“So what are you intending to do? Kick them all senseless?”

“Let them do what they want. I’m going to do whatever I can.”

“Oh-o? And what’s that, then?”

“There’s going to be chaos, all over the city. If that storm hits, there’s going to be hundreds, thousands, of ponies who need help. I’m going to help them.”

Hearthfire looked over to the south, where the storm clouds seemed to be getting closer by the minute, and couldn’t help but grin.

“That might just be crazy enough to work.”

* * *

They misappropriated an unattended gondola from the wharf, and rowed out into the chaotic waterways. By now, some of the ordinary citizens were catching on to the huge mess occurring at the city hall, and worried ponies were heading that way to try and find out why the entire city seemed to have gone completely mad overnight. They’ll not be disappointed, Hearthfire reflected as she watched the seeming tide of boats heading in the opposite direction, and imagined them arriving at the besieged marketplace. What would they do, when they saw it? The smart bits say they’ll just stand and watch.

It only took a few minutes for Stonefeather to bring the borrowed gondola to a stop alongside an unassuming jetty in one of the more expensive Whinnycian neighbourhoods. It seemed almost deserted, only one or two boats visible at the mooring points that lined the street, and few signs of habitation in the nearby houses.

“Where are we?”

“Arbor’s house. We’re going to need his help. I’m going to find every last Feather and Verdant in this city who has chosen not to help with the family heads’ lunatic showdown, and I’m going to get them to do some good for once.”

It took hours, and it was painfully slow. The families were scattered, and easily half of those they visited wanted nothing to do with any plan involving working with ‘the enemy’, but eventually they had a ragtag band. Stonefeather split them up, sent them off to knock on other doors, asked the more senior and respected family members to try again at the doors where they had been turned down. Somehow, it all worked. Stonefeather was constructing his own flotilla, and as it gained momentum, fewer and fewer ponies were willing to say no.

“Those two old foals might run the family, but they’re not the only ones who are respected,” Stonefeather noted, as yet another cluster of boats hove into view.

Chapter 9

They were accumulating ponies of all ages, and not all of them were from the Families; they were also gathering ordinary ponyfolk, some looking to help out, some confused and happy to follow anypony who looked like they knew what was going on. They set up camp in the near-deserted Water Market, and it swiftly began to fill to capacity as more and more boats streamed in from all over the city. Between the hulls, dozens of sea pony heads poked through the surface. The chaos above the waterline had caught them just as off-guard as it had the other citizens of Whinnycia. Stonefeather had enlisted the help of some of the more experienced engineers of the two families to co-ordinate the group’s efforts, and they had commandeered a barge to use as their base of operations, a map of the city spread out in front of them. They received reports from new arrivals and from ponies sent out to scout, and marked the map, showing where each family’s supporters were clustered, and which buildings were being moved.

“All right. What’s the next bit of this plan, then?” Hearthfire asked as she took in the ragtag mob of ponies. There was an air of excitement in the market, as ponies who had previously felt caught up and swept along in events began to hope that they might be able to do something about them.

“See what useful equipment we can gather, then wait for it all to go belly up, I suppose, and be ready when it does.”

They didn’t have long to wait. A pegasus dove from on high, bringing tidings that a tower had fallen to the south, as Feather and Verdant engineers fought to drag it in opposite directions. The surrounding buildings had not been properly evacuated, and it was likely that there were ponies trapped in the rapidly destabilising area. Stonefeather despatched a score of ponies, about a third of those gathered, to help get the situation under control and evacuate any pony trapped or left behind.

The next messenger relayed that a warehouse had caught fire to the east, and was threatening to spread to nearby buildings. More hooves were needed to help separate the adjoining rafts and stop the spread of the blaze. Stonefeather asked for volunteers; it was likely to be dangerous, as the winds were getting stronger by the minute, and the fire would be wild unpredictable. There was no shortage of willing ponies.

More disasters came and went, ponies were sent out to help. They were overstretched, but they hadn’t expected any less; the entire city was a huge accident waiting to happen as the two families fought their proxy war. Everything seemed to be going well, until the storm hit.

It was never quite clear what had happened, whether the storm had simply been too much for the pegasi to handle, or whether, as some ponies suggested, factional infighting had led to the breach in the city’s weather defenses. Regardless of whether any pony was to blame, the outcome was no different: the storm raged in across the bay mouth and struck the vulnerable city. By now, dozens, perhaps hundreds of buildings had been detached from their moorings, were awaiting relocation by one family or the other. The storm scattered the vacant buildings like ninepins. Within minutes, swathes of Whinnycia’s architectural heritage was crumbling into the waters of the bay.

It wasn’t just the safely evacuated buildings that were in trouble, either; much of the city’s integrity came from the way its parts were linked to form a cohesive whole, and there were gaps all over the place. Stonefeather’s band were utterly swamped, between helping those in need and gathering much needed supplies from wherever they could be found. Still, they soldiered on, braving the waterways even as the winds rose and the rain intensified, lowering visibility to a few meters and soaking every pony foolish enough to stay out in it to the bone.

“This is hopeless, Stonefeather.” They had erected a canopy over the makeshift command barge, to keep off the worst of the wind and the rain, but even so, it was damp and uncomfortable. It was an earth pony, Quill, who voiced the thoughts of everypony present. “We’ve done a lot of good today, but it’s getting too dangerous out there. If it gets much worse, we’re just going to be adding to the casualties!”

Stonefeather’s expression was pained, but he couldn’t argue with Quill’s wisdom.

“The sea ponies are doing everything they can, around the collapsed areas. It’s safest for them, and at least they should be able to make sure we don’t have any drowned ponies on our hands. The pegasi can barely even fly in this, and the waves are starting to make things dangerous for our boats...”

“At least the families will have to stop their madness, too. There’s no way they can keep working in these conditions. Do we have any idea how many casualties we have so far?”

“Hard to say. There’s been a lot of injuries, to be sure, but no reports of deaths so far. The sea ponies are much better organised than we are, I swear. Of course, there might be ponies who were trapped when buildings went down who we haven’t found yet. They’re still looking.”

“Well, that’s something, at least... we’ll bring everyone back in who we can get messages to, and see what we can do once the storm lets off. If the pegasi stick to the waterways and use the buildings for shelter -”

The flap of canvas that was serving as the door of the barge’s marquee was pushed aside by a rain-drenched pegasus, out of breath and wind swept. “Something’s going on at the city hall! It’s listing, looks like it might be going down!”

“That’s impossible,” Quill stated. “It’s on a huge raft, it’s got to be one of the most stable buildings in the city. A storm shouldn’t even touch it. What happened?”

The messenger pegasus gulped in another breath, shook his head in disbelief, “One or the other of the families tried to move it. I think they’ve started fighting over it.”

* * *

The city hall was indeed listing; some of the floats that kept it buoyant had been damaged or broken free, and the building was slowly tearing itself apart as the left side slid inexorably into the water. Already long tears had appeared in the structure, dividing the building down the middle. Even through the driving rain, Hearthfire could already see what would happen once it had separated into two halves. Freed of its twin, each half would most likely roll and spill its precious cargo of floats, condemning the building to the bottom of the bay. Ponies were leaping from windows, diving into the churning waters of the bay; were it not for the presence of the sea ponies, many would have been pulled down and drowned by the maelstrom.

A brief glance around confirmed that Dancing Pinion and Wild Reed were nowhere to be seen in the market square. Hearthfire grabbed a fleeing unicorn mare, shook her until she held still.

“What in the hay happened here?”

“Wild Reed told us to take the city hall! It was chaos in there, the Feathers were trying to snatch it right out from under us, but we gave just as good as we got!”

“You tried to move it, in this weather?”

“Wild Reed said we could manage it! I’m sure it was the Feathers, they realised they couldn’t take it from us, and decided it was better to sink the whole thing!”

“That’s crazy!” Crazier than trying to move a thousand tonnes of building through a raging storm? “Is there anypony still inside?”

“I don’t know, probably! We were fighting them off on every floor! Who knows how many ponies are still in there? The Feathers will pay for this!”

She pushed the unicorn away in disgust, and glanced over at Stonefeather.

“I’m going in there, too.”

The earth pony looked away from the languishing city hall, his expression one of surprise.

“Why? I mean, not that I don’t appreciate you seeing this through with me as far as you have, but it will be dangerous. Really dangerous.”

“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me. Besides, I’ve been in worse scrapes before, and for much less selfless reasons.”

“Whatever happened to, sometimes, you just have to let things take their course?” Stonefeather smirked, but there was a note of relief in there, too.

Getting in was easier said than done. As water began to flood the sinking left side of the building and tipped the entire structure, the family’s teams had severed it from the adjoining market place raft. It had swiftly reached the point where none of the entrances were flush with surrounding buildings, or, indeed, the water level.

“This is it, Cas. You’re not coming with me this time.” Cas whined, and leapt onto Hearthfire’s back, but the unicorn lifted her up, heedless of her friend’s claws attempting to cling on, limpet-like, and deposited her back on the ground. “I mean it.”

Hearthfire and Stonefeather paused at the edge of the gap that stood in their way, glancing down into the roiling waters below. Judged the distance.

Sailed across the gap. Hearthfire’s stomach turning flips as her hooves left the solid flagstones and arced into empty air. Forced herself to keep her eyes on the target.

We’re not going to make it...

They hit the ground halfway up the incline of the steps. Stonefeather stumbled, drawing a sharp breath as his injured shoulder absorbed the impact. The feeling of the ground slowly tipping was terrifying.

“All right,” Hearthfire announced, looking up at the giant tear in the building’s facade. “I’ll go left, you go right.”

“No. I know my way around the building, I can get in and out faster than you can. I’ll take the left.”

Chapter 10

The corridors were full of the scent of disturbed mud and silt, bubbling up from the bottom of the bay as the city thrashed itself apart under the force of the storm, an acidic, boggy aroma. The entire building was creaking and groaning, and she half expected to see the corridors ahead of her twist and distort like a crazy mirror at a carnival. There were signs of fighting everywhere, smashed-in doors, makeshift barricades, ruined furniture scattered anyhow across the once-plush interior, all mingling with fallen timbers and heaps of plaster dust as the ceiling began to give way.

Hearthfire shook herself as she galloped along the corridor, dislodging dollops of accumulated rainwater from her coat. At each doorway she came across, she would look inside, and at each intersection, she would halt, and listen with baited breath for sounds of any pony still trapped nearby. She stuck to the main corridor, a curving path that sloped slowly upwards as it ran the circumference of the hemispherical building, with rain-spattered windows to the right looking out over the surrounding waterways, and an endless string of doors to the left that lead into administrative spaces and filing rooms. Most had been ransacked, either to access the documents locked inside, or for chairs and desks and cabinets to aid in the defense of this or that corridor. The skirmish, battle, whatever it had been, had clearly been going on for hours before the storm brought it to its close.

A quarter-turn around the building brought Hearthfire to a huge door, twin in design philosophy to one which had stood, locked, across from the main entrance; this one, however, was slightly smaller, and also ajar. It opened at a touch, onto what could only be the auditorium in which the Council of Architects met, in which the two families had fought each other for centuries.

Rows of circular benches circled the chamber like the rings of a severed tree trunk, steeply descending stepwise towards a railing; Hearthfire realised that she had entered the room on to an upper, balcony level. Below, another circle of benches, this time at a less dizzying incline, coalesced towards a wide circular space, from which ponies could address the gathering.

Looking around, the room was just as damaged as the others she had seen. Benches had been flung around or crushed by falling ponies, a few sizeable chunks of the balcony railing had been torn out, and banners, presumably previously displaying city and family emblems, had been shredded or torn down. Water was beginning to flood the speaking floor, and before long, the front few rows of benches on the lower level would be submerged. Judging from the chamber’s position within the city hall, most of the left half of the ground floor was probably underwater by now.

“Wow... they really went at it, didn’t they?” Hearthfire muttered as she took in the wanton destruction. “I hope Stonefeather’s all right.”

Moving further round the outer wall of the chamber, she found a tight spiral staircase down to the lower level, and after a moment’s hesitation, she descended gingerly, careful of the added treachery of the building’s tilt.

“Is anypony still in here?” There was an answering moan of pain, somewhere close to the rising water line, from beneath a pile of splintered wood and plaster dust. Hearthfire galloped down the aisle; it was Dancing Pinion, half-coated in the white chalky mess and trapped beneath a timber from the torn ceiling. He was smeared with patches of drying blood.

“Hang on, I’ll try and get you out of there,” Hearthfire said, though she couldn’t honestly say if the pegasus was fully conscious or not. It took all her might, and the help of her horn, to push the beam off of him, and by then the cold water was washing around her hooves. With gritted teeth, she lifted, every muscle screaming in protest as she hoisted him onto her back. It was lucky that he was relatively light; if he had been a younger, sturdier colt, or a meatier earth pony or unicorn, she was sure that she could not have managed it. Even so, she knew that there was no way she would make it back up the listing spiral staircase to the upper level, to exit through the door she had come in. She might be able to batter down the large main doors to get out, but... there wasn’t enough time...

She fought down the panic before it could take hold. After all, she could still get out if she just abandoned -

No, that would only be a last resort. She looked around for another door. There was one at the back of the chamber. Groaning under the strain of her burden, she staggered up the aisle between the lines of benches.

“This had better be unlocked...” Hearthfire worked the handle, pulse racing, and shoved as hard as she could. She nearly fell over when it glided open without resistance. The corridor she had almost nosedived into looked much the same as the previous one, but there was no way they could be the same corridor. If she understood the layout correctly, the corridor she had been in before had been gently sloping upwards - even before accounting for the building’s tilt - so perhaps the building’s layout was based around some kind of helix?

The water seemed to be rising faster by the minute. Hearthfire discarded useless musings. There was only one route open to her, as to the left the corridor ramped down into churning, opaque water that was even now visibly creeping towards her. She moved as fast as she could, with all the weight on her back.

“I hope you’re going to be grateful for this when you wake up...”

Another brief wave of panic hit her as she began to hear a roaring water sound from up ahead, until she realised that there was no way the water level could be higher ahead than it was behind, given that she had been running uphill. Another part turn of the circle, and the corridor ended abruptly in what was once a partially concealed door, painted to blend into the wall. It had been kicked in. To her left, a stairwell led only upwards. She glanced briefly in through the broken door, and through the gloom beyond, she could just make out row upon row of what looked like enormous leather balloons, trapped beneath wooden racks. The smell of salt water and silt was even stronger here. It seemed that she had reached the bottom of the building, the floatation raft which normally kept everything buoyant and stable. There would be no way out through there. Up it was, then.

Climbing the stairs sapped most of her remaining energy. She was utterly winded, placing each leaden hoof in front of the next with dogged determination, pushed onwards and upwards by the sound of water sloshing as it began to ascend the stairs behind her.

On reaching the third landing, she was forced to stop, all but collapsing in a heap with Pinion lying limply on top of her. She fought to catch her breath through lungs that no longer seemed to be working, and tried to work out if the roaring in her ears was the water below or the rush of blood in her veins. If she was fast, she might be able to abandon the stairwell, and find her way to an outer wall of the building, and jump from a window, but if she got lost, or turned around... it was a horrible thought.

She struggled to her feet again, and prepared to tackle the next flight of stairs. How much further could it possibly be, to reach the roof? The water was getting closer with each moment she delayed, and if she gave up now, it would all be over...

A grey blur rounded the turn of the stairs, limbs skidding wildly as it whipped through the corner, and practically slammed into Hearthfire’s leg, rumbling deep sounds of relief.

“What? Cas! How did you get in here?” The cat completed an urgent circuit of her hooves, batted at her leg, and skipped back up the first few stairs. It wasn’t difficult to understand her meaning; follow.

Her friend danced ahead of her, always a few paces in front, always looking back. They made the next landing, the rising waters not half a floor behind Hearthfire’s hooves, but as she turned to tackle the next flight, Cas dived past her, out into the corridor that the stairwell opened on to. Hearthfire was about to open her mouth to object, to say that their only chance was to reach the roof, but thought better of it. She might not even make it up the next flight of stairs, with Dancing Pinion slung across her back. May as well trust in her friend’s instincts.

Cas led the way, down corridor after corridor, past rows and rows of identical-looking doors. Hearthfire had no idea where they were, or what direction they were headed in, she just kept slogging on after Cas’ beckoning dance as the water lapped around her hooves, as it rose to her knees, until she was wading through it almost up to her flank, with a soaking wet Cas riding on top of her head, batting at her ears to give direct her down this or that corridor. Stumbling was not an option. Stopping was not an option.

Until, up ahead, for some reason which Hearthfire was not inclined to question, there was a windowed door, opaqued by the driving rain which the storm lashed against it. A door to the outside. With energy should would never have guessed she had, she pushed on through the rising water. Reached the door. Fumbled blindly underwater for the handle.

Half-walked, half-swam out into blinding rain. She was on some kind of wide balcony, perhaps a rooftop garden space. Here and there, trees were swiftly vanishing into the swirling water. Out here, the water was furious. She would, she realised with a falling heart, likely be dragged down by the undertow as the building finally succumbed to the waves. She, and Cas, and even the old idiot Dancing Pinion.

“No reason to give up, though, right, Cas?”

She pushed on further across the balcony, to where the last of the floor was just vanishing and the water was less deep, and rolled Pinion off. He splashed as he hit the water, flailed feebly, but she quickly grabbed hold of him and floated him around until she could support him and keep both their heads above the surface.

“Now...” She didn’t have the strength to swim. She could feel the water sucking at her hooves, trying to draw them all down. She’d done everything she could, except...

Focused, drawing on her last reserves.

In the gloom and the driving rain, her horn glowed feebly, flickered. She tried again, and this time her horn flared like a beacon in the dark.

* * *

Chapter 11

Hearthfire woke to find herself very warm. It was almost painfully bright, and a single beam of morning sunlight was baking her through the thin blanket thrown untidily over her. Cas was a welcome weight on her side, basking lazily in the sunbeam. She was pleasantly dry, and spent a few minutes enjoying the heat as the feeling of the cold waters of the bay closing around her faded to its proper place as an unpleasant recollection.

Eventually she made herself get up. Hordes of questions were starting to intrude into her contentment, and she no longer felt the attraction of idleness. Stonefeather. Blossom. Rainbow Plume. Arbor. Dancing Pinion. Swift. She was intensely grateful to Cas for being here; it was one less person whose fate she had to worry about.

From the window, she discovered that she was high up, on the east-facing side of a large building, and it was a morning sun which was warming the bed. She took in the city. The skyline was different, of that much she was sure; but she had not been familiar enough with the old Whinnycia to appreciate what had really changed. The damage from the storm was obvious, however. The most obvious change to the city was the new abundance of scaffolding as engineers and builders worked to shore up the structural integrity of weakened buildings.

“Good to see you up and about finally.”

She hadn’t noticed the door opening; Stonefeather was walking carefully backwards into the room, pushing the door with his flank as he balanced a breakfast tray on one hoof.

“Stonefeather!” She had to restrain herself from leaping at him and upsetting the tray. “Thank Heavens you’re okay! What about everypony else? What happened?”

She watched his face carefully as he turned around, watching for any sign of bad news with baited breath.

“Everypony made it,” Stonefeather grinned. “Even Rainbow Plume recovered faster than you did. You were in and out of consciousness for nearly two days.”

Flood of relief.

“Thank heavens. So, what happened?”

“Well, let’s see... It turned out that Rainbow Plume was okay, more or less. She got blown off course by the storm, and couldn’t find her way back. Any pegasi who could be spared went back out to look for her once they managed to finally break up the second storm. She showed up miles and miles in land, completely lost. So after that, they pretty much had to let Blossom go. Dancing Pinion heard, and was out of his hospital bed right away, trying to fight against it like an idiot for about thirty seconds before he worked out there was no chance.”

“So there really wasn’t anything for them to fight over, huh? How badly hit was the city?”

“Pretty bad. You probably can’t see the worst of it from here. The bottom of the bay is littered with debris. The sea ponies are not even slightly happy; they basically lost one building for every one that we did, and there were some injuries down there, too. Of course, the sea pony branches of the families are trying to smooth down the ruffled scales, but neither of the families is popular, anywhere in the city, right now.”

“What are the families doing about this whole affair?”

“They spent a while accusing each other of wrecking the city. But as I said, no pony is listening. With the two most hawkish ponies out of the way, things have gotten better.”

“Wild Reed is out of the way, too?”

“Yes. I pulled him out of the hall before it went down, nearly in as bad shape as Pinion,” Stonefeather chuckled, shook his mane in amusement, but then sobered, “You owe a couple of sea ponies a drink, by the way. A couple of their strongest swimmers saw the light from your horn and decided to risk going in close enough to fish you out. They said it was touch and go for a moment.”

“...and what about Swift?”

“Huh?” Stonefeather gave her an odd look, like she’d been hit over the head and wasn’t talking straight. Hearthfire thought about it for a second, then smacked a hoof into her forehead.

“Swift is my plane. I suppose there’s nothing to be done but go and check on her myself... oh, sugar.”

“Pardon?”

“They moved the city around, didn’t they?”

“It was a complete mess, and there’s no official Plan right now - there’s a lot of talk about dissolving the Council, and working on a new system. So for now it’s just cobbled together as best we could. Never mind the fact that the city hall needs to be rebuilt, and huge chunks of the architectural records were destroyed. It could take years to sort it all out.”

“So... you wouldn’t be able to tell me where one particular boat shed ended up, would you?”

* * *

“In the end, I stayed two more weeks, long enough that the worst of the mess was cleared up, and I got to have a proper explore of the new Whinnycia. Swift got a bit knocked about, but she was okay. She’s well built. Getting her up and running again was easy.”

She waited, while the tail end of the translation made it around the circle to those ponies who did not speak Equestrian. Hearthfire wondered vaguely what meanings and details had been gained and lost in the process. Once the last pony had been brought up to speed, there followed a short round of hoof clapping. Hearthfire bowed her grateful acceptance, feeling that she perhaps could have told it better; it was not a story that she had told often, and here and there she had stumbled on details or the sequences of events, but it had seemed appropriate for the dry heat of the midday desert.

“That story, it was true?” Sandwhistler asked, after the applause had died down. His father cuffed him lightly, a reprimand for being rude, but he pushed on, “There is really a floating city? With water all around?”

“There is. It was just as strange as I’ve described it, maybe more so.”

She reached for the pack, where she had dropped it beside her two hours ago, when she began the tale, and dug around to find the Box. It was constructed of an unvarnished dark wood, its panels dovetailed together into a tightly sealed oblong, with a slight dome to the lid and a sturdy catch holding it shut. She worked the catch, and lifted the lid. Dima craned her long neck to see inside, but Hearthfire held it at an angle to hide its contents. Many of the things inside the Box were personal, and she preferred to choose which pieces she shared and which she kept to herself.

After a minute of carefully rearranging the contents, she drew out two slightly worn photographs, of a city in the middle of a bay, both taken from the air. She passed them to Dima, and indicated that she should hand them around to anypony who was interested.

“The one with the big circular building in the middle is the one I took as I first crossed the bay on my approach. The second I took as I left, that’s the one with all the pegasi in the foreground. You can see the change in the layout of the city; just judging from the waterways, they might as well be different cities, you see?”

As the photos went around the circle, a young voice piped up with something in Saddle Arabian. The unicorn filly had been hiding behind her big pegasus brother’s flank, although Hearthfire couldn’t see their mother anywhere.

“What did she say?” Hearthfire asked, even as half the traders around the circle shared a glance, and burst out laughing. Dima had a particularly obnoxious smirk on her face as she translated:

“She wants to know if you and Stonefeather got married. Because that always happens in her stories.” Hearthfire could feel the flush creeping into her face, but did her best to laugh along, shaking her head.

“No, we were never... an item. He was a very nice pony, but I’ve never been the settling down type. Hmm, oh, maybe another time, I’ll tell her the story about the closest I ever got to being married. How about that?”

“Haha, I think I will hold you to that promise, Hearthfire,” Dima chuckled, and translated her answer for the unicorn filly.

“For now, it is time to move again,” Sandborne announced, glancing at the sun and standing up, brushing grit from his robe.

“Uh, say, Sandborne, I’ve been meaning to ask...”

“Yes? If I can grant it, I’ll be happy to.”

“Sandwhistler mentioned you had some Equestrian books. Do you have any books I could borrow to practice my Saddle Arabian?”

* * *

Through the day, the ground became more rocky and uneven, with more and more outcrops dotting the landscape. The caravan was forced to wind around some of the larger protrusions, and Hearthfire was sure that they would normally make more progress than this in a day.

They camped in between two walls of stone. It was sheltered from the wind, but the sun had hardly touched it, and as the night closed in it was only the fading warmth from the air that kept the low temperatures at bay. Hearthfire watched closely as the camp was set up, with an eye to learning the ropes as quickly as possible, so she could stop feeling useless every time there was work to be done. Normally, in a strange place, she was happy to treat it as a holiday, but here she was an added burden in a hostile environment, who didn’t have the money to pay her way.

Once the worst of the evening’s chores were completed, Sandborne found her, bringing with him a small stack of books. He had produced an Equestrian-Saddle Arabian dictionary, a phrase book (aimed at a Saddle Arabian learning Equestrian, but still very useful), and three slim, colourfully bound volumes that looked to be children’s books aimed at a range of ages. She accepted them gratefully, and as soon as she had found a spot near the fire and organised her own space, she got to work.

Sandwhistler and Cloud Flower, with Cloud Flower’s little sister in tow, found her an hour later. They handed over a steaming bowl of stew, and sat with great apparent interest as she spooned vegetables with one hoof and pinned down the picture book with another.

“You are learning?” Sandwhistler asked after a while, once his own stew had been devoured.

“Yes. It’s better if I can talk to everyone, right? Though I don’t think I’ll be very good at it by the time we part ways. Um, by the way...”

She waved a hoof towards Cloud Flower’s sister, who was looking from one to the other in complete incomprehension, “What is her name?”

Sandwhistler translated for Cloud Flower, who did the actual question asking. Hearthfire flicked through the dictionary, trying to hold the unfamiliar sounds in her head as she worked it out.

“Um... Darling Bean?” Sandwhistler took the dictionary away from her, and quickly riffled through it, held it back out to her. “Oh. Darling Posy. Nice to meet you.”

Cas was watching Posy with intense distrust, but she did let the unicorn filly pet her without bolting. For her part, Posy was much less aggressive in her attention, and before long Cas was purring contentedly.

“Good evening, everypony.” Dima emerged into the firelight, looming astoundingly tall over the four sitting ponies. “Oh? Studying I see.”

“Mmhmm. Hello, Dima.”

“Does their mother know they’re hanging around with you?” Dima asked, her tone playful. Hearthfire rolled her eyes.

“Probably not. She doesn’t like me very much, does she?”

“She doesn’t like outsiders. Forgive her.”

“Well, I can understand where she’s coming from, even if she’s not really being fair.”

“Unless you really are bad news, no? If she is right, and trouble follows you everywhere you go, then she is the only sensible pony in the caravan.” For a moment, Hearthfire almost believed that she was serious, but then she winked. “I wouldn’t worry, maybe she will come around, maybe she won’t. You cannot do anything to change her mind.”

Chapter 12

Hearthfire nodded glumly, and finished off the rest of her food. Cas had dozed off on top of the heaped blankets, and Posy had fortunately had the good sense to leave her to sleep. Instead, Posy was watching Hearthfire expectantly, rocking on her haunches. As soon as the older unicorn put down her bowl, Posy fired off an excited string of Saddle Arabian; her brother shrugged, and said something to Dima.

“She asked if you would please tell another story, if it is not a bother for you,” Dima translated, “Only she was not nearly as polite. She wants a fairy tale, about princesses and palaces.”

“Hmm, I do have one story a bit like that, but I doubt it’s quite what she’s looking for...”

“Oh, and Sandwhistler and Cloud Flower don’t want any boring love stories. Of course, don’t feel that you have to indulge them, but... well, I would love to hear more, and I do not mind translating for you.”

“Well, it’s going to be very dark soon,” Hearthfire reflected. “Perhaps what this calls for is a scary story? Something with monsters in it?”

The two pegasi nodded enthusiastically as this was translated; Posy’s eyes went wide at the mention of monsters, but she didn’t look like she was opposed to the idea.

“All right, then,” Hearthfire grinned, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “Very far to the north, as far north as it is possible to go, there is a country on the very edge of the world...”

* * *

It was too cold for snow.

She had heard, but she did not believe, that if you travelled far enough north, you could find temperatures that went beyond cold and through the other side, temperatures so cold that even the snow stayed away, and fell only once in a lifetime or less.

Well, here she was. For a week’s worth of travelling, or perhaps longer, there had been no more snow. It was impossible to say exactly how long, for here, at the edge of the world, the night was indistinguishable from the day, and there was only darkness, and cold.

The cold was a solid force. It hammered against her defences hungrily, eager to prey on the warmth of her core, and she could feel its blows, despite layer after layer of furs and woven cloth and her own shaggy coat. She had not dared bring Cas with her, on this trip, even though her friend had been furious at being left behind in Equestria.

Equestria. Rolling green hills. Warm sunshine. Cool autumn winds. The sun, rising and falling each day, warming the earth and allowing flowers and crops to flourish...

Out here, the memories seemed absurd, almost grotesque. The ice that covered the earth was said to be a thousand meters thick, and it never melted. The idea of growing food in the ground was a joke, a legend told about far off lands where life was a paradise of simple leisure.

It was beautiful.

Without even the idea of the sun to brighten the skies, the endless night was alive with the swirl of stars. Heavenly bodies that were mere smears of light in fair Equestria were glittering baubles in the black skies of the north.

The ground, too, all but glowed. The hard-packed ice was opaque and dark when viewed up close, but pull back to view it from a distance, and look out over the undulating, frozen waves, and it seemed that the entire icefield glowed with some internal pale fire, as some trickery of the ice captured the faint light of the stars above and scattered it in every direction.

“Hearthfire!”

The shout echoed off the pristine silence of the frozen world, distracting her from the bleak attractiveness of her surroundings. Her awareness of the cold in the air, in the ground, came crashing back to her; she gave a mighty shiver, and turned away from the vista. Behind her, at the bottom of the treacherous ice-hill she had climbed, she could see the flickering firelight of the village over the lip of the wooden palisade, and beyond, an expanse far darker than the faint glow of the ice.

Another figure stood between her and the fire, half the way up the slope, as shapeless in its bundled layers as she was. It held a lantern, hooked over one hoof, that cast long shadows across the ice.

“Come in, child! Wind’s cold tonight!” Feminine voice, a mother’s sharp edge of assumed obedience to it. It was Audir, by the sound of it.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Hearthfire took in one final glimpse of the view, and began to pick her careful way down. “You don’t have to call me child, you know, I’m already grown as big as I’m going to get!”

The figure barked laughter at her annoyance. The lantern shook on its ring, making the shadows dance.

“You’re like a child to us, little pony. Besides, every cow in the village is a calf until her elders say otherwise!”

As Hearthfire slithered closer, she could see that she had been right; Audir’s white-and-brown splotched nose and face were visible through the gap in the protective layers of clothing. The cow turned to match the unicorn’s uncertain steps with her own confident stride. Hearthfire still had not really mastered whatever trick the cows seemed to use to walk easily on the hard-packed, slippery ice.

“And when is that, pray?” Hearthfire asked, more pointedly than she had intended, as she almost lost her balance for the fifth time.

“When you wear the land like a skin, child. When you find your own place in a deadly world, which wants nothing from you save your life.”

“You’re always so cheerful, Audir,” Hearthfire noted, rolling her eyes.

The village had a very particular smell, that reached them as they approached, of fish fat burning in oily, smoky torches, the... unique smells associated with leather tanning, the salty sting of seaweed drying on racks. It was doubly sharp, as the icefields had no smell of their own that Hearthfire could detect, unless it was possible to smell cold.

“There is good news, child.”

“Oh?”

They had walked most of the distance in reflective silence, of the sort that Hearthfire had become comfortable with over the past few weeks. There was something about the environment that encouraged contemplation over conversation, quite aside from the unpleasant feeling of heat leaving the body every time she opened her mouth. Audir’s announcement caught her off guard.

“In a few more days, the weather will turn again, the boats will leave, and you can begin your journey.”

She realised that Audir was watching her, judging her response.

“I’m ready. I promise. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”

“Hmph,” Audir snorted, “Well, we shall see, child. Maybe you will earn yourself a name.”

* * *

It was three days until the winds shifted, and every last cow in the village was immersed in the work of preparing. There was recaulking to be completed, hulls to be tested, sails to be mended, rope to be spliced, supplies to be sealed ready for loading, and so many more tasks that must be finished before the village’s boats could begin their voyage. Hearthfire spent most of that time helping with the mending of sails, where even her own admittedly weak magical talent was highly prized for its fine dexterity.

The cows were a stoic folk, well adapted to the cold, heavily layered in muscle and fat. They towered over Hearthfire, and their headstrong attitude made them frequently intimidating, but she had swiftly discovered that, if a pony was willing to give as good as they got, and take insults with good humor, they were all in all a welcoming bunch.

Their difficult lives revolved around two simple seasons. During the ‘warm’ season, in which the salty seas were mostly free from ice and the winds were less treacherous, they sailed away from the safety of the shore in their boats to fish, the harvest of which they smoked or pickled, and stocked for the rest of the year. During the ‘cold’ season, when the seas became a slow moving sludge of partially frozen ice slurry, the cows sat on their stockpiles of food, and huddled in their huts drinking a stinking, throat-burning spirit which they fermented from seaweed.

“This is home,” one of the villagers had told her, sharply, when she had asked why they did not travel south, and find an easier climate, with more abundant food and fertile soil. “Our ancestors lived and died here.”

Ancestors. Hearthfire had quickly learned that they were big on ancestors. Whenever she had been introduced to one of the villagers, she had also received a multi-generation retelling of their lineage, and their family’s notable accomplishments. For her part, she could only name members of her family back to her grandparents, and had not even known much about them. She had wondered if she would be ridiculed, but it seemed only to mark her for pity, as if not being able to name your great-great-great grandmother was somehow the same as never having known your parents. Still, she had a few achievements of her own to recount, and her family were hardly slouches either, even if they were achievements a world away from the concerns of the cows, and sometimes difficult to explain.

Before she realised it, everything was ready. The morning came when the cows had predicted the wind would turn, and turn it did. The tide was out, but set to rise before long, and the cows had hauled their longboats as far down the freezing beach as they could, until the water was lapping at the freshly-repaired hulls.

They were an impressive sight, even on the beach propped upright with timbers. Sleek, thin hulls of expertly smoothed wood over a sturdy skeleton, with a low draft and flat keel to allow them to cut near to the coast without fear of running aground. The curve of the keel arched up at the prow and stern of each vessel, rising several feet above the level of the gunwale. Each ship was single masted, with an immense square sail of hoof-woven cloth, and the design of each of the dozen ships sail was unique: there were horned helmets, and stars and moon motifs, sea monsters, blazing suns...

Chapter 13

With everything loaded aboard, there was nothing to do but wait for the tide. The cows sat at their oars, in two lines down the length of each ship, ready to propel their vessels out into the open waters as soon as the waves lifted them. Hearthfire, it had been immediately pointed out, was simply too small to row, and had been tasked with the important job of staying out of the way until she was needed. She stood at the bow of Audir’s vessel, and looked out across the inky black expanse of the ocean. Anything could be lurking just below the surface, and there would be no knowing until it reared up, water streaming from its jaws, to snatch-

She shook herself, and looked away.

The gentle slap of the waves against the hull was growing in volume, as the water level rose and larger and larger waves braved the shallows to smash themselves against the beach. A murmur of excitement rippled through the rowers, and they let their oars fall, ready to scoop and push against the beach and waves. It was strange that she in some sense knew them all, though she had not spoken more than a few score words with most of them.

There was Tobba, son of Porbjorg the Horned, braced against his oar beside his own son, Tofa. Porbjorg had earned his name when he had fallen overboard and been swallowed by a sea monster. His friends had fought the beast and slain it, and when they had prized open its jaws, it was to find Porbjorg, still alive and kicking, with his abnormally long horns lodged in the creature’s gullet.

Towards the aft of the ship, at the oar closest to Audir, she could make out Skirlaug the Fisher, daughter of Salgerd, son of Runa the Strong. One bad summer, when the fishing was hard, and the village faced the prospect of starvation in the coming winter, Skirlaug the Fisher had tricked an entire shoal of fish into leaping into her boat, nearly sinking it. The crew had been forced to eat as many as they could before the vessel met with disaster, and had still returned with enough fish to last two winters. Runa the Strong had passed many seasons ago, but was said to have been able to lift any three other cows in the village onto her back, and carry them all day without faltering.

Hearthfire had not been able to make up her mind how much truth there were in these stories, as each seemed more comically impossible than the last, but, given how seriously the cows took them, she would not have voiced her doubts in exchange for all the gems in Equestria. Regardless, it seemed that a cow’s oar position was defined by the amount of trust or respect they had earned from their captain. Whether or not the rowers had truly accomplished the incredible feats claimed, unnamed Tobba and Tofa sat near the bow, and Skirlaug the Fisher took the most prestigious oar to the aft.

Audir the Brave stood proudly at the helm, facing her crew, with one hoof resting comfortably on the tiller, waiting for the right moment.

It came on a gust of cold wind and a swell, whipping a big wave ever further up the beach. There was a tiny shift, a creaking of hulls and a feeling of slight lift, and from each of the dozen ships a shout went up, lead by the twelve captains, but quickly snatched up by their crews as near four hundred cows bent at their oars and shoved.

The boats shifted, slipping down the beach until the wave receded once more, but the next wave was incoming, and again as it reached its peak, the shout went out, deafeningly loud, and the boats crept forward once more.

“Put your backs into it!” Audir called as the din waned again, “We’ll not be beaten this year, my sons and daughters!”

So it went on, for wave after wave, as the boats slid inch by inch down the beach, the shout rising with the water and falling back to the captains’ urgings for more speed, more strength, vying to be the first to pull free of the grasping land and surge out into the open water.

It was Audir’s Green Wind that won it, to a mixture of cheers and curses from every cow, and a thunderous drumming of hooves on decks up and down the beach, but before long the other crews had turned back to their oars, and the new race was to avoid being the last into the water.

“We’ll see you calfs in a few months!”

Whatever the other captains shouted in retort to Audir’s parting taunt was lost in the distance that separated them, as Green Wind’s rowers caught the dark waters with the flats of their blades and turned her into the wind, hauling her out through the swell and into the endless night.

* * *

They travelled under sail for the most part, navigating by the ever present stars and differentiating time by the rise and fall of the moon, but when the winds turned against them, the ship would become a fury of activity, as the cows worked the rigging to lower Green Wind’s sail and stow it lengthways down the line of the ship, between the two oar banks. Then they would un-ship their oars and set about driving onwards, the slender hull moving easily through the water and cutting the air like a knife. The cows were expert rowers, and save for the whistling of the wind breaking on the hull and the splashes as the bow breached each wave, there was an eery silence about the vessel once the sail had come down.

Poorly suited to most shipboard chores, Hearthfire found herself set to take every watch she could manage, tasked with standing at the raised bow of the ship, eyes peeled for treacherous waters or ice ahead, straining to see through the gloom. Each time she saw something, or imagined she did, she would shout a warning, and a rower in the middle of the ship would relay it to the stern, where Audir would heave on the tiller, and call for this or that bank of rowers to stop pulling on their oars, bringing the ship safely out of the path of the obstacle. Usually it was ice, immense chunks of it drifting aimlessly through the waters, or a large swell that the ship needed to be brought about to strike head on, other times it turned out to be a false alarm, just a patch of water that caught the starlight strangely.

The sheer scale of some of the icebergs was staggering, ghostly shapes the size of buildings that were mere black silhouettes against the black water until they loomed, suddenly. Her heart raced every time, especially the ones she had not spotted until they were very close. As for the waves, they were almost as bad; even under a relatively light wind, they would be enough to topple the ship and condemn every soul on board to the freezing waters if they were permitted to strike from the side. When the Green Wind mounted them, she would tip at a vertiginous angle, spray crashing over the bow to soak everyone on board, and every few hours, several cows were assigned the task of bailing out the slowly accumulating water.

Audir ran Green Wind on a demanding schedule, governed by the turning of an hourglass mounted near the stern. In good conditions, they sailed twenty turns of the glass and rested for six, during which time the sail came down, the sea anchor was dropped, and a kind of tent was constructed over most of the length of the ship. Using the sail and spar, they created a shelter in which a carefully controlled fire could be built, and where there was some respite from the ocean spray and the wind.

In bad weather, where the ship was in constant danger of being toppled by waves, and a sea anchor would do almost nothing to stop them drifting hopelessly off course, the ship ran indefinitely. The crew worked in shifts, four turns of work, two turns of rest, a schedule that was exhausting, but which the cows bore without any sign of complaint; Hearthfire was given no special treatment, and during some especially long stretches, she thought she might drop from exertion.

However, after two weeks at sea, and three days of uninterrupted gale-force winds and towering waves, the crew was close to breaking point. Every last soul aboard was coated in a film of ice crystals, as spray drenched them with each wave and then froze solid, matting their furs into a tangled mess that creaked with each movement.

“Audir the Brave!” called Osk the Wistful from her oar amidships, causing the captain to glance down from the heading.

“What is it, Osk?”

“We’re tired, Audir! We have been rowing for days!”

The captain shook her head, and pointed all around, at the water that assailed them on all sides.

“What would you have me do? Without our oars, we will be easy prey for the waves. They will roll us, and we will all drown. Row on, daughter.”

Osk had no argument against that, and she bent back to her oar, bending her back twice as hard.
Another day passed, and still the storm had not let up, and still the cows rowed, slipping from wave to wave, always on the edge of disaster. The spray was soaking through their furs, and even their own coats were matted with ice. It was Skirlaug the Fisher who next raised her voice.

“Audir the Brave!” Audir looked down, with a smile for her closest friend.

“What is it, Skirlaug?”

“Green Wind is tired, Audir! Her sail has flown for days, and her timbers creak!”

“What would you have me do? Without her sail, she will be easy prey for the waves. They will roll her, and we will all drown. We sail on, old friend.”

Skirlaug, too, fell silent, and bent to her oar three times as hard.

Chapter 15

It was only by the movement of the stars overhead that Green Wind’s crew could tell that they had completed a full circuit of the island. Every scrap of the coastal cliffs shared a single pattern, an endless ring of identical coves and steep rock walls

“We will have to scale it,” Audir the Brave announced, after some thought, “Even without the storm hounding us, Green Wind will not survive the open ocean. Up there is where we will go, to find what we need.”

Greybrawne the Nimble volunteered, boasting that he was the best climber in the village, and had once scaled one of the crawling, mobile walls of ice that ground their way across the frozen ice fields. The crew drew lots for who would accompany Greybrawne on the dangerous climb. There was no question that Audir would be going, and Hearthfire and Tobba each drew short straws, along with Osk, and no sooner had Tobba drawn his lot than Tofa announced that he, too, would be going. Skirlaug, as Audir’s most trusted crew member, was left in charge of Green Wind in the captain’s absence, and with iron pitons and stout rope the six began their ascent.

The ascent proved no easier than predicted, and perhaps was even harder. Up close, the cliff was a most unusual formation, even aside from its unnaturally repeating pattern. It was smooth to the touch, almost like polished, finished cut crystal, but when a lantern was held close, it revealed a faint grained pattern just below the surface. It was strangely warm to the touch, and free of ice; a single piece of good luck, given the intense difficult that driving a piton home proved to hold. Greybrawne ruined three spikes beneath his mallet until he spotted the slight grooves that ran through the cliff face and aimed his efforts there.

Up and up they went, roped together and clinging spiderlike to the sheer surface, Greybrawne leading the way, forging the path as he climbed. To everyone’s surprise, the climb became easier as they rose. The cliff was divided up into segments by the grooves, and the incline of each segment was a hair less steep than the one below it.

“It’s a huge dome,” Tobba announced, eventually, “It must become flat at the peak.”

“Good. That is where we might find supplies, if we are lucky,” Audir said, with a note of satisfaction.

Sure enough, as the slope reached an even diagonal, dark shapes began to appear to the left, and the right, and up ahead, and when the climbers turned their lanterns on them, they proved to be spindly trees, all but bereft of leaves, but nevertheless clinging doggedly to the island.

“How do they grow?” Osk wondered, “There is light here only a few days a year. Surely there is nothing to nurture them, this far north?”

“A mystery, to be sure,” Audir agreed, but no one could offer any kind of solution, so they kept climbing, grateful that there was likely suitable timber somewhere on the island.

As they approached the peak, the space between the stunted trees lessened, until they reached the border of a wood, or perhaps a forest - there was no way to tell just how wide or dense the trees became further in. By now, the slope was gentle enough that they were no longer climbing, but walking almost normally. They did not untie the rope, however, for the ground was still treacherously smooth, and a slip of a hoof still had the potential to send the careless explorer slithering back down the slope.

“These trees make less and less sense,” Osk complained. “They grow without light, and their roots pierce nothing by solid rock. Where do they draw sustenance from?”

“Do you think there might be animals living here, too?” Tofa wondered, eyeing the surrounding gloom warily. Hearthfire couldn’t hold in her nervous giggle.

“I never thought I would meet a nothern cow who was afraid of the dark.”

“It’s no the dark I’m afraid of,” Tofa argued, hotly, “It’s the things that might be lurking in it that worry me.”

“All right, all right, it was just a joke, no need -”

“Shh.” Audir held up a hoof for silence, “Do you hear that?”

Everyone froze.

The wind rustled the barren branches of the trees.

A hundred meters below, the waves crashed against the cliff.

And that was all.

“I don’t hear anything,” Osk whispered. Audir motioned for her to be quiet once more, still listening intently.

More waves, more rustling branches.

“Oh come on, there’s nothing there! What could possibly live on this island? There’s nothing to eat, except these dying trees, and hardly any shelter!”

“I know what I heard,” Audir countered, “but it’s gone, whatever it was. Be on your guard.”

They moved ahead, Audir composed but alert, Tofa visibly shaken and glancing around nervously. Greybrawne and Osk were messing about, clearly not taking Audir’s warning seriously; Hearthfire, too, was having a difficult time believing that there could be anything living out here. Surely Audir was just being overly cautious, or intentionally putting Tofa on edge as some kind of joke...

Something moved.

It was a tiny flash, a wisp of a shape between the gnarled tree trunks.

She stopped, and Tofa walked into her flank.

“Ow. What is it? Is there something there?”

Scanned the tree line. There was nothing.

“Just my imagination. Sorry, Tofa.”

It was getting darker and darker. While the trees were spindly and leafless, they were getting closer and closer together, their twigs rattling a rhythmless background noise over the wind and the water. Even the meagre light from the moon and stars was slowly being filtered out, and the light from their lanterns seemed to fade with it, casting deeper and deeper shadows through the trees.

Hearthfire found herself looking around, constantly, watching for that elusive flicker of movement she had seen before. Over and over she fancied that she saw it, but it was just a shadow thrown by the sway of a lantern, or the movement of a branch with the wind.

“Stop it,” Greybrawne chided her as she startled at yet another shadow. “You’re making me nervous now.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. After that, it got easier to remind herself that she was just being a jumpy foal in the dark. It was always dark here, for Heavens’ sake! There was nothing to be afraid of.

That was when the ground lurched beneath her hooves, shaking as if under the force of an earthquake. She lost her balance, and pain shot through her shoulder as she hit, hard. She shook her head, trying to clear the dancing lights that were filling her vision, hearing the groans from all around as the others began to pick themselves up. Her lantern had fallen nearby, had gone out; she looked around desperately, trying to find it. For a moment, she was too disoriented to remember that she didn’t need a lantern for light. She shut her eyes, and concentrated, and felt the reverberation inside her soul as she drew upon her magic.

Opened her eyes again.

The... thing rushed from the trees, directly at her, a piercing, keening wail filling the air as it leapt with bloodied talons aiming for her throat. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and waited for death.

There came a drumming of hooves, and a furious lowing, a battlecry, tore from Audir’s lungs and echoed around the forest as the huge cow hurled herself into the air, slamming bodily into the creature in mid-flight. Locked together, the pair tumbled backwards down the incline, and vanished into the darkness between the trees.

There was silence. Then, shaking, still waiting to realise that she was dead, Hearthfire tottered on to her hooves, and picked herself up. The others were rising, too, and everyone was staring down the slope in the direction Audir had vanished.

“Audir!” Greybrawne was the first to move, barrelling into action as he thundered down the slope, heedless of the danger of losing his own footing and flying head over hooves. The other four followed more carefully, calling the captain’s name through the darkness, and shining the light of the one lantern that had remained lit between the trees.

They found Greybrawne kneeling beside Audir, maybe a hundred meters back from where they had been attacked. Audir had come to a halt in a heap of smashed branches and other wood debris, resting against the first tree to survive her striking it. She was breathing laboriously, and her thick layers of clothing were ripped all over, blood seeping through where her own hide had been torn.

“Is... everyone all right?”

“Everyone but you, Audir,” Greybrawne said, shoving a restraining hoof against the captain’s chest as she tried to get up. “Did you see what it was?”

Audir shook her head, her gaze slightly unfocused.

“No. It was fast, and strong, and it was like trying to catch smoke. As soon as I managed to get a hold of it, it was gone.”

The six of them could not help but glance around, expecting to see movement at any moment, but there was nothing to be found.

Chapter 16

“We should find what we came here for, as quickly as possible,” declared Osk, “This island was queer enough without... whatever that was.”

“Agreed. We are not here for a fight.” Audir hauled herself upright, pushing Greybrawne easily aside as he tried to stop her. “But by my ancestor’s horns, we will not be driven out. We will take what we need, and only then will we leave.”

They set off once more, making up the ground they had lost and then pressing further into the forest. Audir was almost silent, and more terse than usual. She managed only a curt nod when Hearthfire tried to thank her, and did not join in when the conversation turned to discussing the creature that had attacked them.

“Every calf knows that restless ghosts of dead cowfolk can haunt the place they died. Could be it was a vengeful, jealous spirit.”

“Don’t be daft, Tofa, the only reason every calf knows it because it holds no water with grown cattle,” Greybrawne scoffed, “Besides, did you ever see teeth and claws like that on a cow?”

“I thought you didn’t get a look at it, hmm?”

“I saw enough to know it wasn’t shaped like any cow I ever saw.”

Hearthfire squeezed her eyes shut again, as fragmented images scattered across her mind’s stage, and shivered.

“It’s probably just a wild beast, ekeing out a living on this forsaken rock. If it comes again, we’ll be ready for it, and we’ll send it down to the depths of the ocean.”

“Hah! Are your horns going soft? Like trying to catch smoke, Audir said. It’s a ghost, I tell you. Right, Audir? Like smoke, right?”

Audir span, snout to snout with Tofa, almost headbutting the younger cow. Their freshly rekindled lanterns sent crazed pools of shadow dancing in the captain’s eye sockets, and the sticky, slowly freezing blood glistened slightly where it leached down her features.

“All of you, knock it off! Pay attention rather than arguing about useless things, and maybe one of you will spot some decent timber!”

They walked in silence after that, each with their own thoughts. Say what you like for the cows’ constant pickering, it had been doing a good job of keeping the paranoia at bay. Without it, Hearthfire had nothing to do but stare at the shadows and imagine what might be hidden inside; by the looks of things, the others were feeling much the same, save for Audir, who strode a dozen paces ahead with angry hoof-falls.

She probably feels like she’s been made to look like a foal, Hearthfire realised. Still, their fearless leader’s aggressive attitude was somehow comforting, and Audir carried with her an aura of indomitable strength, despite her injuries. Hearthfire could think of no one she would rather be hunted by a murderous monster on a barren island alongside.

“Um.” In the tense silence, that was enough to get everyone, except Audir, looking her way expectantly, “No one’s mentioned anything about the ground shaking. You know? Right before we were attacked.”

“Oh. That. There is probably a burning core of molten rock inside this island, where fire spirits live,” Tobba supplied.

“Huh?” Hearthfire’s eyes went wide as she realised what he meant. “You think it’s a volcano?”

“It explains why the ground is slightly warm. And the shaking. We have visited several, and the tales tell of some very large ones, though, I’ll admit, none this shape. Normally they are tall spires, with crevasses and channels running down their slopes.”

“And this doesn’t bother you? Wouldn’t the ground shaking mean it was going to erupt soon?”

“We are not intending to do anything to anger the fire spirits, so why would it?”

“And you’re not worried that the thing trying to kill us or drive us away is a fire spirit, huh?” That got her four exasperated stares.

“It did not look anything like a fire spirit, and regardless, a fire spirit wouldn’t stoop so low as to outright attack us. They would simply fan the molten rock, and cause it to go surging to the surface and annihilate everything close to the island.”

“Right, of course, sorry.” The cows didn’t seem to pick up on her sarcasm, “We don’t have many of them in Equestria, that’s all.”

“You should hope to see one of the fire mountains erupt. It is a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.”

“Just so long as it’s not this one, I hope...”

The ground was almost level by now, and the going was easier too, but the trees were becoming ever more dense. If it had been an ordinary forest, by now the undergrowth would be so thick that it would be all but impenetrable, but here it simply forced them to make slight alterations and corrections as they went, stepping around twisted tree trunks and ducking beneath grasping branches.

It was as the slope vanished to be almost imperceptible, and the six were sure that they must be approaching the heart of the island, that the noises began.

They set Hearthfire’s heart to ice in an instant. They were distant, but there was no mistaking them, the same sound she had thought she heard in every unexpected rustle of branches or whisper of the wind. The cry of the beast.

It seemed to come from every direction at once. She tried her best not to imagine, but she could already picture it; a whole pack of them, circling, out of sight between the tightly packed trees, calling to each other, preparing to surround the interlopers in their territory.

The cows had halted, were staring about even as she kept her eyes pointedly fixed directly in front of her. Audir’s front hoof scuffed the ground with a dull scratching sound. Spoiling for a fight.

“Audir...”

“Don’t be afraid, child. We know you pony folk are not built for the crash of battle. We will protect you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Hearthfire lied, though it must have been as transparent as day, “but this isn’t a smart place to fight. You have no space to move.”

“If you mean to suggest we should retreat, don’t waste your breath,” Audir snorted, tossing her head derisively. “I said we would not be driven away, and I do not break my promises.”

“Push ahead then. Try to find a clearing, if we can. We’ll be torn apart if they attack us here.”

None of the cows looked willing to argue with Audir in her current mood, but to Hearthfire’s great relief, she nodded.

“You speak sense, little pony. If they come at us, we will crush them, but that is no reason not to seek an even stronger position. I am not afraid, but neither am I stupid.”

Just stubborn, Hearthfire added, in the privacy of her own head.

They pressed on, not making any movements to provoke the creatures that were hunting them. Their unseen stalkers were drawing closer, Hearthfire was almost certain. She glanced from cow to cow: Audir seemed no less intent on forging ahead, and fighting if she had the chance; Osk and Greybrawne looked rattled, but alert and ready to defend themselves; Tofa and Tobba brought up the rear of the group, the Tofa sticking close to his father’s side, and both had the same sick-scared look which Hearthfire was sure she was sporting.

“Hold. I see a light ahead.”

Audir was right. There was a glow visible through the trees, a clear, pale light, made indistinct by the intervening trunks and branches.

“You don’t think someone’s... living out here, do you?” Hearthfire asked, and swallowed nervously, “I mean, aside from the monsters.”

“Wait here. I will see what I can see,” Audir announced, and made to stride ahead, but Hearthfire snatched at her leg, halting her unless she wished to drag the unicorn along with her.

“Ahahaha, no. How about, we stay together? What if this is what they are trying to keep us away from? Or they just decide that they should attack while we’re split up?”

Audir turned, and opened her mouth to make some counter-argument. The beast flew from nowhere, jaws stretched wide and dripping saliva, to strike the cow in the neck in a spray of dark blood. Big, bigger than a pony, and lean, starved, straggling fur hanging off meatless bones. The eyes blazed the beast’s hunger like a torch.

Hearthfire couldn’t stop. She bolted, her lantern cast aside in her rush, smashing to the ground and extinguishing itself as she fled. Didn’t see what became of Audir after the big cow toppled, the beast riding her to the ground as if she was no more than a fawn. Didn’t see who was caught, as more of the creatures glided from the black with desperate snarls.

Barely saw another, darting ahead to cut her off, and dodged, altering the course of her mad gallop. Lost her footing and skidded madly across the smooth rock as the shape sailed overhead, snapping furiously as thin air where she should have been.

She was through, galloping towards the light, as the sounds of battle hounded her through the darkness, the snap of jaws, shouts and cries of pain. Osk was shouting something, something she couldn’t make out. She shut them all out, put her head down, and ran.

Chapter 17

Hearthfire did not look back until the sounds had died away. They had faded quickly in the gloom of the forest, or perhaps she had run further and longer than she realised. She was dizzy with lack of air, breath wheezing across her lungs like a saw, and her limbs were leaden, uncoordinated. She could run no further.

She slid into the lee of a nearby trunk, curling herself into the hollow of the tree’s roots where they dug into the rock. The light was still visible up ahead, perhaps as far again as she had just come. Had it really been that far away?

She should turn back, help, see if the others were okay.

She didn’t.

After a while, she managed to stop shaking, dabbed at her eyes.

There were no sounds of pursuit, no sounds at all. The dead forest was deathly silent, and she was very, very alone.

When she felt strong enough to move, she crept out into the dark. Her lantern was gone, and even if she still had it, she would not have dared to leave it lit, no more than she dared to light her way with magic. Better to walk in the dark than to be visible for miles.

That was how she went: in inky blackness, always stumbling, tripping over tree roots, every timid hoof ringing a cacophony with each fall. Waiting for the second when the dark would open into slavering jaws fresh with speckled blood and swallow her whole. She found herself afraid to lift her gaze to look at the distant light, unable to bear the thought of a dark shape gliding silently across it, briefly eclipsing it and signalling that the hunt was on once more. Much better not to know. Better for the dark to reach out and claim her without a fight. Perhaps she wouldn’t even have time to scream, or even feel the pain.

Once or twice, she thought she heard her name being called, but when she would stop to listen all would be silence again; and other times, she could hear mad laughter, or the creak of thin ice under strain, and knew that she was hearing things that weren’t there.

The light never seemed to get any closer, when she dared to look at it, until she stepped across the threshold and found grass beneath her hooves.

The glade was warm, and the sunlight was bright enough to hurt her eyes after months lived by lantern-light. Here, the trees were full of life, boasting leaves in a hundred shades of green, some with branches overflowing with sweet-scented blossoms. It was a dream, a hallucination, an impossibility. The beasts had come for her, and torn her life from her before she even felt them, and she had been sent to some endless afterlife of summer; that was her only explanation. Looking back proved her wrong; she was only a few paces into the glade, and she could clearly see the dark and twisted dead forest extending as far as her eyes could pierce the gloom.

The grass was long, tickling her belly as she walked, interspersed here and there with ferns and patches of vibrant forest flowers. With no real plan, guided only by a desire to be as far from the cold, dark forest as she could, Hearthfire headed towards where she judged the centre of the glade would be.

The trees thinned out, giving way to younger saprolings and wide open spaces. Looking directly up, to view the sky, produced a slight nausea. It was as if she were viewing one of those magic-eye pictures. One eye saw a painfully bright summer’s day, wisps of cloud scudding overhead, while the other saw the cold, blazing night sky of the north, pinpoint stars and a razor’s sliver of moon. The two superimposed in her vision, and her brain could not work out which it was meant to be seeing. It didn’t take her long to just pretend it wasn’t there, and enjoy the strange warmth.

Her horn tingled pleasantly, resonating with the ambient magic, but there was a dissonant note in there, too. A dissonant note in the magical harmony; and a harsh, ear-strafing undercurrent in the silent glen.

It was a toothy sound, from somewhere head, closer to the centre of the summer circle. Hearthfire crept closer with her heart in her mouth, darting from tree to tree as swiftly as she could. Whatever was creating the sound, it surely could not be any worse than what awaited her back out in the dark, she reasoned; but did not have the heart to believe it. There was something intensely unsettling about the sound, a rhythmic rising falling buzz, a sound that would be produced by a swarm of angry insects circling right overhead. It made her ears twitch involuntarily.

There was a huge tree. It should have been impossible to miss, but it filled her vision with such little warning that she startled and skittered back behind a trunk in surprise. When she stuck her head out again, it was still there, and the buzzing noise was emanating from the base of the trunk. The tree was groaning and swaying, as if rocked by a wind Hearthfire couldn’t feel, and even as she watched, leaves were falling from its branches, and black mould raced across its bark.

She shut her eyes and counted, five four three two one, and forced herself out of her hiding place, keeping her head down for the scarce concealment the long grass offered. The tree turned out to be set into a hollow in the ground, and peeking from the border of the grass at the lip, Hearthfire got a clear view of the source of the noise.

“Wolf” was the first thought to cross her mind, but it was too big. She had seen the Timber Wolves of the Everfree, and terrifying though they were, they were at most half the size of this monstrous creature. Its shape was wrong, too, the snout elongated and bearing a hint of reptilian influence, the legs incorrectly jointed to the body, its shoulders protruding almost vertically from its back. It was not wholly there; she thought she understood now, what Audir had meant when she said that it had been like trying to hold smoke. It blistered and shimmered, a mirage made into mangy flesh, and everywhere the sunlight fell on it, it seemed to be... dissolving. Chunks of fur and pieces of flesh evaporated from it, slowly boiling away in grotesque puffs of ghostly organic matter.

It paid no mind to its own steady destruction. Its jaws were clamped on one of the great tree’s roots, and it was chewing with ravenous gusto at the bark and the sap-filled flesh beneath. This was the source of the buzzing; each time its jaws squeezed, grinding ever further into the root, the buzzing would reach fever pitch, such that Hearthfire was forced to clamp her hooves over her ears, then fade to almost bearable levels as the beast shifted for a fresh grip before soaring back to painful heights once more.

She had no idea what to make of the scene, but every fragment of her being was telling her that she was witnessing something terrible, something wrong on a most fundamental level. The tree was dying, was being murdered, and that was not something that she should allow. She glanced around for a weapon, a rock to throw, a stick to wave. Nothing. Sugar.

“Hey! That’s right, I’m talking to you!”

It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t even the idea of a plan. If she wasn’t so busy trying not to scream at the very thought of trying to get the beast’s attention, she’d be cringing at her own stupidity. It released the tree root it was gnawing on, and the sound faded to a low idling humm - at least until it snapped its jaws at her with a crash like a thousand hornets taking wing in a lightning storm.

That was as far as the un-plan went. She turned tail and ran. Distract it, try to stay ahead of it.

Try not to die.

Chapter 18

Its paws made no sound as it emerged from the hollow, and it moved unnaturally, as if its legs only touched the ground for the sake of appearance. Hearthfire fled as if all the inmates of Tartarus were at her heels, which they might as well have been, for all the chance of survival she would have if that buzzing maw closed around her. She could hear i even over her own sobbing breath and the drumming of her hooves on the rich loamy soil, getting closer with each passing second.

For an instant, she considered throwing herself flat, diving into the long grass for all the thin concealment it would offer, but pushed the terror-filled panic response aside. It would find her in not time at all, and she would be perfectly helpless. Instead, she forced herself to look ahead, aiming her flight for the edge of the clearing and the more densely spaced trees and undergrowth; she was much, much smaller than her pursuer, and the confines of the trees might just give her an edge. She firmly clamped down on the recollection of one of the other wolf-things, ghosting eerily between the darkened trunks out in the dead woods. Nothing about this wolf was smooth, or graceful: it flailed after her in a sick parody of a dog’s gait, trailing a noxious cloud of its own seared flesh.

She cleared the tree line, and was faced with the stark black-white border that constituted the edge of the glade, and managed to change direction, dashing away at right angles to her heading, around the circumference of the incongruously sunlit space. Her gaze flickered across a weighty fallen tree limb, and in desperation she wrapped it in the pale glow of her magic, dragged it telekinetically in her weight like the world’s least attractive balloon. It was a pathetic weapon to be sure, but it held a reassuring realness that her world seemed to be lacking right now. And comforting to know that she did not have to die without a shred of fight in her. Maybe she could bloody its nose as it came for her. Not that it would care, it would obliterate the branch with a single bite, and then -

It was over. She had run into a dead end, her headlong dash had left her heedless of her surrounding, and the thick, thorny bramble-like vines ringed her in on all sides. The only way out was to push through, which she was not sure she could even manage, or to turn back into the waiting jaws. Either way, her pursuer would close the distance with her easily. She could hear it crashing through the undergrowth, seconds away, and then it emerged, shaking scraps of burning bark and foliage from its hide. It slowed when it caught sight of her, confident. If she tried to flee, it could make a final dash to catch her, but for now, it had no need to exert itself.

Shouldn’t have interfered.

At first she thought it was her own thought; Heavens knew she couldn’t help but agree with it. It wasn’t until the thought was followed with a deep, cruel laugh that she realised it was coming from outside.

“What are you?”

No need, little horsie. Unicorn from the Spring lands. Too far from home, putting her nose in other creature’s business. Things she doesn’t understand.

She waved the branch experimentally through the air. It made a satisfying swoosh, but she didn’t even know how long she would be able to keep it floating. Her magic had never been very strong. Her teachers back home had always been very nice about it, very understanding, but she’d found her own way, her own path.

Gone gallivanting off to die at the end of the world.

“If... if you come any closer. I’ll fight you.”

That’s the spirit.

It leapt. The sun-stoked embers that covered its coat roared into life, fanned by the sudden movement, and it howled in pain and fury, but kept coming, heedless of the way its body was being scarred and warped.

Hearthfire swung with the branch. It was a good blow, under the circumstances, that caught the beast on the side of its skull, behind its ear. It was enough to knock it just off course; where it should have struck her square from the front, jaws closing over her head and tearing her to shreds, it caught her in the shoulder, teeth gouging and tearing but failing to find purchase. Blood sprayed onto the thorns, and she found herself drifting sideways, betrayed by limbs that refused to support her any longer.

She couldn’t even see the beast rise, behind her. It was painful to turn her head, and the cool leaves cushioned her pleasantly as she lay on her side, feeling the sticky warmth ooze down her side. She didn’t even bother trying to stand. The smell of blood and burning fur played across her muzzle, and she wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant scents.

Spring horsie, now you’re an Autumn horsie. Shouldn’t have attacked things it didn’t understand. Which-bit-should-I-eat-first.

The tides of dread rose again as she contemplated the idea that it might not finish her off in a single blow, that it might toy with her as she lay there, helpless. It was enough to get her to stagger to her hooves as the beast circled, and she tried to keep it in her field of vision; though even that seemed to be shaky now. Her opponent seemed to be in almost as bad shape as she was. There was almost no fur left on it, and here and there scorched bones were showing through its roasting sinew. It seemed that it didn’t have long left to live, either, if it stayed in the sunlight.

“Well then,” she managed to wheeze, as her vision swayed, shifted in and out of focus. The charring hulk swam, blurred, the thorny vegetation behind it seeming to move and coil in a most disorienting fashion. Probably best if she just let herself fall over again and gave up, but she was too afraid of what it might do to her if she didn’t try to fight to the last breath. “End it.”

That’s the idea.

With a snarl, it pounced for the killing blow. Hearthfire’s gaze found their focus for an instant, and she saw straight into its maw, the rows and rows of teeth that glinted like steel in the sunlight and moved, actually moved, inside its mouth, whirring in endless circles of tearing, shredding destruction. She began to move, to try to dodge, or at least to collapse in a useful direction, but it was already far too late.

Then everything moved sideways. The ground quaked a second time, throwing her to one side and knocking her into the grass once more. She rolled, coming to a stop at the foot of a tree that was no longer vertical, and stared in shock as the beast was consumed.

It had missed her as it pounced, and sailed past her to crash headlong into the thorned thicket. It tried to get up from its graceless landing, but it was no use. The barbs dug into its flesh, and as much as it thrashed around and twisted, they stayed firmly lodged. The jaws snapped, buzzing, slicing through creeper after reaching creeper, but fresh stems seemed to sprout from the ground even as it severed the ones restraining it, and all the while it was still burning in the heat of the sun.

Finally, with a bubbling wail and a last gnashing of teeth, it collapsed into a heap, the vines dragging it down and down until it seemed to simply burst, evaporating into a choking cloud of ash that whispered skyward on the wind. From the spot where it had died, fresh greenery sprouted, tiny saprolings and budding flowers climbing free of the soil and the vines to bloom in seconds before scattering their seeds and fading away as quickly as they had come.

Hearthfire sat there for a long time, waiting for the world to make sense once more, but was forced to accept that the world had no intention of doing so. She wobbled upright once more, and limped over to the vines, eyeing them warily for further signs of aggression. They seemed as perfectly inert as she had grown up expecting plants to be, and she came closer. There was something shining, in the tangle of the thicket.

“Hearthfire? Are you here, child?”

Audir and Osk and Tofa and Tobba and Greybrawne, all in a variety of sorry states, covered in jagged wounds and blood. Osk had splintered a horn. Greybrawne was dragging a hind leg. Audir was a mess, every inch of her hide seemed to be covered in bite marks and claw gouges. Hearthfire looked down at her own injuries, scrapes and bruises and the long gash down her left shoulder, and stifled a giggle that threatened to turn into a sob.

“You all look like you’ve had the tar beaten out of you.”

“You do not seemed to have done much better, child."

Chapter 19

* * *

They remained on the island for as long as they needed, and were there to bear witness to its miraculous transformation. Within hours of the beast’s death, the seeds scattered by the suddenly blooming flowers had spread all across the island, and everywhere they touched new plants grew, and trees and grasses flourished, and the island became a paradise of warmth and sunlight, completely oblivious to the bone freezing temperatures and eternal darkness that surrounded it on all sides.

They took what timber they needed, finding only the best trunks and taking no more than they required. A great pulley system was rigged, and the freshly cut wood lowered down into the sea, ready to be hauled aboard and set into place. Before long, repairs were well underway, and Green Wind was preparing to depart.

There had been more heavy drinking, in the hours following the expeditionary party’s return to the ship. The cows, it seemed, loved a good life-and-death struggle, and the story of their battle against the strange beasts was well received, especially when it was revealed that the island was probably magic, and the things they had thought were in some way other-worldly. The cows spared no detail, and again, Hearthfire didn’t quite know how much of what they claimed had happened after she fled was really to be believed. For her part, she didn’t feel much like celebrating. Once her wounds were cleaned and dressed, she found herself drifting away from the others, secluding herself in the bow as the impromptu party, and then the repair work, went on around her. She was preoccupied with nagging questions and lingering fears; the strange events that had taken place on the island gnawed at her, and no one who had been there seemed to have anything close to an explanation.

She approached Audir, who was cheerfully directing the repair work from amidships, heedless of her own injuries. Audir not only seemed unfazed by what had happened, she seemed to have drawn fresh vitality from it, as if she were still running on battle adrenaline days after it should have faded.

“Audir, would it be possible to take Green Wind around the island once more before we leave? I want to check something.” When pressed, she couldn’t find the words to articulate exactly what she was expecting to find, but she felt sure that there was something out there to be seen. Bits and pieces, things she had seen or sensed while on the island, were trying to tell her something; that was all she could say.

“It’s the pattern on the rocks,” she realised, as the repairs reached completion. The revelation came as she was helping finish fix the tatters of the sail into a useable whole, and she almost stabbed herself with the needle as she stopped paying attention.

“What was that?” Tofa asked, looking up from his own darning.

“The island shook, but nothing about it seemed volcanic, apart from the warmth. And those rock formations seemed so strange. It’s like a tortoise’s shell! All those different shaped bits fitting together, and the whole thing is a huge dome.”

“What’s a tortoise?”

“Huh? Do you have sea turtles this far north? A tortoise is sort of like a sea turtle, but on... land... Oh.”

They rowed for half an hour clockwise around the island before the first flipper breached the water off the starboard bow, lit from above by the rays of sunshine spilling over the edge of the island into the pitch black northern night. There was momentary chaos as all the rowers craned to look, those on the port bank shipping their oars and standing to see over the heads of their fellows. The limb was bigger than the boat, and rose almost clear out of the water, trailing spray as it arced through the air to slide with hardly a splash back into the freezing ocean.

Once Audir had bellowed the crew back to their oars, it was close to another full half hour before they reached the head. It reared from the water as they approached, dozens of meters long and eyeing them cautiously with one enormous, inky black eye. It radiated intelligence, but how to go about communicating, Hearthfire had no idea. Was it the prey of the wolves? Had the cows’ arrival inadvertently saved it from a hunt? Was it as grateful to them as she was to it? She didn’t doubt that it had saved her from death; as the nightmare-toothed jaws had prepared to close around her head, it had intentionally moved to help her.

In the end, she had no idea how to ask the questions of it, or if it would be able to answer, and those enormous eyes watched passively as they passed in front of it, and beyond it, and finally broke away to make for open waters.

* * *

It was well after dark, and the camp fire was settling down to ruby embers. Most of the ponies and camels were long since asleep, and Posy was nodding off beside Cas on Hearthfire’s blanket heap. Even Dima was yawning demurely behind her hoof as she finished translating. Sandwhistler and Cloud Flower were lying on their backs, looking up at the stars, but both were wide awake.

“Did you ever find out? What the turtle was doing there? What was going on?” Sandwhistler asked after a while.

“Not until years later, but that’s a whole different story...”

Posy mumbled something; seemed she hadn’t been completely asleep.

“She says that you forgot about the shiny thing. In the brambles,” Dima supplied.

“Oh, that. I picked it up. It was a little piece of cut crystal, or at least, that was what it looked like. Hmmm...”

She rummaged for the Box again, and dug around. It was an inch and a half long, and it shone with a pale green-blue light once she unwrapped it from the hoofkerchief she kept it in. It was cold against her hoof, much colder than even the chill desert evening.

“There. It glowed brighter and colder than that when I first found it, but it’s faded over the years. Still kind of pretty, though, in a harsh way.”

“Do you have any more stories about the north? Did you see the edge of the world? Or more monsters?” Dima translated quickly, trying to keep up with the rush of questions as the two pegasus colts passed the shard from one to another.

“I do, but none I care to tell. I have been to the edge of the world, and seen far more terrifying monsters that I did on that island, but that was the only story I have with a happy ending. We were lucky not to lose anyone, very lucky, and that luck did not hold the entire voyage.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”
“Not all journeys are adventures, and not all adventures end well. It was a long time ago, now,” Hearthfire shrugged, then shook her mane, “Oh! I didn’t mean to bring doom and gloom down on us all. Just a mare thinking aloud. I expect their mother will be out looking for them soon.”

“Yes, and she’ll have your head on a stick if she catches them hanging around here,” Dima chuckled, “Come on, little ponies! Up, up!”

As she shooed them away, and Hearthfire woke Cas up to extract the blankets from beneath her, Hearthfire couldn’t help but let her mind wander to grim places. She only told the stories of adventures that turned out alright in the end; the others she kept to herself, not forgotten, but private. There were at least as many private memories as there were ones she was willing to share, and even from those she did tell, many were less than pleasant, even if they did make for interesting stories.

Maybe Posy’s mother was right, and she was a magnet for trouble. How many stories did she have in her repertoire, where she visited a country or a city, and nothing went wrong? That’s stupid: there were plenty, but most weren’t worth the re-telling, unless the audience had a particular interest in the place itself. That was all.

“Well, goodnight, Cas. Maybe I’ll tell a story about you, next time, huh?” Cas made a pleased noise, stretched briefly, preened some more fluff into her coat to trap more heat, and crawled into the mound of blankets beside Hearthfire. Hearthfire yawned, tugged the blankets more closely around them, and let herself drift slowly off to the crackle of the fire’s embers.

“The one with the griffons, hmm, Cas...?”

* * *

The next day, they reached an oasis. There was some discussion amongst the family heads of the tribe as to whether it would have dried up or not, but while the water level was lower than it should be, there was still enough for the caravan to refill its supplies, and for some washing to be done.

Cas, a cat who had proven time and again that she had no trouble with water, was in love; after days in the dry, dusty heat with little water to spare, just being able to dip in and go for a swim was a relief. Hearthfire joined the younger ponies in splashing about in the shallow pond, and when they tired of that, they went and lazed in the shadow of the leafy trees that clustered around the water source, while they waited for the water barrels to be filled and hoisted back onto the wagons.

Between being pestered by the fillies and colts, she managed to find time for some more studying, though she wasn’t convinced it was all sinking in. The heat of the day made concentration waver, and while the shade was a refreshing escape compared to the open ground, it was still hot enough to feel like an oven. She quickly gave up on reading, and wandered off to look for Sandborne.

“How much further is it until the next town?”

“Two days, but I doubt you will find what you need there... even if it can be found anywhere at all.”

“This place isn’t big enough?”

“Indeed. I honestly do not know if anyone can rescue your plane. You would need several unicorns, probably, to lift it, and even then how will you transport it to somewhere it can take off? You will not be able to afford it. I think it is best for you if you give up, and just focus on making your way home in one piece.”

“I have one or two ideas, but whether I can get the materials I need all the way out here... I’ll probably need to get to a large city to find everything.”

“Two weeks, minimum. If everything goes smoothly, and it never does, we will be at the greatest bazaar in the whole region in two weeks. If you can’t find what you need there, you won’t find it anywhere on the continent.”

Chapter 20

The caravan soon reached a huge cliff wall, which dominated the skyline for hours, a sandstone tan colour that rippled and shimmered in the heat waves thrown off by the baking sand.

“Are we going to have to make our way around?” Hearthfire inquired of Sandborne as it loomed ever closer. The caravan did not seem to be changing course to detour around the obstacle.

“No. There is a way through. The next town is on the far side.”

When they were close enough, and Sandborne had pointed out where to look, she too could make out the darker streak of a cleft in the rocks. Reaching it proved to be a blessing and a curse. With the sun past its zenith, they were in perpetual shade, a welcome respite from the day’s heat, but the narrow confines created all kinds of strange currents and unpredictable winds, blowing choking dust every which way. There was no chatter at all, even by the subdued standards of the caravaneers mid-march. Everyone had pulled their hoods low and donned scarves to shield from the salient grit.

The place where they camped for the night was a minor improvement. It was a hollow in the wall of the ravine, shielded from some of the worst gusts, and once the wagons had been removed into a loose line across the mouth, the air was almost calm, and it was possible to talk without inhaling a lungful of dirt.

With the day-to-day chores of setting up camp completed, and the big iron cauldron steaming merrily on the fire and throwing out mouth-watering aromas, the caravaneers gathered around. The day’s big event had been when one of the wagons had struck a rock, and a casket of dried fruit that had not been properly secured had been hurled free to spill across the ground, and the commiserations and light ribbing came thick and fast to the hapless pegasus who had lost a portion of his stock.

Hearthfire didn’t see who started it, possibly Cloud Kicker or Sand Whistler, but more likely Dima, but before long a good number of the group were heckling her for another story.

“Oh come on, how is that fair?” she complained, “It must be someone else’s turn now.”

“Not so fast, freeloader,” Dima taunted her, “We have travelled together for a long time, and we’ve heard all the of each other’s good tales enough times to be sick of them. But you still have plenty we’ve never heard before, hmm?”

Hearthfire rolled her eyes, but acquiesced, looking about for inspiration, something to help her pick her tale. Gathered her thoughts.

“Now, to my knowledge, there are seven Griffon nations. Some are allies, some are rivals, and which is which changes with the seasons and even the days. But for our story, we need only concern ourselves with the griffons that inhabit the city-state of Spire...”

* * *

The final approach to the Spire airstrip was a terrifying ordeal. The strip was carved directly into the mountainside, crafted from a naturally worn long, thin plateau that had been carefully levelled and constructed upon.

Hearthfire had taken Swift round on a flyby, communicating with the ground via flashed semaphore, and she was already regretting her decision to fly rather than abandoning Swift at the base of the mountains and coming up by hoof. The strip was significantly shorter than Swift was designed to handle, and she was forced to cut her airspeed as low as possible to compensate. As such, the control surfaces were far less responsive than she would have liked, and crosswinds buffeted Swift alarmingly.

The second she felt the bump as the landing gear hit the ground, she hauled on the brakes as hard as she dared, eyes fixed on the cut-off line where the strip terminated in a crash net followed by a thousand meter drop.

Swift squeeled to a halt with ten meters to spare, and Hearthfire and Cas relaxed their manic grips with sighs of relief.

“Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea?” Hearthfire muttered, as she eased the plane around to taxi away towards the strip’s waiting hangar. Cas, ever the expert at rhetorical questions, just stretched and padded over to the plane’s door, waiting expectantly. Back up the length of the strip, a hoof-full of ground crew could be seen over towards the cluster of low buildings, standing down as they confirmed that she had landed safely.

There were a surprising number of aircraft in and around the strip, in a wide variety of types and configurations. The strip was primarily built for heavier-than-air craft, with the many zeppelins, blimps, and balloons that frequented the city being serviced by smaller, dedicated moorings and cargo drops, but there was one small dirigible straining at its ropes as crates and barrels were extracted from its belly. There was a ten-long row of diverse planes along the inner side of the airfield, displaying a wide range of form, function and design philosophy: boxy bi- and tri-planes, the latter of which Hearthfire knew to boast incredible maneuverability, if not much in the way of top speed; enclosed cockpit mono-planes such as her own, built to with the storage space and fuel efficiency to withstand long-haul flights; and strange flapping, hoof-powered mechanical designs that surely could not serve a useful purpose and were little more than glorified gliders.

And, glimpsed through a partially-open hangar door, the rarest of an aviation aficionado’s spotting-list, an immense cargo plane. The twenty-meter long behemoths of the heavier-than-air world hauled large cargoes across long distances at many times the speed of a conventional zeppelin. In addition to their powerful twin engines, it took two highly trained unicorns to get one into the air, applying magic both in providing additional kick to the engines and operating the complicated flight systems that regulated the lumbering machines passage through the sky. Hearthfire had seen planes on similar lines before, though they were an uncommon sight the world over, due to the high cost of running them and the high skill required of their pilots. They tended to be reserved for extremely high priority, bulk cargos.

She let a member of the ground crew signal her into line beside the other light aircraft, and quickly went through her engine shutdown checklist. A bi-plane coughed into life in the line as she was arriving, and she waved a friendly hoof to the pilot as they passed each other.

“Everything all right?” Hearthfire asked the ground-crew griffon as she hopped down from the cockpit behind Cas. The griffon was a... hen? A Lioness? What the hay is the proper term for a female griffon?

“Sure thing! Welcome to Spire. Well, really I shouldn’t be saying that before you clear customs, but there won’t be any problems, right?” They shook, claw to hoof, after the griffon had absent mindedly wiped her hoof on her overalls. It left an oily smear on the tough fabric that Hearthfire recognised from her own mechanical work.

“Shouldn’t be. I’ve not got much more than my gear on board.”

“You’ll need to fill out some extra paperwork for the cat.”

“Huh? Is Cas going to be a problem?”

“Just customs being customs,” the griffon shrugged, “There’s all kinds of regulations on live animal imports. I shouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you.”

“All right. I’ll try to keep an open mind. So, where do I have to go?”

“Here, I’ll finish this up and then show you. Hang on a minute.”

Hearthfire tried her best not to pry as the griffon went back to her maintenance, up to her shoulder in the fuselage.

“Would you like a helping hoof?”

“Nah, I’m good. All done,” she said, straightening up. “You a mechanic, then?”

Hearthfire jerked a hoof towards Swift. “I built her. My own design.”

“Not bad. Don’t see many ponies in aeronautics. Come on, I’ll take you over to the office.”

* * *

Dealing with customs took an hour. The griffon official was very friendly and helpful, but there was still a lot of paperwork to be done. Hearthfire learned that the air strip was a much sought after post for the Spire’s customs officers, what with its low traffic and only a bare minimum of large-volume shipments.

“Most of the difficult work goes on at the city walls. Almost all the goods that come across the mountains have to pass through Spire’s gates. Honestly, it’s a surprise if I have to deal with three people in one day, here.”

“It seems like a lot of effort has gone into building this place, for such infrequent use.”

“Heavier-than-air flight may be in its infancy, but it’s something of a source of civic pride to know that we can deal with anything that comes through, whether it’s on the ground or in the air. For that, you at least need a landing strip.”

The griffon finished scrawling his initial on the last page of the document, and pushed it across the desk.

“Read, and then sign or hoofprint, please. Here, here, here...”

There was a wealth of regulation. Forms detailing city laws and ordinances, import taxes - fortunately nothing she had brought with her qualified - identification documents...

“Here’s the affidavit stating that your cat is a personal companion animal and not being transported for sale. Here’s your statement that she’s disease-free. Sign or hoofprint, please.”

Finally, it was all done, and Hearthfire was feeling exhausted. The griffon, on the other hand, seemed as fresh and cheerful as he’d been at the start. Maybe he just enjoyed paperwork...?

“Wow-ee,” she said, leaning back in her chair with a sigh. “Spire takes this sort of thing seriously, doesn’t it?”

“It must seem very authoritarian to someone used to the Equestrian way of doing things, but we have problems that Equestria has never really needed to deal with. With our position, sat in the middle of such a large transport route, we see all sorts here. Over the years, it’s paid to be careful about what we allow in, out, and through.”

“Well, it’s certainly tired me out. Please tell me we’re finished.”

“We’re finished. Welcome to Spire, Ms. Hearthfire. You’re free to enter the city whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh, praise sweet Celestia! A-hah-ha, I mean,” she bobbed her head apologetically at the sight of the griffon’s slightly affronted look, “Thank you for your time.”

“My pleasure. Enjoy your stay.”

* * *

“Phew! I thought I was going to suffocate in there, Cas, how about you?”

The customs check had included a brief photo shoot with an ancient looking tripod camera in a side room off the main customs office, and Hearthfire was now carrying two bundles of identification papers, each including a grainy black and white photograph, one for herself and one for Cas. She had been assured that visitors were mostly permitted to go where they pleased, and she would only need to produce the papers if a guard had a particular reason to suspect she was up to no good, but she slipped them in near the top of her pack, just to be on the safe side.

Now that she was walking its streets, Spire was just as incredible as it had first seemed when seen from above. The entire city perched precariously on the mountainside, nestled in a wide flat-ish expanse where the slope of two peaks met and joined, covering the entirety of the plateau and much of the slopes to either side. The centre of the city was relatively normal, but as one reached the outer edges, ordinary streets gave way to heavily inclined, mercilessly zig-zagging routes that tortuously ascended the steep gradient. The design of much of the city was heavily gothic, sombre grey stone and imposing, blocky lines that soared intimidatingly upwards; in fact, given the intense premium of square land area in the city, Hearthfire was almost prepared to believe that the city was taller than it was wide. The architecture did not so much rise, as loom.

In contrast to the slightly grim, if very impressive, architecture, the bustling streets were a wash of colour. The main thoroughfares seemed to be in a state of constant gridlock, with two barely-moving streams of traffic passing each other on the constricted central boulevard. The city was constructed around three major parallel routes, connecting six gates that faced each other across the city. Traders who were simply passing through on their way to other destinations were encouraged to enter at one of the three gates on their approach to the city, cross using the corresponding road, and exit as quickly and orderly as possible on the far side.

From that triple hub of constant flow, smaller cross-streets permeated through to the other sections of the city, connecting to the static trade quarters, the moorings that served as the city’s zeppelin air links, the administrative district, and everything else that kept the city functioning.

Here and there, on lines running at right angles to the through-routes, the rows of immense columns marched across the metropolis. They rose higher than almost every other construction in the city, and supported vast arched viaducts, that connected the north and south mountain faces. Space being as valuable as it was, the columns were constructed to double as housing, and pedestrian stairwells rose through their cores, allowing one to travel from the base of the city to one of the upper wings without traversing the congested ground-level streets. The viaducts were a true symbol of Spire’s policy of welcoming everyone with welcome arms: if the city was insular, and reserved only for its winged native griffon citizens, there would be no need for artificial constructs to link the outer sections. Truly, the city-state of Spire was one of the gems of the developed world, and the memories one could forge on even a brief trip could last a lifetime.

Hearthfire closed the guidebook with a snap.

“All right. Let’s see where our legs take us, eh?”

She followed the main street for a way, worming her way between the pressed mass of pedestrians. It seemed that every imaginable race and species was currently jostling her in an attempt to claim the piece of pavement she was currently occupying. She was bumped into by buffalo, trampled by tapir, crushed by camels... Minotaurs. Zebra. Unicorns. Earth ponies. Donkeys. Up and down the street, peddlers barged through, trying to flog their wares to passers by and those pulling or escorting the wagons, useless nicknacks, sweet snacks, clothes, jewelery. Cas was quickly forced up off the ground, for fear of being kicked or stepped on, and watched the passing whirl from the safety of Hearthfire’s head, eyes darting every which way as she found new things to examine.

As much as Hearthfire normally enjoyed hustle and bustle, it soon became too much even for her. She was forced to dive into a side street, away from the worst of the mob. The difference was like night and day - the streets were by no means deserted, but there was usually room enough to do a little twirl if the fancy had taken her, and more of those who passed her in either direction looked like they had a specific purpose in mind.

“I reckon,” Hearthfire explained to Cas, her eye drifting up, to the one feature that most dominated the skyline, “We should climb up one of those pillars. There’ll be an amazing view. I want a proper look from the air without having to fight to keep Swift steady in the crosswind all the time.”

Chapter 21

It turned out to be a lot of steps. The highest of the five viaducts soared almost three hundred meters above street level, reached by an endless switchback staircase that climbed steeply up the centre of the column.

At each landing, corridors stretched radially outwards. Hearthfire explored a few, and they proved to each connect to a circumferential walkway, lined with doorways. Most seemed to be residential, simple painted oblongs with perhaps a brass or carved number that seemed to include one digit for floor and another for the residence’s clockwise position around the pillar. Each door presumably hid a tapering space taking up a segment of the available floor, usually eight to a level.

Aside from the apartments, some of the doors had generous glass viewing windows set into them, and hung wooden or wrought iron signs beside them, though for obvious reasons none of these shops seemed to be offering bulky or heavy goods. Getting them up or down the stairs would be a nightmare.

The stairwell terminated directly into the pavement at the side of the viaduct, rising in the middle of the walkway with stone guard rails on three sides to prevent hapless pedestrians from falling into the hole. Hearthfire was about ready to fall over as she cleared the last few steps, and stepped aside to let others pass as she got her breath back. The air was comparatively thin all over Spire due to its extreme elevation, but Hearthfire was convinced that even the few extra hundred meters made a difference, too.

The viaduct was essentially one enormous street, with multiple lanes for traffic in each direction, and full blown buildings constructed along each edge, although the construction was more based upon timber than stone, in deference to the lack of solid ground beneath its foundations.

In order to look out over the city below, or in fact to have any real perception that her hooves were hundreds of meters above the city’s real street level, it was necessary to get through one of the lines of buildings. Access was possible through occasional alleyways, which cut between wooden walls towards the lip of the viaduct and terminated in viewing spaces. The one Hearthfire found herself in was hemispherical, and elegantly crenelated along its outer edge. Here the city’s gothic motif reared its head once more, the stonework imprinted with dramatic scenes of martial prowess and friezes of wise-looking griffons presiding over the creation of great works.

Standing on her back legs and resting her forehooves between the merlons allowed Hearthfire to see over the edge. It was a long, long way down. In the foreground, wisps of cloud scudded across the field of vision, partially obscuring the arches of two lower, more modest viaducts that cut lines across the city below. Aside from the bridges and clouds, there was nothing to impede her view in the crisp, clear mountain air. It seemed that every street was etched in perfect detail on a scale model, close enough that she could reach out and run a hoof across it to feel every expertly laid block of masonry.

The melee of the three central streets ran directly away from her, seeming to converge at the far off walls of the city, matchstick model carts slogging along at a snail’s pace as tiny creatures swarmed around them. Across it all, as if mocking those toiling below, griffons and even a smattering of pegasi - easily differentiated by the griffon’s superior wing span - swooped and soared on the wind, bypassing the crowded streets entirely and cutting straight lines to their destinations.

Hearthfire and Cas bought lunch at a sidewalk cafe, and took a table on a raised veranda that gave patrons an elevated view over the crowds. They ate leisurely, watching the comings and goings of the city’s citizens and visitors, wondering at the sheer variety of creatures that could pass through a single city. As metropolitan as her home city of Manehatten might be, it was still at the end of the day an Equestrian city, and seeing anything aside from ponies was an oddity. Perhaps it was the fact that the griffons had only minimal use for walking along their own thoroughfares, but it seemed at times that there were less griffons than there were miscellaneous other races walking past.

When they had finished, Hearthfire decided that they should follow the viaduct all the way to the cliff face at the edge of the city, and work their way down, back towards the floor of the basin. The sunlight was strong this high up, despite the cool wind, and soon the two of them were getting too warm for comfort. They paused at a merchant’s stall so that Hearthfire could buy bottles of fruit juice for herself and water for Cas. It was expensive - the fruit had to be transported all the way up from the lowlands, after all - but sweet and amazingly cold. The griffon let them peek behind the counter, to reveal the coolbox stacked with his merchandise. If there was one thing that Spire had easy access to, it was ice. A scarce few minutes flight on the updraft that raced perpetually up the sides of the mountains would bring a griffon to the snowline, and with the use of a cleverly designed container, the frozen harvest would keep the contents pleasantly chilled for the entire day.

Hearthfire sucked juice through her straw as she trickled water over Cas, who lapped it up and gulped it down until she was satisfied, then danced under the stream to cool off. The cat shook herself happily, creating an instant damp patch of pavement, and started smoothing her fur back down.

“Much better, huh? Maybe I should get another couple of bottles for later...” She turned to the merchant with a smile, reaching again for her bit pouch.

Cas was gone. The damp patch of pavement was empty as Hearthfire turned back. That was odd, Cas was normally so good at not wandering off. She lowered her head and looked around, expecting to see a flash of Cas’ dark grey fur between the hooves of the passers by. Nothing. Looked up, anywhere she might have leapt up to. Nowhere to be seen.

She could feel unease rising. Why would she run off? Had someone grabbed her? No, no, that was ridiculous.

“Cas? Come on, don’t scare me like this. Cas!”

She hopped up and down, trying to get a better view in the crowded street. There! A grey streak rose from the press of the crowd to land on the running board of a passing cart, up into the cart’s bed where Hearthfire momentarily lost track of her, but then she found it again, alighting on the head of the donkey at the cart’s traces before leaping to the tail of the next cart and onwards.

“Cas!” Hearthfire unfroze, and began floundering her way through the crowds, pushing her way to the edge of the street and galloping as fast as she could in the direction her friend had vanished.

It was no use. She had barely run fifty meters before Cas was too far ahead to see, and Hearthfire was left to surge blindly ahead, hoping to catch another glimpse, until she was forced to admit defeat.

Now what do I do?

Should she wait nearby, and hope Cas came back? Or return to her rented room? Or the airstrip? Should she just keep wandering, and trust to luck? Cas had looked like she was heading towards something. Following a scent, or an object that had caught her attention. Maybe she should keep going in the same direction Cas had vanished in...?

Comotion up ahead. Shouts, the shrill note of whistles being blown. From behind her, answering whistles, and before she knew it, burly griffons in the well-polished bronze breastplates of the Spire guards were swooping overhead, grim determination in the set of their beaks.

Oh, sugar, what next?

She shoved her way forward, taking advantage of the brief halt as the crowd stopped and craned to see what was going on, muttering, “excuse me, coming through, mind, thank you...”

Up ahead, where the guards were converging, another figure burst into the air as if fired from a cannon. It was a griffon, judging from the size and the wingspan, but shrouded in a voluminous green-grey cloak. On its back, a large wicker basket perched, secured by heavy leather bands that wrapped the creature’s chest. Four of the city guards rose swiftly in its wake, beating the air with their wings and menacing with their hardwood batons.

And there was Cas. Clinging determinedly to the cloaked figure’s hind leg as it tried to simultaneously take to the air and kick her off. Hearthfire watched open-mouthed as the five griffons drifted away from the street, holding their altitude as the four guards closed in on their target.

Putting her brain back in gear, Hearthfire looked about for the nearest way to the edge of the viaduct and forced her way through. The five were over open air now, Cas clinging on for dear life as she dangled over the vast yawning drop to the city streets below. Glancing down, Hearthfire could see more griffons rising, the sun glinting off their breastplates. In moments the cloaked griffon would be surrounded on all sides, and from the looks of it, he knew it too.

The last clear image she had of Cas was a single frozen snapshot of the cat’s terrified face as the griffon rolled and folded its wings, plummeting beak first straight down in a desperate, near-suicidal dive.

* * *

“Yes, I am absolutely sure that I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

Sergeant Gloria’s fierce golden eyes stared her down. It had been intimidating an hour ago, but by now Hearthfire was too tired and angry to care. She traced meaningless patterns on the desk with her hoof, and didn’t meet the griffon’s gaze.

“So it wasn’t someone you knew?”

“I am acquainted a sum total of two griffons, and they both live a few thousand miles away. Cas and I landed in Spire this morning, for pony’s sake! We don’t know anyone here!”

“All right, all right. No need to get shirty with me, Ms. Hearthfire. We’re not currently treating you as a suspect, but we do need your full co-operation.” The slight edge the griffon put on ‘currently’ was about all Hearthfire was prepared to put up with.

“I’m just about done here.” She stood up, resisted the urge to buck the chair across the room. “I came here because my friend is missing, Sergeant. I came because I needed help. I did not come here because I wanted to be interrogated over and over again about the identity of a suspect that your constables failed to catch.”

Gloria rose too, making conciliatory motions.

“Please, I apologise. Sit down, just hear me out.”

Hearthfire paused, still fuming, but didn’t make a move to return to her chair. The sergeant raised a clawed foreleg, and ran it awkwardly through the glossy white feathers that covered her eagle head.

“Look. I know I can’t stop you leaving if you want to. I really don’t have any grounds to arrest you, so that’s that. My troops are doing everything they can, we want to catch this guy just as much as you do.”

“So? I want to be out there looking, too, but instead I’m sitting on my tail up here.”

“So, there’s more at stake here than just your blasted cat! I can’t... tell you any of the details, but, I’m telling you straight up: let us deal with this. I swear we’ll find her. For now, consider this a warning. If you go looking for this guy on your own, I will throw your flank in jail so fast it will make your head spin.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Sergeant,” Hearthfire snapped. “I’ll be leaving now, if you don’t mind.”

“So long as we know where to find you. Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t really need to tell you this, but, don’t leave the city, Ms. Hearthfire.”

* * *

Naturally, she had no intention of following Gloria’s instruction to leave well enough alone, although she had a niggling suspicion that Gloria had expected as much.

...even so, she hardly had a place to start. Spire was not the largest city she had ever visited, but it was easily immense enough that she could wander all day without going down the same street twice. She had no friends who knew the city, and only the tiny, vague map printed in the back pages of her guidebook to direct her steps.

All right. Thinking time. She’d wasted an hour trying to deal with the city guards. Cas could be anywhere by now.

Well, maybe not wasted. Maybe Gloria was just concerned for Hearthfire’s safety, or didn’t want a foreigner blundering about making a mess of things, but it had seemed an awful lot like she’d stumbled into something larger than it appeared. She wished she’d managed to convince Gloria to tell her why they had been after the cloaked griffon in the first place, but the sergeant had been tight-beaked on every line of inquiry.

...why the hay had Cas decided to run off like that? Presumably, something about the griffon had caught her attention, but what? The obvious solution was that he’d had something in his wicker basket that she had been after. Hmph. That was no help. What in the world could possibly have been in there to make Cas act up?

Too many questions. Not enough information. It all swirled around in her head as she drifted aimlessly through the streets. It was long past noon. With no better plan, she let her hooves carry her east, the direction the fleeing griffon had headed before juking between buildings and vanishing from view. Tried to picture the city once more from above. There were the city gates, of course, if you went that far, but there would be no chance for an escapee to pass the walls while the city guard were in hot pursuit: Hearthfire had seen the patrols that constantly circled the city, keeping folk from slipping in without the proper checks, or leaving without authorisation. Moving out from the centre, the three main thoroughfares passed through shopping districts, which gave way to residential areas more or less all the way to the city walls. However, turning away, to the north or south, would lead outwards to modest manufacturing districts (though Spire was no great creator of goods), and finally regions mostly given over to warehousing and air-docks full of mooring spires.

Chapter 22

Next. What could have been in the basket? Illicit goods of some kind, assuming the griffon was wanted for the contents he had been transporting. Stolen items. Banned items. Smuggled items. Something Cas wanted, probably something she could smell. That ruled out most of the kinds of valuable goods that would be a target for theft, jewellry, paperwork, money. Not stolen, then. Hang on, what had the mechanic said? There’s all kinds of regulations on live animal imports. Why?

Finding the centralised Customs Office wasn’t difficult. It was located centrally, sitting between two of the cross-city roads, with most of the day to day work being farmed out to smaller offices at each gate and zeppelin dock, similar to the one at the airstrip. The clerk at the front desk was happy to help, and seemed glad just to have someone to talk to in the vast, deserted main lobby. It seemed the central office really didn’t get much traffic.

“We keep copies of all the records here. Other than that it’s just for show, if I’m perfectly frank. As the flow of goods is so important to the survival of Spire, Customs has a lot of say in how things are run. It looks bad if we don’t have a big impressive building in the city centre,” the clerk explained, conspiratorially, before leaning back in his chair with a wink. “So, what can I do for you today, ma’am?”

“I was wondering if I could look at a copy of the regulations on animal import and export. The firm I work for has a... a client who believes she has found a niche market she wishes to exploit, but is of course cautious given Spire’s reputation for tough rules in these matters. We’ve been asked to look at the legal standing for such a venture.”

For a brief, paranoid moment she was sure that the clerk was going to turn her down, that Sergeant Gloria had warned them that she might show up and that they were not to give her anything. Then common sense kicked back in; Gloria had no real reason to suspect she would be here, and honestly probably saw her as nothing more than a nuisance, anyway.

“Not a problem. Of course, anyone can access copies of the regulation documents, and for a nominal fee we can provide you with a personal copy.”

“That won’t be necessary at this point. I’m strictly here for an initial feasibility examination.”

The clerk spent a few minutes writing down a suggested reading list, a long column of section and clause codes that might be relevant.

“Of course, the list is not exhaustive, but it’s likely to cover most of what you need to know.”

* * *

Two hours later, Hearthfire emerged, coughing, from the archive room, certain that her coat would never again be free of dust. Or her lungs, for that matter.

“Find what you were looking for?”

“I did. It seems I can tell my superiors to tentatively give the go-ahead. Uh, by the way, I happened to notice that transporting cats through Spire for the purposes of trade is specifically banned...?”

“Oh. That’s part of our open-borders agreement with the lowland provinces to the east. Cats are considered a nuisance animal down there, and owning one is an offence. Even transporting them through and on to other destinations is illegal, so to cooperate with their policies, we’ve enacted a ban here, too.”

“Nuisance animals?”

“They’re not native to this part of the world. They caught on as very popular pets in recent years, but they escape and breed in the wild, and cause havoc if not kept in check. It was decided that it would be best to stop any more being introduced, while they try and come up with a way to deal with the ones they already have, I think.”

“Is it well enforced, this trade ban?”

“As well as any of them. There’s still a lot of demand for them, and there are always ways around, if you’re willing to pay enough money. There’s always something of a black market around anything we ban.”

“Huh. Interesting. Well, thanks for your help. I’m sure my firm will be requesting copies of the relevant regulatory documents soon, and I’m sure it’ll be me who has to bring her flank all the way out here again to pick them up.”

“No problem, ma’am. Happy to be of service. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.”

Out in the street, Hearthfire couldn’t help but shake her head. Cat smugglers! Really? She dearly wished she could go and see Gloria and confirm her suspicions, but that was a sure way to land herself back in hot water.

Still, it didn’t really help her, even if she was right. What was she going to do, wander into suspicious looking back alleys and see if anyone offered to sell her a purebred kitten? Cats surely weren’t exactly difficult to hide if you were determined to keep them away from the inquisitive talons of the law and didn’t mind keeping them cooped up somewhere. It would be getting them into and out of the city that was the tricky bit.

Oh pony, I hope Cas is okay.

She was a tough cat, for all that she was a prima donna and an attention seeker. Hearthfire was sure that she’d be all right. Somewhere out there, Cas was probably out doing exactly the same thing, aimlessly wandering the streets, searching.

Right. No moping. Hearthfire was going to do everything she could, even if that meant just walking down random streets until she happened upon her friend. There were still several hours before dark, and she refused to let herself become disheartened. Even if she had to give up for the night without success, she would be straight back out tomorrow morning.

As she walked, the crowds thinned slowly as the daytime rush of commerce and trade gave way to the more sedate nightlife of the city in the evening. Lanterns were being lit all along the streets, griffons whooshing from lamp post to lamp post with glowing tapers in their claws. It was a cheery glow, very different to the ghostly evanescence of the magic orbs Manehattan’s streets deployed for illumination after dark, but the minor difference combined with Hearthfire’s layers of worry to produce an uncharacteristic bout of homesickness in the unicorn.

The further out she went, the more widely spaced the lanterns became, and the less populace the streets grew. It was almost full dark now, and she was just passing the first few low, square mound shapes of warehouses as she realised that she should be turning around soon. She was already faced with the prospect of navigating back to the hotel in the dark, and there wasn’t much chance of finding anything out here when she could hardly even see.

As she turned around to leave, she missed the shadow that flitted from the roof of one warehouse to the next. The last thing she heard was a soft rustle of feathers through the air as her unnoticed stalker dropped on her from above.

* * *

Everything hurt.

When she tried to move, it hurt more, and she muggily realised that she had been hobbled. Cold stone pressed against her right side where she lay on the floor. Opening her eyes gave her a view of wooden panelling a few inches away from her nose. Somewhere behind her, hushed voices were talking. She tried to twist her neck to hear better, but it just made her head spin and her vision blur, and she decided to stay very still.

“...sure its the one?”

“I’m sure, there aren’t that many unicorns in Spire. The Bronze had a big long chat with her after that mess on the up. And then not four hours later she comes poking her muzzle around here? It can’t be a simple coincidence.”

“Well, what in fur and feathers do you expect me to do with it? If you’re wrong...”

“If I’m right, we would all have been cooked chickens by now if she’d gotten much closer before I stopped her.”

There was a theatrical sigh.

“All right, all right. Get ready to move everything. I’ll find out what it knows and whether we need to be panicking or not. At least it’s a foreigner, so if this was all a huge mistake, no one’s likely to notice that it’s missing right away, hmm?”

Scratching-ticking sound of avian talons and pounces on the bare stone.

“Are you awake? I am currently holding a crossbow. If I see so much as a glimmer from your wretched horn I will not hesitate to take drastic and permanent action. Clear?”

Hearthfire nodded carefully, doing her best not to let her head fall off, as it felt like it might do at any moment. The authoritative voice was male, gruff but carefully enunciated. She found herself imagining eyepatches and facial scars.

“Good enough. Start at the beginning. What did the guards want with you this afternoon?”

She considered lying, but her head was buzzing and she barely even trusted herself to talk coherently at this point. She managed to get her throat working properly on the second attempt.

“They wanted to know what I saw up on the viaduct.”

“Which was?”

“Nothing! The sergeant kept asking if I could identify the griffon who jumped off, but I wasn’t even that close.”

“So why did they want to talk to you, specifically?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“...I only arrived in Spire today. My cat ran away, I just wanted help getting her back. Maybe they thought I was suspicious because I was new in the city with an animal?”

There was a tick-tick-tick of claws on wood. Drumming impatiently against the top of a crate.

“All right. Let’s pretend a believe any of this for a second.”

“It’s the truth!”

“Let’s pretend. How did you end up here? Why were you sticking your muzzle where it didn’t belong, and spooking my associates?”

Chapter 23

“Dumb bad luck, I swear. This is the direction my cat went in, I was just here looking for her!”

“So, you’re not working for -”

Somewhere in the distance there was a crash, splintering wood and colourful cursing, then approaching footsteps.

“More of the shipment’s gotten out! Someone’s got to be sneaking around in here. There’s no way they can be getting out on their own.”

“This is turning into a complete farce. Forget the ones that have been let loose, and move whatever you can. And post some extra spotters! I’m getting the feeling the Bronze are going to swoop on us any minute now. Once I have finished up here, we are leaving with whatever we can manage and ditching the rest, is that clear?”

Hearthfire struggled uselessly against the ropes snaring her limbs, ignoring her body’s protests, and managed to move until she could see the knots. They weren’t tied particularly well, but that was small comfort; it didn’t take much to stop a pony from moving without resorting to magic. Looped over there. Through there. Doubles back.

She flexed her legs, watching how the ropes constricted, tried to deduce the steps that would be needed to untangle the knots. Maybe if she was quick enough, she could slip the ropes and be up and running before her captor could react. Just needed to be sure that he was properly distracted, wouldn’t notice the glow of her horn until too late. With every muscle screaming at her, she twisted her neck to try and see behind herself.

The room was a plain oblong, lined with stacks of crates reaching to the low ceiling. Her captor was standing in the doorway conversing with another unseen person outside, the crossbow lying momentarily discarded a few feet from him on a writing desk, on top of a stack of papers. The blocked door seemed to be the only way out, but she had to try. She turned back to the ropes, mentally preparing for the trickily dextrous piece of magic she was about to attempt.

It was so close to going according to plan. With three swift telekinetic tugs, the ropes came free from her front hooves. In trying to free her hind legs, something snagged, or she pulled something the wrong way; she couldn’t stifle the yelp of pain as the bindings tightened. The griffon in the doorway turned, his face lit by the flickering magical luminescence, and he snatched for the crossbow without hesitation.

On pure reflex, she rolled, levering herself around with her two free limbs, and lashed out blindly with her magic as the griffon raised the bow. Something in the trigger mechanism must have been knocked out of alignment by the undirected assault, because the arms snapped forward, propelling the bolt deep into the wooden crate panel inches from her head. The griffon swore and started to reload, a hint of panic in his eyes, but the catch had been damaged and refused to cock correctly.

Hearthfire wasted no more time: she gritted her teeth, and tried once more to free her hind legs as the ruined crossbow was thrown angrily aside to clatter on the stone floor. The rope came loose at last, and she staggered unsteadily to her hooves, turning to face her captor. The griffon edged backwards, suddenly afraid, but unwilling to turn his back as Hearthfire advanced.

He doesn’t know what I can do. It was a moment of clarity; there weren’t that many ponies in Spire to begin with, and unicorns were the rarest of the three pony common pony breeds...

She halted halfway across the room, lowered her head as if to charge, and pushed all her limited magical reserves into making her horn shine as bright as she possibly could. The ambient lamp light of the room seemed to dim, eddies of air current disturbed by the magical accumulation sent tiny dust devils whipping at her coat and set the lamp flames dancing, and with the most bestial roar she could muster, she threw back her head and hurled all the force she could gather straight at the terrified griffon.

Luckily, he didn’t stick around long enough for the projectile - which amounted to nothing more than a puff of air wrapped in glowing magical light - to strike him. He hurled himself aside, vanishing out of sight with a flap of his wings. She could hear his shouts for help fading into the distance.

Time to find out if Cas is here, and get out.

She bolted for the door. Beyond it, towering stacks of crates stretched in every direction, up to the shadowy rafters of the warehouse. She had emerged from one of the outer walls into the main storage space, with no immediate sign of an exit. There was a commotion happening somewhere out of sight, deeper into the stacks, sounds of people bashing about, crates falling, and indistinct shouting from which intelligible fragments rose:

“There goes another one!”

“After it!”

“Idiot! You let it get away!”

More thumping, a cat’s yowl, and the surprised yelp of a griffon in pain.

“Argh! Wretched creatures! Get back here!”

Hearthfire guessed at the correct route, and galloped down the aisle she hoped would take her towards the shouting, and, with luck, Cas.

As she pressed deeper into the huge warehouse space, she passed stacks with tarpaulin sheets thrown over them; tugging one aside revealed dozens of tightly woven wicker cages filled to bursting with frightened feline eyes. There had to be hundreds of them, at least ten to a cage, and they all knew something big was going on.

“Well, a little more chaos can’t hurt, can it?” Hearthfire muttered to herself, as she set about grabbing the bolts between her teeth and yanking them open. Cats near flew from the cages as each one opened in turn, streaks of fur on four legs that scarpered down the aisles or scrambled upwards to leap from crate to crate up by the ceiling.

“Fur and feathers, here’s even more of them! Someone’s got to be letting the blasted things out!”

“It’s that unicorn! She got away. Forget the cargo, find her and get rid of her, right now!”

The last voice was one she recognised as the griffon with the bow. She slowed her progress to a more careful canter, prepared to bolt at any moment if she was spotted.

She rounded the next corner and almost ran slap bang into a pair of them, two large, burly griffons. The three of them froze, but it was Hearthfire who recovered first, turning tail and accelerating to a full gallop in a respectable distance. Shouts behind her as her pursuers took to the air; they would easily outpace her over a straight line, but she had no intention of playing into their claws. She was easily more maneuverable than them while she was on the ground and they were in the air, and from what she’d seen, a griffon on the ground wasn’t the best designed creature for running.

Three twists and turns chosen at random and she was gaining ground swiftly as her pursuers fought to keep up in the confines of the warehouse’s stacks. Realising they were falling behind, they changed tactics, rising up to the ceiling where they could easily keep pace with her no matter how she moved. They were going to try and cut her off, and no doubt there would be others moving in to help.

“Oh, sugar, sugar!” Hearthfire stopped, knowing it was useless to keep running, and considered her options. Her pursuers circled, and dropped, one to the front of her, one behind. She felt for her magic, but already knew it would be drained from her earlier exertions. Nothing. Did her best not to tremble as she shifted to keep them both in her field of vision.

“You’ll both be sorry if you don’t walk away,” she blustered, “A unicorn is a terrible foe. I could strike you down with a thought, if you force me to!”

They exchanged a glance, but didn’t back off.

“The guards, the... the Bronze, will be here any minute. They know where I am, they’ll know I’m missing by now. If you run, you might still get out before they arrive...”

They weren’t buying it.

“Sod it.” She ran for it, back the way she had come with her head down, straight at the nearest of the two griffons. She caught him off balance; he tried to snatch at her as she passed, but she ducked under his talon swipe and through, running for her life again. They recovered fast, and were hot on her heels almost immediately. She risked a glance back, regretted it as she misplaced a hoof and stumbled.

The griffons surged ahead, sensing their advantage. They didn’t see the boxes tumbling until it was too late; an avalanche of heavy wooden crates came crashing down in front of them. The lead griffon didn’t have time to stop, just ploughed beak first into the heap. The second managed to slide to a halt short of the obstruction, beating his wings to stop mid-air, before a last box dropped from on high and drove him to the floor with a squawk.

Hearthfire gaped at the pile of shattered wood in disbelief. Maybe her luck was finally turning? Then she spotted the grey shape leaping down the tangled box-slide in a blur.

“Cas!”

She snatched Cas out of the air as the cat bounded joyfully towards her, and hugged her tightly to her chest. She felt tears welling, sobs mixing with her relieved laughter until she could hardly breathe.

“You’re okay,” she managed, when she had regained a measure of control, “...and you saved my flank! Come on, we should get out of here before more of them show up.”

Cas led the way as soon as she put her down again, but it wasn’t to the exit, much to Hearthfire’s exasperation; at least, until she realised where she was being taken. Cas took them all over the warehouse, ducking into cover to hide from passing griffons, and when they reached the stacks of cages, Cas would pause. Together, they would set loose another wave of cats to flee into the night, before moving on to the next set.

“You couldn’t just run away, could you?”

Three griffons dropped from above, hedging them in. She recognised the middle griffon from the store room. He’d found another crossbow from somewhere.

“I don’t recommend trying your magic again. I am not going to be caught off-guard a second time. Move.” He gestured with the crossbow.

“And keep your mouth shut, or I’ll put a muzzle on you.”

Hearthfire did as she was told. She did her best not to let the glimmer of hope show on her face as Cas darted away unnoticed amongst the horde of escaping cats.

She was marched towards the back of the warehouse, to an unobtrusive single door set in the rear wall. One of the other griffons produced a key, and the door opened onto the chill of Spire's night.

Chapter 24

“PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS! YOU’RE ALL UNDER ARREST!”

The night went instantly white, as hoods were tugged from chemical torches, then black as Hearthfire’s eyes responded to the intense brightness with a partial shutdown. She felt talons slide around her throat, and haul her backwards, inside the building once more. The tip of the crossbow bolt was a pinprick presence against the nape of her neck that seemed to fill the entirety of her half-blind world.

“I have a hostage! If you want your wretched spy back, I suggest you clear a path!”

There was silence from outside, until the speaking horn boomed again.

“THE BUILDING IS SURROUNDED. IF THE HOSTAGE DIES, YOU STILL WON’T GET AWAY! GIVE UP!”

Hearthfire swallowed, made difficult by the way her head was being pulled back. She was forced to balance on her hind legs, her front hooves dangling uselessly in front of her. Her vision was clearing down to a swarm of purple dots, giving her a view of the ceiling of the warehouse; she carefully turned her head, trying to get more of an idea of what was going on. The harsh chemical light from outside was casting a long oblong on the floor, and the other two griffons were nowhere to be seen, no doubt already in custody.

“I saw the identification papers! It’s not going to look so good for you, if you let an Equestrian unicorn take a crossbow bolt through the head! Maybe the Mayor will send you along to the embassy to explain what went wrong?”

Her captor tugged harder, forcing her gaze painfully back up to the ceiling. To where Cas’ pale green eyes peered down at her from the rafters.

The cat dropped silently, tensing and leaping in one fluid motion. It had to be a twenty meter drop from beneath the high ceiling, at least, but she was dead on target. The griffon didn’t even see it coming, too busy watching the door, but Hearthfire was ready as Cas sailed straight at the side of his head; she raised her front legs and shoved the menacing claws away from her throat, and hurled herself flat as the crossbow fired reflexively.

For the second time in half an hour, she felt the heart-stopping whistle of a steel-tipped shaft ghosting past her skull. Time caught up as she hit the ground, her legs folding badly underneath her and her jaw clipping the stone with a disorienting clack of teeth knocking together.

Cas was still clinging gamely to the griffon’s head, hissing and spitting and driving home swipes of her claws wherever she could, all while keeping out of range of her opponent’s talons and snapping beak. Even so, it was clear that with one wrong move it would all be over. Hearthfire tackled the griffon; he was bigger than her, but he couldn’t see properly past the furious cat attached to his face, and he only had his hind paws on the ground.

She landed on top of him, as Cas untangled claws and jumped away, and swung a hoof as hard as she could. It wasn’t exactly a blow that would go down in the annals of fighting history, but it connected with the griffon’s skull hard enough to send tingles running down her leg. He was still moving feebly until she hit him again, and he fell back, stunned.

She stood up, as the pins-and-needles numbness in her leg spread outward through her body. It’s just shock, she told herself, you’re not hurt anywhere. She left the griffon lying there, and wobbled over to the door, barely remembering to shield her eyes with a hoof as she stepped into the light.

* * *

“Honestly? If you were a Spire citizen, I’d have thrown you in the cells overnight and dealt with you in the morning. You acted like a stupid chick, put my investigation in jeopardy, and almost got yourself killed in the process.”

The Spire city guards had access to some of the most competent medical staff in the city. There had been a dozen or so injuries during the action, as the Bronze fought to restrain suspects. All but one of the injuries - aside from Hearthfire’s own scrapes and bruises - had been sustained by the criminals, and Hearthfire had to wonder if there might have been a little bit of putting the hoof in by the shining defenders of the city’s laws. Hearthfire had rated last place for receiving medical attention, and for a visit from Gloria. The latter now seemed like it had been a blessing in disguise as the furious sergeant paced back and forth, berating her.

“I told you to stay away. In fact, I threatened to arrest you if you didn’t, and I have half a mind to follow through on that threat.”

“Maybe if you’d told me anything that was going on, I would’ve been able to leave it alone,” Hearthfire complained, “and besides, it was thanks to Cas causing such a commotion that someone tipped you off to where they were hiding, right?”

“Oh yes, your cat, the hero of the hour! Never mind that I now have several hundred stray cats wandering around the city, that you two let loose!”

“Cas didn’t want to just leave them there.” Cas meowed confirmation, giving Gloria a dirty look from Hearthfire’s lap.

“Oh good, that makes it all right then.” Gloria’s words were honey sweet with insincerity. “Right. I don’t want to have to arrest you, nor do I want to have to revoke your permission to be in Spire; either of which I am well within my rights to do at this moment, might I add. At the end of the day, we did get what we wanted, and regardless of the fact that we could have managed fine on our own, you and your blasted cat were instrumental in that process.

“So, I might be able to convince my superiors to leave you alone. Normally, a foreigner even being involved in something this big would be grounds to revoke their visa, but I should be able to wing it. Consider that the complete extent of my gratitude towards you, Ms. Hearthfire. The doctor will tell you when you are, in her judgement, permitted to leave, and I, for my part, am done dealing with you. I expect to not hear your name again for the rest of your stay in Spire. Understood?”

Hearthfire bit down the complaints about how it wasn’t her fault, that she never intended to get into trouble, it just seemed to happen...

“Understood. And, thank you.”

* * *

Chapter 25

* * *

The caravan reached the town on the far side of the cliffs two days later, just as promised. It was a small, typical-looking place, for an isolated Saddle Arabian settlement; a cluster of whitewashed wood and mud structures interspersed with the occasional rough stone building, and other more temporary lean-tos and tents.

There was a great deal of fanfare as they pulled to a halt, many of the locals instantly swarming the wagons, wanting to find what goods had suddenly become available in their remote home. Much like Spire, the town seemed to run on trade, albeit on a much smaller scale. There probably weren’t more than ten caravans travelling this route in a year, but the town relied on them for everything that couldn’t be obtained locally - that was, everything except water, rocks, sand and whatever hardy plants could be coaxed into life. However, the lifeblood of the town, literally, was the tiny spring that bled murky water from the rocks at the foot of the cliff beside the trail, and formed the oasis pool which the town had grown around.

Hearthfire took Cas and wandered away from the hubbub of arrival, intending a brief afternoon exploration of the town before turning in for the night. It was as spartan as she had anticipated, and there was really no hope of finding the expertise and materials that she needed here. Too bad, it would have been nice to know that she could simply wait here for another caravan to bring her back the other way, to the crash site, ready to raise her stricken plane and make her airworthy again.

In the end she found herself brooding somewhere just beyond the limits of the town, gazing out over the empty expanse as the sun set. She imagined Swift, slowly slipping beneath the desert sands. It would be a challenge in itself just to find her way back, an impossible task, for most ponies...

“Hello!”

The three usual suspects, minus Dima this time, emerged from the scattering of buildings on the outskirt of the town. Posy had something sugary and sweet smelling, couched in a cleverly folded leaf that she clutched in her mouth, and there were traces of stickiness around the mouths and hooves of Cloud Flower and Sandwhistler that suggested they’d already been sampling whatever it was.

“We got fruit. Do you want some?” Cloud Flower’s Equestrian had improved dramatically in a short time, or perhaps the vocabulary had been there all along, and it was simply his confidence that had been boosted by his studying and practice. Regardless, it was now Sandwhistler who was most frequently finding himself at sea in their conversations, a change which annoyed him no end. Hearthfire found herself envying the flexibility of youth - her own attempts to refresh her comprehension of Saddle Arabian had not been nearly as fruitful.

“Thanks. It smells amazing.” Posy placed the leaf-box down beside Hearthfire, and the four ponies set to eagerly. The candies were delicious, and very welcome after a long time spent living on pleasant but uninteresting ballast foods.

“Mmm... say, have you ponies tried real fruit? I mean, it’s probably not easy to grow, across most of the continent...”

Cloud Flower swallowed another sticky mouthful as he digested the question.

“Sometimes, on the coast, the boats come with fruit. Oranges, or limes, tough fruit that can survive the travelling. There are places here where fruit is grown, but it is usually done with magic. It is very rare.”

“Huh. I suppose that makes sense. Equestria is perfect for growing, there’s more kinds of fruit than you can probably imagine. The earth ponies can do amazing things back home. There aren’t that many earth ponies in Saddle Arabia, are there? Stands to reason sort of, you know, given their connection to the soil and plants and such. Not a lot of either of those, here.”

“Do you miss home? When you go on your journeys?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I don’t, no. I grew up there, but... my life isn’t there any more, maybe it never was. I’ve been wandering for a long time. Home is Cas, and Swift, and my saddlebags.”

“You don’t have a family waiting for you?”

“My mother still lives in Manehattan. I write to her, when I can, and I always visit for as long as I’m able whenever I’m in Equestria. We’re just not very similar. Don’t understand each other very well, I suppose. She doesn’t get why I have to go running off all over the place like an excited foal, as she puts it, and I can’t imagine settling down and running a business.”

She wasn’t sure how much of this Cloud Flower was really understanding, but he seemed interested enough, regardless.

“How about you? Have you always been travelling with caravans, like this?”

“Yes, as long as I can remember. Sandwhistler has a proper house. His mother owns a lot of ships, on the coast, and his father travels and brings back things for them to carry.”

“Father says, he and mother get along very well because they never see each other,” Sandwhistler laughed.

“What about your dad, Cloud Flower?”

“Not everypony has a father,” the pegasus shrugged. Hearthfire had a sense of skirting on the edge of something that he would rather not talk about, and chose to take the conversation in a different direction.

“So how long will we stay here?”

“It depends. Sometimes, two days, or a week. It depends what we need, and what the townsponies need. Here, probably not so long. Uh, I do not mean to bother you, but could we hear another story? Posy was being very insistent earlier, although I think she is too shy to ask on her own.”

“Sure, I don’t mind. You’d better go and get Dima, though, or somepony else who can translate. Let’s see...”

“I will go and find her,” Sandwhistler volunteered.

“Thanks. Mind you ask nicely, though. Now, what sort of story does Posy want?”

Cloud Flower rolled his eyes.

“If I ask, she will just say that she wants one with princesses and castles, like always. Tell any story you like, she might complain at first but she will enjoy it once she stops whining.”

“Hah, well, I did say that I have one story a bit like that. I suppose now is as good a time for it as any. It is a story about possibly the strangest place I have ever been to, and it does have kings and queens in it, at least.”

Dima showed up in short order. She was glowing with the excitement of fresh social interaction, fattening herself on the news and gossip about other caravans, and the goings on of the town, ready for the inevitable famine once the caravan moved on.

“Hello, Dima. You look like you’ve been having a good time.”

“It’s marvellous! There’s been all sorts of racy goings on since I came through here last... but I suppose I shouldn’t say too much in front of the kids, hmm? Oh, and there’s a merchant in town who has a stash of an excellent apple brandy, very hard to come by, very dear, but well worth the cost!”

“I trust you’re not too far gone for story time.”

“Pshaw! I can hold my liquor, Hearthfire. Now, where are we going tonight? Have a cup, by the way. Consider it payment for the tale.”

“Um... I think I’ll pass. Thanks.” There was an acidic, metal-dissolving smell coming from the earthenware mug that Dima was waving in her direction. “Tonight... well, what can I say? It is a strange, ethereal place, where thought is stronger than a sword, and the very fabric of everything is woven with magic...”

* * *

Stepping off the passenger ferry, the docks were more or less the docks of an ordinary city. The wharf led to warehouses, and taverns and inns and chandlers and everything else you would see at any city docks anywhere in the world. The one exception was the conspicuous lack of airship mooring spires dotting the skyline; this city did not allow machines to clutter its skies with the weighty dirt of commerce.

In fact, the city did not welcome commerce at all, but rather suffered it. Visitors were banned from leaving the docks area without special dispensation, a near-total quarantine designed to discourage the curious, and keep outsiders separated from the residents of the metropolis. Only specially qualified officials crossed the boundary to deal with outsiders, and all trade deals were made between outside traders and the city’s government.

The few academics who had visited the city, and been allowed access, could not even say for certain whether or not the city had a concept of currency; money changed hands on the docks, but inside the city proper, there was no sign of a coin as would be recognised in the rest of the world. Although, that was no guarantee that such a thing did not exist, as even when allowed inside, outsiders were never granted free movement, their every move documented and restricted on pain of immediate and permanent banishment.

Hearthfire, of course, knew all this, and was not simply here to admire the docks. No sooner than she had gotten settled in her cramped rented room and freed herself of her baggage burden, than she was cutting a line towards the towering, impenetrable walls of the inner city with Cas at her heels. As she passed from street to street, she noticed another oddity of the city - the cleanliness. She had not seen streets so utterly devoid of dirt... anywhere. It wasn’t simply an absence of litter, but the impression that if one were to run a rag across any surface, even the ground, it would come up sparkling clean.

A half mile from the waterfront, the docks ended in a literal black line across the ground. A two hundred meter no pony’s land divided the edge of the docks area from the city walls, and halfway between the two extremes, an incongruous silver arch stood. Hearthfire eyed it warily from just inside the dock line, unsure of whether she should proceed. There did not seem to be anything happening where she was, though, and she decided to chance it. She set first one hoof over the line, and then, when nothing horrible happened, followed it with another.

Beyond the line, the neatly ordered paving slabs of the dockside streets abruptly gave way to neatly raked grey sand. It was so uniformly, neatly lined that Hearthfire half expected that there would be no hoofprints when she looked back, but this turned out not to be the case. She wasn’t sure if she was happy about that outcome or not.

She did her best to approach the arch with confidence, giving off her best I’m-allowed-to-be-here vibe. Closer to, it was ten ponies high, and featureless, formed apparently from one single seamless piece. There was a long piece of paper pasted to the pillar, the neatly press-printed font too small to read from where she stood. As she came almost to the base of the pillar, it was clear that it was actually divided into many sections, in more scripts and languages than she had even heard of. Equestrian was somewhere a way below the top, between something that might have been whatever the far eastern griffons called their language, and a kind of hieroglyphic script that seemed to consist entirely of disturbing entities doing unspeakable things to each other.

Halt. All traffic beyond this point is expressly forbidden under the Eternal Laws of the City without appropriate documentation. If you do not wish to enter the City, please say, ‘one’, or return to the Outer City. If you have the appropriate documentation, please say ‘two’, and a representative will be with you shortly to confirm your credentials and escort you into the city. If you do not have the appropriate documentation, but would like to make an application for such, please say ‘three’, and the necessary entities will be with you shortly to provide judgement. For all other enquiries, please say, ‘four’.

She looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else here.

“Uh... three?”

Chapter 26

Nothing happened. Hearthfire glanced around, but nothing continued to happen. She coughed to clear her throat, and tried again, more assertively.

“Three.”

Four... boxes appeared in mid air, in front of the arch. They shimmered into being without warning. Boxes wasn’t quite the right term, perhaps, the walls wavered in the breeze, and were made from a finely woven white fabric.

“Hello?”

No response.

“Am I in the right place?”

With an apologetic pop, a unicorn winked into existence. It was grey; grey mane, grey tail, grey coat. Grey eyes. It was the shape of a unicorn, at least. It looked insubstantial, much like the cloth shapes that floated behind it.

“Greetings. Is this the first time that you have made an application for an entry permit?”

“Uh, yes?”

“That’s fine. We have some good news and some bad news for you.”

“Yes?”

“The good news is that the decision making process has been greatly streamlined, and now most candidates are evaluated six percent faster than was the case ten years ago.”

“All right. And the bad news?”

“Your application is going to be rejected.”

“Uh...excuse me?”

“Oh, we are sorry, perhaps we misspoke. It is almost certain that your application is going to be rejected. Almost all applications are rejected. Here. Complete this form, please.”

It extended its neck upwards, and for a moment its entire head vanished into thin air. When it returned, it was offering a slim sheaf of paper held in its teeth, which Hearthfire took with her horn, with some trepidation, and flicked through. It looked like it had been press-printed, in a plain unassuming typeface. It read like one of those stupid personality quiz, such as the Manehattan Mercury might run to fill space in its centre pages on a slow news day.

“My favourite colour?” Hearthfire murmured, as she leafed over another page. “Starsign! What is this rubbish?”

“All vital to the selection process,” the nondescript unicorn-shaped thing assured her, in its cool, accentless voice.

“No, this is ridiculous. Look here,” she said, pointing to Section 9.2c: Subject’s Favourite Memory of a Summer’s Day.

“Yes?” It smiled a slightly nervous smile, as if she were asking why she was required to provide her name.

“I mean, I’ve crossed hundreds of borders, and normally they want to know if you’re bringing in any dangerous animals, or if you’ve ever been arrested, that sort of thing. How long you plan to stay. Stuff like that.”

“The City is not... like other places.”

“I can see that! Apparently you consider my choice of toothpaste a matter of national security!”

“You are under no obligation to continue the application process if you do not wish to,” it explained. Hearthfire mentally scanned its tone for evidence that it was annoyed with her, but could find nothing to indicate that this was anything other than a statement of fact. She felt like she was being made fun of, but...

She really, really wanted to know what was on the other side of that wall.

“Fine. Can I borrow a quill?” One was produced from the same nether realms that had spawned the form. “What’s with the weird floaty things, anyway?”

“They are our colleagues. They will be collaborating with us in determining judgement.”

“...okay? Why are they hidden from me, and you aren’t?”

“They are not hidden from you, outsider. There are rules: they are not permitted to see each other.”

Hearthfire chose to let that go as probably the best explanation she was going to get, and besides, she had no desire to find out if it was possible to make the grey unicorn angry. She looked around for something to lean on, and settled on stepping around the unicorn and the line of its ‘colleagues’, to hold the form against the smooth surface of the arch while she wrote. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to complete. Each question was brief and straight to the point, and allowed only a small space for an answer, even if some of them made little to no sense, or were phrased like cryptic crossword clues. She answered them as best she could, and when she was done, she offered pen and completed form back to the grey unicorn with what she hoped was a confident smile.

“Thank you for your interest,” it intoned, before accepting both items and vanishing them back into thin air, “Your application will be debated. Please return to the Outer City, and await our decision.”

Without further fanfare, it turned its back on her, and began talking to the boxes in a language that was not only foreign but downright alien to Hearthfire’s ears. As far as she knew, from the few books written by ponies who had been inside the city, there had been no progress made whatsoever on translating the language - or perhaps that should be languages, plural - spoken there. There were even some academics who had written treatise explaining that it was not a language at all, as any other race would understand it, though what that might mean in practice Hearthfire had no idea.

Reluctantly, she turned back towards the Outer City. She had come here knowing the reputation, and fully prepared for it to be a huge waste of time, and in fact had a backup plan, several other points of interest lined within a reasonable journey time that she would re-route to if she had to. But now that she was here... the strangeness of her first brush with the odd denizens of the city had thoroughly wet her appetite to meet more.

* * *

“Well, what did you make of that?” Cas didn’t seem to make much of it. She’d been very quiet since the trip into the clear zone, and Hearthfire was worried that she’d been creeped out by the unearthly unicorn. “Do you think we’ll be allowed in?”

She was propping up the bar in the rough-and-ready restaurant below her rented room. It had something of an officer’s club vibe, despite the plain decor. It seemed to be frequented mostly by the captains whose ships brought cargo in and out of the harbour.

“Hah, no chance of that, Miss.”

“Sorry,” Hearthfire turned her attention to the smartly attired earth pony who had appeared at her shoulder, “Do I know you?”

“Not at all. I just couldn’t help overhearing you talking to your cat, and I know I can save you some time. You won’t be let in, no one gets let in.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“No offense, but if you’ve heard that, why are you here? You don’t look like a captain, you’re definitely not crew...”

“I like to think of myself as an explorer. Though these days I feel more like a tourist, most of the time.”

“Well, if you’re not here to buy or sell, you’re wasting your time. Those who dwell in the inner city aren’t interested in outsiders in the slightest.”

“You’re not telling me anything I haven’t heard before, Mister...?”

“Captain Green Swirl. And you are?”

“Hearthfire. Have you ever made an application to enter the city?”

“Me? No. Ridiculous! Why would I bother?”

“You’re not the slightest bit curious? Not interested at all about what it’s like?”

“Well, I am a bit, I mean, who wouldn’t be? But if you let it get to you, there’s nothing but madness ahead for you. You see them sometimes, academics who come here sure that they’ll be found worthy, they’ll be given special permission to see what no pony else has seen before.”

“And?”

“Of course, they’re turned down. Let me tell you, it’s got nothing to do with worth. I’ve been coming here a long time, and I pay attention whenever someone does get let in, because it’s so gosh darned rare. And I can say for sure, there’s no rhyme or reason to it, and there’s nothing that sets apart the few who are allowed in.”

“So why do you keep coming, then, Captain?”

“There’s no big mystery there, Ms. Hearthfire. They pay better than anyone else, even if the things they import are completely nonsensical.”

“What we always bring. A representative of the inner city puts up a list, and the captains bid to supply what they can. This time, my hold was full of china figurines of farm animals and coke.”

“Coke as in the fuel? That doesn’t seem so odd. Every major technological civilization in the world burns coal.”

“The order required that each lump be as close to a perfect sphere as we could find. Whatever folk live inside that place, they don’t see the same world as we do.”

Hearthfire couldn’t help but smile at the almost-but-not-quite symmetry in their thought processes.

“I know. Isn’t it fascinating?”

“You’re a strange mare, you know that, Ms. Hearthfire?”

“Hmph. That’s uncalled for, Captain. I’m not stupid, I know that getting in is a long shot.”

“Sorry, sorry. No offense meant. If you do get let in, I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate, hmm?”

* * *

Chapter 27

* * *

It was not to be, however. Captain Green Swirl took his ship out of port a week later, with a fresh contract to supply materials, and Hearthfire had not heard anything from inside the City. She had been out to the silver gate twice more, but had been completely ignored on both occasions; at first she was convinced that she had been rejected, but the people who passed for locals around the docks told her that every applicant always received a reply, whether they were successful or not. Although, on the other hoof, no one had ever heard of a decision taking an entire week...

“I don’t know what it means, either,” the pony who tended the bar was explaining to yet another curious visitor as Hearthfire came downstairs for breakfast on the eighth morning. She had reached something of a pseudo-celebrity status over the past few days, as the usually predictable and mechanical interactions between the city and the docks were upset. She had settled into a philosophical attitude: if decisions were normally fast, and normally returned a refusal, then anything out of the ordinary was probably a good thing.

She ate a hasty meal, and returned to her room. That was where she was passing most of her time these days, reading and playing with Cas, and leaving the barpony to field and rebuff the curious. He was probably getting some extra custom out of it, at least, as there were quite a few bored crewmembers who had taken to passing the time in his establishment in the hopes of being present when the judgement was delivered.

The roar of excitement from below carried up to her room; the timepiece on the bedside table read three in the afternoon, but it sounded like the inn’s common room was packed already. Cas’ ears pricked up at the sound of the barpony’s voice shouting for calm, audible over the din,

“Better wait here, Cas. I’ll be back in a minute, and we’ll know whether we’re staying or going, all right?”

Hearthfire exited the room with trepidation and made her way to the stairs. The scene below was what she had imagined: there was a huge mob filling the ground floor and almost spilling up the stairs. Half of those present were watching the front door, where the grey unicorn stood framed and waiting patiently. The other half were watching the stairs, and a fresh ripple of excitement spread through the crowd as she emerged.

“Uh. Can I get through, please?”

With much jostling and people treading on each others’ hooves, she was allowed past. She wanted to ask the grey unicorn if they could take their business elsewhere, but there was no way this lot could be persuaded not to follow.

“Ms. Hearthfire?” It was phrased as a question, though as near as she could tell, this was the same unicorn she had dealt with before at the arch. And for that matter, wasn’t it odd that it was a unicorn at all? Am I just seeing something that looks like me?

“That’s me.”

“First, allow us to extend our apologies for the lengthy time taken in reaching a decision. It was far outside of accepted deviation rates, and for that, we are sorry. With that out of the way, our primary order of business today is conveying to you the outcome of your application.”

In the expectant silence that followed this announcement, it would have been possible to hear a quarter-bit drop.

“The panel has decided that you are to be permitted restricted entry to the Inner City for a period of no more than three days, under strict supervision and with a caveat that revocation of permission may be made freely and permanently at any time by any party with authority in the matter.”

She could only barely make out the second half of the unicorn’s statement as the room erupted.

* * *

The impromptu parade that followed Hearthfire, Cas, and the grey unicorn through the streets around the docks to the clear zone were in for a touch of disappointment. Those who were expecting some immense hidden gate to open in the city’s walls certainly didn’t get what they were here for.

The crowd stopped short of the dividing line, leaving the remaining three to walk out onto the raked grey sand. It was a minute’s trot to the arch; there was no sign of the four woven cloth boxes this time, just the silver arch.

“So, what happens now?” Hearthfire glanced behind, at the buildings on the docks. The crowd was watching silently, craning to see past each others heads and shoulders.

“Now we will take you inside. This way, please. Through the arch.”

“Is it going to... teleport us inside?”

In the end, it turned out to be odd. It was turning a corner, or glancing down and being suddenly, acutely aware of the precise location of one’s own hooves. Origami performed with landscape; the hundred meters of raked grey sand behind and in front of them folded, and the convex line of the outside of the city circumference distorted into the convex line of the same wall seen from the inside.

They found themselves in an open circular space. It reminded her of photographs she had seen of Cloudsdale and other cloud-dwelling pegasus colonies, sort of. The buildings, if that was really what they were, that surrounded the space had a similar ephemeral quality to them, twisting seamlessly into each other in an organic fashion.

“Woah.” Cas was not pleased, and Hearthfire was feeling a tiny bit nauseous as well. “Where the hay is this?”

“This is our area. We are the buffer that sits between the four Seasons. Welcome to the City, Ms. Hearthfire.”

“I’ve read about the four Seasons, but I’ve never heard of you.”

“Your entrance to the City, as you may have surmised, was not typical.”

“So I’ve heard. Are you going to tell me what made it different?”

“Yes. Ordinarily any outside allowed into the City has a sponsor. One of the Seasons will host them, and be responsible for ensuring that they follow the rules, and they will have almost no interaction with us. You do not have a sponsor, Ms. Hearthfire. So you will be accommodated here, in the buffer. We should say that you could consider us your host.”

“O-kay. How have I ended up without a normal host?”

“We are still trying to work out exactly how that happened.” The grey face didn’t seem to be capable of displaying consternation, but that was the vibe Hearthfire was picking up. “The initial indication is that, while the Seasons eventually agreed that you were of sufficient interest to be permitted entry, there was an irresolvable contention over who would host you.”

“Sorry...?”

“No one wanted you. So here you are.”

“I feel welcome already. Uh, so are we going to see other parts of the City at all? Or am we just going to sit here in, in the buffer, on our behinds for three days?”

“We imagine that at least one of the Seasons will grant you an audience during your stay.”

“No offense, you seem lovely, but is there anyone else here?” The buildings around them seemed suspiciously devoid of any kind of movement.

“There is no one besides us, and -” His ears pricked up, although Hearthfire couldn’t hear anything, and wondered if it was reacting to sound at all, or if the ears were a mistranslation of another sense that she did not share.

“- an envoy from... the Winter.”

The envoy dawned. That was the only way Hearthfire was able to describe it. Yellowish half-light splashed across snow-dusted hawthorn bushes, the tang of cold air bit in the throat, and then the pale winter sun rose over the tree line, scattering long shadows across the white landscape. That was how the envoy of the Winter entered the buffer. That was what the envoy looked like, or what the envoy was, or both.

It bent a knee in deference - and that was ridiculous, the rational part of Hearthfire’s mind that was still clinging on protested, it didn’t even have legs, for pony’s sake! - and spoke with the voice of the wind whistling through the barren thorns.

“Outsider. My king would meet with you, at your earliest convenience. You and your companion are most respectfully invited to attend him in his Season. If that is acceptable to the buffer?”

“We will allow it,” the grey unicorn replied, and Hearthfire found herself mentally filling in a shrug.

“And to the Outsider?”

Well, what the hay else did I come here for? Even so, she would be happy to admit that she was almost instantly in way over her head, and she suspected she was beginning to have an idea why the few accounts of the inside of the City were so fragmented and logically incompatible...

“I... yes. I will accept his... generous offer. You may tell him so.”

“That is not necessary. Come. I will take you with me when I return. May I carry your bags for you, to lighten your burden?”

“That’s a very kind offer, but I’d rather carry them myself if it’s all the same to you. Cas! Hop on!”

The envoy was silent a beat longer than was comfortable, staring at her in a slightly disturbing manner, before it bowed once more.

“As you wish. I recommend that you close your eyes, Outsider.”

* * *

Chapter 28

* * *

Either she was adjusting to the way the world folded in on itself, or the second time was more gentle; as the world came together once more, however, it took her no time whatsoever to regret her decision to keep her eyes open. The king of Winter poured in past her defences, tearing a scream of pure primal terror from her lungs and dragging her breath out with it.

It ended as quickly as it had begun, as the king swirled into a concrete form, leaving her fighting for air, her head filled with broken recollections of cold, and dark, and the empty sleep of hibernation. The king presented as an alicorn, with a coat of pure white and a mane of dark green that creaked like thin ice as he moved, but Hearthfire could still see his other-self showing through the cracks. Where the envoy had been a frosty morning sunrise, the king...

He encompassed his season. That was all there was to it. There had been beautiful bleak vistas. Failed harvests. A silent world. Death by cold, by starvation. The graceful repose of a land awaiting renewal, hibernating and waiting. There were too many conflicting concepts swirling through his form, wonderful and terrible in equal measure.

Like a pony emerging from a sunless cave into the light, it was not until her brain had adjusted to the flare of the king’s presence that she could begin to take in her surroundings. The Season of Winter, or at least this part of it, took the form of a wide, snowy expanse that stretched in every direction to distant mountains on the horizon. All around her, pillars of ice, alike in texture and colour to the king’s mane, rose in crazed rows to a high, cold ceiling, forming a frozen marquee that delineated the boundaries of the space and separated it from the white field that surrounded it.

Around the periphery, other creatures lounged or sat, on shapeless furniture spread thick with pelts. They were almost easy on the eyes compared to the retina-searing intensity that was the king: a blizzard sat conversing with a frozen lake; a mighty oak, cracked by years of frost and thaw, was arguing some point or another with the Winter Solstice. Here and there, other things lurked, a pack of Windigos that circled the ceiling, fat and lazy, and dark scuttling monstrosities concealed which themselves in the shadows and darted out of sight when she looked at them.

“Welcome to the Winter, Outsider.” The voice was a wave of cold that reverberated through her all the way to her core. She shivered, but the chill vanished without trace as soon as he fell silent once more.

“Thank you for your invitation, your majesty. Uh, I’m not exactly sure of the proper etiquette...?”

“Majesty will suffice. Is this form acceptable? I apologise for showing you my true self, I understand that it is stressful for Outsiders.”

“Stressful?!”

“Again, I am sorry. It was entirely unintentional. It has been a long, long time since I last allowed visitors.”

“I suppose I should feel honoured? I don’t suppose you’d like to explain why I was allowed inside the city?”

“What makes you believe I would know something like that?” He smiled, and his teeth were just a little bit too pointed. “I would be more than happy to explain my reasons. Would you join me for dinner?”

At a wave of his hoof, his courtiers abandoned their own conversations, and followed as the king led them out into the snow field. There was a raging blizzard outside, now, but it did not seem nearly as cold as it should have, and the flakes did not seem to settle on her or Cas’ shoulders. It was impossible to see more than a few meters, the others just mere shapes behind them as she walked beside the king.

The snow had been shovelled aside - or more likely it had been created that way, as nothing here seemed to correctly follow the rules of the outside world - to reveal the layers of ice beneath. There was a jaunty red-and-white polka dot sheet spread across the ice, and a picnic basket.

“I regret that there is nothing for you to eat in my Season,” the king admitted, indicating that she should be seated before lifting the lid of the wicker hamper, “So when I have visitors, I am usually forced to deal with one of the other Seasons, and import what I need. Rocket and dandelion sandwiches from the Spring, and russet apples from the Autumn. Sardines for your companion, though I regret that they were imported to the City, tinned.”

It was good, especially the apples, crisp and sweet and juicy. Cas was suspicious at first, but before long the sardines were being wolfed down whole.

“So, your majesty,” Hearthfire began, between the most ladylike mouthfuls she could muster, “I think you were about to explain what this is all about? Why did it take a week for me to be allowed inside, and why was your envoy practically waiting for me when I arrived?”

“Politics, I’m afraid, Outsider. As soon as I set eyes on you, I knew I had to meet you. For that, I needed to ensure that you were permitted to pass inside.”

“You could have hosted me, couldn’t you, if you were so desperate to meet me? That’s what the unicorn in the buffer said normally happens.”

“I could have offered to, certainly. For that, though, there must be a vote. The Seasons, along with the buffer, must agree that you are of sufficient interest to be brought through the gate. The rules require that four of the five agree before a decision is made.”

“And you didn’t think you would be able to persuade them?”

“Allow me to put this as delicately as I possibly can: you are thoroughly uninteresting to two of the other three Seasons.”

“Ouch, your majesty.”

“Apologies, Outsider, but it is true. You are a creature of the Spring, so the Autumn despises you, and the Summer mocks you.” He shrugged, as if these were self evident statements.

“Regardless, I needed leverage, and if there is one universal truth of the City, it is that the Seasons are eternally and inexhaustibly jealous of one another, especially of their opposing Season. I needed to make you interesting, and the way to do that was through a little misdirection: I made sure that it was well known that one of the Seasons was desperately interested in you, but I hid my own connection to that tidbit. Each of the Seasons was more than happy to imagine that its own despicable nemesis was the one who wanted you. There were arguments and recriminations, and oh, how I played to them, and fed their basest fears. My windigos have been very full this past week.”

“If they thought their opposing Season was the one who wanted me, why risk letting me in?”

“The wonder that is curiosity. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying about it? No offence to your companion, but I digress. The point is, why! They have to know why, and who, is interested, in order to set their minds at rest, and for that, they have to meet you. To offer to host you would have utterly defeated the purpose of the exercise... and besides, none of the Seasons would risk letting any of the others host you, given the situation.”

“I suppose that makes some sort of sense... but haven’t you rather given the game away? You pounced the minute I walked in the door, your majesty, and each of the Seasons must have already deduced that it was you all along.”

“Probably,” he replied, utterly unconcerned, “but it’s too late, because here we are, and while you are in the Winter, none of them has the authority they would require to banish you back to the Outer City. Now, aren’t you the least bit curious as to why I went to such great lengths to get you here?”

“I am, but I’m sure you would be telling me, even if I couldn’t care less.”

“Probably,” he repeated, flashing her a smile. “You have something of mine, give it back.”

The king said it carelessly, as if it were of absolutely no consequence, but the words nailed her to the floor with the sense of foreboding they conjured.

“I have something of yours...?”

“Yes. Something I lost some years ago in an unfortunate incident. I could smell it on you the second you stepped onto the docks. You should return it to me, it’s only fair, isn’t it? It was originally mine, after all, and you had no right to take it.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, your majesty. You will have to be more specific.”

He sighed theatrically, and began to pace. Was she detecting a note of tension in his stance? There was a hunger about him, above and beyond the Winter-hunger he radiated as a fragment of his aspect.

“Outsider, you are a Spring creature at heart. Your homeland is truly claimed by Spring, and has been since it was snatched from the Winter a hundred generations or more before your birth, and will remain so until the Summer claims it a hundred generations hence. You are Spring to the core... and yet, you wear each Season like a cloak. You have walked in the shadow of them all, at one time or another, and you collect mementos of each of them as you pass, do you not?”

“Hang on, mementos?” Hearthfire’s hoof crept almost guiltily to her saddlebags, dropped on the ice beside her, and she drew it protectively closer. “You want something from the Box?”

“That, I don’t know. It is something you are carrying. A leftover piece of the Winter, a leftover piece of me. I need it back, and I would very much like to know how you came by it.”

Hearthfire hesitated before digging for the Box inside of her saddlebag. A leftover piece of the Winter.

The king drew in a juddering, excited breath as she gingerly lifted the freezing crystal out from amongst the other memorabilia, and unfolded the hoofkerchief to reveal its sharp glow.

“Yes. That’s it.”

Chapter 29

“It’s important to me. I don’t see what it means to you.”

“That’s because you, I surmise, have absolutely no idea what it is. Where did you get it?” He held out a hoof, as if expecting her to hand it straight over, but she clutched it a little tighter, and shook her head. There was a rise in tension, she could feel the attention of the creatures that surrounded them shifting from companionable to alert, but she stood her ground.

“No way. I’m not giving it up just like that. If you tell me what it is... perhaps I’ll consider it.”

“You do not make demands, Outsider, not here. But very well, I suppose I can afford to be generous in this matter. Let’s see now. I am at war, Outsider. I am ringed by enemies on all sides, and the enemies of the Winter are no less powerful than the Winter is itself.”

“You mean the other Seasons, right? I mean, I know that there’s a kind of balance, and things that happen outside of the City can affect it.”

“Crude, but then, I suppose that is what we can expect when we let in but one or two scholars a century. Not that it is of any consequence whether you Outsiders understand us. You live and breath us, and we do not require your comprehension. Yes. There is a balance, and a cycle. Everything moves through the cycle, rising and falling, but it is never out of balance. There are always actions, and consequences.

“Well, what you have obtained, the shard I was willing to go to such lengths to bring into my Season, is what was left behind in the aftermath of one of ten thousand skirmishes in my war. It is the physical remains of one of my soldiers, Outsider. It is a piece of my essence, which I shaped into a fighter for my cause, and sent forth into the world. I am lessened by its separation.”

Hearthfire prodded the little piece with her hoof, watching the way the pattern of light it cast shifted on the plane of the linen cloth. The king had fallen silent, and the void of sound sucked at her, urging her to fill it.

“There was an island, a living island. Far to the north, as far north as it is possible to go. It is always cold, and the sun is almost never seen. We were almost destroyed in a vast storm, and we stumbled upon it by chance; we made landfall to find supplies.”

The king smiled, and let out a contented sigh, cocking his head to one side as if trying to see her from a fresh angle.

“Ah... I see, now. I couldn’t tell at first, because you are too wrapped up in the scent of different Seasons. Now, I know what I am looking for, and I can see it.”

“See what?”

“You still have scars, Outsider. You fought my progeny, though it was some years ago, by your reckoning. So, you were triumphant? Of course, you are here, living and breathing before me now. And you took for yourself a trophy, not realising its value.”

“The... monster I took this from, your monster, ran me down.” She chilled at the memory of it; here, in the City, it did not seem so long ago, its edges not so dulled by the passage of time. “The island saved me.”

“No, no,” the king chuckled, slapping the ground with his hoof in amusement. “I am certain it had no desire to save you, Outsider. It saw an opening and it struck. The living islands of the Summer are as much weapons of war as my own creations. It was driven far from its homelands, and weak, by the sound of it, but I can promise you that there was no pity in its heart when it protected you.”

“Not pity. Gratitude. Neither of us would have survived without the other; it would have succumbed to your predators without me.”

“Well, believe whatever you desire. But don’t you see? Here we are, talking things over. We can have a reasonable, civilized conversation. All that is required is that you be reasonable and civilized enough to return my property to me. It is mine, in a way that you cannot hope to comprehend.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t see that you have any real right to it, certainly no more than I can claim.”

“I found it, so I should be allowed to keep it? Do not make me laugh, Outsider.”

“Not just finders keepers, your majesty. You say that it’s a part of you? It’s a part of me, too.”

“A part of you? Ridiculous. Give it to me, Outsider, and we need say no more about it.”

“No, king, I’m serious. This... everything in the Box, they’re my precious memories, all of them. I’ve seen no end of strange things, been through fire and ice, I’ve made friends, and lost friends, travelled all over the world. This is a part of who I am, your majesty. And I don’t see a reason to give it up because you want it back. What would have happened to it, if I hadn’t picked it up, hmm? Tell me that, king.”

He was losing his temper, fast. If you had asked her, half an hour ago, why the contents of the Box were so important, she could have answered, for sure, but she never would have dreamed how much it would hurt, to be faced with the prospect of losing one of her mementos. When she thought of Audir, and Skirlaug, and all the rest. The ones who had journeyed with her to the edge of the world, the ones who had returned, and the ones who had not.

“I am being unnecessarily accommodating, Outsider. Just like you, I am not required to be civil, either. I could take it from you, without hesitation, if I wished.”

“I don’t think you can, king. I don’t think you really understand negotiation, it’s not in your nature; the Winter doesn’t bargain, does it? It takes what it wants, and destroys anything in its path.”

It must be the unrealness of this place, Hearthfire reasoned, on finding herself strangely calm in the middle of an increasingly hostile circle, It’s like a dream. If anything really bad happened, I’d just wake up...

“The unicorn in the buffer said, ‘There are rules.’ There are rules, aren’t there, and you’re bound to them right now. Your envoy offered to take my bags from me, earlier. Would that be enough? If I’d handed it over then, would that have been enough for you to take it from me?”

“The other Seasons don’t have the authority to banish you from the city right now. I do, Outsider, because you are in the Winter, in my Season. Do you want me to banish you?”

“Then you’ll never get hold of what you want. If I ask you to send me back to the buffer, do you have to? I suspect so. I think we’re finished here, your majesty. May I go now?”

* * *

Chapter 30

* * *

The envoy deposited her and Cas back in the buffer with a respectful bow. The grey unicorn was waiting - Hearthfire tried to remember if that was the same spot he’d been standing in when she left, but she couldn’t decide one way or the other.

“I apologise for any bad feeling between the Winter and yourself, Outsider,” trilled the envoy, in the sparse seconds before it vanished once more, back to its own Season, “I assure you that you are still most welcome, and that the king still looks on you favourably. Perhaps when you have reflected, you will come to see things his way, but regardless, the king still hopes that you enjoy the remainder of your stay.”

“Hmph. See things his way? Not likely,” Hearthfire muttered, as the creature dissipated. It had been a tense moment, as she waited to find out if she had called the king’s bluff correctly...

“Now what?” She spoke half to herself, half to Cas, but it was the unicorn who answered.

“You will remain here under our care until such a time - if it comes at all - you are invited elsewhere, or the duration of your visit elapses.”

“Great.” She inspected the smooth grey architecture. It was not exactly what she had imagined when she wondered as to what lay inside the city’s walls. “Is there anything interesting to see here?”

The look she received was one of very, very mild surprise.

“Of course.”

It turned out that their personal definitions of ‘interesting’ were not quite as far separated as she had worried they might prove to be. It seemed that the buffer was not just a neutral zone that sat between the four Seasons, but more like the backstage area of one of Manehattan’s prestigious theatres, where the gears and winches that made the scenery move were exposed for the curious eye to observe.

Hearthfire also discovered that the grey unicorn’s third-person ‘we’ was not a royal ‘we’ or any such, but a true plural; as they ventured away from the central circle of the buffer, they encountered others, identical in form as far as her eyes could discern. Some were hurrying here or there with mountains of paperwork levitating in their wake, others were glimpsed through open doorways, more paperwork in front of them. Still more were doing mechanical looking things, sculpting arcane mechanical edifices that protruded drive shafts and gears at odd angles. Every now and then, they would pass a splotch of brilliant colour in the grey domain, bizarre creatures that seemed native to this or that Season, held in suspended animation with their internal workings scattered around them in states of repair.

“This has been bugging me for a while,” Hearthfire said, as they passed another of the tireless grey workers, “are you all really funny-looking unicorns?”

“No. We are formless. You are seeing us in a shape that you can relate to.”

Hearthfire glanced around at where Cas was watching the surroundings from atop her back. The cat was unusually alert, given how little of interest to her was going on.

“...so is Cas seeing a bunch of giant cats walking around?”

“We do not know. It is possible.”

“The king of the Winter said the other Seasons don’t care about me. Do you think I’m just going to be ignored?” While the buffer was proving far more interesting than she had anticipated, she didn’t think she’d want to spend three whole days wandering around and conversing with the strange, vaguely reticent unicorn.

“We can not comment. It is possible, but the machinations and decisions of the Seasons are not of interest to us. Only the outcomes. Essentially, it is our task to keep the score.”

“How does that work, anyway? The king told me that the Seasons are at war, but not what it really meant. What are they fighting over? What are the victory conditions?”

“War is a strong term, though we admit that there is conflict. It is true that they are vying for power over each other. You are native to Equestria, correct?”

“That’s right. He said Equestria was controlled by the Spring.”

“It is. It is a region on the ascendant path, growing and flourishing. Such is the way of the Spring.”

“All right... and the far north is controlled by the Winter?”

“Yes. And Equestria was too, many years ago. Perhaps it is more correct to say, its inhabitants were controlled by the Winter. You are aware of your people’s history? Here, let us show you.”

He halted outside a building that looked to Hearthfire identical to all the others, and indicated that she should precede him inside.

The doorway opened onto another of the office-like spaces that she had glimpsed inside other buildings, but this one was immense; it looked like the entirety of Canterlot Castle, maybe the whole of Canterlot, could be dumped inside. It was an open vertical space filled with desks, grey unicorns toiling with heads down over their paperwork. Above, the soaring walls were lined with layer after layer of balconies, forming a strobed tunnel overhead that sucked at the eye like a perspective optical illusion.

“Woah. What the hay is this place? It’s big! Too big!”

“When we say that we keep the score, this is what we mean. Ponyfolk, terrestrial, thaumaturgical and avian, aeon seven, era six-eight-three.”

The later half was announced aloud to the room at large. The unicorn waited for some signal that was completely hidden from Hearthfire, before performing its reaching-into-nowhere trick and producing a stack of paper. It set them down on a nearby empty desk, and leafed through them until it evidently found what it was looking for.

“Here. This is the founding of the nation of Equestria as you know it, which marks the transition of your people from a Winter race to a Spring race. It was something of a coup for the Spring.”

Hearthfire looked down at the indicated sheet, but couldn’t make head nor tail of it. It was written in some kind of technical shorthand, full of symbols she didn’t recognise, and the bits she could read were so devoid of context as to mark them irrelevant.

“I can’t read this.”

“We are not surprised. Suffice to say, the balance was swung heavily in the Spring’s favour for a time following this event. That is what we record, here,” he waved a hoof, indicating the floor after floor that soared overhead. “The shift in the balance of the four Seasons that result in the actions they take to influence the Outside.”

“I’ll take your word for it... so who’s winning at the moment?”

“Winning is not a word that we would choose.”

Chapter 31

“Who has the high score?”

“The balance is currently in favour of the Summer.”

“And what does it mean for us Outsiders? I mean, you say the Spring controls Equestria, but it’s not like anypony’s ever seen the king of the Spring popping in to tell Princess Celestia how the country should be run. Is it?”

“Queen of the Spring,” it corrected her, “and yes, you are correct that, from your perspective, what occurs between the Seasons is of small relevance to your lives. The relative power of the four Seasons waxes and wanes in accordance with the changes occurring beyond our walls, but to you mortals it would seem that the Seasons have no control over those changes. Over periods beyond the scale of your lifespan, however, their influence shapes nations and moves continents.”

“And you weren’t speaking metaphorically, I suppose. About moving continents and such.”

“No, we were not. Those who exist on time scales close to ours may be able to perceive a trace of what is done here.”

Hearthfire tried to decide how she felt about all this. On the one hoof, it was more than a little bit creepy. On the other, it really didn’t matter to ponies like her. Why should she care if there were mysterious ephemeral beings prodding and tweaking the world to suit their own purposes? For that matter, was it really so different from how Princess Celestia ruled? She, too, had little influence on the day to day lives of the ponyfolk, but you’d have to be a foal to think that she had no control. Beloved or not, maintaining your position as monarch of a country for thousands of years, through nopony-knows-how-many crisis and threats, had to take more than a bit of finesse.

“Have any other Outsiders seen this before? You mentioned that they’re not normally brought to the buffer.”

“There are some occasions which have necessitated it in the past, although they are extremely infrequent. Unless you are interested in seeing more of the records held here, we suggest that we return for now.”

They made it halfway back before they were found. The grey unicorn glanced up and halted mid-stride.

“We would prepare ourselves, if we were you. We believe that the Seasons have business with you.” Hearthfire squeezed her eyes shut, just to be safe, and then the trio of envoys arrived in a wash of clashing contradictory sensations. It was true that it was not so overpowering with her eyes closed, but it still made her head whirl once she dared to look.

The envoy of the Spring was a creature of blazing colour and fresh air, a meadow of new flowers after the barren colder months. The Summer’s representative was warm and dry, insects buzzing lazily in the scorching heat and the last of the Spring’s blossoms turning to cloyingly sweet mulch below its branches. The envoy of the Autumn brought with it the scents of damp and mist, a touch of the year’s first frost, and the muted colours of its Season.

They avoided making eye contact with each other as they appeared, and each launched into its own spiel as soon as they had her attention.

“The Summer greets you, and -”

“The lady of the Spring -”

“Your presence is desired by the Autumn -”

She tried to protest, but it made no difference. The three voices waltzed on, rendered unintelligible by each other; she opted to wait for them to finish and then sort out the mess.

“Now. Once more, but one at a time, please,” she said, glancing from one to the other in consternation. “Um. Envoy of the Spring, you first, if you will.”

After it had all been sorted out, and she had heard each message in turn, she had no more idea what she was going to do next than she had before. They all bore invitations to visit their respective Seasons, and they were all vehement that she accept their one over the others. In the end, she was forced to just pick one, and ask the others to find her once more once she returned. The other envoys were clearly not pleased, but they acquiesced to her decision to visit the Spring first.

* * *

The Spring, as it phased into being, was not at all what she had expected, judging by its envoy. It was a vast, bustling metropolis, soaring buildings formed from some rose-coloured sandstone, and the skyline was a tangle of timber scaffold and cunningly artificed lifting cranes that dragged block after block upwards, to feed the growth of ever more buildings. Every flat surface was given over to greenery; climbing vines wound up every wall from soil beds that lined each street, and fresh seasonal flowers bloomed in pots and hanging bowls and garden spaces. The denizens of the Spring were everywhere, moving purposefully through the streets or lounging amongst the gardens. The air seemed to invigorate her body with each breath, and she was filled with the urge to gambol and leap and turn giddy cartwheels.

The envoy lead her away from the streets, and through a gateless arch into an uncovered quadrangle, where a pale blue marquee swayed lightly in the breeze. Trestle tables were set out in its shadow and lined with plain wooden benches that appeared to extrude from the grass, their legs turning green as they reached the ground.

The Spring’s ruler was waiting, already cloaked in a guise of normalcy. Hearthfire could see down to its real form beneath, if she focused hard; it was formed from fractal, exponential growth, splitting and branching endlessly and pulsing with life, utterly hypnotic...

With an effort of will, Hearthfire managed to see the alicorn once more. Funny that they’ve both chosen to look like alicorns, she reflected. Did they just recognise a shape she would see as an authoritative figure from what they knew of the world? Or were they able to reach into her mind in some fashion? Either way, the ruler of the Spring appeared as a slim, tall alicorn mare with a clover-green coat and a pure white mane. Her eyes were a window into the bottomless depths of her being, and Hearthfire noted not to look too long.

“Welcome, Outsider. I knew that you would want to come here first, hmm?” The voice was lyrical, almost a song; it rose and fell and drifted carelessly from note to note.

“I’m glad I did. Your realm is certainly something to see. It is not what I was expecting, I’ll admit that. Uh, what should I call you?”

“I take the title of Ladyship, ordinarily, but we are practically old friends, you and I, and I think we can dispense with formality for now. You may call me... hmm... Dew. And what should I call you? I am sure you must find the way we refer to everyone from beyond our walls as Outsiders quite vulgar, mustn’t you?”

“I’m Hearthfire. And yes, it is a little... intimidating, thank you.”

“Hearthfire. Wonderful. I was told that you had another with you, an old friend?” Hearthfire hesitated, but honesty won out.

“My cat, Cas. I asked her to wait in the buffer until I come back. I didn’t know what to expect, after...”

“Oh my. So suspicious already, but I suppose I can’t blame you. After being welcomed to our city by a meeting with the Ice King himself. Trust me, not all the Seasons are ruled by greedy, grasping foals. Though I would love to hear what it was that he wanted with you. I assume it was he that orchestrated your passage past the wall...?”

“So he says. As for what he wanted, it was odd. Many years ago, when I was travelling in a far off land, I came across a... a piece of something. He says it belongs to him, and he wanted it back, and wanted to know how I got hold of it in the first place.”

“And you told him no, didn't you, Hearthfire? O-ho, you’ve got an attitude, haven’t you? I do not think that many of the Outsiders who have visited the City would dare turn down a direct request from the Ice King...”

“It means a lot to me, this particular item. I wouldn’t want to hand it over to anyone.”

“Mmm, lovely,” she laughed, “That must have made him furious.”

“He wasn’t happy, I can say that for certain.”

“You wouldn’t know the half of it. I’m sure that he was raging and breaking things the very minute you left his realm. Not that I am complaining, but whatever was it that possessed you to cross him?”

“As I said: it’s important to me. And I was sure that if he could force me to give it to him, he would have done so in an instant.”

“No doubt about it, indeed, and if you were one of his creatures, he could have taken it without a care in the world. But when one invites a stranger into one’s Season, there are so many implicit rules that one is bound by. All the same, I would be very careful in any future meetings with him; he is not one to forget a slight quickly.”

“Well, I have no intention of going near him again, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“That is probably wise. But here we are, standing around talking about him and his wretched little Season as if it actually mattered, when we could be enjoying ourselves! Have a seat, Hearthfire, and we’ll see if we can’t find something wondrous to entertain you with; or perhaps you would like the grand tour? I would be delighted to escort you around some of the finer sights of my domain, hmm?”

Chapter 32

Hearthfire was happy to see more of Dew’s world. It bore no resemblance to Equestria or Manehattan, but at the same time was instantly familiar; a curious sensation. The city-under-construction was not absolute, and as they walked side by side, they slipped down alleys that led to scraps of rolling meadow, or green-carpeted marshes that squelched satisfyingly beneath their hooves. The creatures they met were as enchanting and full of life as their surroundings, the sapling trees and the omnipresent climbing vines were home to hordes of colourful birds and flitting insects. Dew walked amongst the flourishing chaos with the air of a proud mother, continuously excited by and delighting in the pure existence of the lives she was responsible for. It was almost possible for Hearthfire to lose herself in it all, and forget that she was here for only a limited time; a fact which Dew seemed utterly oblivious of, and showed no sign of ending the tour any time soon...

“This is all wonderful, Dew, perhaps I should be returning to the buffer? Cas is waiting for me, and I wish to visit the other Seasons while I still have time.”

“Oh, you are right, how inconsiderate of me, Hearthfire.”

“Not at all. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Quite all right, my dear,” Dew accepted her thanks easily, and in a blink they were back in the grassy quadrangle beneath the sky blue gazebo once more. For the first time, the ruler of the Spring seemed unsure, but she pressed on doggedly:

“However, before you leave, could I perhaps make one small request of you?”

“Well, I’m sure I can consider it at least. What do you need?”

“The item the king of the Winter was after, could I see it?”

Just like that, Hearthfire was on edge. The question slipped in innocuously enough, a little hesitation but nothing that should trip alarm bells as swiftly as it had... but she was a stranger in a strange world, no matter how pleasant and friendly the place and its owner might seem. She was playing by a set of rules she didn’t understand, guided by guesswork and cryptic hints. Hadn’t the king been just as friendly and accommodating, too, until he had his eyes set on something that he wanted?

“I don’t see the harm in letting you look at it,” she started, uncertainly, “I don’t know if I should let you touch it, though.”

“Oh my, aren’t we cautious?” Dew did her best to laugh it off, but it rang a touch hollow. “I suppose that will have to do, and I shall chalk it up to another lovely opportunity ruined by the Ice King’s greedy paws. If only I had come for you first, little pony of the Spring, we could have gotten along so much better...”

Hearthfire smiled as if she was taking Dew’s words as the joke that her tone suggested, and found the shard once more, still resting on top of the other contents of the Box from earlier. She unwrapped it, and held it up for the alicorn-shape to look at. Dew stepped first one way, then the other, peering at the shard from all angles, kneeling to bring Hearthfire’s hoof up to her eye level, peering as if she could consume it with her gaze. For her part, Hearthfire kept her eyes on the prize, too. It made her feel like the mark at a game of Find the Lady, sure she could spot the trick if only she could focus hard enough...

“It is impressive,” Dew murmured, rising to her full height once more. “It is a small fragment, to be sure, but a tiny fragment of a whole the size of the world. I’m positively tingling with ideas for what I could do with it, you know. A little piece of the Winter? Oh my.”

She looked away when she was done, turned her back on Hearthfire, and asked quietly, “Are you sure that there is nothing I can offer you that might persuade you to part with it?”

“I’m certain.”

“Very well,” she sighed, “You’d best put it away, Hearthfire, before it tempts me to some drastic action.”

Hearthfire hadn’t realised that she was holding her breath until she finally remembered to exhale. She wrapped the fragment again, careful not to let any part of her body come into direct contact with the frostbitten surface. When the Box was closed and stowed away once more, Dew turned back, all smiles again.

“I’m sorry that you had to see that. It is in our nature to covet, I’m afraid. I hope I’ve not dissuaded you from visiting me again, if you still have the time.”

If you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

“I’ll have to see. I... don’t actually know how much time I’ve got left.”

“Yes, I suppose it probably is confusing to somepony used to the rise and fall of the sun to tell the time. The buffer will know.”

She extended a limb for a farewell hoof-shake; Hearthfire took it, and that was when the supreme ruler of the Spring chose to strike. Dew pulled, hard, setting the smaller unicorn off balance, and as Hearthfire’s eyes went wide with surprise, their gazes met.

It was coming home.

- her hoof grasped the handle, and twisted, and she pushed open the front door of her parent’s Manehattan apartment. The sound of her father’s hoof-driven lathe was coming from the rear of the house, where one room was given wholly over to his workshop. Five paces down the hall, and to her left her mother was sat at the kitchen table, with the morning’s copy of the Mercury folded beside the her half-finished breakfast. Her mother glanced up from her reading with a look of surprise that broke and metamorphosed into joy. They hugged, and her mother planted kisses on her cheeks as Cas danced at their heels. She pilfered a morsel from the breakfast plate as they split apart, and crept back out into the hall - no need really, no way her father would hear her approach over the sound of his hobby - and paused outside the door to his sanctum. Her hoof grasped the handle, and twisted, and she pushed open the front door of her parent’s Manehattan apartment -

Falling down the alicorn’s gaze, window into the bottomless expanding fractal that the pony-shape concealed, she struggled feebly, but it was useless. It wrapped her, enveloped her, threatened to subsume her, strangle her in layers of recursive assault.

Then Cas bit her leg.

Pain blossomed up from below, fracturing the hypnotic illusion and sending the damaged variant cascading through the web at the speed of thought.

“Ow!” Hearthfire yanked her back hoof away from the source of the injury, and promptly lost her balance and fell sideways. The alicorn was left with the choice to either release her or be dragged down too; she chose to keep her footing and abandon her grip.

The grass was slightly damp, and had an early-morning chill to it that assisted in bringing her back to her senses. Cas was stood between her and Dew, hissing venemously; Dew was looking down at the pair of them with a mixture of confusion and anger. Hearthfire was careful not to catch hold of those eyes again. She doubted she could resist a second time, even though she now knew what was coming.

“I see.” Dew took a step closer, her eyes narrowing dangerously, and Cas was forced to give ground.

“Send us back to the buffer, right now!” Hearthfire demanded, squeezing her eyes shut to protect herself and hoping against hope that it would work here the same way it had in the Winter.

* * *

Chapter 33

* * *

They were deposited back in the buffer with what was probably more than the necessary amount of force. It certainly hurt more than the previous transitions had.

“Welcome back, Outsider.” The guardian of the buffer was as implacable as ever. “We trust that your visit was enlightening.”

“You could say that, I suppose,” Hearthfire muttered as she got to her hooves and dusted herself off. It was an automatic response, however: as far as she could tell, there was no dirt here, and even her hooves were unmuddied after hours of walking through the Spring’s rich soil. “I was attacked. I thought that was against the rules?”

“It is. There is what one might call ‘wiggle room’, however. Especially with regards to the Lady’s own subjects, or those with affinity for her Season.”

“That wasn’t what I would call wriggle room. She might as well have bashed me over the head. If Cas hadn’t been...” Her brow furrowed as realisation dawned. “Wait, Cas wasn’t there. I left her behind.”

“Nevertheless, the envoy of the Spring did include your companion in the invitation. It was within the rules.” Hearthfire gave it a suspicious glance, but the grey unicorn was perfectly poker-faced. Unreadable.

“Well, regardless. I don’t know if I should even risk visiting the other two Seasons, now!”

“Refusing the other Seasons would be within your rights, Outsider, but it would be poor etiquette.”

“Etiquette can take a hike. I think I can guess what the other two want with me. Hmph! They were both alike, in the end. I just want a chance to understand how they think, how they work, and the only thing they’re interested in is that stupid piece of rock...”

“We would suggest that you cannot understand them. We of the buffer, and they of the Seasons, are not the same as Outsiders, however much they would like to present themselves as such to you. It is a fallacy to believe that you can find common ground with them. There is nothing here, in your terms, for you to comprehend. To them, you are no more than an obstacle to something which they want, one to which they bear no more goodwill than the rules compel from them.”

“...is this your way of telling me to leave?”

“No. It is merely a statement of fact which we, as your surrogate host, hope will improve the remainder of your stay.”

The passing minutes were robbing the events in the Spring of their immediacy, but Hearthfire was not sure she would ever forget that feeling of unravelling at the edges. She was feeling drained, and frustrated, and angry. She had half a mind to leave, return to the docks and never look back, and half a mind to visit the other two Seasons, just out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

“How long do I have left, anyway? I can’t tell the time in this place.”

“Forty-two hours twenty-six minutes eighteen seconds.”

“All right. Hang on a sec...”

Her ears pricked up as the idea hit her.

“If I were to leave my belongings with you for safekeeping, would any of the Seasons be able to take them from you?”

“We do not believe so, however, the rules have not been interpreted with regards to this matter.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Exactly that. The rules have never been tested in this direction. The situation has never arisen.”

“I assumed you had some kind of, you know, encyclopedic knowledge of the rules?”

“We do not. We believe that you may be conflating our rules with the laws held by mortal nations. They are not the same.”

“How so?”

“The closest analogy would be the rules one might deduce to the functioning of magic. They are not systems that we devised, they are simply the way the world works. There is no complete set of rules, there is only an incomplete understanding which we have accumulated, essentially empirically.”

“You’re saying that you don’t know what the rules are until someone tries to break them? What the hay happens then?”

“They fail. It is impossible for us to break the rules. The rules govern how the Seasons interact, where the lines of engagement fall, they determine how the balance shifts and what information we of the buffer are required to record. The buffer has never had a possession before. We do not know if the rules would allow a possession to be taken away from us.”

“That is... spectacularly unhelpful.”

“The Seasons are always testing the limits of the rules, seeking advantages over each other, however we of the buffer have proved quite immutable to them. So it is possible that they cannot interfere with something we possess, but we could not say with certainty.”

“Fine, fine. Forget I asked,” Hearthfire said, more interested in considering this new insight into the City’s running than in the grey unicorn’s actual answer.

Really, it would be foalish of me to visit the other Seasons. It seems to be nothing but trouble. On the other hoof...

On the other hoof... what was she going to do for the next two days if she didn’t? She would probably go crazy with nothing but drab grey architecture to look at, and no one but Cas and the grey unicorn for company.

“Do you have a normal job?”

“We are not sure what you mean, Outsider.”

“You. All the other grey ponies around here are busy all the time, but you just follow me around and look after me, right?”

“Would you rather that we did not?”

“No, no, I don’t mind, I was just wondering. What did you do before I arrived? Are you the same unicorn that I met outside the city? Or are you all interchangeable or something?”

“We suppose that you could call us that. From your perspective, we could say that we manifest when there is a need. You are in need of an assistant in navigating the buffer, and here we are, as soon as you acquired that need.”

* * *

The next envoy did not arrive until - by the grey unicorn’s reckoning - four hours later. Hearthfire had found that she had almost no sense of the passage of time. It could have been a week, or a few minutes. She had passed the time trying to discern if the grey unicorn had anything approaching individuality, but was stymied by the impossibility of distinguishing between the group ‘we’ and the singular ‘we’. She had tried seeking out others, to see if they reacted the same way to various kinds of questions, but they all seemed to ignore her. Whether that was because they were incapable of communicating with her, or because she was simply considered to be somepony else’s problem, she couldn’t say for sure.

The envoy of the Autumn was as rosy as it had been the last time she had encountered it, carried with it the same slight scent of decay and cold air.

“My Queen of the Autumn hopes that you are recovered from your unfortunate excursion to the Spring, and wishes to assure you that no such barbaric attacks would be considered by -”

“I seem to remember the Lady of the Spring saying something similar,” Hearthfire interjected into its prepared spiel. “How do you know about that, anyway?”

The envoy was momentarily at a loss for words, as if it were wholly unfamiliar with forming its own sentences, but it rallied.

“All of the Seasons observe each other. The rules allow it.”

“Of course they do...”

“If I may continue, Outsider?”

“If you must. Yes, please do continue.”

“- the Queen of the Autumn. While you are a creature native to the Season of her enemy, you will be guaranteed absolute safety while within her realm. She wishes only to meet you, and fully understand why the Winter is so fascinated with you, and why the Spring would so brazenly assault you.”

“Well, I really don’t know if I should be accepting any more invitations. They have ended very badly for me, so far, after all.”

“If I could convey the degree of sincerity with which the Queen of the Autumn holds her promises, I would, but alas I can only ask you to believe.”

“Maybe you should bring her here? I might be inclined to believe, if it were - so to speak - from the horse’s mouth.”

Hearthfire got the impression that, if it had had a face, it would have been smiling nervously.

“No, that would be quite unseemly.”

“Would it be against the rules?”

“Not as far as I am aware. It is simply not done.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

It was the grey unicorn who stepped forward to answer.

“The buffer is neutral territory. For the ruler of a Season to set foot here would be a dangerous move, and potentially leave them open to attack. They would be far from their safe haven, and vulnerable.”

“But not insurmountably so,” the cold, cold voice of the King of the Winter added, as his hooves landed gently on the hard, grey earth. The earth cracked like unstable ice under his weight. “It could be a calculated risk, if one wanted something badly enough.”

Chapter 1

The cockpit of the faithfully decrepit one-pony plane was filling with smoke. With a string of ladylike non-profanities, Hearthfire slammed a hoof into the emergency shutoff, severing the supply of fuel to the groaning engine, and started her preparations for the inevitable crash landing.

With a glance at her instruments through the cockpit haze - altimeter was reading a thousand above sea level, airspeed dipping below eighty and falling - she eased the plane into a shallow dive, trading in altitude to avoid the prospect of a disastrous stall.

“Hold on to your socks, Cas, the sugar is about to hit the fan,” Hearthfire called out, taking one hoof off the stick long enough to tug her goggles down from her forehead.

She was answered by an irritated feline chirrup from somewhere behind her in the storage webbing that lined the fuselage. Cas, almost as seasoned a flyer as Hearthfire, was well acclimated to the nose-diving tendencies of the scratch-built aircraft and knew what to do in case of emergencies.

Coughing, and wishing profusely that she hadn’t opened her mouth, Hearthfire leant forward, trying to get a clearer view out of the smoke-obscured windshield. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see with no hope of a neat landing, so she picked what looked to be the least rocky piece and took aim. One hoof rested on the crank for the landing struts; the wheels wouldn’t help, but the struts might cushion the plane’s landing slightly as they snapped...

She released the crank. If she just let the plane belly flop it would probably survive, and with the struts intact, it might fly again if she could find civilization, and get help hauling it to somewhere flat that could be used as a take-off strip. It was certainly a long shot, but better to leave the option open.

Belly flop it would have to be.

* * *

Cas watched the scene disdainfully from her perch, nestled between Hearthfire’s ears. Hearthfire had produced a shapeless brown robe from the chaos that had previously been their luggage, and the hood was now keeping the worst of the sun away from the two stranded companions as they took stock of the wreck. Cas was not impressed with the desert heat, and made no attempt to hide her displeasure.

“I know, I know,” Hearthfire grumbled, voice muffled by the folds of the scarf she had draped around her face and muzzle to keep the worst of the dust out, “I should have done a full engine check at the last stopover. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

She chose to interpret Cas’ answering rumble as a reprimand for not having performed the check at the stop before last, or, come to think of it, the one before that either. There was never time, that was the problem. Ha.

The plane itself wasn’t too badly damaged; a little magic here and there to help the frame hold together could do wonders during a forced landing, as the unlucky unicorn pilot knew from far too much personal experience. It had listed on to its port side as it came to a halt, skimming across the gradual lower slope of a dune, and the impact had caused something of a sand-slide, leaving the lower part of the fuselage submerged where the dune face had slipped. Wings okay, propellor okay, engine not immediately on fire, no liquids visibly leaking out of the fuselage. No point checking internal damage to the plane’s systems: it wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon.

“We, on the other hand, need to start moving as soon as it gets dark.”

It took an hour to find everything they would need from amongst the jumbled supplies and damaged packs, but eventually Hearthfire’s saddlebags were stocked: a crude map (however useless it might prove to be in the featureless terrain), a meagre few days’ water, tinned rations, a pocket knife, a scrap of canvas and some folding poles for shelter, the plane’s first aid kit, a waxed box of matches, a sturdy tin containing dried tea, and the Box.

With the supplies organised, there was nothing to do but find shelter, and wait. Hearthfire would have liked to have done something for her stricken plane, to check the engine, or organise the belongings they would be leaving behind, but it would be wasted effort. Better to conserve her energy, ready for the pony-knows how many days of hiking that lay ahead of them.

They moved to the far, sheltered side of the dune. Even here, in the dune's shadow, the ground was uncomfortably hot from the day's sun. Hearthfire took what comfort she could by spreading the canvas out over the sand, and settled in to do what planning she could until the sun went down.

"…so, our best choice is here, though the map isn't entirely clear on how large a settlement it is. Our supplies should last that long, at least. We might even have a little water to spare at the end." Cas reached down from her favourite perch and batted absently at the map.

"Yes, I know, I'm a hopeless optimist," Hearthfire replied, reaching up to stroke her friend's head affectionately.

It was too hot to fall asleep, but after an hour or two the pair of them were dozing fitfully in the baking shade. As such, Hearthfire wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was dreaming when Cas came suddenly alert, hackles raised, and stared up into the sky.

"Hmm? Whasamatta?"

She followed Cas' gaze, and spotted the two specks, circling high above.

"Vultures already?" It seemed odd, but then, she didn't have a better explanation. Unless a pair of pegasi had just happened to stumble across her wreck a hoof-full of hours after she crashed in the middle of nowhere, but what were the odds of that?

The two pegasi circled the crash site, dropping lower on each pass. They were on the third pass by the time Hearthfire had worked out that, yes, there really were two pegasus ponies directly overhead, had decided that there was a better than fifty-fifty chance that they were bandits, and had realised that there was very little she could do about it if they were.

They landed lightly, a few meters away, on either side of the stranded unicorn in twin plumes of dust. Hearthfire patted her knife to make sure it was still there as she eyed the newcomers warily. One was a pale grey, with a long, light blue mane and tail; the other sported a darker yellow-brown coat and wild, aggressively cropped black hair. They were both male, and young, she could see immediately, not foals, but not exactly full grown stallions. Neither of them appeared to be armed; in fact, the pair of them were carrying only bandoliers of simple, hoof-crafted pouches and water skins.

That won’t stop them pounding you into a pulp the old fashioned way if they’re here to loot your supplies, she reminded herself, sternly. Her hoof didn’t move away from the knife, though she wasn’t really sure if she would be prepared to turn it on another pony if it came down to a fight. Cas had vanished somewhere down the back of her robe, out of sight.

One of the pegasi, the dark-coated of the two, barked something as they approached, his words low and lilting, in a language that Hearthfire didn’t recognise.

“Uh...” She turned to face the one who had spoken, while simultaneously trying to keep one eye on the second interloper. Another string of unfamiliar words. More aggressive this time, or was that her imagination? A hoof was pointed in the direction of the downed plane.

“I’m sorry,” she tried, “I don’t understand.”

The two pegasi stopped dead in their tracks, watching her with wide eyes. Hearthfire tensed for whatever was coming next.

“Canterlot!” The grey pegasus yelled, and all but took to the air in his sudden excitement. The enunciation was off, marred by a thick accent, but there was no mistaking what he had said. “You are... Canterlot?”

“You two have heard of Canterlot?”

“Yes. Canterlot, in Equestria,” the other pegasus chimed in. He dragged the syllables out, ehh-quest-reaa.

“Um. I’ve been there, once?” Hearthfire made an effort, though she didn’t know if they would understand. She pointed at herself to emphasise, hoping they would get the hint. “I’m from Manehattan.”

“You know, Wun-der Boh-lets?”

* * *

On the journey from the crash site, the two pegasi took alternating turns flying and walking, one leading Hearthfire onwards, the other circling lazily overhead, ensuring that their heading was always true. The yellow-brown pegasus spoke the better Equestrian of the two; Hearthfire quickly worked out that the pair’s native tongue was an unfamiliar dialect of Saddle Arabian, which she had only a very simple understanding of at the best of times.

Between her guesswork, based on her own limited vocabulary and their basic grasp of Equestrian, it was almost possible to have intelligible conversations through the language barrier. She managed to work out that the two ponies were from a caravan, and that the they had seen the smoke of her plane going down, and flown over to investigate. The pale grey pony was named Cloud Flower, if Hearthfire was translating the name correctly, and the brown-yellow coated one introduced himself as Sandwhistler.

Oh, and she also picked up that they had heard of The Wonderbolts. It didn’t take her very long to discover that they were big fans. The closest she came to a conversation with Cloud Flower began when she did her best to ask the colt how the two of them had heard of the aerial display team, but any semblance of discourse quickly devolved into a bubbly, enthusiastic extravaganza of leaping, flapping and hoof-waved illustrations; sadly, due to Hearthfire’s poor grasp of Saddle Arabian, the whole thing went completely over the unicorn’s head.

As the four travelers approached their destination, the setting sun rendered the loose slopes in sharp relief, leaving the seemingly endless dunes as an undulating wash of crimson light and deep shade. The dune they were climbing seemed taller than the others, but otherwise not unusual to Hearthfire, but obviously something had become visible from the air, as a whoop of joy resounded from Cloud Flower on high. With a swift barrage of Saddle Arabian, Sandwhistler took to the skies.

Cresting the dune, Hearthfire could see it, too, the long trail of dust kicked up by the passage of vehicles a mile or two ahead. Even Cas broke cover from her hiding place inside Hearthfire’s cloak to see what all the fuss was about, wrinkling her nose as the ever-present dust tickled her.

“Looks like we got lucky, huh, Cas?” The cat stretched, easily, claws digging playfully into Hearthfire’s mane.

“Ow! Don’t let it go to my head. Got it.”

By the time they reached the caravan, it was almost dark, and the caravaneers were preparing to camp for the night. The twelve wagons that comprised the convoy had been halted, and arranged into a loose perimeter. In the centre of the semicircle, a glow of a fire was visible, casting the long silhouettes of the wagons onto the slopes of the surrounding dunes. It was clear that the night’s stopping point had not been chosen randomly; on the far side of the camp, a low rocky outcrop rose from the desert, sheltering the area from the worst of the wind-blown sand.

The dark shapes of pegasi rose from the camp as they approached, winging out to meet them, and soon they were surrounded by a crowd of ponies doing their best to look sternly disapproving but mostly only succeeding at looking relieved. Hearthfire failed to pick up on any of the hubbub of conversation; it was simply too many ponies talking at once to decipher any of the meaning, and in a matter of seconds she was completely at sea.

After a few minutes of Sandwhistler and Cloud Flower hurriedly fielding questions, it seemed that everything was settled, and the horde of worried ponies were somewhat mollified.

“You will talk to my father,” Sandwhistler explained, carefully, as the crowd turned back towards the camp. “He is... uh. Very angry. With me.”

“For bringing me here?” she asked. Cloud Flower butted in with a question, in Saddle Arabian, and a brief exchange followed which caused them both to burst out laughing.

“He says, I think, he does not want to be wearing my hooves,” Sandwhistler translated, after a quizzical look from Hearthfire. “No, my father is angry, because I go without permission. It is dangerous.”

Despite its makeshift nature, and the inhospitality of the surrounding environment, the camp had a surprisingly homely air about it, with gentle lantern-light spilling from the wagons. The chill was beginning to creep into the air as the sands finished radiating the day’s warmth, the flicker of the fire was very inviting, and for all that she couldn’t understand half of what they said, the caravaneers seemed welcoming.

Sandwhistler’s father was found inside one of the caravans, sheltered from the night’s gentle breeze by a rugged wooden frame tautly hung with a heavily-woven fabric. He was an elderly pegasus, his black mane greying noticeably, but his coat retained its tan colouring. He was poring over some kind of document, spread out on the flat surface of a crate, but he looked up as Sandwhistler flitted inside, and Hearthfire caught a flash of a sharply focused green gaze. With slight trepidation, she pushed back her hood and clambered up behind her guide, realising as she did so that Cloud Flower had managed to peel off and vanish, leaving Sandwhistler to face the music alone.

“Excuse me, coming inside...” she murmured to herself, not wishing to draw those stern green eyes away from Sandwhistler and onto herself. Cas immediately gave the interior of the wagon a cursory inspection, before pitter-pattering onto the bare wooden floor where she began the process of sticking her nose into everything.

Despite her efforts to remain unobtrusive, Sandwhistler’s father shot a look her way; he bowed his head slightly in greeting, and said, in very passable Equestrian:

“I am sorry for my rudeness, but I must put my family’s problems first. Please, be seated. This will not take long.”

Hearthfire nodded dumbly, doing her best to hide her surprise. There was a heavy accent there, but none of Sandwhistler’s hesitation or uncertainty. Well, it stands to reason, she reflected. Equestrian had something of a reputation as the lingua franca of trade, at least in Equestria’s immediate region. Still, to hear it spoken so well in a land so far removed from Equestria’s verdant countryside was a little unusual.

After a thorough dressing down, the details of which Hearthfire was not privy to, Sandwhistler was dismissed; she shot him a sympathetic glance as he left, and received a dejected shrug in response.

“So.” The old colt turned his attention to his visitor, as his son’s hoof falls faded away. Hearthfire was feeling uncomfortably aware that the youngster might well have saved both her own and Cas’ lives.

“Please don’t be too hard on him,” she tried, hoping that she wasn’t going to cause offence, or be seen as a meddler. “Cas and I would have been in a lot of trouble if he and his friend hadn’t shown up when they did, you see, we -”

He let out a quiet laugh, waving a hoof to dismiss her worries.

“No, no. I will not be zealous in his punishment. In the balance, it was a good thing he did today. But it is important to follow rules, no? All of that can wait until later, however. First I think introductions are in order.

“My name, I was told long ago, would mean ‘Sandborne’ in the Equestrian language. I am currently the head of this tribe.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Hearthfire, and this,” she said, pointing, “is my travelling companion, Cas.”

Cas meowed in greeting, and went back to exploring the wagon’s contents.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you know that I was from Equestria?”

“It’s obvious, really,” he shrugged, “as I suspect you know, when you have travelled widely enough, you begin to spot the mannerisms common to the different pony-folk of the world. You are welcome to travel with us, of course.”

“That’s very generous of you. Ah, I’m afraid I don’t have much of value with me...” Hearthfire swallowed nervously.

“Do not worry. We are traders at heart, but if I found myself lost and alone out here, I too would hope to depend on the charity of others. I’ll admit, I am very curious to know how the two of you came to be here, but perhaps that can wait until tomorrow. For now, I will arrange a place for you to sleep.”

Chapter 3

The caravan paused, shortly after noon, as the desert heat reached its most unbearable. There was no rocky outcrop for shelter this time, just the cooler side of a dune and skins of flat water. The wagon-haulers were assisted out of their harnesses, ready for others to take their place when the journey resumed, and the atmosphere became far more social. It was a break: there was no camp to set up, no cooking or washing, no maintenance or repairs to be done, and once the caravaneers had regained their breath and begun to cool down in the relative shade, a steady hubbub of conversation took over from the quiet of their earlier stoic march. Amongst the idle chatter, some of the tribe began to recall the foreigner in their midst.

“So, who are you, stranger?” Hearthfire jumped guiltily. She and Cas had been pony-watching, taking advantage of the travellers being grouped together to get a good look at them all, and she hadn’t really been paying attention to those immediately around her. In her inattentiveness, she had hardly even realised that one of the camels had concertinaed down beside her. She was bad at distinguishing camels’ genders, and even their voices - the bulls and cows alike were universally raspy, as if they were constantly swallowing grit - made it difficult to tell them apart sometimes. Still, she was fairly certain this was a cow, something in the set of the snout. That, and the conspiratorial way it leaned in to ask the question spoke of a certain type of gossip common to all races.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there. My name’s Hearthfire.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Equestria. I was born in Manehattan.”

“Never heard of it. Manehattan. Not Equestria, obviously. Never been, though. And why did you come here? To fair Saddle Arabia?”

Hearthfire was preparing to formulate a simple answer, when her train of thought was severed by a cry from somewhere across the social melee.

“Hoy! Dima, stop your pestering!” Hearthfire recognised the voice of Sandborne, speaking in Equestrian, presumably for her benefit. “I can spot one of your interrogations from a mile away.”

“Just curious about our new visitor, oh esteemed elder,” the camel, Dima, called back with a grin, her voice dripping with mock reverence. “Are you not, also?”

“I have heard the short version. However, we are all curious to hear it from the pony’s mouth, as it were, not in whatever way you wish to tell it to make it sound the most juicy.”

The exchange had more or less halted all other conversation, and the two friendly opponents’ light barbs were drawing degrees of sniggering from the members of the troupe who understood Equestrian.

“Oh be reasonable, Sandborne -” Sandborne held up a hoof to stop her objection.

“So, rather than every last camel and pony demanding she tell her story over and over again, I propose that Hearthfire tell it now, in her own words.”

If the caravaneers had been paying rapt attention to the three of them before, that might as well have nailed their ears to Hearthfire’s muzzle. An approving murmur rippled through the crowd as the suggestion was translated for those who did not have the hang of Equestrian. Hearthfire could sense a smile creeping onto her face.

“I’m not the most interesting pony in the world,” she replied, feeling that a touch of humility was called for here. In truth she was beginning to feel the itch, the expectant tug of an interested audience, and found herself slipping into character without effort. Her voice rose and fell, forcing her listeners to lean closer to hear, “but I have travelled a very long way, and seen a great many things that are far more interesting and wondrous than I am. Regretfully, the full tale is much too long in the telling...”

“We are not going anywhere for at least another turn of the glass,” Sandborne pointed out, over the playful boos and jeers Hearthfire had drawn from the crowd. “Even a fragment of the whole would be welcome. Perhaps a cooling tale for the noon-day heat.”

She feigned indecision, and her audience egged her on, pretended not to know that she was always going to give in.

“We-ell... I’ve heard it said that stories are meant to be told, but I’m sure I am a rotten storyteller...”

* * *

The Floating City

The expanse of the Maneterranean sea absorbed the whole curve of the horizon, bluer even than the cloudless sky from which it borrowed its colour. Although the waves themselves were indistinct from this height, the water glittered and sparkled with swells conjured by the gentle on-shore breeze, the same wind that playfully set Swift’s wing-struts creaking and jittering in the crisp morning air. Inside the cockpit, the gentle thrumming vibrations put Hearthfire in mind of a cart-pony straining at the yoke, and she imagined that her faithful plane was as eager to arrive as she was. Cas, too, had picked up on her pony-friend’s excitement, and had relocated onto the dashboard to peer ahead, watching for signs of their arrival.

Hearthfire flicked the cat’s tail to one side so she could see the compass clearly, and two minutes later, plane and pilot struck the coast and banked to the south-west, following the ragged, indistinct line that loosely delineated the verdant green marsh of the land from the cobalt blue of the sea. Here and there, sandy yellow beaches provided hard contrast, but for the most part the wetland swamps became gradually more and more water and less and less land, changing from terrain to ocean on a sliding scale.

And there. Several miles away but fast approaching, and distinct even as this distance. A lagoon, one of the largest on the entire coast, where the sea intruded far into the swamp, and at the heart of the sheltered bay, sparkling almost as much as the sea in which it was set, an island-city:

Whinnycia.

Her names were legendary, and the stories told about her were even more numerous than her many names: the Floating City, the City of Bridges, the Twin Cities, the City of Architects, a thousand more. It was said that there were buildings in Whinnycia carved wholly from glittering gems, that on one night in every year, the bells of her great towers would ring themselves without any pony to drive them, that crossing the wrong bridge on the wrong day could leave an incautious traveller stranded in another place or another time, lost with no hope of return.

At a touch from Hearthfire, Swift nosed lower and lower, until the rich vegetation below was a blur of colours a few tens of meters below the plane’s underbelly. The unicorn eased the throttle back, letting the plane’s air speed fall from its hundred mile per hour cruising speed to a sedate fifty-five.

They crossed over into the bay with the wind of their passage pressing the water briefly into a vee of ripples in their wake, and approached the city. Even from the air, Whinnycia was an impressive sight. It seemed that there was not a building in the city that had not been designed by a skilled artificer; indeed, the city as a whole had the look of an architect’s warzone, as a multitude of schools and styles fought to erect the most elegant edifice, to prove their own methods superior. If all the buildings of the city were game pieces, then the towers were the kings and queens of the board. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, some rising from civic buildings, others free-standing as clock towers or follies.

The other striking element of the civic design, aside from the pleasing clash of form and colour, and the thing for which the city was perhaps most famous, were the canals. Where an ordinary city had streets and roads, pavements and boulevards and alleys, Whinnycia had waterways. The sea surged straight to the very heart of the city, allowing watercraft free reign of all the metropolis’ thoroughfares.

Hearthfire took in the spectacular view as she carefully arced Swift in a long loop, circling the city. The bay below was alive with ships of all sizes, from wallowing square-sailed cogs, to fast, multi-masted clippers, and between them, the tiny fishing boats and skiffs darted back and forth in every direction. She straightened her course, allowing the city to fall behind her, and searched for a clear patch of the bay.

“I am almost certain that this is a good idea,” she muttered. Cas shot the pilot a despairing glance, and headed back into the fuselage to strap herself in.

As it turned out, the landing went surprisingly smoothly. She pointed Swift into the wind, and throttled down as low as she dared, letting the monoplane glide down towards the surface of the bay. There was a slight jolt as the left landing strut struck the water first and sank, but then the long cylindrical float, fixed in place of Swift’s usual landing gear, forced its way back to the surface, and the other float splashed down. The plane rocked alarmingly for a moment, before settling, swiftly bleeding speed as the water tugged away at its momentum.

Hearthfire patted the instrument panel, murmuring, “Good work.”

“Say... I think we have some admirers, Cas.”

It was true. By the time they reached the quay, Swift had a veritable flotilla of curious fishermen and passenger skiffs in tow. Aircraft were a rare sight in most parts of the world, and heavier-than-air craft even rarer, given the difficulty of finding suitable landing and takeoff strips. A sea-plane was a particular novelty.

Hearthfire had made arrangements for the use of a boat shed, a short distance inshore from the docks. There were a few tense moments as Hearthfire slowly navigated the waterways in her lumbering, ungainly aircraft-turned-boat, pleading for Swift’s wing span to be slim enough, but aside from the loss of a lick of paint, they made the shed without difficulty.

Chapter 14

On the fifth day, the ice was coating their flesh, and everything was more cold and miserable than anyone had ever imagined possible. Finally, even Tofa, son of Tobba, son of Porbjorg the Horned, could take no more, and threw down his oar.

“Audir the Brave!”

“What is it, Tofa?”

“We will all die from cold at this rate!” Tofa shouted, to be heard over the crashing waves against the hull, and the winds roaring at the sail, “and no strength of oar or clever sailing will save us if we continue on our course!”

Audir was silent for a long time, for now, even she could see that it was true; if the storm did not let up, and let them rest, all would be lost. The crew muttered and murmured amongst themselves, and mostly they found that they agreed with Tofa, and Skirlaug, and Osk. They were tired, and Green Wind was tired, and battling the storm was hopeless.

“What would you have me do, Tofa? Or any of you? I am Audir the Brave! I am not afraid to fight this storm to the last breath! If I am to die, I will do it with a tiller beneath my hoof, and the winds in my sail!”

At that, the crew fell silent, and looked at their hooves. All except for Tofa, who did not look away from his captain.

“You are well named, Audir! Every cow here knows you do not fear death.”

“Every cow knows it,” Audir confirmed, thumping a hoof on the deck. “What of it?”

“I say we dare to trust to luck. Our skill has brought us this far, but this storm is not natural, and we will not survive much longer if we keep fighting it as we are. We should strike off on a new heading. Ahead, it is many days to any safe harbor, and behind us we are weeks from home. We should leave our course, and pray to find a sheltered cove to wait out this storm.”

“Ridiculous! That is not luck, or bravery!” Osk shouted, throwing down her own oar in anger. “To head off into the unknown, in the hope of finding land? I’ve never heard such a stupid suggestion.”

“Wait, Osk,” Audir cautioned. “What makes you think there is any land to be found, on either side of us, Tofa?”

“My grandfather, Porbjorg the Horned, sailed these waters longer than any other cow in living memory. He spoke of a storm such as this, and of his rudder breaking with the strain of fighting to keep his heading. His ship was thrown all around, but somehow did not roll, despite the wind and the waves, and that by some luck of tide and current, he wound up on the shore of a tiny island. He said that, after the storm cleared and the rudder was repaired, he explored, and found many such islands.”

“I say Porbjorg the Horned headbutted a few too many sea monsters for his own good!” someone called, but despite one or two weak laughs, there were many cows nodding thoughtfully. Porbjorg had been a bit strange in his later years, but...

“The decision is yours, Audir the Brave, but I ask you: does it require more courage to hold your course, on a path that leads to a certain, familiar death; or to set course for fate unknown, and gamble everything on the chance that death can be cheated, at least for a while?”

Audir the Brave was silent for a while, as the ship pitched and rocked, hoof mindlessly guiding the tiller to find the best path through the waves, searching the dark waters for an answer. Her crew watched, with baited breath, as she reached a decision.

“Hearthfire! Keep your eyes peeled for land, child, and shout like you’ve never shouted before if you see so much as a scrap! Hard to port, my sons and daughters! Bring that sail round, and be ready to bail her out!”

Her gaze swept her crew, alighting on each one as she gave instructions, and in her eyes, renewed purpose burned. Green Wind came about, no longer chased by the waves with the wind at her back; instead, Audir helmed her like a mad beast, racing against the slopes and daring them to topple her. Every cow aboard agreed that it should not have been possible, that Green Wind should have rolled a dozen times, and then a hundred, and a thousand more, but somehow she kept her keel below her, and her sail above, and the rigging did not tear, and the mast did not snap, and the rudder did not shear clean from the tiller.

And then there it was, a dark splotch on the horizon, that did not move up and down with the waves, or blow back and forth like a cloud in the wind. Hearthfire did not turn, unwilling to look away for fear of losing sight of it, but she roared at the top of her lungs, and pointed, clinging to the prow to stop herself being hurled into the waves. The crew took up the cry, and Audir the Brave turned the helm once more, driving for the island that they prayed would be their salvation.

* * *

Green Wind was a floating wreck, lolling in the waters of the sheltered cove. Outside on the open waters, the waves still crashed on the cliffs of the island, and the wind still drove them ever higher, but in here the hull was simply rose and fell on an endless swell.

Despite the crew’s efforts, the hull had struck against hidden rocks as they approached, and water was leaking slowly in. The sail had finally given in a mile from the island, and hung in tatters from the mast. Four oars had been splintered as the crew fought to keep Green Wind clear of the treacherous coastline.

But they were alive, and safe from the storm, for now.

“We all owe you a debt, Tofa,” Audir the Brave admitted, as they lowered the anchor and shipped their oars. “If not for you, we would have stayed our course, and likely have been wrecked in the storm.”

Tofa bowed his head at the praise.

“That debt is owed to those who came before me, and taught me. My father, and my grandfather.”

“Haha! Nonsense!” Osk the Wistful laughed, leaping from her bench to throw an arm around the younger cow, “No one else on this ship had the insight to see a way out of the storm! If we all had listened to a few more of Porbjorg’s tales, instead of treating them as a sick old cow’s ramblings, we all could have made the same choice as you... but we didn’t. I’m sorry I doubted you, boy.”

There was much good cheer aboard the Green Wind after that, as the realisation that they had made it to safety began to sink in. Pouches of the cow’s horribly fermented seaweed drink were passed from hoof to hoof, and songs were sung and tales told of other ships and other crews who cheated death in days gone by. Hearthfire joined them for a while, but the spirits burned her throat raw after a few swigs, and the cows were becoming more and more rowdy as their inebriation grew.

She retreated to the stern, where Audir and Skirlaug were in quiet discussion, subtly removed from the celebration.

“We owe your eyes a debt, too, child,” Audir noted, as Hearthfire called a greeting and approached. “It was good spotting to find this place between the waves.”

“Thanks. I’m just glad that we’re still in one piece.”

“So am I, but we still are not completely safe. Green Wind is in bad shape, there is no hope to take her back out to sea in this condition. We will have to wait here, until the storm abates, and then search around the shore of this island to find somewhere we can beach. I just hope that Tofa’s luck holds, and there are materials on this island we can use to repair what needs repairing.”

“What do we need?”

“Timber, mostly,” Skirlaug supplied. “Fresh oars to bring our benches back to full strength. Planks to patch the cracks in the hull. Thread to wind new ropes from, for I don’t doubt that many have frayed and need replacing. We may be on this island for some time.”

No wonder you’re not celebrating with the rest of the crew, Hearthfire realised. Their situation was stable, just, but if the island did not contain the resources they needed, they might as well have foundered at sea for all the chance they would have of finishing their voyage, or returning home.

Save for a few hoof-picked cows, tasked with taking the first watch and bailing out the leaking vessel, the crew eventually slept. After weeks in open waters, sleeping in the sheltered cove, with only the gentle rocking of the swell to move the boat and no waves to soak through furs, was a luxury. They lit a small fire from their sparse kindling supply, and its cheerful light and weak warmth were the most glorious things in the world, allowing all aboard to sleep soundly for hours on end, only waking to relieve watches.

* * *