Scent of Sea

“Here we are triumphantly announced. “I’ve found a few pages about Maresolus in here.”

“That’s great,” Pale Skies said, relieved. “What’s the book called?” Pale Skies ventured.

“Forgotten Realms,” the purple unicorn answered. “Let’s see what it says… ‘Maresolus is a small island west of Equestria. Decades prior to this writing, it closed all its harbors and initially limited, then outright prohibited travel to or from the island. During this period of self-isolation, Maresolus was briefly visited by Princess Celestia, but she was not welcomed by the island’s residents and they are believed not to view her as a ruler in favor of their own national leader, Seafoam, an aging unicorn. It appears that sovereignty is familial, so it can be assumed that after Seafoam’s passing, leadership will be passed on to his only child, a daughter whose name is at present not known to the author.’”

“Ice Blue,” Pale Skies supplemented. “Her name is Ice Blue. She’s the one who sent me here. Is there any more, Twilight Sparkle?”

She turned the page magically. “You can just call me Twilight… and oh yeah, there’s a little more. ‘Very little is known about the culture of Maresolus, though there has been some speculation by prominent scholars in Equestria. It is likely that a strong sense of nationalism is pervasive in Maresolus philosophy, which would be consistent with typical behavior of a country whose borders are so tightly sealed. Furthermore, because of the emphasis on local rule and the rejection of our princesses, it has been suggested that Maresolus’ government may be entirely authoritarian.”

Pale Skies blinked. “How did they figure all that stuff out?” she wondered aloud.

“Is it all true?” Spike seemed impressed too.

“Yeah! And it goes beyond that,” Pale Skies said. “I mean, Ice Blue is going to try to change some of this stuff, but… well, right now there’s the problem of information being sort of limited. Like in school we don’t learn too much about the world outside Maresolus. Most ponies there don’t even know who Princess Celestia is, and those who’ve heard of her probably think of her as a myth.”

Spike’s mouth was slightly ajar, and Twilight looked like she’d just been hoofed in the gut.

Pale Skies couldn’t help but go on; it felt great to let all this out. “The importance of cutie marks has really been ignored, too. After our marks appeared, Seafoam looked at them and then gave us our jobs that were supposed to be based on them. Like, for me, since my cutie mark is a spyglass, he said my job was Observer, that I was supposed to watch out for incoming tides. Most of the time I just ended up clearing the beaches. Me and all the other ponies who had worthless job titles.”

Spike scratched his head. “But… why?”

Pale Skies shrugged.

“That’s so… wrong,” Twilight declared. “It’s unnatural and cruel.”

“Sorry to interrupt but, um, when you were reading from that book, you said ‘princesses’? Does that mean there are more princesses besides Prince Celestia?”

Twilight looked happy again. “Yes! There’s Princess Cadance, who presides over the Crystal Empire, and Princess Celestia’s sister, Luna, who rules over the night.”

“And they’re all real?” Pale Skies said, dumbfounded. “All these princesses are absolutely real ponies, not just some stories that parents tell their foals?”

“Of course they’re real!” Spike interjected. “Twilight is actually Princess Celestia’s best student.”

Pale Skies felt a burst of excitement inside her. It was all real! Equestria, pregasi, Princess Celestia, they were all completely actual, all reachable. “So you could help me meet her?” Pale Skies asked Twilight.

“Oh… um… well. I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t exactly just drop on by whenever I want. But I could try sending her a letter; I’m sure she’d be interested in your situation…. Spike?”

“I’m already on it!” Spike announced, now holding a piece of paper and quill.

“Dear Princess Celestia… here in Ponyville we’ve had a visitor today. She calls herself Pale Skies and comes from the island of Maresolus, and it seems that she’d really appreciate a chance to speak with you. As always, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Pale Skies watched as Spike “sent” the letter off with a blow of green fire and purply smoke. She privately wished there were some way she could update Ice Blue on her own progress, and as a way to assure her parents that she was still alive, but for the moment she would have to settle. “So… now what?” Pale Skies asked, trying to sound as gracious as she could.

“Well, we’ve just got to wait to hear back from her. Sometimes it takes a while… she is busy, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Pale Skies nodded quickly.

“So what have you got in here?” Spike asked, checking out Pale Skies’ saddlebags. “Any gems, maybe?”

“My parents packed it, and I haven’t actually looked myself, so I don’t really know,” Pale Skies said with a shrug. “But I can’t see any reason why they’d pack gems. They’d just weigh me down… and I’m not sure what I’d do with them here!”

“He eats them,” Twilight explained.

“Spike… eats gems?” Pale Skies, trying to wrap her mind around this bizarre idea.

“I sure do,” Spike said, licking his lips.

“Well… I guess we might as well have a look!” Pale Skies said, opening her saddle bags. Twilight and Spike looked inside, and they all started pulling things out. Spike removed a lunch bag and opened it up: it was a vegetable sandwich, obviously no longer totally fresh but still probably edible. No gems inside, unfortunately. Pale Skies reached in and pulled out the spyglass Ice Blue had given her, but then quickly put it back. With a glow of magic, Twilight removed a map.

Pale Skies looked it over; it was a familiar image, the geography of Maresolus. She’d studied it plenty in school, and like most ponies, was able to draw a rough sketch of it merely from memory. In fact, she guessed that this particular map had been made by her mother, recognizing her handwriting.

“Wow!” Twilight exclaimed. “This is great!”

“Where do you live?” Spike asked.

“Oh, well, you see those pale beige areas? They’re beaches. The big one at the bottom is called the Great Lower Beach, and a lot of us live in huts down there.” Pale Skies pointed to a spot on the beach. “I guess my home would probably be right about here.”

“What are these different regions? And what are the other colors?” Twilight asked, looking enthusiastic.

“Okay, so… each region sort of specializes in something different,” Pale Skies explained, trying be as eloquent as she could. “The Southern Region, where I live, we specialize in fishing, mostly. But you see, the yellow areas are planting grounds, so we also have some fields – a lot of wheat. Not all of it is for food; we use wheat when we make our bricks, of course, so that’s another thing we specialize in as a region.” Pale Skies cleared her throat. “Now, the Western Region above us, they plant a lot more, so there’s more variety, and up there it’s all about food production. There’s fisheries there, too, and also bakeries, and a lot of farmhouses. So, yeah… food stuff, generally, I guess.” Pale Skies laughed a little at her own clumsiness. “The Central Region is… community things, I guess I’d say. You’ve got the school there, the library, the capital residence, of course, and the meeting rock, where the leader makes announcements. If you take a look at the brown area, that’s rock. You can see there’s a lot in the Eastern Region, and that’s where we have our quarries. The larger one is a slate quarry, and we use that for buildings, and then the smaller one is a gemstone quarry.”

“Aha! So you do have gems there,” Spike sounded triumphant and relieved.

Pale Skies smiled and nodded. “Yeah! They’re used in… well, some ponies use them to decorate their homes, I think. We don’t go in much for that in the Southern Region, but it’s not as if a lot of gems make it down there, anyway. To be honest, I’m not even sure why they bother to mine them, but I guess it’s better than having them just sit around.”

“I see there’s planting in the Eastern Region too,” Twilight observed.

“Yes, that’s mostly fruit trees, I think,” Pale Skies said. “I wish they’d plant more of those, though. There’s nothing I love more than a big, fresh, juicy apple.”

A small smile grew on Twilight’s face. “I know somepony who could help with that!”

♦

Sweet Apple Acres was the first place in Ponyville that looked sort of familiar to Pale Skies. The rows of fruit trees and smell of dirt certainly hit a lot closer to home than the stylized houses she’d seen earlier. “This place reminds me of this time when I was a filly and my parents took me to one of the orchards in the Eastern Region,” Pale Skies said, smiling as she and Twilight trotted.

“Is this what it’s like there?” Twilight asked.

“No, this is much nicer… there’s no smell of slate mixed in with the fruit,” Pale Skies answered, laughing lightly. “And it’s also surprisingly empty here,” she added.

“Oh, Applejack is here, I’m sure of it!”

They walked deeper into the Acres, past the barn, and there Pale Skies saw an orange pony with a bright blonde mane in a ponytail. She was playing a game of catch with a small dog, and they both seemed to be having a pretty great time. Pale Skies felt a bit bad for interrupting them.

“Applejack! Hi!” Twilight exclaimed.

The orange pony (who was evidently Applejack) put the ball down and turned around. “Hi there, Twilight,” she said. Pale Skies was surprised at this pony’s unusual way of speaking; her language was the same, but she pronounced things differently. Everyone in Maresolus had essentially the same accent, and Applejack’s was unlike anything Pale Skies had heard.

“This is my new friend, Pale Skies,” Twilight explained. “She comes from an island.”

“Well, it’s mighty nice to meet you,” Applejack said. “As you probably figured, my name is Applejack and this here is Sweet Apple Acres, owned by my very own family. Now, uh, Twilight said you were from some island? That sure sounds interestin.”

“It’s a little bit complicated…” Pale Skies started. “My home country is called Maresolus, and we haven’t really had any contact with the outside world for… well, for a long time. I’m actually kind of on a mission; I was sent here in a hot air balloon by the leader of Maresolus.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “That…  sounds a mite scary, Pale Skies. I’m glad you made it. What’s it like over there, anyway? You got any farms like this one?”

“Not like this,” Pale Skies said. “I only wish ours were this nice!”

“I sure ain’t gonna boast, but the Apple family does pride itself on takin’ care of our land,” Applejack said, beaming.

“What else do you grow here?”

“Oh… well, it’s just apples.”

“So you have other farmland, then?”

“Yep!” Twilight answered. “But I brought you here so you could have a chance to meet Applejack and try some of our best Ponyville fruit!”

♦

By the time Pale Skies and Twilight returned to the library, they were both stuffed with apples and other various treats made from the fruit. In truth, Pale Skies had indulged a lot more than Twilight, and she was now sort of trudging along while her unicorn companion was as perky and inquisitive as ever.

“I’ve never tasted stuff like that before,” Pale Skies said dreamily.

“Oh, really? What do you eat there?”

“A lot of fish… if we had a national food, it would probably be sardines. We eat a lot of bread, and vegetables… some fruit, though not too much makes it to the Southern Region most of the time.”

“Well, rest assured there’s plenty of fruit here!” Twilight said. “Though it’s true that apples are kind of the preferred crop.”

“I feel exhausted,” Pale Skies said with a yawn.

“You can stay with me for a while,” Twilight said as they reentered the library. “There’s a guest bed upstairs!”

“Really?” Pale Skies laughed a little. “Are you so nice to every stranger who drops in in a hot air balloon?”

“Sure… as long as she isn’t bent on proving her magical superiority over everypony else,” Twilight said, recalling a previous stranger who had randomly showed up in town.

“Well…” Pale Skies motioned to her forehead, which was of course, free of a unicorn horn. “You don’t have to worry about that happening with me… though I’m not really sure what you mean.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story.”

They headed upstairs to the living quarters of the library, where Twilight’s bed, the presumable guest bed, and Spike’s bed were. There were also plenty more books there. By the time they arrived, Spike was already asleep, snoring lightly and sucking on his thumb. He wasn’t really scary at all, Pale Skies decided.

“Well,” Twilight said. “I guess we might as well turn in for today. This certainly has been an eventful one!”

They both climbed into bed. Pale Skies was surprised at how comfortable the mattress was; she wondered if it were filled with straw, like the ones at home, but then it seemed as if nothing in Ponyville was the way it was in Maresolus. Ponies acted happy just to be there, and there also seemed to somehow be far less work to be done. Pale Skies hadn’t yet explored everything that she wanted to, and of course there was the greater task in the distance of meeting Princess Celestia. But it seemed as if she’d done all she could for that day, and since the letter was already off to the princess, there was nothing left but to wait, just as Twilight had said.

Of course, falling asleep didn’t come easy. Sleeping in somepony else’s bed was probably a little weird for everypony, even though the bed was actually nicer than what she was used to. But it was still so different: Ponyville’s night was silent, without the scent of sea or the sound of waves hitting the rocks. It wasn’t unpleasant, not at all, but again, Pale Skies was fascinated by the difference.

She looked upward, and the ceiling was thick and sturdy, not like the sparsely-laid slate that made up the roof of her parents’ beach hut. As Pale Skies lay there, she wondered about Princess Celestia. It was still incredible to her that Twilight could have such a direct link with this figure, and she wondered what she’d be like. She recalled the stories her parents had told her, and the descriptions of Princess Celestia therein: she was a very tall, white pony, who had wings like a pegacorn but also a horn like a unicorn.

These were the traits about Princess Celestia that Pale Skies remembered most, though she still found it hard to believe that such a pony could exist. Then again, Pale Skies had to admit to herself that she had previously had private doubts about the existence of even pegasi, but after arriving in Ponyville they had been easily and swiftly disproven. But then, wasn’t Twilight’s communication with Princess Celestia proof enough of her existence? Yes, but it didn’t confirm all the stories that Pale Skies had heard about her.

Well, she would just have meet Princess Celestia for herself and find out.