//------------------------------//
// The Resolution? 
// Story: The Winds of Change 
// by AgentSnail 
//------------------------------//


The Resolution?


Jason jiggled the fishing rod slightly, trying to snag one of the fish that were swimming around the bottom of the pond.  One of the fish finally went for a bite, and he quickly pulled it out of the pong, throwing it into the fishing net, where it started flopping around.  He chuckled and threw the hook back into the pond.  He heard some wing flaps and hoofsteps soon after, before Dash walked up next to him, sitting down on the rock adjacent.  She threw a wing around his back as they stared silently over the little pond.  

"So this is the pond that was right next to where you came in?"

"Yeah, this is where it all began.  And I'm so glad it did."  He leaned over and nuzzled her cheek, causing her to giggle.

"I'm just glad these last few days haven't been hectic like the rest.  And that Scoots has school every day."  She brushed a hoof across his chest, easing it up to his face before pulling him over for a kiss.  The line tugged, and Jason quickly turned to pull out the hook.  He snagged another fish, and pulled it out of the water, transferring it to the bag.  He laid his rod down and stretched, for all this time he only had two fish.  And he got both of them within five minutes.  

"Apparently you're good luck Dash."

"Oh am I?"

"Yeah, most of the time I was just sitting here waiting until right before you showed up."  He said, shortening the line and making sure the hook was no longer free.  She giggled, striking an important pose.

"So you're bored of vegetables, I take it?"

"Yeah, and this was the closest I could get to beef.   It isn't even close.  Anyway, I'll fry these up later and you can try some if you want.  I'm not really a good cook, so we could just end up with black, crumbly soot.  And that's not even the worst case scenario."  

Dash stifled a laugh.  "Then what is the worst case scenario?"

"I burn your house down and ashes set the rest of Ponyville ablaze.  And everyone dies."

"Good to know you're so positive."  She got up herself and stretched.  "So are we going into town for lunch?"

"Sure, we have to put these in your house first, it would probably be weird for me to be walking around with dead fish."  He slid the fish into Dash's saddlebag.  "And I gotta hide this."  He trotted over to a hollow log and set the fishing pole inside.  It was just too telling; he'd already waled around with it in a different disguise, and he was probably one of only a few ponies to own one.  Especially since it wasn't of Equestrian origin. 

"Fine, it's on the way."  She started to take off, before Jason stopped her.

"Dash, we aren't in any rush, lets just walk part of the way back.  I need to toughen up this hoof anyway."  He showed her the bottom, where a general hoof shape was starting to re-emerge from the otherwise flat surface.

"How's that going for you?"

"Well, it doesn't hurt unless I walk longer distances, but it definitely isn't going to end up as tough as it used to be.  And it's a half inch shorter than the rest of my hooves."

"Yeah, I still feel guilty I didn't get there sooner, from what you said a couple of minutes could have made all the difference."  The sunlight dimmed as they passed under the first trees, following the path back to Ponyville.  A branch cracked up in the tree, quickly followed by a heavy thump just off the path.  Jason tentatively walked over, spreading the leaves of a crushed bush to reveal a dumbbell.

"No big deal Dash, it's just a dumbell."

"That's one hell of a dumbbell."  She tried to twist it to read the weight before giving up and moving around the side.  "Fifty pounds?!  You could lift that?"

"Well, I could a couple times, but that weight's mostly for guys that are looking for huge muscles.  I didn't really want to body-build, so I just worked out enough to get muscles that stood out a little, nothing particularly large.  I'll show you what I'm talking about later, I think a bodybuilding book came through."

"Yeah, you've really been filling up that room with stuff from your world."  She looked a little annoyed.

"We can burn some of the magazines if you want, but all the metal and plastic is pretty much indestructible.  And some of that stuff'll become a lot more useful once we get a generator.  But given the random span of the things that come through and the tire I found yesterday, that could be a while."

"Jason, what's that?"  She pointed her hoof up into a tree.

"Oh, well, I don't... Oh, that rectangle thing?"

"Yeah..."  she took off the ground to grab it, bringing it back down a moment later.  She turned it over in her hooves, trying to figure out it's purpose, and why Jason was getting really excited.  "What's so good about this?  All it has is a few holes in the side and--  Wow, it opens up!"

"Dash, that's a computer!"  He carefully took it from her hands, looking it over more closely before stowing it away in his saddlebag.  "This is great!  I've been waiting so long for something this good to come through!  It's like a window into my world, I can actually show you things now.  And,"  He took it out of the saddlebag again.  "It almost looks like it's mine from back home!"  He figured he'd been the only one to only use half of a computer case.  "It's dead though, so I can't really find out."

"How do you make it alive?"  She asked.

Jason chuckled.  "The batteries are dead.  It has no power.  I just have to charge them up and it should turn on."

"And you can do what exactly with this?"

"Well, I cant use the internet because I'm not on earth, so that rules out a lot of things, but I did have a lot of stuff already loaded onto the computer, a few games, pictures, movies, music.  It holds a lot of information."

"So how long until you get it up?  I really want to try out these games of yours!"  

"I don't know, I can ask Twilight about how to power it, but then again she wouldn't really know anything, so I guess I have to figure it out by myself.  I kinda know how this works."  He resumed his walk towards town.

"Jason, can't we just fly over there?"

"Fine..."  She let out a sigh of relief, taking off through a small break in the trees.  Jason jumped into the air to follow her after making sure he had the computer secured inside the saddlebag.  This took priceless to a whole new meaning.  Dash flew through a couple clouds in front of him, making him wonder why they could't just fly through the house.  Funny how it'd been over a month and he still didn't know how most of the stuff worked around here.  Maybe it was just better to suspend his disbelief.  

He heard Dash giggle as she streaked past, flying a tight corkscrew around him before jetting ahead.  Jason chuckled, knowing she was trying to challenge him, and accelerated after her.  With all the flying he'd been doing the past couple days to try to get his strength back, he actually stood a chance of catching her.  Winning was out of the question, but he wasn't trying to win, just improve.  

He flew above her, keeping above the overcast clouds she had spent the morning putting up with the rest of the weather team.  He kept his view on her from above, before finally catching up enough to dive.  He tucked in his wings and fell out of the sky, straight through a hole in the clouds.  He came up right behind her, continually gaining on her.  She turned and laughed, before streaking ahead.  

Jason cursed under his breath and doubled his efforts, trying to catch up to the rainbow maned pegasus.  He threw a glance at the house, which was way to close for him to catch up, let alone pass her.  She turned upside down, evidently thinking the same thing, but Jason watched as the fish just fell out of her saddlebag, dropping out of the sky.  She seemed to notice the change in weight, and made one of her breakneck turns downward at about the same time Jason dropped to grab the fish.  

A competitive glare flashed between the two of them as they dove, and the race destination changed to the moving target of the fish.  They bumped into each other as they dropped, taking a moment to regain their balance before accelerating further.  They got to the bag at the same time, and both grabbed it with a hoof.  They started to spin as they continued to fall, and the ground grew closer.  They both chanced a look downward before they simultaneously let go of the bag and leveled out slightly above the ground.  

Jason quickly scrubbed off his speed and turned around, searching for the landing place of the fish.  Dash swooped down by a bush, parting a couple of the branches before moving onto a window box behind it.  Jason landed next to her and she turned, giving him a sheepish smile.  

"Uhh, sorry about that Jason."  she pulled the bag of fish out of the window box, taking a bit of the flowers with it.  "You took so long to catch these, and..."

"It's not a big deal, Dash.  That's the most fun I've had since...Yeah, that was probably one of the most fun things I've ever done."

"Well I'm glad you think that, because..."  She pulled the bag out from behind her back, showing it to him in closer detail.  

"Eww."  One of the fish, at least what was still in the bag, almost looked like someone had detonated a bomb inside of it.  The other one didn't look too bad though.  He opened the bag, pulling it out.   "This isn't too bad, there's only a stick through this one, and part of the tail came off.  I can work with this."  A pony walked by and stared at them.

"We should probably get going before we attract a crowd."  Dash said, as Jason emptied the extra dead fish out of the bag and replaced it with the regular dead one.  She took off, twisting her head to check that Jason was following behind.  They leveled out at the house and landed, walking inside.  Jason walked over to the kitchen, tossing the fish into the icebox after extracting the stick.  

"So that's what you're cooking for dinner?"

"If you want to try it, I mean you don't have to, but it might be the best thing you've ever tasted.  I need to get some spices and butter, probably some other stuff, but I'm still not sure the extent of the foods you have around here.  We could pretty much go to the store and buy anything, coming from anywhere in the world.  Such is the awesomeness of modern transportation.  You can buy an apple in the middle of winter, for a price between one and two bits, transported from thousands of miles away."

"You're saying it's still affordable?"

"Yeah, it's about the price of an apple here, or so, I mean there's still the issue of currency conversion, and the fact that you only have the bit as a base unit.  We have dollars, and those are divided into one hundred cents, and that allows companies to beat the competition by small amounts, and keep competition alive.  Around here you can't really beat the price of one bit without buy one get one free or something like that."

"You still care about the economy here?"

"Well, it shouldn't work, but it does.  I guess the government doesn't really intervene, but you don't even have a federal reserve or patents, there should still be some sort of crisis eventually."

"Jason, just suspend your disbelief about this stuff, you're probably the only economist around here anyway."

"That's kinda ironic seeing as I don't really know that much about economics."  He paused.  "My dad knew a lot before he died, though, he traded stocks and shares over the internet, utilizing various hedging strategies, or something like that.  I had investments, but I was never able to do anything like that.  I'll tell you though, if you make the right investments with enough capitol, you can become a millionaire in a day."  Dash's jaw dropped.  "I guess you'd have to be close already, you cant take fifty grand and do that or anything.  You could probably take five hundred grand and do that."  He shook his head.  "God dammit, why am I telling you all this?  We have to go eat lunch." 

"Yeah, I understood the part about bits and then you lost me."

"Twilight wouldn't have understood any of the stuff after that either, so I definitely don't think any less of you for not knowing.  Nice cloud work out there by the way."

"Yeah, we set a new record with setting out the overcast sky today, and we were down a member.  I tell you, I hope this prestige from Canterlot never wears off, everypony's scared of letting me down or anything."

Jason chuckled.  "You rule by fear?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."  She giggled.  "I wouldn't do it if it wasn't so fun!"

"My mare-friend the dictator."  

"You'd probably act just like me in my situation."

"Just because you're right..."  

"Jason, we can argue over lunch.  Come on, I'm hungry."

"Have I ever told you that the whole not eating food thing is just weird?  I can't really explain why, but I suppose the fact that I needed food for the first twenty years of my life has something to do with it."

"Oh really?"  She smirked.

"Yeah"  He leaned over and kissed her.  "You're so pretty when you're being sarcastic, Dash."  She giggled.

"It's nice that we get to spend so much time together now.  And the sex is a nice bonus."  She reached over and caressed his wing, making him shiver slightly.  

"Like you don't make it kinky enough."

"What, you don't like it?"

"I didn't say that..."  He facehoofed.  "God dammit, let's just go get lunch."  She playfully punched him in the shoulder, and they got up, moving towards the front door.  Jason pulled out the computer, planning to leave it, before deciding to bring it and see if he could get it to work.  They walked outside and took off, gliding down to the street in a much less competitive manner than before.

Jason pointed to a pony that was in the process of watering his plants and chuckled.  Dash turned to see him get to the window box that the fish had landed in and jump.  He stood in front of the box, either trying to figure out where all the gore came from, or why his plants were completely squished by it.  He pulled out a fish tail and gagged, tossing it towards a trash can.

As they continued their trek towards the town square, as Dash made her way to, well, he didn't really know where she was going exactly.  She walked across the square and into the Griffin.  He wasn't sure what she liked about going here, exactly.  The staff was a nice bonus, being two of the ten to fifteen friendly ponies in town.  

Lyra came up to them, bouncing happily in place.  Not like Pinkie bouncing; she wasn't leaving the ground.  "Where do you want to sit, guys?"

"Booth sound okay?"  She asked Jason.  He nodded.  "We'll take a booth."  Lyra nodded and led them over to the side of the room, showing them to their table and doling out the menus.  

"I can't thank you enough for the performance here, I mean it brought in so much business, and we have money, and it's great!  I just wish Bon Bon would consider hiring because I have to get a lot of caffeine to keep up with all the orders."  That explains a lot...

"It was no problem Lyra."  Jason said.

"If you say so.  See you later!"  She turned and trotted away, and Jason turned his attention to Dash.  "What're you getting?"

"I dunno, maybe a hay dog?  Yeah, that sounds good.  And you?"

"It doesn't matter, I'm not going to be able to transform in here anyway."

"Oh yeah, with the fact that we're trying to keep your presence here a secret."

"Yup, I mean after what happened before, I was really just painting a target on myself, although I suppose I really didn't have any idea that, well, that was going to happen."  He sighed, sticking a hoof to his forehead.  "This thing still hasn't healed?"

"No, it looks a little better, but the cut's still there."

"Ugh, that's what I thought.  Why this won't heal like the rest of me, I have no idea."

"I just hate that you have to stay under cover this whole time, I'd rather you were just able to exist here normally."

"So you can flaunt me around?"  She face hoofed.  "Don't say it didn't cross your mind."  Lyra came over to take their order.

"What can I get for you?"

"I'll take a hay dog and a mug of cider."  Dash said.

"I guess I'll take the same."  Lyra took the menus and left, allowing them to get back to their conversation

"Where was I?  Oh yeah, what I mean is, I wish I had the possibility of doing something like that without drawing bad press.  Nothing's ever perfect with us, there's always something."  She put her head in her hooves.

"Do you really care what they think?  I mean, all of your friends know, and seem to be fine with it, so what else matters?"

"Well, I know it shouldn't matter, but it just does to me.  I don't want to feel like a coward because I'm not standing up for you.  I-- You just don't deserve the rap you're getting.  And I wish I could do something about it without endangering all of us.  I feel like I'm living under constant threat, and I don't like it."

"That's really my fault Dash, you don't have to stand by me, you could've just left.  I can't be worth all this."

"Jason."  She reached a hoof across the table and under his chin, raising his head to force him to look her in the eye.  "I wouldn't stay if I didn't know that it was worth it.  You may think that you've just made my life harder, but you haven't, you've made it better.  Before you came around, I was alone.  I mean, I had my friends, but I didn't have any pony to actually, you know, love.  And then we went through all this, and we pulled Scoots onboard, and even with the emotional roller-coaster I've had to go though, I wouldn't take it back for the world."  Jason smiled weakly, before pulling her head across the table to kiss her.  

"I love you Dash."  He said, running a hoof down her cheek.

"Love you too, Jason."  He looked around, checking to see if any ponies had been watching.  Satisfied that they weren't, he turned back.

"Are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Jason?"  There wasn't even a hint of a smirk on her face.  He sighed.

"No, but considering all the changes in disguise, you've been kissing a lot of ponies lately.  It probably wouldn't be good to instill rumors that you have a whole bunch of stallions."  He said, and she chuckled.

"Yeah, that would be a tough one to explain.  'Well, you see, it was actually the same guy every time and he was a changeling.'  Actually that would probably make things worse.  And it wasn't tough to explain either."

"God dammit, I hate all this secrecy.  I know we need it, but seriously.  We should move to Canterlot, they like us there."

"We could easily vacation, it's not like we have a lot of stuff going on.  Canterlot's only an hour away."

"Yeah, sure.  This weekend, maybe?"

"I'll have to brief the weather team on what to do, but that sounds fine."  Lyra trotted over and delivered their entrées, sliding them carefully onto the table.  How service was so fast here, he would never know.  He took a bite of the hot dog ripoff, wishing for a moment that he could taste it.  

"So how's Scoots doing with flying?"  He asked.

"She's improving by leaps and bounds.  I already miss the little wobbly filly from a month ago."

"Well that's probably why you took like a million pictures these past couple of days."

"Hey, those were good pictures."

"Yeah, the one where I was halfway through blinking with a stupid smile on my face was great." 

"It was funny, I had to frame it."

"One of these days, I'm going to get a terrible picture of you, mark my words."

"And that's why I always keep the camera on me."  Jason sighed, and they went silent for a few moments, the only noise the slight crunching of their food.  Jason pulled out the laptop, opening the lid and staring at the blackened screen.  Dash looked at him curiously, and he turned the laptop so that they could both see it.

"Trying to get that to work?"

"Well, I would if I knew what to do, You guys don't have electricity, so it's kinda tough to figure out how to start."  

Dash took another bite of her food.  "Why don't you just power it like the amp?"

"I could try, but what if it blows up?  Then we're back to square one, and for all we know, another computer might never come through."

"Well doing nothing isn't getting us anywhere."  Jason stared at the screen, thinking hard about what he should do.  He shrugged and started to power the computer, the aura on his forehead blinking to life, and put his hooves in front of his face in case the thing decided to explode.  Nothing happened after a few moments, so he put more energy into the system.  Still, nothing happened.

"Is it on?" Dash asked.  Jason face hoofed.  Hard.

"No, let me try that."  He pushed a power button in the corner, and much to his surprise, the computer played a few startup sounds, and an apple popped up on the screen.  "Yes!"  He pumped a hoof into the air, startling the ponies in the booth next to them, who looked over the barrier, trying to figure out what was causing the ruckus.  Their eyes went wide when they saw the little lit up box, which quickly went black again as Jason lost concentration.

Jason moved to the other side of the booth, quickly turning the computer away from them, and towards him and Dash before powering the device again.  A password screen popped up and she jumped, while Jason simply typed in the simple words, which became much less simple when he had to type them with hooves.  After a few more seconds of loading his background popped up, followed by all the icons.  

"Oh, what's that do?  What's this do?"  She started pointing to random icons and things on the screen.

"Well what do you want me to do?"

"Uh...  Play a game?"

"Let's just finish the food first, then I can show you.  And maybe blow Twilight's mind in the process."

"Heh, I'd like to see that."  She gobbled down the last of her food, throwing a few bits onto the table.  "Come on, this is the most interesting thing that's ever come through, and you're just sitting there."

"I like watching you freak out like this."  She groaned and grabbed his hoof, giving him barely enough time to stow the computer away and make sure that it was asleep.  She pulled him out the door and took off, pulling him into the air.  He freed his hoof and caught up, chuckling over her excitement.  

"It's not that mind blowing, Dash."

"It is to me, you've toted this thing up the whole time you've been here, if it's even half as good as you say, it's still the coolest thing ever."  She landed in front of the library, creating a blur with her hoof when she started knocking.  Twilight opened the door and smiled, gesturing for them to come inside.  She shot Dash a second glance.  

"Dash, I don't really know how to ask this, but you're all jumpy and excited, you aren't in heat, are you?"

Dash blushed.  "Does it really-- No.  I'm just excited because of what we found earlier.  If I were I'd have Jason up against a wall by now."  Now it was Jason's turn to blush.  "Anyway, we found a computer out there, and he has this hobby of trying to blow your mind with things that even you can't understand, so here we are."  She turned to see that Jason already had the computer up on a table, and was leaning over it and occasionally clicking.  Twilight trotted over and looked over his shoulder, letting out a quiet gasp.

"This is a computer?"

"Yeah, here, watch this."  He opened up Minecraft and started a new world, turning the computer to show them.  "Want to try, Dash?"  

"Oh, so much."  He motioned for her to sit down next to him and set the computer on the table in front of her.  "These keys move, this one jumps, and these are for removing and placing blocks."  She nodded excitedly.  "And the idea of this game is to build a house and survive against the enemies that come out at night.  If you press this,"  he pressed a key on the keyboard,  "The inventory comes up, and you can check crafting recipes through this mod I have installed over here.  I'll let you two try to figure the rest of it out.  It's not as much fun if it's not a challenge."  

Jason got up and crossed the room, browsing the books in the library.  The system had changed since the last time he needed a book, which was only partially surprising.  He eventually slid out a book on illusion spells, flipping to random pages.  He got to a chapter about screwing with the perceptions of ponies.  Interesting, but it looked pretty tough, there were equations and stuff all over the place, he had no idea where to even start.  He put the book back, finding a beginner's guide right next to it.  

"These things EXPLODE?!?!  They looked so friendly!"  Dash yelled from across the room, whacking the table with a hoof.  Jason chuckled and went back to his book, skimming the pages.  Darkness spell, that could be useful.  Apparently it changed the range of sight to a small radius, ending in darkness.  Maybe that's one of the things that had been used on him?  It definitely wasn't soul magic, so at least he wouldn't go insane trying to learn the spell.

He read a passage in the book before laying it down on the table and trying to work through the simple looking formulas in his head.  Teleportation was way easier than this, that was just a bunch of energy and a good memory of a location, not much to it.  Dash had said that Twilight put up a ruse for the police pony before he'd been saved, and he suddenly gained a new respect for her.  He tested the spell on another book, seeing the general features that the spell's aura was supposed to have from his point of view.  So he'd probably got it right.  Well, maybe.

He flipped through the rest of the small book, not finding anything that could be particularly useful, mostly a bunch of tricks for foals to do.  Was he really on the level of foals here?  He sighed and slid the book back in, and turned to look through some of the other books.  Boring, pointless, ah.  More illusion stuff.  He pulled out another book, flipping through the pages.  This one apparently allowed for fake copies of other ponies to be created and controlled, although he couldn't preform the spell on himself.  Dash it is then.  The spell said that upon failure, possible harm befalls only the caster.  So no big deal.  

He visualized another Dash prancing across the room, but managed to only get three disembodied hooves.  He tried to make the spell disappear, but the hooves continued to move, taking off the ground and floating a couple inches above the table that Dash and Twilight were still at.  They both jumped, and Twilight let out a little yelp, before they both turned to stare at him.  He smiled sheepishly.

"Just trying out spells, nothing to worry about."

"Stick to the easy ones, Jason.  Even if you do have some sort of skill creating illusions, they're still some of the harder spells out there for overall complexity.  Can't you just learn something simple like some of those silly little fireworks Trixie did?"  Twilight asked.

"I'm trying to find useful things here, in case we get attacked or something.  Might as well be prepared.  If we get attacked and I give them a fireworks show, I don't think they'd run away."

"Fine just don't attempt any more unless they're rated two stars or under."  He looked back at the book, and sure enough, each spell had a number of stars next to it.  He'd thought they were purely decorative, but apparently he was wrong.  He looked at the clock, sighing a little when he saw the time.  It was two already, Scoots would be out of school soon and they still had to get stuff for dinner.  

"Dash, we need to go get stuff for dinner."

"Why don't you just get them yourself and come back when you're done?"  She was clearly absorbed in the game.  Apparently it wasn't just humans that liked video games then.

"Because I don't know how most of the things around her taste to you, and since it's your taste buds, I need you to come along.  And I'm getting tired from powering that thing."  He gestured to the computer.

"But what about the game?"  She whined.

"Simple.  You press this key and then that button that says save right there."

"And all that's still there?"

"Yup."  He closed the computer and slid it into the saddlebag, catching a brief glimpse of the pile of notes Twilight had already taken.  "First glimpse of technology up to par with you?"

"Yeah, you could say that.  It does more, I take it?"

"Of course, but most of it involves a computer network called the internet that we had back home.  Basically that links all the computers together." 

"Wow."

"So I'll see you later, maybe I can show you some more soon."  She smiled and nodded, sitting back down and flipping through her notes.  Jason turned and left with Dash, quickly trotting over to the marketplace, just down the street.  Dash pointed out several spices, most of which he was familiar with, and a few that he had never seen before.  The shopping was rather lackluster, and they quickly left to drop off the supplies at the house.  They landed and went inside, making sure that all the food was put away and accounted for. 

"Dash, you wanna see a movie?"

"Oh yeah, you have those now.  Sure!"  He chuckled at her excitement and walked into the other room, placing the computer on the wooden table in the other room.  After several minutes of convincing, Jason had finally gotten her to cave on replacing the previous cloud table.  He opened the computer and clicked a few icons, bringing up another window.  

"So this is called 'Saving Private Ryan', but it's pretty gory.  It's set in World War II, do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yeah, the big war that happened like seventy years ago in your world?"  

"Mhm, this is set during D-Day, that big invasion of France and the time right afterwards, I think.  So here goes."  He started the movie with a quick rap on the spacebar.


_____________________________________________________________


"Oh shit, where did that guy's legs go?!  Why's that other guy on fire?!" 

"Maybe we should stop watching this for a while."

"Oh, Celestia!"  She cringed, partially covering her eyes.  

"I'll take that as a yes."  He paused the movie, closing up the computer.  After a long silence where Jason asked himself several times if he'd broken Dash, she finally spoke up.

"That was war?"

"Well..."

"Will we ever have to go through something like that?"  She asked, pulling herself into his side.

"No, unless someone comes up with hundreds of years of technology in a couple decades."  He paused.  "Dash are you okay?"

"I'm-- I-- I'm scared, what if something like that does appear, those men died in horrible ways, what if that happens to me, or you?  I don't want to lose you Jason, I know you've survived two near death experiences, but you can't be lucky forever, at some point you're not going to make it out of a fight."  He threw an arm around her and pulled her closer.

"There was a saying, where I came from, that there was a bullet to kill every man, and someone, somewhere had it.  The idea is to make sure you die of old age before it finds you.  I'm not going anywhere, Dash, no matter how much I can annoy you sometimes."  She smiled up at him, and kissed his cheek.  

"You better not."  She gave him a sultry look.  "Especially with all the things I have yet to do with you in bed."

"How do you bridge those two subjects like that?"

"Practice."  They continued to cuddle for a few more minutes, relishing the time they got to spend together, now that they were out of the thick of it.  The door opened and Scoots trotted in, having apparently finished school.  Jason looked at the clock.  Okay, she finished school a while ago, never mind.  She looked around before focusing on them and trotting over.  

"Hey, Applejack's holding a Cutie Mark Crusader sleepover tonight, can I go?  Please please please?"  Jason raked a hoof thorough his imaginary beard.  

"I'm not entirely sure, let me ask this mare over here.  Mare, what do you think?"  Dash stifled a laugh.  

"I agree with your unagreement, good sir."

"Funny you should say that, because I just came to a decision."  Scoots looked over at him expectantly.  "I have decided to let you decide."  

"Oh, good decision, stallion, but your sitting on the fence previously leads me to consider reversing your decision."

"Guys come on!  Applejack even invited you to dinner!"

"Oh, she did, did she?"  Jason asked.  Scoots nodded.  "It seems we have more to discuss, mare."

"Indeed we do, does your indecision still hold?"

"I can't decide."  Scoots let out a yell of frustration and trotted into the kitchen.  Dash and Jason burst into laughter as she left, before finally breaking down to actual decision making.  

"So, we're letting her go?"  He asked.

"I don't see why not, that means she's gone all night, if you know what I mean.  But do you want to go to dinner?"

"Sure, I mean I'd be surprised if Scoots didn't mishear her, but it could be fun.  If she's inviting me she obviously doesn't see me as an enemy anymore.  It's not like we have anything to do, I guess there's fish for dinner, but we can have that tomorrow morning.  After that I wouldn't risk eating it."  

"Okay.  Scoots!"  She came trotting back into the room.  "You can stay over, but you're sure Applejack invited us to dinner?"

"Yeah, she made it pretty obvious.  You might as well go, she makes great food Jason!"

"Okay, around five or something?"  She nodded, turning to leave.  An audible flap of her wings from outside let Jason know that she'd taken off.  

"You want to go see if Octavia's around?"

"Want to practice some stuff?"

"Or something, I mean I haven't played any music since Nightmare Night.  The closest I've come is moving our stuff back over there."

"Yeah, okay, I'm fine with that."  She got up and walked over to the door, hardly waiting for him to catch up before taking off.  They dove downward, arriving at the iconic red house rather quickly.  Dash knocked on the door, and they waited there for a few moments before Octavia opened the door and smiled. 

"I haven't seen you two for quite a while, come on in."  She escorted them inside, and they quickly moved to chairs in the practice room.  "Come here because of another gig?"

"No, I just wanted to see if you had time to play some music, just for fun."

"Well I didn't really have anything going on, so sure.  Are we just playing the songs from last time?"

"Well we can, I guess I'll leave you with a few new ones to work on."

She plugged in her bass.  "Cool, when can we start?"  


____________________________________________________________________


Dash landed in front of the gate to Sweet Apple Acres first, turning with a smirk to Jason.

"Ha.  I win."

"You always win."  He drew his face in close, trying to look menacing.  "But one of these days, I'm going to win.  And you're going to be embarrassed."  She giggled and moved her face slightly to peck him on the cheek.  

"Come on, we've got a dinner to get to."  Jason snorted, following her up to the porch of the apple household, where she quickly knocked and cut off any clever response he would have had.  

Applejack opened the door a couple moments later, and smiled when she saw the two of them.  The whole 'Applejack smiling' thing caught him a little off guard, and he missed her telling him to come inside.  Dash pulled him in, sighing under her breath, as Applejack led them over to a table that was already set up.  Granny Smith was looking at them from another chair at the table.  Or maybe she was sleeping with her eyes open, she wasn't really moving.  The CMC and Big Macintosh briefly looked up before returning to their idle banter.

"So thanks for having us for dinner, Applejack."

"Oh, it's no problem.  Ah decided to take your advice and get to know him a little more, Dash.  I hope that's okay with ya."

"I don't know why you're asking me."  She said. 

"It's fine."  Jason ensured.  

"You were a little late though, ah though ah told Scoots to tell you to get here before five."

"Sorry, she told us five, actually."  He shot a look over to Scoots, who shrugged.

"It's no big deal, food's still warm."  She had them sit down, and quickly filled their plates with things that were obviously made out of apples, but were in an unbelievably wide assortment of sizes and shapes.  Jason stared at the food before sending a glance over at Applejack, gesturing to the food.  She nodded and he replicated Dash, apparently scaring the shit out of Big Mac, considering the fact that he fell backwards out of his chair.  

The CMC laughed, and he got back into his chair, slightly more red faced than usual.  "Ah thought you said he doesn't do that, sis."

"Well, not in public he doesn't, but there ain't much point in comin' to dinner without tastebuds."  Big Mac shook his head, apparently annoyed at the sudden complexity in his life that had forced him to utter more words than he usually did in a week.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, the only noise coming from Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, who were apparently scheming something up, while Scoots had a rather one sided conversation with Big Mac.

"So Jason,"  He looked up and Applejack shifted her view from Dash to him.  "How long have you been around here?"

"At least a while before you guys chased me out of town.  No hard feelings, by the way."

"Yeah, but Twi said you came from another country?"

"Mhm."  He swallowed a bite of food.  This was delicious.  "America.  And now I'm here, I have no idea why."

"But ya like it around here?"

"Yeah.  I mean it could be better, but you know.  I'm not complaining."

"So why the new disguises all the time?"

"Well, this one's actually the same one I had when I woke up, but I don't really want the townsponies to know about me, considering how that ended last time."

"Ah'm mighty sorry about that."

"Seriously, it's not a big deal."  He finished the last of the food on his plate.  

"Can Ah get ya some more?"

"No, I mean I think I can eat as much as I want, so everybody else should just go before me."  

"Ya sure?"

"Yeah, it was great though, best stuff I've had around here so far."

"Well thanks, it means a lot."  Granny smith woke up from her place at the table with a start, looking around feverishly.  

"Ha, there's two of ya sunny."  She said, proceeding to fall back asleep immediately afterwards.  The room went silent as they tried to figure out what exactly had just happened.  The crusaders all got up in a group and ran out of the room, giggling amongst themselves.  

"Ah gotta go make sure they don't set the house on fire.  Ah don't want to sound rude, but when you're done could you leave?  Ah can't really take care of these three and two guests, and granny."

"That's fine,"  Dash said.  "I'm pretty much done anyway.  Thanks for the food."

"If you want to talk over lunch or something later, Applejack, just say the word."  

"Ah'll probably take ya up on that offer, Ah asked what, three questions?"

"Yeah.  Well I'll see you around."

"It was nice talkin' to ya!"  She turned around and left the room, as they did the same.  As Jason turned to close the front door, Applejack yelled from the other room "Girls, how did ya get hoof prints on the ceiling?!?!"  They laughed briefly before turning and taking off.  

"I'm really glad I won that drinking contest, I'll tell you that."

"Yeah, you should really be thanking Applejack."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, if it weren't for her we wouldn't have an entire night alone."

"Oh!  Oh..."

"And guess what?  We have time for a round three now."

"I'm starting to like the number three."  They landed and walked inside.  "And we don't need to use the bed."  Dash shot him a sultry look.  

"Just stop talking and rut me."

(optional clop- no story development, maybe marginal character development. Here )


_________________________________________________________________



Dash woke up, frowning slightly when she realized that Jason wasn't in the bed next to her.  She was sore, not painfully sore, but more than just a little stiff.  She got up, trying to figure out what smell exactly was coming from the kitchen, and walked down the stairs.  She trotted into the kitchen, ducking under a pan that floated off of the stove and onto a pad on the counter.  Jason looked over at Dash and smiled, reaching his arm out to pull her into a kiss.  

"Is this the fish?"  She asked after they broke apart.

"Yup, I didn't burn it, so that's a plus."  Dash walked over to the pot, blowing a gust of air over the fish with a wing to try to cool it, before stabbing a piece with a fork and putting it into her mouth.

"This is weird.  It's not bad, but it's definitely different."  Jason reached over and tried a bite after shifting into her form.  It tasted great, he didn't know that he could have possibly forgotten the taste.  He was jostled out of his reverie by some knocking.  He groaned.  

"Just because we put a panel next to the door for knocking doesn't mean I wanted ponies to actually come up here and use it."  Dash followed him over to the door, evidently curious about who would want to come up here this early in the morning.  Jason opened the door, letting his jaw drop when Princess Celestia herself stood outside with a couple of her guards.  He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but they were still there.  

"Jason, Rainbow Dash.  You agreed to be on call for the war, and we're calling you back.  We need you two.  We need Team Green Bean."

"Fuck..."

_______


A Philosopher's Quest