//------------------------------// // The Policy // Story: Summer of My Human Soldier // by KFDirector //------------------------------// The dark gray unicorn's elderly but still keen eyes flicked around the Mayor's office, from an officially-approved patriotic oil painting, to the crossed flags, to the collection of photographs and notarized party membership cards in a case on the wall. In all, the office said "We love and honor our Comrade General Secretary Luna and have nothing to hide from her or her loyal ministers." And as long as the office said that, it wasn't in Foggy Night's duty to ask whether the office had a straight face when it did so. He had seen Equestrian governments come and go, and through it all he had the bureaucrat's gift of being very useful in keeping the Wheels of the Great Machine turning smoothly, no matter whose noble visage was painted on the side of the gears this decade. What sane mare would plot treason in Ponyville, anyway? The Princess—Queen—Comrade General Secretary—wouldn't even need to arrive in person: line of sight was all she needed to command deadly loyalty, and the Royal—People's—Ponies’ Observatory could easily do the trick to any building in this town. No, a political commissar was not somepony to be feared in Ponyville, for there would be no treason here to uncover. For this reason, the Mayor apparently felt comfortable making him wait. He rested his eyes for a moment as the rain continued to drizzle. Canterlot was too high up to get much in the way of weather, and as his seniority often let him stay close to the central office, he could come to forget how soothing the sound of sheets of rain falling could be, particularly from a well-managed thunderstorm. The local captain of the Civil Pegasus Patrol was apparently enormously over-qualified for her duties, a promising candidate for a number of projects Foggy could imagine if only the pegasus hierarchy hadn't blackballed her for some reason. "Comrade Foggy Night—sorry to keep you waiting." Had he slept? No matter. He opened his eyes and leaned forward. The formerly pink-maned Mayor was now sporting a stately gray coiffure to go with her beige pelt. "Comrade Madam Mayor, did you recently cease a silly affectation, or take one up?" "I haven't the foggiest of what you speak, Comrade." The unicorn snorted, the only acceptable response to a variation on a pun he had heard far too many times over his very long career. "Comrade Madam Mayor, I believe you registered a request with our office to speak about the conduct of the war? And its impact on your town?" The beige earth pony nodded. "To speak freely, Comrade—" A dangerous start, Foggy thought. "—we in Ponyville are proud to contribute so many of our stallions and volunteer mares to the front. In fact, if the reports I see are correct, Ponyville sends more ponies to combat units per capita than any town or district of the Republic save Stalliongrad." Stalliongrad was always in a league of its own, dating back to before the First Lunar Republic, but it also wasn't the kind of city you'd want to live in—nor was it the kind of city that could support itself, agriculturally or industrially. It was a glorified training ground in times of war and rumors of war, and a wretched hive in times of peace. "But?" "Our generous patriotism does not appear to have translated into a lessening of the quotas." "Soldiers need to eat as much as civilians—more, even. And there are only so many places to which the Republic can turn to meet those needs. Besides, Sweet Apple Acres is one of the best managed orchards in the Republic—Comrade Applejack's name is well-known and highly-respected among the Ministry of Agriculture. Is she no longer up to the challenge?" "She is only one pony. Her brother, generously left with us by the draft board, is only one more." Generosity, Foggy recalled, had nothing to do with it. Big Macintosh was known to be a pacifist, and yet nopony had the guts to accuse him of being a coward, lest he suddenly discover that it were not the case after all. The farm was where he belonged. "The bachelor herds they once used to fill out labor during important seasons have all been drafted, too." Foggy slowly nodded. "I understand the problem, Comrade Mayor, but I do not think Comrade Applejack will appreciate the solutions the Ministry of Agriculture is likely to offer once I communicate these concerns to them. The quotas will not be lowered, unicorn magic will not be allocated, and mechanization will be a long time coming. I do not think she will want to see Sweet Apple Acres assigned to a new manager, either. Not that such a thing would actually help, but it is the only thing the Ministry would find the resources to do." "Labor," the Mayor said, quickly, almost pleadingly. "Even just a few extra hands will help." The unicorn stared gravely. "Hands." There was a little ice in his voice. The earth pony nodded, not backing down. "Human prisoners of war are being assigned to farm work all across Equest—the Republic! Towns with lower quotas and less severe shortages than ours are getting plenty of workers, and we haven't gotten one since this war started." The unicorn continued to stare, now past the Mayor and to the window behind her. "Comrade, turn around." The Mayor looked over her shoulder. "Do you see that, Comrade? That is Canterlot. That is the Capitol. That is the center of government for the New Lunar Republic; that is the Ponies’ Palace for Comrade General Secretary Luna. It can be seen from any porch in Ponyville. We cannot place humans here." The Mayor turned back to Foggy. "Minimum risk, Comrade. The paperwork your office sent to me says that the policy is that 'minimum risk' prisoners of war may be assigned even in Ponyville and other towns so close to Canterlot. Just send me 'minimum risk' prisoners." Foggy belted out a laugh. "I don't do the classifications of prisoners, Comrade, but I do get courtesy-copied on them. The only human prisoners who are 'minimum risk' are the ones who can no longer move under their own power—and many of them cannot breathe under their own power, either, making them 'prisoners' rather than 'enemy dead' only in the barest technical sense." No sooner had Foggy finished speaking than irony smote him in the form of a scroll magically appearing on the desk in front of him. He and the Mayor both looked down at it. The beige earth pony quietly said, after a moment, "Feel free to answer that, Comrade Foggy. I think it's for you." Ponykinesis quietly unfurled the scroll, which the elderly unicorn read quickly. Out of the scroll also tumbled a small type-written card, with hand-written ink filling in the blanks. Foggy peered at the critical part of the card—the checkbox for health. And the prisoner had indeed marked it as "good". A quick scrawled note next to the checkbox said "No thx 2 red uni LT", a cryptic passage that still probably explained as much as it really needed. The unicorn's ponykinesis quickly again rolled up the scroll, and he looked at the Mayor, smiling in a way no one could mistake for mirth. "Request granted, Comrade Mayor. The Bureau of Mental Hygiene at the Salt Lick City Processing Center has finally identified a 'minimum risk' human prisoner, in good health, at that. I'll have him here on the next train. Will that be all?" Investigator's note: Geneva Convention capture cards issued by New Lunar Republic appear to be photocopies of photocopies of capture cards used in earlier conflicts. Private Dexter does not seem to have been trained in properly filling them out, either. Extraneous remarks are not supposed to be added to capture cards. "Madam Mayor, I really appreciate you stickin' your neck out and all, but honestly...." Applejack pawed at the train platform nervously. "What am I supposed to do with a human? And just one of 'em, at that?" The Mayor replied without even seeming to think. "Show real improvements so they see the benefits in sending them to us, but not so many that they think we've got all we need." The farm girl gave the Mayor a long look. "And how the hay do I do that? I just run a farm. I don't think about sophisticated city-pony games like that, and I'd like to keep it that way." This, the Mayor contemplated for what seemed to Applejack an uncomfortably long time. Finally, as the rumble of the train became audible, she answered. "Applejack, I trust your instincts. Just do what feels right to you." The two earth ponies stared in silence for a moment as the gray military train pulled up to the station. Doors opened, but there was little activity—none at all, from most of the cars. Finally, from one, two earth pony mares emerged, with "MP" bands and chains wrapped around their forelegs, and a moment after that, a silhouette of an uncommonly seen shape emerged into view: a tall biped. It stepped, blinking, into the Ponyville sunlight, led by the chains. Trousers and shirt were both blue denim; its mane—hair—was short-cropped and brown; its skin—bare skin, such a rare sight among ponies, usually a signal of disease—was some kind of washed-out pink. One of the MPs mouthed a clipboard out of her saddlebags and presented it to the Mayor. The Mayor signed on the indicated line. "Your responsibility now, Comrade Mayor. Go on, you." The MP lightly head-butted the human in the small of the back. The human stepped forward a few more feet, continuing to blink as it looked around the train platform. The other MP pulled out a key ring and tossed it to Applejack. Applejack caught it without thought, and then looked at the human. "Am ah sah—" she paused and spat out the key ring, catching it with her hoof, "am I supposed to let it out?" "Your decision, Comrade. He's been very cooperative so far, for a human." He. It was a him. Applejack was going to have to learn these things, she figured, now that there were going to be humans in Ponyville. Maybe Granny Smith could help—as a filly, she had been out east, hadn't she? And Twilight, the town librarian, knew all sorts of things—and the seamstress, Rarity, hadn't she been in human lands? She sure talked like she had—maybe just an act, but maybe she could finally do something useful in town. She looked the human up and down, having absolutely no knowledge on how to judge such a beast. Time to go with her gut, then. "Alright, y'all got a name?" The human looked down at her. "Dexter, Christopher George, Private, 078-05-1120." His speech was automatic, canned, monotone—he had said this many times in the last few days, she could tell. "Zero-seven-eight—slow down, now. All that your name? A lot to remember." "Chris Dexter, ma'am. Chris or Dexter will do." This was less monotone, more thoughtful. "Looks like you'll get along splendidly. We've got more stops to make, so we'll leave you to it." The first MP nodded respectfully to the two Ponyville residents, and both of the MPs got back onto the train. "Well, Dexter, I'm not the kind of pony who's much for chains, but I'll rope an unruly sort as needed. How about I trust you with free hooves and...hands...for now, and y'all make sure y'all don't do nothing to make us both regret it?" The human stuck out his hands, presenting the chains and lock that hung from them. "I can live with that, ma'am." Applejack mouthed the key again and unlocked the human, first at his arms and then at his legs. She took a breath, waiting to see if the human would bolt. Instead, he just rubbed his wrists. "I'm sorta surprised you ain't tryin' to get away now." "I can't outrun a healthy earth pony. Simple fact. And you, ma'am, are definitely a healthy earth pony." "Thanks, I think." 'Healthy' could be a backhanded way of saying 'chubby', couldn't it? Just like when that stuck-up seamstress called her 'sturdy'? Nah, that didn't fit with the first part of what he was saying. "Well...Madam Mayor, is there anything else I need?" The beige mare pressed her hoof to her chest, cleared her throat, and eyeballed the human. "Private Dexter, as per the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Article 49 et alia, you are being assigned to agricultural labor of a non-military character. Are you familiar with the rights accorded to you by international law?" The human slowly nodded, taking it in. "I am, Ma'am. I prefer Sundays off. How much am I being paid?" "For security reasons, you are not permitted to carry money, but your account will be credited one quarter of a franc per working day, and eight francs per month." Applejack was a little fuzzy on what kind of money a franc was, and completely in the dark about the currency conversion rates—the New Lunar Republic tried to keep most ponies in the dark about that, though she had a pretty good idea what a dollar was worth, at least—but that didn't sound like a heck of a lot of money for farm work. Even for a prisoner. Heck, she was trying to think of this like getting extra farm help, not using a prisoner of war. That felt too much like slavery, and that wasn't how real ponyfolk were supposed to do things. As for the human, he moved his lips, quietly, as if doing calculations to himself, shook his head lightly, before nodding again. "Beats dying." "Very good. Since you are to be working at Sweet Apple Acres and we have no formal facilities for prisoners of war, you shall be lodging with the Apple family." "Beg pardon?" Applejack would've have spit-took, if she had had something to wet her whistle first. "Applejack—” "Madam Mayor, I can't—a human? A soldier? A prisoner of war? Just...let him stay at the farm? With my family? I thought I was just going to be—you know—can't he stay somewhere else?" "There's nowhere else in Ponyville, Applejack." "He could—he could board with someone in town! Or—put him in a tent or something!" "Comrade Applejack." The farmpony lowered her eyes. 'Comrade' was code for 'discussion over'. She couldn't argue back, but she didn't have to be happy about it. "I can't speak for the rest of Equestria, but here in Ponyville, we will abide by the Geneva Convention. The prisoner will be accorded 'suitable working conditions, especially as regards accommodation, food, clothing, and equipment; such conditions shall not be inferior to those enjoyed by–' " "Yes, Comrade Mayor." She looked up at the human. "Come on, you." Applejack trotted off the platform, not looking to see if Dexter was following her. She hadn't liked this idea much to begin with, and even less now—it'd serve her just fine if he just ran off and— And he was walking right alongside her. Was this his way of stubbornness? He was a captive, wasn't he? Shouldn't he be trying to get away at every opportunity? "What kind of work do you need me for, Ma'am?" "I—ah—" she clapped her mouth shut for a moment as she continued trotting into town, realizing her internal monologue might not have been completely internal. "—look, I'm not sure I—I don't trust—June thinnin' 's a real tricky thing, can’t just let anypony have a hoof at it—you even ever worked on a farm?" "About a week every year for the last twelve, ma'am. Relatives out east. Not apples, I'm afraid." "A week every—dag nabbit. Well, can you learn?" "If you asked my sergeants, learning's about the only thing I can do." Applejack grumbled a little more. "Shoulda sent you to the librarian. Look, just—don't make any trouble for me—or my family—or I'll make dang sure you regret it. Ah, I know." The orange earth pony looked up at a low-hanging fluffy cloud. The human followed her gaze up to it, looking in fact a bit taken aback by the sight of a cloud so close to the ground. "Rainbow! Rainbow Dash, you lazy filly!" A light-blue pegasus pony poked her head out of the bottom of the cloud. The local captain of the Civil Pegasus Patrol was good at ignoring most ponyfolk when she didn't feel like listening, but had learned since she moved here a few years ago that this farm girl was willing to bellow as long and loud as it took. "Hey Applejack, what's—" Her rose-colored eyes lit up, and at once she shot out of the cloud, pulverizing it, and down onto the human, knocking him on his back and pinning him to the ground with her hooves. "Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh! A human! In Ponyville! We gotta—we gotta call for—no, I can handle this! Name-rank-and-serial-number, mister, or I kick your head into—" "Rainbow!" The human, for his part, was staying perfectly still, a wide look of fear in his eyes. Rainbow Dash had sharp hooves—not dulled by spending much time on the ground—and those hooves were pressing into him, so that was probably a look of pain on his face as well. "He's with me. The Mayor saw to it. He's a P-O-W." "Really?" The pegasus thought about this for a moment. "That's awesome! You've got your own human now! And a P-O-W, that means he's a soldier and everything! He's seen the war!" "And I think he'd like to live to see the peace, too, so if you could kindly step off of him—there's this Geneva Convention the Mayor says I have to follow and everything, and I don't know if y'all were mentioned by name but I'm pretty sure having you stand on his chest at least goes against the spirit of the thing." "Oh—hee hee—" The pegasus flapped her wings, taking the weight off the human, who quietly crawled out from underneath, and back onto his feet. "—sorry. Still, this is awesome! Thanks for showing him to me." "You’re welc—dag nabbit, you got me all off-topic. Look, I want you to know he's here, and I want you to know he's supposed to be working and staying on the farm. If something happens to me or my family, or he escapes, I need you to take him down. You're the fastest flyer around; I know you'll be able to do the job." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Well, duh. Why do you even need to ask something like that? I'd never leave Ponyville hanging." She fluttered a bit further up, and forward, bringing her eye-to-eye with the human. "You got that, punk? Anything happens to anypony in this town, you answer to me. I might need a crash-test dummy for my next training routine—the one that ends in a mushroom cloud." The human gulped. "Yes sir." "Ma'am," Applejack corrected. "Ma'am," the human acknowledged. "And he's staying at your place? Awesome! I'm going to have to come hang out sometime now. Later, Applejack!" And with that, the pegasus dashed off into the sky. Applejack muttered to herself again. "I don't think she even had an errand to run. I think she just wanted to go back to sleep." "That's perfectly fine with me, ma'am." The pegasus had seemed to scare him. That was fine, Applejack thought. She'd like all the insurance she could—her stomach rumbled, reminding her of the noon hour and interrupting her train of thought. "Let's get back to the farm. I need grub." Big Macintosh, half a head over most other ponies left in town, still couldn't quite look eye-to-eye level with the human, but he none the less held his attention as Applejack went into the house. The red pony's emerald gaze locked with the human's own cerulean eyes. "I'm not going to make any trouble for your family." "Nope." "I just want to get through this war alive." "Eeyup." "Doing any harm to you or your family or anyone else here wouldn't be conducive to that goal." "Nope." "Good talk." "Eeyup." Applejack walked back out of the house, her younger sister in tow, both balancing pots and baskets on their backs. "Alright, everypony, soup's on." The three ponies and the human sat down at the outdoor table to eat, with plates and food being passed around in awkward silence. Applejack watched as the human carefully looked through the serving dishes, picking out one of the four apples, and from the main serving pot, only a few greens—the dandelions. "C'mon, now. You've gotta eat more than that." "I can't eat most of this." She sighed, tipping her hat below her eyes. "Look, I can only imagine how hard it is for y'all, being in a strange place and who knows how far from home and surrounded by not your own kind, not being in control of what happens to you, but you gotta eat. You made it this far, it's no time to give up." "No, ma'am, I mean I literally cannot digest most of this. Humans don't eat hay, or most flowers." "Oh. Shoot." The orange pony narrowed her eyes. "That's right, you're predators." "I've personally never hunted and killed my own meal, but yes, we do eat meat, ma'am." "Have you tried...not? Maybe if you just tried hay, you'd like it." Applejack doubted this was the case, but she couldn't think of where to get meat. It was available in griffin territories, but it was for griffins—and she wasn't sure how to order it, nor if it could survive the journey to Ponyville. Besides, bringing in flesh for somepony else to eat was just—eeeeugh. "It's possible for humans to live and not eat meat, ma'am, but I still can't eat hay. And I'm pretty sure I'd get weak eating nothing but dandelions." The human looked thoughtfully at Applejack. "At the camp in Salt Lick City, we each got a Red Cross parcel. They're supposed to last a week, and I think you're meant to eat them with other food, and they didn't serve us anything else, but I managed not to starve." "I'll talk to the Mayor about getting those here. Anything else you can maybe eat that we'd have?" "The apples are fine, ma'am; most fruit I can think of is. Vegetables, like carrots or potatoes; cereals like wheat and corn, but the grain, not the straw; bread, most kinds of nuts..." He pursed his lips and thought. "...mushrooms, alfalfa sprouts..." He trailed off. "Alright, I can work with that. I'll try and get some of that stuff at the market this evening. You can help out Big Macintosh after lunch." Dexter nodded, and chewed his dandelion greens—slowing as he felt the uninterrupted stare of the filly on him. The large, innocent, wonder-filled honey-colored eyes sapped his appetite, and he set his hands down. "Can I do something for you, my little pony?" "How old are you, Mister?" "Apple Bloom!" Applejack said chidingly, mostly on reflex. "Eighteen years old." "Eighteen..." The yellow-coated filly tapped her chin with her hoof. "I'm not very good with numbers yet. Would you have been alive in Eighteen Sixty One?" Her pronunciation underlined the capital letters in the date—she was clearly referring to a special time, not to a mere year on the calendar. Dexter laughed softly, glancing at the two older ponies while he did so. "It's 1977. If I'm eighteen, I was born in 1959. That's ninety-eight years after 1861. I might've had a great-grand-parent who was alive then." "Oh." The filly looked disappointed. "Darn." Dexter wondered if he needed to apologize for something when Apple Bloom continued. "Granny Smith just was telling me stories the other day about the humans she used to play with when she was a little filly, back when she lived way out East. I thought you might be one of them." Dexter's eyes went wide. He knew ponies lived on a different scale—faster to mature, longer to live, low birth rates, low mortality (insofar as disease and age went; accident and equicide no doubt claimed their share) but for this one's grandmother to be alive for over 116 years—no, longer, because if she remembered anything in 1861, she had to be at least a few years old then... "Because you look like one of her old photographs." Dexter coughed up a chunk of dandelion green. "All right—" Applejack said quickly. "Apple Bloom, help me clean up. The rest of y'all, get to work." The marketplace was fairly sparse, but at the end of the day everypony was trying to finish unloading their wares so they wouldn’t have any spoilage or leftovers to haul home, so Applejack was able to get a decent variety of non-hay, non-flower foodstuffs at what she considered acceptable prices. Combined with the paperwork with the Mayor that said she should be getting weekly parcels from the Red Cross now, it seemed like everything on the food front was— “Hi Applejack!” Applejack recognized that high-pitched, high-energy voice, and sighed as she turned around. “Howdy, Miss Pinkie Pie. What can I do ya for?” “♫ I heard there’s a new friend in town I’ve got to make! ♫” The fluffy-hair pink pony bounced up and down a few times, grinning widely. Applejack remained stoic. It might have seemed obvious where this conversation was going—but with Pinkie Pie, you never could tell, and it helped to err on the side of keeping your mouth shut. “You’ve got a human out on Sweet Apple Acres, don’t you?” See, Applejack thought, while that was indeed the likely thought, Pinkie Pie could just as easily have been referring to a new woodpecker nesting in the train station. It never paid to make assumptions. “We do indeed. I don’t really reckon a party would be appropriate, though.” “Why not?” The confusion in the pink pony’s voice was of equal magnitude as if Applejack had reckoned that the sun might not rise in the morning. “Well, he ain’t exactly here by choice. He’s a prisoner of war; he’s a long way from home, and I reckon—” “That’s silly! You’re crazy, Applejack.” Applejack’s mouth gaped. Could she really not know that there was a war going on? Why that silly filly of an apprentice baker—“Who could need a party more than that? He must be terrified and lonely and not have any friends at all!” “For the love of...” Applejack muttered, and then paused, thinking about it. “Alright, Pinkie Pie, you win. Can it wait until this Sunday, though?” “Ab-so-lutely-dutily! Oh, this is going to be so much fun! I’ve never thrown a party for a human before! I have to start planning now! The party cannon won’t cut it by itself!” The orange earth pony breathed a sigh of relief as the pink one bounced off and away, leaving her with at least four days of peace. “Now that I’ve got that settled—” She turned to start walking towards her farm. “Ummm...excuse me...Miss Applejack?” A small voice asked. “—I can get on back to the farm—” “I was wondering if maybe....” “—maybe get some dinner out before nightfall—” “...I know we’ve never really spoken much but I wondered if maybe...” “—and get an early start to the workin’ day tomorrow—” “...if it wouldn’t be too much trouble...” “—without anypony else bugging me about the human.” “...I’ll just let you be.” Applejack yawned, walking back along the roads to Sweet Apple Acres, her pack burdened by human-acceptable provisions, quite oblivious to the quiet yellow pegasus pony now fluttering away from her side. Big Macintosh looked around the tool shed, filled with significantly cleaner farm implements than it bore this morning, the dirt floor freshly swept as well. Dexter’s hands were covered in grime, which he tried to purge with the parts of rags he hadn’t already used to clean the tools. The big red earth pony nodded at Dexter. “Good work tonight.” Dexter blinked at getting a non-eeyup, non-nope statement out of the stallion. Even his directions to work were by example—the pony had started cleaning tools, Dexter had followed suit, and proven to be a bit better and faster at it, thanks largely to physiology rather than talent. Anyway, this demanded an appropriate response, from one man to another. “Thanks.”