It turned out that the buffalo were friendly towards the nomadic caravans as long as they were respected and even welcomed trade. Pastel had been afraid that they’d be heading to the town beyond the cyclopean Arimaspi territories, but after stopping within bison lands, they’d be heading north.

Towards Haydale. Of course.

Not that he was worried about going back to the town, even with the memories there.

He was more worried about seeing Lilly Sights. Or Clover Sweeper.

Not that they would recognize him, of course, not through two disguises. But he’d recognize them. It’d been weeks, months since he saw the siblings, and he was honestly afraid of what might have happened to them over the past months.

His thoughts were lost when Roxie jostled him. He ran a hoof through his mane before he looked at her with a smile.

“Sorry,” he murmured, elbowing her gently back. “Just thinking about heading north.”

“Anything important?” she asked, leaning against him before the large fire the buffalo had created for themselves and the visiting caravan.

“Not particularly. Mostly thinking about what would be useful to a bunch of earth ponies. More magicless lighters, so I should get some flint here. Maybe they could use some cutlery, so I should see if the buffalo have scrap materials. Or I could get some patterned straps and sell them at markup for the novelty...”

He paused when Roxie snorted.

“All you think about is work,” she accused playfully. Not baselessly, he could easily admit. “You know there’s more to life than work, right? There’s food, and reading, and me!”

He chuckled, wrapping a leg around her. “And you, always and you,” he said, laughing again when she gave him an acidic look.

When she settled back against him with a hmpf, he asked, “What else would you have me be thinking of?”

She sighed, looking above the tents and wagons around them, the duo lost in the middle of twenty different conversations all around them. She passively watched two buffalo talking with her father, who said something they couldn’t hear that had one of his audience bursting with laughter while the other scowled and roughly shoved her compatriot.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked, glancing up at Pastel. “We’ve had families join and leave the caravan, nopony wants to just wander around all their life. Usually, they find some nice spot near some village and either settle there or just right into the town. But you...”

She chewed on her lip until he smiled at her. “You seem to be ready to just follow Drifting Hollow around until she keels over. What’s in your future, Pastel Nights?”

He hummed, pretending to think about the one thing he’d been avoiding for the past hundred and ten days.

“I haven’t thought about it,” he said, and wasn’t that an understatement. “I mean, I’m sure I’ll get tired of wandering around eventually, and I guess then I’ll start looking for a spot of my own.

“Unless your dad finds a spot first,” he said, looking over at Shale.

“Then I’ll probably find my own nearby,” he admitted with a blush, looking down into Roxie’s sparkling eyes.

She bit her lip before saying quickly, “You shouldn’t. Wait on my dad, that is. He’s happy wandering like you are, but... He’s also just muscle and kindness. You have so much potential, and you won’t be happy until you can work it to its fullest. And you can’t do that on the road.”

Pastel was quiet while his mind worked. He knew she was right. He also knew he couldn’t be the one to take her away from her family or, alternately, pin all of them down when Shale and Cherry wouldn’t want to leave their daughter. So now he had to worry about settling near someplace where he could get Shale some sort of job, probably security or sailing; he remembered that he almost signed onto a crew in Baltimare when—

“You’re thinkin’ too hard,” a soft voice said, down and to his right.

He sighed hard, blowing his lungful of breath straight into the frosty night’s air. “I don’t want to take you from your family, and I don’t want to leave you to settle either,” he said glumly. “So now I’m trying to figure—”

“And that’s the problem,” she interrupted softly. “You think too hard, Pastel Nights. You think so hard about the future of your work, and when I tell you to switch, you start thinking too hard about the future of your whole life. That’s not easier, Pas, that’s harder,” she giggled.

He groaned, laughing lightly as he leaned on her. “What’re you suggesting then, Rock Sugar?”

“Well, I don’t think you could ever turn that thing between your ears off,” she giggled, elbowing him again, “but maybe instead of working it so hard, just let it... wander. Try thinking soft, Pas.”

He frowned, trying to work out what she meant, but shook his head hard.

Think soft. Think soft. Think...

Clearing his head, he grabbed the first thought that floated towards him, one that came of its own volition.

And blushed.

His ears swiveled, and he counted the days quickly and chewed his bottom lip. Three weeks... That was enough, right? And it was Roxie; she’d let him know right away...

“Pas,” she said, exasperated but fond. She stilled when he raised his hoof.

“No, this one’s important,” he murmured, looking her over.

“More important than work?” she teased.

“Yes,” he replied instantly, without thought or inflection.

She hesitated, looking up at him, before starting to say, “More than—”

He leaned over and kissed her lightly, quickly rubbing their noses before pulling away and standing. He offered her his hoof, helping her up before glancing around the rest of the company before pulling her away towards his wagon.

She gave him a heavy look, soft and twinkling, when they reached his wagon. He leaned forward and kissed her hard before hopping over the stairs and into the canvas doors.

Roxie followed him, giggling as he gently nipped her neck and nosed her deeper into the wagon bed so that he could tie the cover together. Hesitating, he then also half-stood on his hind legs to let down the additional wool fabric that he used to keep the warmth in on the coldest nights.

“Pas,” Roxie murmured.

He turned and felt his face flush even more when he saw her reclined on his cushy bedroll; her forelegs stretched behind her while her barrel was twisted to leave her hind legs stacked between them, the lowest and most inviting of walls. Her tail was curled up and over her flank, covering her entirely while imparting a gentle teasing essence.

As he looked at her, the both of them almost as red as her mane, she flicked the dock of her tail, the luxurious hair that was unbraided for once threatening to trickle down her flank.

He had to physically restrain himself from darting forward, taking slow steps over to her while keeping eye contact. Kissing her, he leaned his body on her hips and gently ran a hoof over her chest before pushing her slowly onto her back, maintaining the kiss.

She looked confused when he pulled back. “Pas? How’re we...?”

Instead of answering, he quirked an eyebrow and began kissing and nipping her neck, trailing over her throat as she let out a quiet groan. Pausing, he grinned before trailing kisses down her chest and belly.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Roxie laid on his pillows, panting as she stared wide-eyed up at his heavy cover and the bows that held it up.

Settling beside her, Pastel gently kissed her neck again before chuckling quietly.

Licking her lips, she weakly asked, “Pastel? Is that, uhm, common? Where you’re from?”

Pastel chuckled again, nuzzling where he’d just kissed. “Some mares complained that their partners didn’t do enough of it, but it’s a more common version of something called ‘foreplay’,” he told her. “A lead-up to lovemaking, instead of, well, ‘wham-bam-bye’.”

“Oh,” she breathed out, licking her lips again. “I thought...”

Smiling, he leaned in to kiss her again. “I’m not quite ready yet, but I wanted to do something special.” He shifted, a little uneasy. “Was it... bad? I thought you sounded, well, like you were enjoying—”

She turned her head and locked her lips around his bottom one, wrestling her way on top of him as she pressed him into the pillow.

After a moment, they parted, panting, her eyes glinting over her massive grin.

“When can you do that again?”

“Well,” he said, panting a little. Taking a breath, he grabbed her flanks with his forehooves instead of answering, once again working his way down her chest with his lips as he pulled himself further down.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk Shine woke up with a wide yawn, his jaw popping pleasantly as he stretched it to its fullest range. Scratching at the skin over the highest point of his mandible, he tried to stretch his other leg and found it pinned.

And then Pastel remembered where he was, who he was right now.

And what’d happened last night.

He expected to have to fight down… Well, anxiety? Fear? Anything, he expected some strong emotion to rock his head, his heart.

But he just found himself sleepy. A little thirsty, sure, and a bit crusty in the eyes. But for emotion?

He was a little amused at himself. Certainly, that warm feeling swirling around his chest was happiness. Satisfied? Yes, there was satisfaction, but that wasn’t quite it…

And then his bedmate stirred, and his attention pulled itself out of his mind to his side.

He watched Rock Sugar stir, blinking heavily, before yawning herself. He chuckled silently when a whiff of her morning breath reached him, glad it wasn’t just him. She reached up with a hoof to scratch at her eyes before she saw him gazing at her.

She smiled sleepily over to him, her long lashes fluttering as she blinked in the early morning light sneaking through the thin fabric around them.

His heart pulsed, and that swirling emotion lashed around like a tail wagging.

Oh, he thought, as his heart squeezed. There’s the strong emotion.

“Good morning, love,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her gently.

She was still blinking as he pulled away, a little smile curling across her lips as she blushed.

“How long’ve you been staring?” she asked quietly.

“Not long enough,” he whispered, blushing at the thoughtless phrase.

She giggled and punched him lightly before rubbing her hoof across his chest. “We both need a bath before we talk to anypony else,” she murmured, kissing him back before pushing him away and rolling back into the covers with another giggle.

Chuckling lightly to himself, Pastel pushed his muzzle under the cover to lightly nip her neck before crawling over to the water cask. Filling a kettle, he placed it over a larger candle and pulled out his little wooden tub.

When the water had heated to a boil, he poured it into the tub before topping it off with cooler water, getting it to a pleasant temperature before gently kicking Roxie in a flank.

Laughing quietly and roughhousing a bit, the two of them had to refill the kettle once more before they deemed themselves clean.

Rolling up the cloth he’d lowered over the door last night, Pastel tied it back in place.

“Alright, you get breakfast ready while I dump the tub?”

“Sounds fair,” Roxie murmured, slipping him another kiss before they opened the door.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Pastel was consistently, almost constantly pink on the travel into Haydale.

Well, pink-er.

As it turned out, his cover wasn’t quite soundproof, even with the heavier wool blocking the entryway, and the morning after his first time romancing Roxie had him greeted by cheers from everypony who saw him exit his wagon.

Shale Chip had approached the mortified colt, and instead of clobbering him as he’d expected, he’d congratulated him on his ‘Heath’s Warming gift’ and mentioned that he should maybe wait for foals until they were clear of a winter birth.

He’d never wished for a good invisibility spell more in his entire life.

Not even when Celestia had caught him eating one of her ‘I’ve-had-a-really-long-and-stupid -day-at-court’ slices of cake that she requested every Monday.

It hadn’t helped that Roxie was being particularly shameless about the ordeal, nuzzling and nipping at his ears and neck whenever she could. And apparently gossiping, judging by the looks he got from certain mares in the caravan.

And then their stallions.

And then Shale showing up to make sure he knew that wasn’t how mares got foals and did he need to have it shown to him? Because Cherry could walk him through it if he needed, she’d said she’d be more than happy to.

Again, many wishes were made for the currently unattainable invisibility.

He used the excuse to withdraw into his wagon to work on some more delicate items whenever he could, although he’d found much of his free time being put to other uses by a particular warm brown filly.

No complaints there, though. He did make sure to keep a closer ear on, at first just her noises, and then eventually his own.

Stuck on purely indoor work, Pastel turned to practicing woodworking instead of any of his more intensive metal crafting. As it turned out, wood carving was just as intensive, and he lost himself in the making of simple toys before moving on to more artistic pieces.

He was proudest of a series of wooden chain links carved so that they were a large hoop of unbroken pieces. He’d stained them with a mash of tree bark and then worked beeswax over to keep the stain from getting on hooves and to keep them from fading for a bit. Unsatisfied with just having a loop of wooden chain, he’d made it into a frame for a large panel he was planning to make into a door for a more permanent wagon.

And that was another thing that took up his time! He had no plans to live in this wagon forever, even if he wasn’t ready to quit the road and settle more permanently. So he’d traded a carving of a griffon for a large pot of river clay, not really useful for building with because of the impurities, but perfect for scraping with a sharpened stick.

While he could easily do the math in his head, it helped to see the floor plan and architecture drawn out.

But his plans were quite a bit bigger than his purse at the moment, so he made sure to keep up a steady pace with the toys and daily necessities he could carve.

The walk north to Haydale, while chilly, wasn’t a hard one. The only thing notable about the trek, besides the tittering and twittering of gossip and teasing, was their stop at a specific clearing at the fork of the river that ran southwest of Canterlot.

Pastel’s heart pulsed when they’d cleared the treeline, and he couldn’t help but make sure to stop beside the tree that would become his library, still but a sapling.

He’d stopped himself when he realized that he was trying to come up with an excuse to stay in that snow-covered meadow.

The continued trip the next day was uneventful, even if he couldn’t get the first time he’d made this trip out of his mind, until they reached the true edge of the woods. He’d shaken his mood when he heard a hushed conversation wagons ahead of him, and he was able to angle himself to see two of the front-running pegasi talking with a frowning Drifting Hollow.

There was a low murmuring from the caravan, but Drifting didn’t call a stop, merely continued on. As they continued on, the conversations got louder as more ponies cleared the treeline with a few gasps.

Pastel soon found out what the commotion was about as he joined the rest of the caravan.

As a whole, the entire group stood on the slight hill, looking down into the hills the village was nestled in.

Most of the houses were destroyed. None of the fields bore any sign of care, and withered crops struck up in odd tangles in the snow. There was no movement in the ghost town below and barely any movement at all from the silent observers above.

Haydale was dead.

Author's Note

Whoooooooops, this's been ready to go for a bit, sorry