A silhouette perched on a pole at the side of the wharf, the form of a pony gazing into the infinite, cloud-streaked aether. Sometimes it'd be thick enough that you could swear for all the sky that nothing else existed. For now, the sky was dark and clear enough to see the stars in glorious detail. Such contrast was a rare treat, and he never missed his chance to enjoy it.

The fun was in picking out constellations - he'd start with Orion, if he could see it, and work his way out from there. Taurus to one side, Canis Major to the other... some clouds blocked most of the Zodiac, and his route to the northern constellations, but as if to make up for it, below him the sprawled the great ship, the Argo in its entirety.

Looking straight down was always a little dizzying, but always worth it. The charts in the library all disagreed about what Argo Navis should look like. The older ones, with stylised, sixteen-pointed stars and intricate illustrations, left it all together, dominating the southern sky. The newer ones, the cold clinical polygons, cut it in three, leaving some orphan stars scattered around.

He imagined that someone, somewhere cared about this enough to make that decision, and that his preference for the former would make them quite cross with him in that polite way that academics are when someone casually disregards their work.

There was an island drifting somewhere near Canopus. It was too far away to pick out much detail, but it was clearly another island - the black spots drifting across the sky like dark stars in a hurry were unmistakeable. Someone, somewhere knew which one was which, and where to find a particular one at any given time. He used to worry about the possibility of islands hitting each other, but it never happened. As many islands as there were, the sky was big enough for all of them.

Once, and only once, a little island had come close - just about close enough for a brief conversation with the old unicorn pony that lived on it with his cat. He had no idea how they fed themselves.

A shout from below broke his concentration. "Key!" He grimaced, and shook himself out of his trance. He peered over his shoulder, to see a pale-coated mare returning his gaze with apprehensive eyes and a tapping hoof. "Key Stone, get down from there before you fall!" He rolled his eyes and nodded his acknowledgement, turning in place to begin his delicate descent. As soon as Key was about two lengths from the bottom, he dropped off the pole. The wharf creaked when he landed; he was not a little pony. She greeted him by ruffling his hair. "Earth ponies belong on the ground, silly."

Key smirked and cast a glance back over the edge. "And where might that be?"

"You know what I mean. Come on, soup's up." He galloped ahead, and she laughed and trailed behind. Home wasn't far away from the wharf: down the hill, past the sheriff's house, across the bridge and tucked cosily behind the hill on the other side of the island. About two and a half minutes walking.

Dinner in a house of eight is never a quiet affair. "The daydreamer's back!" jeered Jade and Jet, twins about half Key's age. He greeted them with a play tackle, causing Jet to panic and fall over his sister. The pair collapsed giggling, allowing Key to continue to the table. Kite Facet was busy making his bowl bounce around by banging his hoof until Oval Cut stopped him. Big sisters, his defiant raspberry seemed to groan. Teenagers, Oval's eye roll replied. The din of domestic battle dropped to a dull roar when Onyx Ring entered with a yawning Keshi Pearl on his back. After helping his baby daughter into her high chair, he took his seat at the head of the table. He knew that with Key Stone's return, Marble Arch wouldn't be far behind. Sure enough, the front door swung open again and they greeted each other with knowing smiles from opposite sides of the room. Marble disappeared into the kitchen, and quickly returned with a trolley-mounted cauldron. The aroma of hearty vegetable soup filled the room as she began serving her brood. The order was oldest to youngest - that is to say, most to least likely to wait until everyone was served before wolfing down their dinner.

Conversation only began when half the bowls were empty, and the other half were filled with seconds. "So, Key!" Onyx said. Jade and Jet, sitting between them, took the opportunity to duck and retreat from the table. "Any more thoughts about what you want to do for your eighteenth?"

"Uhm..." Key was paralysed. He made a few false starts.

"You could always donate birthday credits to me if you don't want 'em," Oval cut in. Key almost kicked her under the table, but on second thought just glared and ignored her.

"I dunno! I mean... everything I can think of that I want, I already have or is just... ridiculous."

Onyx cracked a smirk. "Like?"

"Seeing another island."

"This old chestnut."

"Yeah."

Onyx chuckled and sighed into his own lap. "I see your point."

"Is it really that terrible if we just don't do anything special on my birthday?"

"Well, if you're sure you're happy with that..." Marble Arch said, wiping stray soup from the table around Pearl. Key nodded and stuffed a slice of bread in his mouth, hoping to stall the conversation long enough for something else to come up. Before long, Kite had the inevitable non-sequitur about himself.

After dinner, Key went straight back out to the wharf to stargaze again. It was starting to cloud over some more, and none of the northern stars were out. The Argo was still all there though, so rather than climb the pole again, he lay on the wharf with his head over the side. The island from earlier was still there, only now it seemed like there were two of them. A larger one not moved far, and a smaller one making a beeline for somewhere. He watched it for a while. The smaller one double-backed once it got a certain distance from the larger one. Its second pass was even faster than the first, though that wasn't saying much.

"Key!" He recognised those motherly tones anywhere. He was much quicker to look around this time. Marble Arch was standing a few lengths back from the edge.

"Get away from there before you fall?" he quipped.

Marble frowned and tilted her head. "Well, yes. But another thing." Key backed away from the edge until the planks stopped creaking. She was visibly more comfortable. "Are you alright?"

Key's answer was rehearsed reflex. "Yeah!"

"You've just... been spending a lot of time out here lately. A mother could get worried." She nuzzled his shoulder. He huffed through his nose at the word 'mother', but said nothing. "I know you're... anxious here, sweetie."

"Bored? Stifled? Smothered, perhaps?"

"You're not alright and you know it." Marble sat down by him. Key sighed. "If there's anyone on this dumb ol' rock you can talk to it's me, eh?"

Key smiled, and looked back up. "Yeah." He said nothing for a while, letting thoughts stew. He was totally unprepared for this conversation, so his feelings had no words. He tried to distract himself by looking at the two islands in the distance through the gaps in the planks. Marble saw this and refocussed him with a nudge and a hard look. He sighed until he was red-faced and light-headed, trying to make something come out, and she sat patiently with him. Then, when nothing came, he started on something. Anything. "Tell me about how you found me again."

"Alright." Marble nodded and took a moment. This was far from the first time he'd asked, and it was a story told in greater (if more dubious) detail with every passing year. "It woulda been eighteen years ago in a couple of days. Of course, that's when we decided to have your birthday, since we don't know when you were born." Key tuned out for the humdrum details, but made sure to look attentive. "I was pregnant with Oval at the time, and y... Onyx and I had just settled down on this here island. Back then it was stuck to a much bigger island, with a forest on it. Ponies knew that it wasn't stable, because none of the islands were stable back then, and there were cracks that got bigger every day. So everyone in the village was trying to get everything they could out of the forest. Somewhere in the forest there were these ruins, and since Onyx is a jeweller, they sent him in to scout the place for gemstones."

"And that's when he found me."

Marble tapped her nose. "A crying foal in a quiet forest is a bit hard to miss. There was a fallen arch on the ground with the keystone missing, he tells me, and he found you where the keystone shoulda been. He waited around for hours looking for somepony, somewhere that mighta left you behind. Then as soon as it looked like you were getting hungry, he brought you home. Nopony in the village recognised you, and in all the time they spent clearing out the forest, they found nothing else alive except for some bunnies and a dead timberwolf."

"I don't think dead timerwolves count as alive." She nudged him again, and he chuckled. "So, what else was in the ruins? Sounds like the only interesting thing they found."

"Oh, you'd have to ask your fa- Onyx. I know he's a bit cagey about some of these things, but if anyone would know it's him."

Key sighed. It seemed like every time he heard the story, a little bit had been lost to time. "Well, thanks anyway."

"I don't see what that's got to do with your cabin fever, hun."

"I..." He lay down again, gazing at the nothing. "I just know there's something... bigger out there. The world doesn't end at the edge of this boulder. Like, even down there, is somewhere nobody on this island knows!" He inched over to the edge and pointed at the island he saw earlier. The second island was even bigger and faster than it was the last time he saw it. Marble gingerly stepped forward, only enough to catch a glimpse of it, before retreating to safety. "I don't even care where I come from, what matters is that I came from somewhere that's not here! You came from somewhere that's not here! I just... I wanna know."

Marble frowned, and patted the back of his head. "Who knows what the future holds, eh? Maybe one day... I don't know. Maybe one day you'll get to sail around the sky."

"Maybe." He knew that labouring the point would just leave himself frustrated. Neither pony said anything for a little while. Key watched the two black dots dance, and Marble watched him.

A chill from the wind prompted Marble to speak. "Hey," she croaked. "You wanna come back home? I know lights-out isn't for another couple of hours..." No reply. "If you want to be alone for a while that's fine, but I think it might be good to get your mind off these things before you sleep."

Key thought before speaking. "Yeah. Okay." He nodded, keeping his eyes on the two islands until he turned to follow Marble off the wharf.

Key Stone's sleep was fleeting and restless. It always was - how bright it was outside had nothing to do with whether it was time to sleep or not. Some of the older ponies in the village would mention day and night sometimes, but he'd always known it as lights-out and lights-on. The outside lights go off when it's time to sleep, and go on when it's time to wake up. In some parts of the island, like his favourite stargazing spot, the only light that mattered was the omnipresent glow from the shards. His curiosity about them was only in passing; most of the time they were just a nuisance, because the jagged, blinding shapes masked the stars, while still not being enough light to read by. The library had nothing about them, so all he had to go on were stories that he didn't trust, and his own reason. All that told him was that they were pieces of something bright enough to colour the sky.

He slipped out of his bedroom, leaving the door ajar, and silently left the house. He'd been doing it for years, so a light step was second nature to him despite his stature. The village was deserted - everyone in bed. Lights-on wasn't for another four hours. The silent island had an eerie beauty to it. It was like a microcosm of Equestria: small groups of ponies separated by overwhelming nothing.

Half the buildings on the island were functional, and half of those again fully intact. Some had very well-made windows, set in walls that moved if you leaned on them too hard. The village had no shortage of fine roofing, but the streets were dirt paths by now. There used to be cobblestones, but nobody on the island knew how to keep them in good repair.

With nobody to tell him it was dangerous, Key cut through a house without a roof that nobody had lived in for as long as he could remember. There were a few outlines on the walls and floors, where bricks and beams had been borrowed to keep another house in good health. He often wondered what they'd do when they ran out of husks to cannibalise. Whenever he'd asked, they started talking about the weather instead.

The creak of the planks on the wharf made more noise than all of his footfalls on the way there put together. He shuddered, but reassured himself that he wouldn't be heard out here. By the same token, it made climbing up the pole an even more reckless idea than usual, which is exactly why he did it.

The clouds had spread in the last few hours. Their island was passing through a thin one right now, bathing the small gorge that bisected it in mist. He could only see the brightest stars now. He picked out Aldebaran just above horizontal, and following downwards he found Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, Procyon, Canopus. He remembered the islands he saw by Canopus earlier, but the clouds made dark objects nearly impossible to see. The first island was gone or hidden, but the second one was even bigger again. He wrapped one of the ropes around his legs - more to comfort himself than as an effective measure against falling - and leaned over to squint at it. He could discern an outline; a long, triangular form, bulging at the pointed end so it was almost round, with something thin attached to it crossways, rotating against it. It continued to circle and grow - it was definitely approaching. He contemplated calling out to it, but he had no idea how far the thing actually was, whether the ponies on it would be friendly, or even if there were ponies on it at all.

After a while he tore himself away to dismount from the pole. A nervous misjudgement sent him falling from higher than he'd have liked, and he landed on his flank on the wharf. He didn't like the cracking sound one bit, and quickly scurried to the side. He ignored the growing bruise and returned his attention to the approaching object. With each passing minute, he saw more details: flapping sheets, hanging lines, dynamic motion. The crossways thin bit - a crossbeam, he decided - was always turning to face roughly the same direction. Its course was more accurately described as triangular than circular. A boat perhaps? He'd read about them more than seen them. The boats he read about went on water, large expanses called rivers, lakes, seas. He'd been told they only had them on really big islands. He recognised the pattern - tacking. The boat was zig-zagging to sail against the wind, except this one was turning back on itself every second tack. That could be how it was rising; if the sails were at the right angle, they'd generate lift as well as propulsion.

Maybe once or twice a year a boat would come to the island - that was what the wharf was for. They were usually traders, who usually left disappointed. He grew ever more anxious as it came closer. By the time he could pick out lanterns and individual ponies, he was tugging at the planks either side of him. There was one in a crow's nest, one at the prow, and one at the rear, operating the helm. He thought he could see one of them turn their head towards him, and he bolted. His turn reminded him of his fall earlier, so his dive for the bushes was more of a limp. There he trembled in wait, his stomach dancing and burning at the same time.

He'd been waiting exactly too long for the boat to crest over the wharf, but even when it did it was a surprise. He guessed it was twenty lengths out. The sails were hoisted on the sides of the vessel, rigged to the crossbeam and another beam below. The pony in the crow's nest jumped out and glided on to the wharf with a rope in her mouth. A pegasus! As unusual as a boat was, pegasi were even rarer - he'd never seen a real one before. She hooked the rope around the bottom of the pole he'd been perched on. Using it as a pulley, she pulled the drifting boat towards the wharf. The tension disappeared from the sails, and the crossbeam folded in half to rest flush against the flanks of the boat. Soon, contact was made. He cringed to hear the wharf creak and groan under the tension, but it seemed to be holding - it must have been sturdier than it looked. A second pony, a unicorn, jumped out, another rope floating behind her. The two sailors hurried to tie off the ship, working with practised precision. A third, an earth pony, leaned over the side.

"Safe as houses, cap'n," the pegasus called up with a salute. The presumed captain rolled her eyes.

"Ah think this place is in nighttime. Ah don't think we should go any further." The pegasus sighed and bobbed her head in frustration. "If y'wanna stretch your legs y'can run up and down the dock and take the first watch."

"Fine..."

"See you later, Scoots!" the unicorn chirped as she climbed back up. The pegasus grumbled and returned to the crow's nest, where she slumped over the side.

Key waited several minutes before doing anything. They looked sociable, but the possibility of contact still petrified him. He'd been essentially spying on them as they docked - not something he thought the weary watchpony would take kindly to. Rather than rouse her with a sudden movement, he slowly backed up and retreated through the bushes, never making any more noise than he could hear, and vanishing over the crest of the hill when he saw that she was distracted by playing with her scarf. With the same discretion he left with, he returned home to stare at the clock and not sleep.