A jumpsuit lay folded on a moss covered rock, elbows caked in oil and grease. Nearby, the laughing of a pair of youths, splashing in a pond. The emerald shadows of the trees dappled the ground, rustling melodically in the breeze. Hot morning air, full of song birds. An untouched grove. The morning dew had dried. The insects and the bees had awaken from their damp cold filled sleep to buzz and flutter among the cacophony of Celestia's hundred thousand flowers. Into this shelter in the wilderness, the two youths went eloping. In the mane of the stallion, the unshakable smell of engine grease, of oil, and the future fast approaching. Muscles in his shoulders massive and rippling, but coltish and playful as he splashed in the shallows of the pond's edge. terrifying the frogs and the turtles who dove for deeper secrets in its depths. A bison let loose. A troll in the wilderness. He was many things. Deep sanguine blue of morning and golden crowned if dirty like a fresh spring prince. He had been such one. Risen up on parade about the countryside with his mare at his side.
But in the morning after the Summer Sun he had elected to put that aside, for now. He took his unicorn mare friend, pink like a rare diamond, soft in her eyes and expression, and more the youthful than he; but not by so much, into the woods. Where in the gentle shade of even earliest cold crisp morning her coat shone through like a splendid spark of magic. Her mane golden and yellow, darkening to the rich romance of a pale orange in the water. Her laugh joined with the waking birds, chirping and sonorous.
Coming to an end and falling on shore they fell into each other's hooves and looked into each other's eyes, having conversation without words. They allowed their imaginations to drift to the places young couples do. How long eternity must be together. The image of themselves in the reflection of their partner's eyes. Where the moon went when it had set. And other such trite things. Ignorant to time.
After a long while like this, the two of them rose to their hooves, and crossed to the other side of the pond . In a shady bay under some rocks grew a patch of gooseberries. Laying on the ground they ate the berries, chewing and savoring them. Asking questions.
“River Bank?” the mare asked. The stallion turned from his back to look at her.
“Damn Bloom?” he asked, in kind. Inching closer. “What are we going to do?”
“What am I going to do?” River Bank said, correcting her.
“No, what are we going to do?” her voice was soft, husky. She placed her mouth gently on his forehead and kissed, tasting the bitterness of his sweat, of the grease. It was the finest of perfumes for her.
River Bank sighed melancholic, he half rose to his hooves and said, “We I think, are waiting.”
“How so?” Damn Bloom pleaded. Desperate to know.
“Because I have to leave. I'm making plans to.”
“Well where to?”
River Bank looked out into the trees. Passed the trees and beyond the countryside. “To the city.” he said in a low dreamlike voice.
“To the city? Why to the city?” Dawn Bloom asked in honest disbelief.
River Bank lay back down. His face glowing with excitement. “Because there is so much that is new there.” he said, his voice rising with exhilaration. “Dad taught me much, but there is only so much here in the village. The motors are few. I was born for this sort of work. But in the city there are more motors to work on! They have trains, boats, and automobiles!” he stressed the last. The most futuristic of things. Something out of a story book. “Imagine a wagon you do not need to pull.”
“Well what about here, in the village? Can you not do any of that here? Do you need to- to go there?” she stammered, flustered. River Bank laughed, blushing.
“Yes.” he said, “But I will come back. As soon as I am done in the city, I will come back for you. I'll be the master of even my dad then.” Dawn Bloom pouted. She made a big show of turning away from her stallion and curled up into a ball. River Bank laughed, he knew it was all show. “And you, what would you like to do?” he asked her finally, softer.
“I wanted to stay here, and sell my father's vegetables.” she said faintly, like the breeze fluttering through the trees.
Landing in some nearby branches, a pair of doves came to rest out of view and began coo'ing. Now that their splashing had ended and serenity restored to the woods. The couple fell into quiet chatter. The other birds came back around; the robins, the jays, the small finches and delicate swallows. “How about this: you can sell your father's vegetables in the city?” River Bank proposed. “After some time, I'll be able to save up enough for you. I'll buy you a wagon, an automobile and you can drive it between here and there to sell vegetables. I think they will go well there. By then I will have made space and room for you. We can go back and forth, as the seasons wish. I've seen so in the papers, the catalogs my father keeps.”
“Now that- that is a dream.” Dawn Bloom giggled, rolling back over, climbing onto her partner and looking into his eyes. Brow resting on brow, “Can you promise me this?”
“Yes.” he said. And the two laughed. They laid this way for some time. “
Here, I will show you.” River Bank announced, getting up onto his hooves and Dawn Bloom slid off him.
He trotted around the pond to the rock where his shirt and vest lay crumpled on a bed of moss. A cap tossed haphazardly off to the side. Searching the breast pocket with his teeth he pulled out a pamphlet. Dawn Bloom took it in her magic. She opened it up. “The Baltimare Academy of Trades?” she interrogated.
“Yes! I got in. There they'll train me more on engines than dad ever could. It won't be long until I am able to take over after him.” he stood tall, handsome. Watching over Dawn Bloom as she read the brochure. His enthusiasm was electric. His eyes glowed with passion for the prospect of his new future.
“But, three years?” she asked him. She could not help but be engrossed with his optimism. But niggling deep down at her hooves she felt a groaning unease. As if the end had begun.
“Yes, well, everything will take time.”
“You'll come see me though, right?” she asked. River Bank nodded full of enthusiasm.
“Of course. I have breaks. Work is steady as an apprentice. All is well. I can come see you, and you can come see me. I have a great apartment. It is small, though, but it is room enough for two!”
Dawn Bloom smiled. But it was a weak smile. She could not miss the unmistakable excitement in River Bank's voice. But all the same, there was that nagging feeling. She slipped the brochure back into his vest and folded his clothes. Smiling up at him she said, “There are things expected of a wife to do.” A last line of potentiality.
For a moment there was a brief sense of horror that washed over River Bank. Dawn Bloom laughed. “Don't worry. I convinced mother that it's only you and I. She is only waiting for the proposal.” she laughed again, “So, she told me I'm not a filly anymore so I might as well start learning. She doesn't believe there can be any other way.”
“O-oh.” River Bank said, swallowing that hard apple. With a sway of her hips Dawn Bloom walked along the pond's edge. The two walked together in the high afternoon shade.
“So, what are you learning there?” she asked him.
“What I will be learning.” he answered.
“So you haven't started?”
“I just have.” he smiled, “But large automobile- automotive engines. Uh- diesel, trucks. Maybe boats. I'm keeping options open; with everything happening.”
“There's so much happening.” River Bank said, “It should really stop. It is not our business.”
“Well, -maybe.” River Bank said.
Dawn Bloom looked at him with a concern smile, a nervous laugh. “Oh? Do you have any thoughts?”
River Bank shook his head as they came to a patch of wild raspberries. They were sweet and tart on their tongues. They snacked on the berries as the silence passed between them. Finally, Dawn Bloom spoke, “What I mean to say is, this business between princesses and queens and emperors.” she spoke low, “I don't think any of that is for us to bother with. We were both so young before, when things were peaceful, we should be able to remember how it was. When I talk to father, he bemoans the tension, his already lost nephews and nieces. He remembers the time before. When we only had to be afraid of pies and things. But I just worry. With all things happening, what if some pony were to pull a gun on you, or give you a gun. This is not the business of common ponies- or, or anyone else anywhere who is common. It's only their princesses, their queens, their emperors who demand they do it on their behalf.”
She looked up at her tall proud buck, his broad features. The uniform on his shoulders. He wore his shoulder's cap well. He looked down at her, his face full of love. But also of pity and a sense of new belief. Of new fanaticism. He looked down on her with a patient smile, as if to comfort the filly he had known much of his life. And who was now as much a full bodied mare as he was a stallion. Looking up at him she felt a sense of so much lost time, and terror. There had been so many outfits he had gone through. And this was the last she expected of him to wear. A sinking feeling of dread hung in her throat. The sun was going down. The grove was in a final romance, bathed in gold and amber. The birds were singing their final songs of the days. The cicadas purred in the late evening air. The frogs were emerging from the mud. Her gaze panned to the pond. A feeling of remorse. Great and empty and devouring her from the inside out bloomed into existence. She looked back at River Bank. Her tiger king. The stallion that promised her so much.
“It'll be OK.” he promised her, “I only signed a contact for three years.” by the gentleness of his tone she knew he meant that was meant to ease the pain. But she found it could not so much as warm the dull ache she was feeling.
“But, why?” she asked.
“Equestria needs me.” he told her. Her heart beat a flutter. Her breathing was slow. She was excited and mad, but at the same time at a loss and in pain.
“But-” she started again, her dark voice cracking and raising. She sounded like a filly again, “You- you don't have to. There's still a way out. We can... We can go to Olenia together.”
“Olenia is gone.” he said. And Dawn Bloom slapped herself in the head calling herself a moron. “Then we'll- we'll catch a boat or something. To Aquileia or to New Mareland. What will it matter? In the end we'll gain nothing. We'll-”
“I made up my mind.” River Bank said. “Besides, I'm in the logistics corp. I'll be behind everything.” he smiled, “Who's ever heard of the logistics corp being attacked?”
“That's- that's stupid. You're stupid!” she said, shocked. Appalled. How could he lie to her that way, to himself?
He laughed knowingly. And turned around to walk the way they had come. Things were changing in the forest. The fruits and berries had gone. Taken by the birds. Some shriveled wild grapes remained, small and bitter and full of seeds. Not fit for idle snacking. River Bank had come bringing food his own in a small satchel. Ration food. Two sandwiches, with apple marmalade. They ate it together, sipping coffee that wasn't even coffee. Dawn Bloom wondered where that had gone off to. They finished their meal. As she used to do Dawn Bloom curled up in a tight ball on the ground with her back to River Bank.
“If-,” he started, his voice forced steady, “if there's anything I can do to say... to say I'm sorry when I come back...” he looked at her searching for a response. But she was silent. He went to touch her, but she was as steady as a rock. With a heavy sigh, “when I come back... Do you want me to bring you anything? I'm going north.”
She did not answer. Her heart was too bitter for a response. The air was going cold. Finally, with a sense of defeat River Bank said, as he stood to leave, “I'll write you.”
And he left. His hoof falls faint as twigs and leaves cracked under him. She lay there in a ball, listening as his steps became fainter and fainter until they were nothing. There was only the breeze.
A leaf fell on the cheek of Dawn Bloom before she rose. The woods smelled musky. Rotting leaves. There was a light rain falling around her. The skies dark. Diesel. Storms. A northeastern rain. Her breath fogged. The light had gone from the pond in the grove. Now all was dark and gray and blue. The last of the leaves having turned and dropped off. It was still not winter. Cold rains would continue to fall for some time. Elsewhere in the country the autumn decorations would be packed away, or corded and cut up into fuel. Equestria waited on the doorstep to winter, waiting to be let in.
She unwound herself from a photo of River Bank, taken just before he had left for the city. She had been holding it close to her heart to keep warm. The news had not been long announced. The last of the flowers of the old village had gone out. He wasn't to come back.
