May 23, 9:40 AM

Wayfinder’s students shambled forward, half-awake at the time they would normally have their morning PT. She made her introductions, and the questions came. “Who the hell is that?” someone asked. “What does she know about magic?” “Why are we listening to her?”

Captain Roberts smirked at her, as chaos filled the clearing. This was exactly what she had worried about. She had to convince these students to trust someone else, while someone eager to see her fail was ready to leap on any mistake. If she lost control of this crowd, she might not get it back.

Wayfinder stepped forward, but Silver stopped her with an outstretched hoof. “Wayfinder, I think I can take this one.”

She hopped up onto a low hill near the front of the group, planting both forelegs in the dirt. “I’m not gonna waste your time with bullshit. I’m told this whole thing started thanks to my… friend here, demonstrating her talents for the other ponies in blue. You wouldn’t have listened to her if she just came to you with a pet theory and expected everyone to do her stupid song and dance. The first time I saw this stuff demonstrated, I thought it was pointless. Maybe someone watched a few too many episodes of a little girl’s cartoon, then turned it into a cult. So let me give you a good idea about what you’ll be capable of.”

She yanked something out of the dirt with both hooves, somehow landing again to catch it out of the air with one. A piece of rebar caught the light from Way’s magic, probably rolled there from the nearby highway. “Can any of you tell me what the yield strength on #4 rebar is?”

Officer Kirk cleared his throat. “60,000 PSI per inch, times .2… Depends on the type, if it’s—”

Silver Clover settled it on the ground between her hooves as the pony spoke, then very slowly pushed it together. It didn’t seem like the task was difficult for her, though the metal turned abruptly orange, groaning loudly under the stress.

She tossed it onto the ground in front of the stallion who had just spoken. “Go ahead and try that. Not too hard, don’t want to hurt your hooves. Make sure I’m not trying to pull something on you.”

He did, advancing towards it, then shoving up against it. Despite at least a head of height and considerably more-muscular limbs, the metal barely flexed. Even Wayfinder was staring now.

Her book talked about being strong enough to move a house, but that was very different from actually seeing that strength! Silver wasn’t even out of breath!

Officer Kirk pushed it away again, breathing heavily. “It’s… real.”

“As I said, not here to bullshit. Give it a month of practicing this, and you’ll be able to do it too. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. But from what I’ve seen, we pick this up a lot faster than the other ponies do. It’s just more… natural, I guess.”

Roberts wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead, he watched with rapt attention, unblinking near the front. “This connects to growing crops? Or are you saying that we’ll all be so strong we can pull the plough like a whole team of horses, and we’ll just be substituting for tractors.”

Silver Clover looked towards him, expression unchanged. Not a trace of embarrassment or fear on her face, maybe a hint of annoyance. “It might feel like that at first, I won’t lie. But there’s a reason for everything I’m gonna ask you to do. There’s no way to cheat, just a lot of sweating. Everything we do comes from the earth, hippie druid style. We don’t master some arcane glyphs or focus our minds into power, it’s about a relationship. What are you going to give, and what will she give back.”

A few ponies groaned, but only one spoke from the back. “That sounds fake.”

“Told you it would,” she snapped, without a second’s hesitation. “That’s why the display. I’ll show you something else too. Not as dramatic, but… no one interrupt, or that asshole gets to run laps. It’s gonna sound stupid, but that’s okay.”

She touched both forelegs into the dirt, then started muttering something. A song, a poem—maybe neither. Wayfinder could barely make out the words. “Bloom for me, wasteland earth. Take from me and give. Let flowers spread to the waste places, and grain hang heavy for every pony who hungers.”

Grass rippled away from her forelegs as though it were a time-lapse video taken over weeks, ripping out of the crack in the dirt, and spreading for several feet in all directions. It slowed, then stopped. Now Silver finally looked winded, her ears folded back and her words halting. “And that’s… why…”

The crowd recoiled. Several swore, others gasped and pointed, or whispered to each other. All the same stuff, words of disbelief and amazement. Way could hardly blame them. Even Hazel squealed with delight, leaping into the air on buzzing wings. She was the first one to speak, her voice muffled. “Just like magic!”

Silver smiled. “Just a… small taste. Trouble is, this little patch of hell is bone-dead. That’s where all of you come in. We’ve got to work the earth here before we can make it grow. Before you all looked like you came out of a barn, we’d have done that with tractors and nitrogen fertilizer, irrigation, aeration—lots of good ideas. We’ll do some of that later. But Wayfinder says it’s urgent we get things growing right away. So we’ll focus on getting the first harvest in the ground, and hope you’ve got resources for more before the second one.”

Way waited, but there were no more hecklers left in the lesson. Between both displays, every student was watching now. Silver Clover had made her case.

There was little for her to do over those next few hours. She made a trip to the barracks to bring a cart and water cooler. A smattering of other earth ponies joined her then, surprised that the lesson hadn’t already ended in failure yet. Was there really something useful for them to do?

Unlike with the magic lessons, Wayfinder couldn’t feel what was happening, or guess at what made any of it effective. Silver led her students through songs, had them strapped to the loaner farm equipment, and work it in ways that workhorses might have over a century ago.

It was clearly working, though. By the time the sun was fully up and the students collectively exhausted, the patch of land they’d worked was notably darker, with little green sprouts and patches of moss on the edges.

“I expect to see you all back in the next few days. It has to be soon, or else all our work will just go to whatever weeds happen to land here. Maybe not the worst in the abstract, but not great if we’re trying to feed the city.”

One by one, the crew loaded their ploughs and straps and things into the carts, and set off back for the barracks and the showers. Wayfinder lingered behind, until all but Roberts had walked back towards the city.

“I don’t know if this is really going to work, Wayfinder. You can’t think it’s normal just to find someone who can do this. Spun a little gold from the straw, but how?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter? If Denver can plant its own food, if we can grow enough, maybe we can request other things from the feds. Building material, fuel, electronics…” she trailed off. “Can’t just magic those things into the ground. Yet we’ll need them all too, soon enough. We need better than metal shacks to live in. Unless you think this whole disaster is going to just end soon. CDC will ship out vials of the cure, and we’ll all animorph back onto two legs like nothing happened.”

He met her eyes, unblinking. Yet it was he who broke away first, ears folding backward. He spoke very low, so quietly that only her sensitive hearing carried his words. “It’s so much worse than you think. Last night’s shipment was expired MREs and bales of moldy hay. Isolation Zone Sacramento is in total blackout. Power across the state is completely black. Washington is in lockdown, apparently a few infected got into the capital and managed to spread the disease around. If that’s true—we’ll see the republic fracture not long after. Every large urban center except Anchorage…”

He retreated a step from her. “Frankly Officer Wayfinder, I’m not sure what difference it makes if you can make this work or not. An infinity of food won’t keep us going if the trains stop delivering everything else, if the water shuts down, the power… we. are. fucked.”

He walked past her, tail down, shoulders slumped.

Exactly the posture I hoped he would have when the lesson ended. Roberts believed her all right. Yet instead of bringing comfort, there was only coldness in her chest. I’m nobody. I can’t fight the inertia of a country.

All she had to do was keep her mouth closed. But that wasn’t what had brought Wayfinder that far. She wasn’t going to start now!

“No we aren’t!” she yelled back, defiant. She followed Roberts, remaining just a few steps behind him. “Even if everything you just said is true. Denver isn’t doomed!”

“Yeah?” He didn’t turn around, just kept walking his slow way back along the trail. Clover and Ruby both stared, but neither spoke, sealing the carts in silence.

Harmony did, though. “My mom’s right! I wanted to give up before, and she showed me why I shouldn’t. We just have to… keep trying!”

Why did that enthusiasm make Wayfinder’s eyes feel suddenly swollen? She wiped her face on her foreleg, then trotted after Roberts.

“You think it’s that easy?” He laughed. “Maybe I’m not eager to be at the helm of a sinking ship. Don’t worry, officer. I’ll make sure I tell them who I want to replace me. I’ll make sure command knows how promising this farming experiment looks. Maybe you can do the same magic to a sewage treatment plant.”

She stopped in her tracks, eyes going suddenly wide. “No. Don’t do that, captain! I didn’t say I was better than you! Just that I—”

“It’s a job for the young,” he went on. “Maybe you’re right. Should start getting your notes together. They’ll have my letter by sundown.”

She backed away from him, words strangled in her throat. That was not what was supposed to happen! Plant some crops, improve the outlook for the Denver isolation zone, give ponies purpose… not depose one of the most important ponies in the city!

She backed slowly towards their field, until she stood beside Hazel.

The bug watched her, strange eyes unreadable but concern obvious on her face. “He seemed really mad. Why? You were only telling him the truth!”

“I know, sweetie.” Way patted her shoulder, then forced a smile. “Someone had to say something. The alternative is unacceptable.”

Silver Clover whistled. “Sounds like you’ve got your hooves full out here. You still want us back in two days?”

“Yes,” she said, too quickly. “Same time! If… they really put me in charge, it might be an even bigger class than this. God help us if that happens. I don’t know the first thing about running a city.”

“Can’t be worse than they are,” Ruby muttered. “But… if that does happen, give me a call. I’ll be in your cabinet. So long as you promise to keep an eye out for Sam. That blazing bird still hasn’t flown back.”

“Sure.” She waved to them both. “Here’s hoping that isn’t what’s about to happen, though. I’m sure he was just overreacting.”

Still, she couldn’t be sure. Wayfinder had a decision to make.

1. Investigate Captain Robers’ claims about the impending collapse of the United States.

2. Make plans for pegasus training so the last large block of infected can put their talents to use.

3. Go with Ruby back to Starhall to ask Sunburst for advice. She can be back before anyone comes looking for her.