Lucky Horseshoes

by OmegaMysterium

Welcome to Ponyville

By the time he started for home it was already early evening; an early end to a rather unsuccessful day. He watched as Celestia moved her namesake sun further across the sky as the day drew to a close and night drew ever closer. He let out a small sigh as he stopped for a moment as the sun began to slip behind a cloud on the horizon and start to sink out of sight, the town square darkening somewhat. Soon it’ll be time to light the streetlamps, he thought somewhat bitterly. I could have done that.

With all the shops, restaurants, and other various businesses dotted around Ponyville, Caramel was sure there would have been at least some jobs going around. With all the ponies he’d met at the sudden welcome party he’d been thrown the previous day by that hyperactive pink pony the very millisecond he’d crossed the town border telling him all the best places that were likely to be hiring he couldn’t help feeling more than a little disappointed. But then again, Ponyville was a comparatively small town compared to say Canterlot or Manehatten; and it was the kind of place where everypony knew everypony in a really tight-knit community where news travels almost as fast as Pinkie had done the night before. He gave a slight chuckle, remembering how he’d initially thought she’d been made of rubber with her bouncing all over the place like a filly on a constant sugar rush. Then again, thinking about it, that was a pretty apt description of her!

He’d tried the bakery already, but as it turned out the couple who owned it needed no extra staff for they had the very same ball of pink energy as a live-in apprentice who spoke and moved so fast it was hard to get a single word in. Although, she had offered to ask around for him in case anypony needed any jobs doing. Caramel was grateful to her for that, but since he’d essentially exhausted all the businesses in town he wasn’t holding his breath.

Caramel began to wonder whether this whole “move-far-from-home-to-broaden-your-horizons” thing was really going to work. Really what he should have done when he’d left home was actually make sure there was work going in the town he moving to. It’d been... a rushed decision to say the least; A very rushed decision. Being shy didn’t exactly help either. He had tried to talk at the party, but he’d found himself being talked to or even simply talked at rather than full on conversations. Maybe that’s why he was having such trouble finding a job, maybe he simply came across not being up for job...?

He pushed the thought to one side; at least he had a place to live: a one-storey cottage to stay on the edge of town; it was small and sparsely furnished, but it was big enough for one stallion and the rent was cheap, so it served. Thankfully his land-mare had been generous enough to give him at least a couple of weeks to find a job to put the rent together before charging him, but he wasn’t even sure that would be long enough. Horseapples, he thought to himself. Never mind rent, how in the name of Celestia am I gonna manage food?

He slumped down onto his haunches, sitting in the shadow of a dancing filly perpetually balancing on a ball in the middle of the fountain. He looked up at the statue for a moment, watching the sun sink a little further behind the cloud bank on the horizon, before staring at his hooves as they pawed at the dirt, his light amber fur hardly showing much of the dust coating his fur. He glanced back at his cutie mark for a moment, the three blue horseshoes standing out almost mockingly on his flank.

“I thought these were supposed to bring me luck,” he grumbled to himself.

By now the sun had almost completely slipped out of sight, getting ready for her long sleep while Celestia sent her sister out to take over for the night. Caramel watched as she slowly began to rise from her slumber, deciding he might as well turn in himself. There wasn’t much point staying out now; most ponies were turning in for the evening and most if not all the shops had closed up during his little daydream. He sighed, rose, and stretched as he shook the stiffness from his body. He still had a few cupcakes and pastries from the day before (which somehow had managed to avoid Pinkie’s seemingly insatiable appetite), so they would do for a quick supper. Although, truth be told he was really craving something other than junk food right now. Something healthy, yet with a lot of taste and bit of a kick to it...
“I would kill for an apple right about now,” he said to himself as he began the journey home. He’d just stepped out from behind the fountain when-

WHAM!

Caramel was knocked right off his hooves and onto his back. His head spun with suns, moons and apples as he lay on the ground, feeling a more dizzy and winded. It felt like he’d just walked slap-bang into a brick wall. He shook his head vigorously trying to stop it spinning. When he finally opened his eyes, for a moment he was convinced that he had.
He was facing what seemed to be a massive wall of red, still blurry around the edges as he regained his composure. Hang on, it wasn’t that orangey-red of the red-brick houses he’d seen back home... it was more of a deep crimson... kind of like the skin of an apple. Come to think of it... weren’t the cottages he’d passed before typically... white in colour? Also... it was pretty big but it was nowhere near large enough to be a particularly functional wall; it was a bit too... well... pony-shaped.

“Y’all okay lil fella?”

A deep, heavy southern accent snapped him back to his senses. As he finally shook the last of his dizziness out to his head, he looked up... only to knock his head once again, this time into a rather heavy brown horse collar. Rubbing his forehead with his hoof he looked up once again, staring into the face of another stallion.

His coat was a soft crimson hue, in stark contrast to his rather short yet shaggy mane and tail, both the colour of golden straw. His hooves were strangely bare, his crimson coat hanging over them in shaggy clumps. The large horse collar that had bruised his forehead seemed to hang almost effortlessly from his thick, muscular neck despite appearing to weigh at least twice as much as caramel did himself. His half-lidded almost lazy-looking eyes were a pale green, not unlike tree sap, bordered at the base by three small freckles on each cheek.

His most prominent feature though was his size. Sweet Celestia, he was big! At least two heads taller than him, he seemed tower over him like a crimson wall of brawn, thickset and muscular. Every single feature of his body seemed to scream masculinity; this made Caramel blush a little, for reasons he just couldn’t put his hoof on. The single stalk of hay he held in his mouth quivered as the stallionspoke again, so deep it was almost like a shallow rumble.

“Ah said, you okay?”

Caramel suddenly realised he’d been staring up into the other stallion’s face for at least a whole minute, blood suddenly rushing to his cheeks in a heavy blush as he quickly sprang to his hooves.

“Y-y-yeah, I’m f-fine... sorry about that,” he stammered sheepishly. “I should have watched where I was going.”

“Eeyup,”

The very bluntness of the other’s reply only made Caramel feel even sillier still. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hoof, trying to keep the stallions gaze and fighting an overwhelming urge to shy away.

“I-I didn’t hurt you or anything did I?”

“Nnope,” Again with the short answers, Caramel thought to himself. “Yourself?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Caramel lied, feeling another short wave of dizziness from the bump on his head.

It was only then that he noticed the cart the red stallion had in tow, latched to the horse collar hanging from his neck. It was piled high with apples, all deep red and gleaming slightly in the dull glow of the streetlamps as they flickered on, their sweet scent wafting from the cart making the beige earth pony’s mouth water a little. If there was one thing Caramel loved, it was the taste of a good, juicy apple fresh off the tree.

He stopped gawking at the other’s cargo when he noticed a fair number of them had scattered onto the ground from their earlier collision. He blushed again with embarrassment as the red stallion reached round to unhitch the cart from his collar. Without thinking, Caramel quickly darted forward to the side of the cart and began scooping up the apples with his forelegs.

“P-please let me,”

“Ah can get ‘em,”

“No, honestly I insist! Um... I mean if you unhitched yourself now wouldn’t you just spill more of them?”

The red stallion turned away for a second, rubbing his chin with his hoof before answering.

“Eeyup...”

Caramel scurried bout around the cart, scooping up as many apples as he could and reloading them into the cart. Thankfully, none of them were badly bruised, most having landed on the grass. As he worked, he glanced up at the stallion again, his eyes falling on his cutie mark: a large green apple, sliced in half, which took up nearly his entire flank. Quite fitting, he thought to himself as he ducked under the cart to retrieve a few more runaways. Caramel couldn’t help but notice his ribs were covered in a very thick layer of bandages. He felt a pang of guilt; he knew he hadn’t caused the injury but he hated to think what might have happened if it hadn’t been the horse collar he’d walked into.

“Ain’t seen you around these parts before,”

The suddenness of the stallion’s deep voice made Caramel jump a little, this time catching his head on the base of the cart. Caramel blushed again as he scooped up fallen fruit, imagining what a klutz he must look like to the large, imposing earth pony.

“W-well, I only just moved here you see...” he stammered as he emerged from under the cart and carefully placing the apples back into the cart to prevent any further damage. “P-Pinkie Pie threw me a welcome party yesterday.”

“Ah...” the other’s deep voice replied from the front. “Ah wasn’t in town yesterday.”

“T-that probably explains it,” Caramel gave a light, slightly uncomfortable chuckle as he quickly checked the fountain for any more runaway apples.

“Eeyup,”

There was a very long pause. “I-I think that’s all of them, I don’t think any of them are that bruised.” Caramel quickly tipped the last couple of apples into the cart, the embarrassed blush still heavy in his cheeks. “Again... um... s-sorry about that...”

“S’all right lil fella. This lot’s for pies anyway, so don’t worry about it.” It was only when the stallion spoke in full sentences that Caramel noticed just how slowly he spoke. The large stallion looked down at him, his expression still blank. It was strange, but Caramel could feel his nerves start to subside a little as the crimson work horse regarded him. The gaze was emotionless, but the green eyes were calm and kind. It sounded silly to Caramel, but there was quiet wisdom in those eyes, the kind earned over many years of experience. He blinked, and the other stallion broke his gaze.

“Guess Ah’ll be seein’ ya then.”

“Do you... uh... need any help?” Caramel glanced down at the stallion’s injured side.

“Nnope; Ah can manage.”

With a grinding of wheels and creaking of axles, the stallion pulled the cart into motion, resuming his slow leisurely way towards the other side of town. Caramel watched for a moment before turning to make his own way home. How on earth I managed to walk into somepony so big and so slow-moving I’ll never know, he thought to himself. He sticks out like a sore hoof!

He had hardly moved a yard when something caught the side of his hoof, rolling off into the grass with a quiet rustle. He looked down to see a single apple lying in the grass, the skin perfectly formed and unblemished, the same crimson hue as the pony who’d lost it. Quickly grasping the apple in his teeth he galloped after the cart, which was just about to disappear behind one of the cottages.

“Woo fworgoch won! Woo fworgoch one!”

“Ah beg ya Pardon?” the larger pony brought the cart to a halt, his usually half-lidded green eyes now a little wider in a confused frown.

Caramel felt his cheeks going red again; he still had the apple in his mouth. “I-I mean you forgot one,” he panted, spitting out the apple, quickly rubbing it clean on his coat and holding it out to the red stallion.

The larger pony blinked again before giving a gentle chuckle which Caramel was certain would shake more apples loose again. “You keep it lil fella, consider it a welcome gift.”

“Oh! I mean... um... thank you,”

The red stallion pulled the cart into motion again, leaving a rather rosy-cheeked Caramel standing on the street corner, staring after him with the apple still in his hoof. He had no idea what in Equestria possessed him at that moment, but he found himself calling out: “By the way, I didn’t catch your name!”

Once again the earth pony brought the cart to a stop, looking back at the beige stallion with a lazy smile. “The name’s Macintosh, Big Macintosh. Yours?”

“C-Caramel... um... just Caramel,”

“Welcome ta Ponyville, Caramel.”

Comments

[BigMacintosh1]

love this story

[EnderBrony]

I like how this story has a subtle beginning, rather than rushing in right off the bat. I'll keep track of this story as it progresses...

[OmegaMysterium]

2855810 thankye very muchly
its been years since ive written fanfiction and this is my first time writing mlp, but Im glad you like the pacing, im gonna try and carry it through into the other chapters