Lost Years

“Argyle,” Snow Drift called, hardly believing what she was seeing.

“What’d you find, love?” Argyle asked excitedly, trotting over to see her halfway into a cave, staring in awe. “Wow,” he whispered, as transfixed as she was at the treasure trove inside. She could see jewels upon jewels, but also books and other odds and ends, sculptures and stacks of what looked like feathers. Everything looked old, covered with thin layers of dirt and dust. “Is this?” Argyle asked. “Did you find-?”

“An abandoned dragon hoard?” she finished, breathless. “Maybe.” They walked carefully deeper into the cave, picking their way around gems and trinkets. Not for the first time, Snow wished desperately that her wings weren’t useless. She stopped at the stack of feathers and saw that they were actually quills, that would have been used for ink writing hundreds of years ago. She saw a few that looked like the feathers from the wild turkeys that lived in the woods she grew up in. There was one very prominent peacock feather, a couple that looked like brown owl feathers, and even a few that looked like they’d come from ponies.

She moved on to a large, messy pile of what seemed to be a collection of random objects. There were a few more quills in here, ones that looked like they’d been used to the point where they were falling apart. She picked up a small wooden figurine of a yellow pegasus with a light pink mane and tail, and noticed a similar one of an white unicorn with a purple mane and tail off to the side of the pile. She set them aside and started looking for more that might match. After a few minutes, she’d collected four more figures, a pink earth pony, a blue pegasus, a purple unicorn with wings, and an orange earth pony. She carefully carried them outside and set them in their wagon on top of the quills she’d piled beside Argyle’s stacks of books.

Later, when the two had thoroughly picked through the hoard, and their wagon was filled to bursting, they marked the cave on their map, and carefully carried their new treasures home, promising to return another time. “I can’t wait to tell my parents about all this stuff,” she said. “They’ll love it!” Maira and Ice were still quite adventurous all these years later, especially now that their daughter didn’t live with them anymore.

“They’re definitely going to be excited that we found all this,” Argyle agreed. “By the way, I found this interesting crystal in the cave, Snow. It’s got magical residue all over it. I think you might want to have a closer look at it later,” Argyle said. Snow nodded in excitement. She loved crystals and rocks, and she loved Argyle for knowing she loved them. She gave her wings a little flap of happiness and settled one across Argyle’s back, to show her appreciation. Argyle smiled. “Love you, too,” he said.