It was almost a week later when Lily returned, and it was just in time for Dusk's first major harvest. The bushes of berries and beans had started to produce the day before and were ready that day. His carrot's roots weren't quite ready but the greens could be nibbled with a little care. A couple of his squash vines had little buds on them. His pequin peppers were starting to turn that dangerous shade of red at their tips. His wheat hadn't yet put out their heads but were tall enough to tickle his barrel. The two tree fruits he'd decided to try and grow had sent up leafy sprouts.

He'd even been able to find some long-stemmed sativa he could use for paper. Mostly.

When she and the other large pegasus landed, he'd just gotten started picking the riper berries and placing them into some simple woven bags he'd made earlier. He glanced up at the mid-afternoon sun and wiped the sweat away from his eyes as he moved out of the field and towards the landing point, carrying his half-filled sack of berries with him.

Lily bounced up to him and nuzzled into his chest when he placed the bag aside. Snorting and blushing, he gently hugged her in greeting before moving towards the other pegasus, who was carefully unloading the wagon that had been strapped beneath them.

"H'lo," he said, holding out a hoof. The pegasus glanced at him, at his hoof, before shrugging and tapping it with one of his own.

"So you're the squatter," he said evenly, glancing at Lily. "Sissa' told me a bit about you."

"Good stuff?" Dusk asked carefully, moving around the wagon and helping the pegasus move some of the heavier pieces out of what was basically a crate.

"Too much of tha', honestly," he said, giving the blushing pegasus a meaningful gaze. "Name's Clover Sweeper. We appreciate the coin, even if ya are just usin' us as couriers. Although," he said, meeting Dusk's gaze carefully, "I would like to know where a ground pounder like ya' got so much coin."

Dusk paused, gazing into Clover's cold eyes.

"Understan', most earth ponies with that much coin jus' laying around are thieves," he said, continuing to unload the planks out of the crate. "An' if you're gettin' mah Sissa off, I wan' to make sure you're not the type to slit her throat for her gold."

Lily made some harsh noises of disbelief, but Dusk just cocked his head to the side before nodding. "I'm not a brigand or bandit," he said. "That's all the bits I had, beside some copper."

Clover's gaze narrowed. "Lily's been calling them bits too," he said softly, clipping his voice up at the end and making it a question.

"Family habit," Dusk said, shaking his head. "After when they used to be made'a bits of iron."

Clover kept his eyes on Dusk for another few moments, a short staring contest, before he simply nodded.

"A'right," he said, nodding and relaxing a bit. "I don' think you're tellin' the whole truth, but I believe you're not tryin' ta hurt Lily." He shook his head a bit and glanced around the garden. "You've been busy," he said, his tone looser and inquisitive.

"Ya, las' time ah was here ya barely had anythin' comin' up!" Lily chirped, jumping up and flying low over his field now that the stallions were acting less tense.

"Can your earth ponies nah do the same?" Dusk asked, moving the rest of the largest hunks of wood out of the crate.

"Wha, grow crop out'a nothin'?" Clover asked back, chuckling. "Not qui'."

"Well, I di' gather all these from tha' bounty of tha forest," Dusk said with his own chuckle. "Didn' pull 'em from 'tween mah cheeks, or nothin'."

"You'll wanna be careful wi' tha," Clover said, gazing out over the wall towards the canopy surrounding them. "Hear tell tha there's monstahs movin' in to tha woods, comin' from somewhea' deep in'a middle o' it."

Lily cleared her throat "But still, as I was sayin'. Even the best earth pony out thea canna' grow a bush out of a berry in a week, and you've got a whole crop."

Dusk laughed nervously. "I guess my Gran knew what she was about when she taught me," he muttered, before trying to busy himself with sorting out the pieces of fresh cut wood they'd brought him.

He heard Clover shift and start whispering to Lily. He did his best to ignore the muted voices, but he still whipped his head around when Lily loudly said, "Yea, I'm sure Onyx isn' a bucking sorcerer, Clover."

Clover's head whipped around and met Dusk's gaze.

"Sorcerer?" he asked, before reaching up and touching his forehead. "Didn't know I grew a horn last night," he said with a forced chuckle.

"An' besides that," Lily said, reaching out and grabbing one of the blackberries he'd just been harvesting out of a bag, "you know all those magic things they try'n grow taste like dirt. Here, ta'se this," she said, shoving the berry into Clover's lips.

With a small noise Clover drew away from the fruit, but paused when his tongue instinctively shot out and tasted the stain left there. His eyes narrowed, he reached out for the berry and popped the whole piece into his mouth. Dusk watched his jaw work, slowly, and he watched Clover lick his lips again before reaching out and taking another blackberry to pop into his mouth.

"How dedicated are ya to the idea of stayin' here?" Clover asked, giving Dusk a firm looking over.

"T'was one of my paw's final wishes to see these gardens growing again," he made up on the spot, praying to the spirit of Applejack to understand.

Clover slowly nodded. "A'ight," he said, before sighing and looking back at the bag. "Then would you mind payin' me an' my sissa to bring these to market for you, while you build that wagon o' yours? These're delicious, an' I kin see anypony workin' with you gettin' a fat purse before all's done with."

"That good?" he asked, placing a small smirk over his surprise.

Clover nodded, sighing heavily again. "That's one of the best fruits I've eva eaten, hooves down," he admitted. "You're gonna hav'ta worry about apprentices and mares cu'min after ya." He gave Dusk another glance over. "Evin if ya're a bit on the shor' side for a groun' poun'er."

Dusk noted Lily's sour expression with some satisfaction. Pretending to think it over, he slowly nodded to Clover. "I don' mind making you two my go-to pegasus for flyin' stuff in to town," he said with a nod. "'Ow 'bout five percent of the coin, apiece, an' you don' let any pony know I'm here?"

Clover blinked before chuckling. "I guess I ain't too surprised you kin do maths as well," he said as he offered out a hoof. "I'sa deal for me."

"Here too," Lily said, putting her hoof into the pile. "If you're only a pegasus, I'd hop int'a tha' line meself," she muttered.

Dusk smiled as he reached out and tapped their hooves with his. "For tha bes' then," he said, putting some melancholy into his tone. "Not lookin' for herdmates ri' now."

The brief conflict on Lily's muzzle turned into disappointment, then she wiped it off with a sigh.

"S'pose I unnerstand," she said. "Still, me'be you kin help me out next year again," she said with a wide grin.

Dusk thought about it for a half second before the memory of her shitting his field resurfaced, and he dismissed the idea without another thought.

"Mey'be," he said aloud, before glancing at the field. "I won' have a full delivery ready for another day 're so, but if you wan'ed to take a bag of the berries to give samples out of, you coul' get the ponies excited for the first crop."

"O yea'," Lily said, pronking over to the crate and jumping half-way into it, surfacing with a small sack and tossing it to Dusk, who caught it with a hoof. "Those're the seeds you said you coul' add to the garden. I's mos'ly my own favorite, spin'ich, but there's a'so turnip an' cauliflower seed in the'e. Tha 'nips do well in tha earth pony circles, and the horn-heads like the cauli'."

"Oh, thank yo-" Dusk started to say, before opening the bag and seeing the seeds inside all mixed together. It was reminiscent of a bean-bag, but filled with finer grains.

"Thank you," Dusk said again, slower, before drawing the bag closed and placing it between his shoulders. "I hope my bits covered the costs?"

"Oh yea," Lily said, nodding. "They'rd be change even, bu' I had to pay Clovah to help me with the crate," she said, jabbing a hoof into Clover's ribs."

Clover 'oof'ed at the hoof, but looked entirely unrepentant at the other jab.

Chuckling, Dusk waved a foreleg through the air dismissively. "The deal we jus' made is more than what the coins were worth, I'm sure," he said with a smile. "Besides, i's nice talkin' to ponies again."

Clover nodded his head, before glancing at the sun. Grabbing a berry-laden bag in his snout, he moved it over to the crate and lowered it in. "While I do appreciate the chat," he said, gesturing to the sun with his snout, "it is gettin' late. C'mon Lily, le's get these to the settlement before all the ponies get to bed. An' I'm sure Onyx here has some more crop to ten' to, now."

"Alas," he said, heaving a giant sigh, "ah do 'ave more pickin' ta get ta."

Lily huffed before coming to to Dusk and placing her nose onto his neck, pushing lightly into him as her ears tickled his jaw, before she took off and started circling the castle.

Clover watched her for a moment before he sighed and jumped onto the crate, strapping himself to it once again.

"I 'preciate you not leadin' her on," he said as he worked the straps onto his torso. "She knows in her heart it woul' be suicide to strap herself on'ta an earth pony, but she lets her cunt guide her more often then 'er head."

Blinking internally at the language, Dusk slowly said, "I was bein' honest 'bout not looking fer herdmates ri' now. If I were, your sissta' seems like a lovely mare."

Clover glanced over, eyeing Dusk while finishing up his rope harness. "Onyx, 'cause i's you I won' pound ya for tha. Surely you know tha herdin' up with a ground pounder would get Lily excommunicated from the flock at the least, and if the ol'er ones get riled enough, it ends with the pegasi stoning the earth eater."

Dusk shivered at the mention of the old practice of lifting boulders into the sky to drop on ponies.

He took a measured breath before straightening his spine, gazing up at Clover. "I j'es believe that, if a pony loves another pony, they should be with them," he said. He even let some of his Court tone into the proclamation.

Clover paused, setting his hooves on the points of the crate to look down at Dusk, before he smiled.

"Y'know what?" he said, his tone lighter than it had been the entire time he'd been conversing with Dusk. "I think I do too."

And with that, he spread his wings and took off into the blue, circling and passing his sister before they took off towards the northwest.

Dusk watched the duo for a moment, letting a peek of hope into his heart, before he sighed and dumped the seeds out of the pouch and started sorting them.

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

Lily turned out to be a common sight over the next few days, showing up early in the mornings to watch Dusk till the soil for the new seeds and listening as he gave a slow, gentle lecture about the magic he swathed the seeds in as he laid them to the fresh earth.

"Wai, 're you sayin' that earth ponies have magic?" she asked, looking doubtfully at him.

"Er'ry pony does," he told her, reaching out and using the magic flowing through the frog of his hoof to gently twitch her ear. "We earth ponies gotta grab stuff too. An' besides tha', dun'chu use yours to shape the clouds and walk on'em?"

Lily snorted, shaking her head. "We can' really shape the clouds, nah anymore," she said, flicking her ear as though bothered by a fly. "We just compac' em and build on top of 'em. Some of the older pegasi families still have cloud mansions, but most of us just use sticks and leaves for our huts. Even compac'ed cloud dips unner stones."

Dusk gazed at her long enough for her to blush and look away. "But-but..." he stuttered, forgetting his accent. "C'mere, lemme see your hooves."

Her eyes crinkled over her small frown, but she still offered out her forehooves. He took them gently, brushing the fragrant dirt away, before pressing his soft pads to hers and closing his eyes.

He reached out with the thaumic field every pony had in their hooves, born with it underneath the soft leathery pads they called 'frogs', and gently tangled his magic with hers, producing a gentle pinprick sensation in both of their hooves. He ignored Lily's giggling as he carefully went over the thaumic pathway that led into her hoof.

He frowned heavily at the almost minuscule pathway he found. It was definitely present, but severely underdeveloped, almost like a newborn foal's.

Using his own thaums he gently pulled and stretched on her pathways. He felt her shiver and heard a light gasp, but ignored it for a moment to allow her natural magics time to fill her hooves.

"Alright," he said after a moment, dropping his hooves and blinking his eyes open. "Go up and bring a cloud down, and maybe I can show you how to form it. Like clay," he said, coughing out that last part quickly when she cocked her head at him. "I assume i' forms like clay," he echoed, forcing his accent back into place.

She gazed at him strangely for another moment before she jumped up into the sky, grabbing an errant cloud and pulling the small mass of vapor and moisture down in front of him.

"A'righ," he murmured, gesturing at the cloud with his hooves and forcing them through the body of condensation between them. "For now, try condensing it inta, say, a brick, or meybe a disc if you like."

She did as he asked, reaching out and gently compressing the cloud until it was a smooth orb, vaguely egg-shaped.

"Now, give i' some sor' of definition. You coul' try an' make channels in i', or ya could give i' wings, or anything else your min' can conjure."

"How, exac'ly?" she said, pressing her hoof into the surface gently. "Do I jus-"

She interrupted herself as she pulled her hoof away, looking at the chunk of cloud still attached to her hoof. "No way," she breathed, gazing at the hoof in wonder.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "You kin' flex the magic, an' with enou' practice, you kin' make it so that you kin' pull away smaller bi's. Tha's how you make channels, and tha's also how you kin' make stuff like, ah, doorknobs and such."

As they watched the puff of the cloud on her hoof, they both noted some of the vapor starting to drift away.

"Now, wha' I did with your magic was basically a short-term cheat," Dusk told her as her face lost some the amazement. "Tha' said, you can get y'self back up to that level, naturally. Jes gotta do tha' work. I's like a muscle. The more ya work it, the stronger it gets, the more it works for you."

They both watched as the cloud vapor dissipated in her hoof, until it was barely covered in a low dome of mist.

"Tha's your starting point," he said, nodding to the dome. "Keep workin' it, and you'll get bettah ova time. I'd start with combining dense bricks, so that you kin use the muscle and get something out'a it a' the same time."

She nodded before resolutely turning back to the orb of condensed cloud still lingering on the ground.

It was starting to get a bit rough around its edges, but with some firm pats she had it back in shape in no time. Using her other hoof she started taking small bits of the orb and smooshing it onto the other hoof, slowly building up a brick as she took more cloud and compressed it on.

After she'd fully formed the first brick, she took a larger chunk out of the cloud and formed it into a rectangle before pushing it together, starting with more of a brick than she had before.

After he'd watched her combine the two bricks and made sure they'd stay together, Dusk gave her some advice about building that Granny Smith had laid on him (simple stuff like offsetting the bricks to make the construction stronger, and using a thin layer of cloud between to make them look more like bricks and less like giant cinder blocks), and then continued his work with the seeds and the field.

At the end of that day he'd sown pretty much the entirety of the bag she'd brought him as well as doing a weeding sweep, and she'd turned several clouds into a meter-long wall three bricks high. There was clear improvement, the bricks visibly even and closer in size towards the end of the wall.

As he trotted over Lily turned and, releasing the clouds she'd been holding in her hooves, grabbed Dusk by the neck and laid a very long, tongue-y kiss on him.

Breaking away and taking a breath, Lily's sparkling eyes gazed up into his startled ones.

"You migh' 'ave just helped me reclaim a central par' of my society's culture, you beautiful stallion you," she whispered huskily, before wrestling him down onto the ground and laying on several more long sessions of locking lips.

Eventually Dusk was able to roll the two of them and he tore his face away from hers, both of them laughing a bit giddily.

"You," he said, tapping her snout before getting up and prancing away a couple of steps, "need to work on using your lips for words instead of trying to pin mine," he said, wiping a bit of saliva away. "Still, you're welcome I s'pose. My gran-mare was a smart one, full'a tales an' legends. Might's well pass them on, since I can't pass them down," he said, the twinkle of an idea forming as he glanced down at the ground.

He listened as Lily moved over to him, shuffling her hooves.

"What'cha mean, can't pass 'em down? Ya ain't a gelding, ah know tha's not it."

Choking down a coughing fit, his voice was adequately strangled as he said, "I don' shoot straight, 'cordin' to the unicorn doctah my wife... My ex-wife took me tah. Mah swimmahs don' swim."

He risked a quick look up into Lily's muzzle, and only saw misty confusion.

"Ah can't make foals," he said, and Lily mouthed an 'Oh' before her expression fell.

"Trus' a unicorn to tell yah in the mos' round 'bout way he coul'," she said softly as she gently moved in beside him and lifted her leg to pull him into a hug. "Ah'm sorry to hear about tha'."

He let her gently pull him into the hug, squeezing her gently and hamming up a sniffle.

"I's a'right," he murmured, giving a last squeeze before letting her go. He noted with an internal grin that she let him go easily this time. "I's been a while now, an' I've made peace wit' the idea. Ah prolly would'na made a great Pa anyways."

"Ah'm sure that ain' true," Lily told him, sounding decidedly less sure than her words said.

"Maybe," he said, wiping the smile off his face with a hoof before lifting his face to hers. "I'm sure ya brother's waitin' for ya to get home to ya flock. Why don'cha bring yer bricks to Clover an' show off a bit, huh?"

"Yea, yea, that soun's like'a plan," she murmured, looking over at her work and back to him. "Ya gonna be okay?"

The question caught him off-guard, the answer more still. Regardless, he smiled and nodded.

Lily shuffled her hooves, staring at the ground for a moment, before giving his cheek a quick peck and trotting over to her wall. Testing it's weight, she soon had it loaded onto a thicker cloud, and waved as she started pushing it towards the edge of the Everfree.

He waved back, watching her absently for another moment before snorting and returning to his garden, his weeding more vicious than it had been.

At the end of the day he'd had enough weeds to synthesize a canopy type covering for his outhouse, so as long as it wasn't windy he wouldn't be subjected to too much weather while taking care of his business.

Getting started on his wagon, he'd went ahead and formed some of the rocks into tiny round orbs, and put together a couple of slats he'd formed to make a sort of ball-bearing system to keep the rod that connected the wheels easy to turn, and hopefully easy to pull. Getting them to turn at the same time was harder, but he was able to fake another bar into the system that kept them at the same angle with a bit of magic 'glue'.

With a lot of experimentation, he discovered a way to attach the whole affair to the bottom with a pivoting peg, finally allowing him the ability to turn, at least a little. He had some issues with the wheels hitting the sides of the wagon, and eventually just shrunk them and lowered the entire ordeal to just below the wagon.

Hitching himself to the wooden fork that served as the tongue, he practiced by walking around the castle. About halfway around he'd had to stop and disassemble the mechanism to find the source of the splintering noise that had him flinching to a stop. He sighed in relief when he discovered that it was a superficial issue that he fixed with some magical sanding and beveling.

Once he'd completed another lap and a half, he nodded to himself and put the wagon in his shed to await a covering against rain, before he made his way down to the stream with his rags to rinse away the sweat and dirt of the day.

Once he was back in his room he picked up his journal, hesitating and gazing at the cover for a time before opening it and writing out a dry description of his day. Pausing at the end, he sighed before starting to record a more emotive account of his interaction with Lily.

Lily asked me today if I would be okay, after I told her the lie about being sterile. I knew that would force her to lose some interest, but she was noticeably distant after I told her that. I wonder if it's from her losing interest in me as a mate, or just not knowing what to say or do? I did want her to lose interest in sleeping with me, but I didn't... I didn't want to drive her away completely, journal.

He snorted at the last sentence.

I suppose if I'm talking to you now, you're a diary then. Well dear diary, what do you think? Is the thought of not being able to sire foals what drove Lily away? Just the abruptness of the information? Will she be back tomorrow?

He paused, gazing down at the pages before sniffling.

I'm being morose. Probably just because I let the day run so late on me. I hope it's just because I'm tired, anyways. I'll see if some heavy sleep helps. I hope Lily comes by tomorrow. She can be a bit vulgar, but she remains as my first new-

He started to write acquaintance, but slowly dipped his pen back in the inkpot as he considered his meaning, his feelings behind the word.

She's my first new friend.

I hope I see my new friend tomorrow.

He smiled a bit at the childish sentiment, his heart warming as he realized how much he still meant it.

PS: I hope Clover gets nice and jealous of her efforts earlier today. It would lift her spirits, and as long as it stays friendly, a little rivalry could kick off the revolution Cloudsdale needs to modernize itself.

Blowing lightly on the ink until it dried, he made to place it back down on the short table he'd made to hold it while he wrote, before pausing. Lily might show off her work, and if any number of pegasi showed up tomorrow, somepony might come across his diary and read through it.

Looking around the room, he sighed before using his magic to wrench one of the stones out of the wall before scooping away a hollow into it. Fitting the journal and ink set into the new hole, he placed the stone back into the wall and gave it a solid kick to reseat it.

Sighing, he moved the squat table back to the far wall before laying down for the night, gazing up and out through the window and taking note of the slowly dancing stars before he fell asleep.

Author's Note

Don't have much to say about this one, except that Dusk is running out of reasons not to sally forth, as i'twere. How far is it to the earth pony towns? What will he find there?

~~FIND OUT ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF~~
no hush you.

See'ya guys