//------------------------------// // Training the Troops (Morpheus) Part 3 // Story: dC/dt ≠ 0 // by I Thought I Was Toast //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash’s and Applejack’s progress was truly remarkable. It humblingly reminded me just how powerful any pony could be when they put their mind to it. A pony didn’t need a cutie mark in combat to be good at guard duty, after all; over half the guards ve have files on lack cutie marks related to their job. They simply choose to serve and manage to make the cut on their own, without the inherent aptitude granted by a cutie mark. It is, perhaps, one of the biggest puzzles ve ponder about pony kind. They are so full of potential, yet – more often than not – they cling to their cutie marks as if those alone define them. I digress, however, as ve are starting to wander from the topic at hoof. The point is that Rainbow and Applejack quickly and steadily surpassed our wildest expectations. Ve never imagined that, in the simple span of a month, I would be so easily outclassed. I mean, I knew I was no Hera or Spi, but, hive damn it all, I was a lord. It was a matter of pride to us to strive to match our underlings. And I was no exception. I hit the ground hard, and found myself pinned by Applejack. “Mrgmmf….” I gagged on the dirt she was trying to shove down my throat and gave the yield signal. “Pffft!” As the pressure on my withers lifted, I arched my head up and hacked the earth from my lungs. “Either I’ve let myself get far rustier than I thought, or Hera’s been going easy on me all these years.” Snorting the dust from my nostrils, I groaned and collapsed back onto the ground. “The way of the warrior was never your forte, My Lord,” Hera droned. “I thought I could keep up with you, though!” I hissed, trying to rise and failing. “Applejack repeatedly defeats me, but still has trouble handling you. What else can that mean other than that you were always holding back on me?! By the First Father, I am supposed to set an example!” “You set more of an example than you give yourself credit for, My Lord.” Hera broke her statuesque pose to furrow her brow and scrutinize the leaves beneath her hooves. “Do not sell yourself short.” I cackled – plates clicking and clacking and so near to cracking. My wings chirped discordantly, creating whistles and whirs and the occasional whine. “All I made today was an example of what not to do.” Applejack held out her hoof. “Beggin’ your pardon, Mo, but that’s just stinkin’ thinkin’. Ya did fine, all things considered.” “One more….” Baring my fangs in a mighty grimace, I knocked her hoof away, and stood of my own accord. “Just give me one more try.” Applejack frowned and opened her mouth only to bite her lip and sigh. “Alrighty then. Just one more and then Ah’m calling it. Ah ain’t gonna be the one to tell Twi that somepony squashed her love bug. Deal?” “Deal.” I spat in my hoof and held it out. Grinning, the farmer spat in kind and bumped my hoof before backing up twenty paces. “Alright, how ya wanna do this? Same as before?” “Same as before,” I droned, layering filter after filter upon the shame and frustration that had built up over my twenty-two consecutive losses. I needed to win. No. Ve needed to win. Ve would do whatever it took to set a proper example. “Ya sure you’re alright, hon?” Applejack’s grin faltered, the taste of a dry cider and lemons coming through. “Yes.” I added a filter for incoming emotions. Her concern might cause us to doubt ourselves at a key moment, after all. My haws clicked closed to hide the movements of my eyes as I cast my gaze over my opponent. My heart burned, expending a burst of my now sizable reserves of love. Synapses fired wildly as ve predicted, projected, and analyzed various strategies: their pros, cons, costs, and the expected results. Numerous strands of possibility branched apart and wove together to create the web my mind skittered madly across. And in the space of a single breath, ve knew what needed to happen. “Commence.” I surged forward mechanically – without emotion – knowing it had more than a fifty percent chance of startling Applejack into a reactive buck. Our wings shrieked with a malicious buzz that raised that probability further, “Let’s see if you can handle this.” Our voice fractured and flickered through the air, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Sure enough, Applejack began to rotate to her left, swinging her hind legs around to buck me full force. I swerved to my left – her right – shaving so close to the point she was pivoting her body about that I brushed against her. I could feel the goosebumps crawling over her skin we were so close, and as her buck finished – completely missing me – I arched my head up and lightly pressed my fangs into her throat. Game. I held myself there, waiting for the yield signal, yet it didn’t come. Doubt began to plague our thoughts, so ve lowered the filter. Cold. Sour. Rancorous. Fear. Iron. Steel. The tiniest hint of blood and magma. Resolve. No bitterness to be found. Wait! It was there, but under heavy lock and key. “Not worth it to win.” I stumbled back, haws blinking as ve shed the filters ve had so carefully piled up. “I should know by now that filters are never the answer. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!” I curled into a small, hyper-compressed, ball, desperately hoping Hera and Applejack would leave me alone. Several long minutes of silence hammered into me. They didn’t leave – just stood there, occasionally crunching a leaf or two as they shuffled from hoof to hoof. Applejack’s steely resolve had broken, unleashing a confusing maelstrom of different reactions, the only constant being a mix of sour and dry. Hera, as always, stayed disciplined, concealing her emotions from me. Eventually – after an eternity in the silence – there was some heated muttering, and then a deep, relenting, sigh. The finest of vintages swept me away as Hera picked me up and cradled me in her hulking form. “Why do you always need to have your lessons beaten into you, sir? You’re so much smarter than that. You don’t need to pull a Rainbow Dash.” Applejack snorted, a brief waft of spiced cotton candy emerging at the comment. “This is why I always had to hold back against you, you know. You always let your feelings get in the way.” There were a few moments of contemplative thrumming. “I think it’s a good thing you’re like that, though. It means you’re always thinking about others, even when you shouldn’t be.” She rocked me back and forth, chirping a soft nameless tune. “Right now, you’re worried about what Applejack is thinking, even though you can probably taste her concern right now. Even if her thoughts are as jumbled as the rest of her emotions, she’s worried for you. Do you know why?” I poured the frigid ice of my dread and anxiety into the glass of wine Hera offered. My oldest and most loyal friend gave another sigh. “You constantly worry about the good of everyling – and even everypony – and that’s what makes you the lord most fit to rule. That’s what made Spi, Webber, and me follow you into this hive-forsaken mess, and that’s why Applejack is concerned about you right now. That’s the example the other lords need to learn to set, not some silly nonsense about lord’s needing to be as mighty as those they rule. Who cares if you can’t fight like me or Spi? Your duty lies elsewhere.” “Clerks are meant to manage the masses, little prince~” I twitched as Lyra’s voice sang out. Casting our senses wide, I made sure it was just her returning and that Rainbow and Spi were continuing to train elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind Spi’s support, of course, but I hated the idea of Rainbow seeing me like this. Luckily, there were no loud, brash, displays of emotion in the air, so I knew I was safe. The sound of Lyra’s voice came closer. “Yes, they are the last line of defense for the hive, but they defend it through their tendencies to be strong tacticians and spell casters. Hay, that’s half the reason gramps can pull the Star Swirl act. He’s not just a shaepherd; he’s a shaepherd who morphed from a dynastinae who morphed from a clerk. Spell casting is in his blood.” The soft rustling of leaves stopped beside me. “So, come on, let’s go!~ Up and out of your shell!~ It’s a bright and sunny day!~ Just ignore what they may say—” Hera hissed, cutting the start of Lyra’s impromptu song off. “Friend or foe, I will tear your throat out if you start another of those cursed songs! My Lord is not in the mood!” “Ooh, you’re such a killjoy….” One could hear Lyra’s pout. “I mean, I did bring you the lunch Bon Bon packed early when my Lyra sense a-tingled….” “You mean, one of the nearby infiltrators noticed the obvious and reported.” I droned, poking my head out to look once more upon the world. “Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes~” Lyra lazily smirked, pulling several lunch boxes from her saddle bags. “It sounds way better to just say it was my Lyra sense. Much more mystical, you know?” “Oh, we doing lunch?” Applejack immediately perked up and headed over to her own bulging saddlebags. “‘Cuz Ah brought extra, just in case anypony wanted a bite.” She began pulling out several bowls of tupperware. I briefly debated trying to curl up once more, but it was too late. My brooding mood was gone. Hera had held a very small-but-real heart to heart with me – breaking a significant amount of her rules and instincts to comfort me. I couldn’t just ignore that. “Alright, then. Let’s have lunch.” I smiled, beckoning Hera to put me down. I slowly snapped and popped my entire body back into place as I unwound myself. “What do we have today?” Lyra licked her chops. “Well, thanks to Twilight’s connections through that mirror thingy, Bon Bon was finally able to make me— I mean, us honey-glazed ham sandwiches!” Her plain, pink and blue lunch box clicked open, and out levitated a sandwich of perfect proportions out. The soft, dark orange bread gently cushioned two layers of cheese, one on each side. In turn, the moist, crumbly, cheese – Chhena, ve believed – took the brunt of the golden-brown sauce that dribbled over the tender, succulent meat and prevented the bread from becoming too soggy to enjoy. The scent of sugar and spices filled the air, and I flicked my tongue out once or twice to ascertain them: mustard, honey, and… ginger? That was an odd choice. “My bits provided the honey, and you can probably guess where the love came fro— Oh sweet Celestia, Hearth’s Warming came early! Sweetie Dee made her special gingerbread for these! It’ll almost be like a cookie sandwich!” Lyra bit into her sandwich and thrummed, her wings freeing themselves from their cases to give soft, happy, chirps. Levitating my own sandwich from its container, I flash-heated it with a spell and took a small nibble. A savory sweetness exploded over my tongue and I thrummed in enjoyment, taking a much larger bite. The ginger bread was soft and fluffy – far fluffier than any sane cookie – yet maintained most of the sweet and spicy snap of a traditional gingerbread cookie. The bite was lighter, yet paired oddly well with the Chhena – which was traditionally used in sweets. It mixed with the glaze of mustard and honey on the ham for an additional twist to the contrast of spicy and sweet before my fangs hit the succulent pork. By the First Father, the pork! It was as if the pig had been bred, fed, and raised to be slaughtered, and the omnivore inside me shuddered in euphoric bliss as it considered becoming a carnivore full time. “Your fiancé is scary good at cooking meat,” I wheezed, having to remember to breathe between bites. “Mrgmmf… I gave her some of the memories gathering dust in the hivemind.” Lyra shrugged. “Her cutie mark took care of the rest. Isn’t it great?” “Indeed.” I nodded. “It’s odd to have something so close to dessert for the main course, but her talent does lie with sweets.” “Well, y’all can keep your sweet, sin-filled, demon sandwiches,” Applejack huffed. “They’re nothing but a devil in sheep’s clothing come to steal your soul. Ah mean, Chhena, really?” “There—” the farmer set several fruit salads before each of us, “—have some real food! Ah got a few caramel apples too, if anypony wants real dessert too.” Apples seemed to be the main ingredient, of course, although there were some cherry tomatoes and other fruits mixed in. All were crisp, fresh, and juicy – preserved with a touch of earth pony magic – covered in a dressing that was soft and creamy, smelling of various berries. It was good, but not as good as the sandwich. Regardless, we all ate in a companionable silence for the next few minutes, munching and crunching our respective meals. I tried to strike up another heart to heart with Hera a few times, but right now, I’d have better luck with a brick wall. Lyra, on the other hoof, wouldn’t close her heart up, her life story visible for all who could ‘hear.’ This time she seemed to be sharing the simple, naive, emotions of something from her childhood, but I wasn’t really paying attention to her. Ve were thinking— No, I was thinking, thinking about certain things that puzzled us and me. “Hey, Applejack. Do you mind if I ask you a question?” The farmer chewed and swallowed. “Well, ya just did, but sure! Go ahead! Shoot!” I gulped, although there was no food in my gullet. Thoughts of a certain alicorn’s question weighing heavily on my mind. “When…” I bit my chops so hard they almost cracked, “…when did you first realize you had feelings for Rainbow Dash?” Applejack arched an eyebrow at me. “Hon, Ah told you we don’t talk about the Night of Broken Baths the first time you asked.” “No! No! No!” I shook my head, plates rattling from the vehemence of my motion. “I mean, when did it first occur to you that your relationship might be serious?” The arch to her eyebrow grew as Applejack raised her head and hummed in thought. “Honestly, Ah dunno. Hasn’t really happened yet, Ah reckon. Don’t get me wrong. Ah love Dash, but Ah can’t help but think that one day she’s gonna soar into the sky and leave me behind. “Nah, that ain’t it,” she snorted. “Ah know for a fact that she’ll always come back if Ah need her. It’s more like Ah worry Ah hold her back from doing what she was meant to do, ya know?” “I see,” I sighed. Applejack tilted her head and perked an ear skyward. “Why? You having those thoughts about Twi already? Don’t tell me you two social klutzes are racing ahead of me and Dash. No offense, but you flat out told me y’all can’t feel love almost a little over two months ago and believed it, while Twilight ain’t exactly the sharpest tool in shed when it comes to the sappy stuff.” “No. No!” I shook my head vehemently once more. “It’s just— It’s complicated, okay? It’s not like I’ve ever fallen in love before. Tasted it? Sure. Ve’ve tasted all the stages of spousal love: from crushes to young passion to the old and never-wavering flame. Ve’ve even tasted the point of metamorphosis from crush to true love, and analyzed the catalysts involved, but it has been such a long time since ve experienced love. Ve do not know how to tell when that happens.” “Didn’t ya see that Ichorous fellow Rainbow told me about?” I shrugged. “When the sample size is just one, it’s infeasible to extrapolate from it.” “Extrapowhatnow?” I sighed. “Extrapolate: to draw meaning from. I just can’t imagine what it’s like to fall in love, and I have a gut feeling things will be way different for me than they were with Ichorous.” “A safe assumption, given I haven’t had to rip somepony’s head off for burning your wings up.” Hera gave a low, menacing hiss. I poked idly at my salad, only slightly missing my sandwich as we conversed. “Yeah, that. So, those memories don’t help, and to top it all off, I’m starting to think I can’t even trust all the signs ve thought I needed to look for. I was kind of hoping—” Hera tsked at the h-word, “—that you could help me figure things out. It’s not like there are that many ponies I can ask.” Lyra huffed. “I said ponies.” I chuckled at the storm of honey she sent my way, not even trying to understand. “Also, you don’t qualify yet. You can pester me all you want when you’re as large as your grandfather, but you and I both know that, until your next Chrysaling, all you’ve tasted so far is true friendship.” Lyra huffed louder this time, pouting and pointedly looking away from me. The tide of honey from her attempted heart to heart slowed, yet stayed persistent. “And that matters why?” Applejack drawled. “Love is love. Ah mean, Ah can’t rightly say Ah understand yer Chrysamumbojumbo, but Granny once said my pa called my ma the best of friends even after they were married. Who's to say that friendship and love ain’t one and the same sometimes?” “That’s…” I thrummed, turning her words over and inside out, “…an interesting concept. It bears consideration.” “Darn, tootin’!” Applejack slapped her knee. I rolled my eyes. “That does not change the second reason I avoided asking Lyra, though; namely, I’m terrified of her answer. She’s just so very… enigmatic….” Lyra huffed again. “I am nowhere near as bad as Pinkie Pie.” “Alright, line up!” I shouted to get everypony’s attention. “We have one last thing to do today before heading home!” Hera and Spi formed ranks almost instantaneously, while Rainbow, Applejack, and Lyra lagged behind as usual. Lyra in particular was always lackadaisical, finding some reason to draw the action out. Today saw her fiddling with an actual saw, making oddly haunting melodies with a modified bow and the carpenter’s tool, and ve had no idea where she’d gotten them from, except perhaps from the Pink Menace herself. “Lyra!” The dynastinae started and a loud, ear-splitting, screech filled the air as her bow jerked across the saw. “Woah! Woah! Woah! Must you be so unmellow, my fellow?~ You’re like a high-strung harp hitched up high on a kite~” “What?” I deadpanned, only to sigh as Lyra shrugged. “I call them as I see them – usually with more rhyme than reason. You should know that by now.” She yawned, forked tongue flicking through the air. “You need to chill, Papa Prince — snerk! Papa Prince… I need to save that one…. It’s not exactly accurate right now, but it rolls off the tongue.” “Lyra!” I snorted, stomping a hoof. “Alright! Alright!” She sauntered into line and gave a mock salute. Silence reigned for all of two seconds before she snickered again. “Papa Prince…” “Pffft!” And there went Rainbow’s composure, although ve could not fathom why for the life of us. It really wasn’t that funny. “Ahem!” I glared back and forth between the two of them. “Sorry,” Rainbow chuckled. “I was just imagining ‘Mama Twily’ and couldn’t help it.” “Woah, nelly,” Applejack agreed. “Ah just had the cutest picture of Twi leading a swarm of little clones of herself around like a mama duck now, all of them with mile-long checklists.” She whistled. “Dang… Davenport and Greyscale are gonna turn into the richest ponies in Ponyville a few years from now, ain’t they?” I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t work like—” There was another snort of laughter, and it was neither Lyra’s nor Rainbow’s nor Applejack’s. Slowly – glacially so – I turned to the culprit who maintained a perfectly flat facade. “Really, Spi?” “You have to admit, it’d be amusing to unleash a brood of nymphs on Twilight when they hit that phase just to see what would happen.” “What phase?” Rainbow poked her head out of line to look around Hera at Spi. “The phase where they mimic any and everything.” Spi grinned. “Sweet Celestia,” Applejack lowered her hat, “does that mean we’d need to be lectured by her and the youngins one at a time or all at once?” Rainbow’s pupils dilated. “How about no?” The hauntingly sweet sound of a saw filled the air. “Ahem!” My echo finally fractured. Silence. Azure-blessed silence. “Thank you,” I hissed only slightly. “Now, as I’ve been trying to say, there’s one last thing before we head home. We need to test Webber’s specialized filter spell for you. I’d tell you how it works, but – unlike Twilight – I know you two would probably find it boring.” “Ain’t that the truth,” Rainbow muttered under her breath. “Any questions?” I stopped pacing to stand at attention in front of Rainbow and Applejack – a proper example. Rainbow casually raised a hoof. “Yo, flyboy?” “Yes?” I responded in a particularly low and guttural intonation of Chitri. Most would take the hint and at least consider what they said next. “You ever mimic your mom as a foal?” I twitched, wings giving a very discordant chirp. There was a deep ponderous thrum from Hera. “He once tried to ‘interrogate’ me not realizing the leather straitjacket and fluffy pink hoofcuffs were for a completely different kind of interrogation. That was the day Chrysalis taught us where baby ponies come from.” I rounded on her to see her as stoically statuesque as always. Wait. No. There was also the tiniest bit of an upturn to the corner of her chops. “Et tu, Hera?” I sighed turning back to the others. “With pictures...” She wouldn’t. “...from her personal scrapbook.” Would she? “Before she burned an even more detailed explanation on where baby changelings came from into our frontal lobes as punishment for taking her things.” By the Azure Veil, she actually did it. I didn’t know whether to be mortified or proud. Still, this was getting to be a bit much, so ve mentally counted to ten thousand ten times. Then ve did it again. And again. Eight more times. “Uh, Equis to Mo?” A cyan hoof poked me, but ve refused to be baited. “Guys, I think we broke him.” “Ve believe he’s waiting for us to cast the spell on everypony,” Hera sighed. “Then do it already! He’s really creepy when he gets that still.” “You do not taste like you’re afraid.” “I’m not! That doesn’t make him any less creepy, though!” “Ponies,” Hera muttered in Chitri. “Changelings,” Lyra muttered right back. Applejack reared on her hind hooves before slamming into the ground. A tremor raced from her hooves beneath us into the distance. Trees creaked at its passing, rustling their leaves to a breeze that wasn’t there. They stretched their branches skyward In euphoria, and they grew as they leeched just a tiny bit from the avalanche of magic Applejack had unleashed. A minute passed – the tremor traveling much slower after all her practice – before the wave came surging back with its wealth of information. It passed beneath my hooves safely, proving that Webber’s filter at least partially worked, before it hit Applejack. The farmer flinched, but didn’t cry out like normal, the vast amount of data spreading through the network of connections we had laid out between her, Hera, Spi, and myself. An intense amount of information battered at my senses, but I was able to quickly divert it after minimal amounts of data parsing. A half a minute of back burner processing later found my piece of the pie complete and on hold as ve waited for a signal from the others. I didn’t collapse, and only went blind for a second. So far events were proceeding at a passable rate, but could stand refinement. Oh. There was the signal from the others. Releasing my hold on the data, I sent it back through my connection to Applejack. As the central node of the network, only she could succeed in linking everything, but, with all the work we had done, she should have no problem with that if she just followed the instincts woven into the filter. “Woah, nelly. It’s like a bunch of spiders just up and sauntered on into my head for a square dancing contest.” Applejack shivered. “Still, Ah think Ah got it. You want me to send another wave out?” “One was fine for a preliminary test.” I rolled my shoulders, cracking various plates I hadn’t realized were stuck together in tension. “It was enough for Hera, Spi, and I to gather a baseline for Webber. He needed real, tangible data to figure out how many changelings we would need to make this feasible.” I tsked. “Even this much improvement is too slow, although ve suppose practice may improve our efficiency. Also, we can’t have you rearing up every time. That’s way too conspicuous for practical use, so work on unleashing controlled tremors even as you walk, talk and run.” Applejack nodded, a slight taste of rubber permeating the air. “Will do, hon. It’s not like Ah like the grandstanding.” “That’s great…. Is it my turn yet?” Rainbow’s sarcastic rasp cut deep, albeit for good reason. I thrummed. “Yes. Yes. You can shed the bindings on your wings now that we’re done with Applejack, just—” I didn’t get any farther as Rainbow violently ripped the rope and cloth suffocating her wings free. As they met fresh air, thousands of conversations exploded in my ears. “By the Azure Veil, at least wait until I finishing explaining what you need to do.” I think I shouted, but it sounded quiet as a mouse. Temporarily sealing my ear tubes shut, I sucked in a huge breath and properly prepared myself before slowly reopening the floodgates. “I heard that…” “Did you see…” “So my roommate’s uncle’s grandson’s friend’s lawyer’s roommate heard that…” And then everything coalesced into a tangible stream with a gale of laughter. “Hey, Sapphire! You think Princess Twilight will bring that guard of hers back to the Empire for Hearth’s Warming?” “We can only dream, Ruby, but I sure know I wouldn’t mind cooking a Sapphire sandwich with him and that emerald hunk that just got assigned to door duty. Did you see his—” “Sapphire Sandwich! Ruby Roux! Quit yakking and get back to work unless you want to be kicked from here to Yakyakistan! Your imaginary coltfriends aren’t going to give those eclairs a creamy filling for you!” “Yes, Onyx!” “Enough!” I yelled, fighting hard to control my blush as I cut the spell. My voice echoed into the distance, causing several animals to bolt into the underbrush. “Okay, then….” I panted, looking to see if the others were as worn out. “Did anyling else get a sense of range on that?” I flicked my wings. “I managed to catch wind of a conversation at least as far away as the Crystal Empire.” Spi whistled. “That’s much farther than Webber expected. No wonder it was nothing but a garbled mess to me. Are we going to have enough changelings to parse all that?” I shrugged, running some horribly quick estimations. “Ve’re not sure. Even with Third Eye promising to lend as many of his infiltrators as we needed, that might not be enough, so it’d be best to simply have Webber revamp the spell. Are you alright with that Rainbow?” “Ugh… how long is that going to take?” Rainbow threw her hooves in the air. “My wings have been almost constantly itchy lately.” “That would probably be all the data you aren’t actually listening to dispersing back into the air.” I glanced at her wings – subtly vibrating. “Be glad the process is so automated for you. I mean, you’re catching wind all the way from the far ends of Equestria. Ve are, frankly, astounded you aren’t comatose from all the info.” “I guess that explains all the napping,” Lyra chittered. “Hey!” Rainbow flared her wings. “I nap cuz I want to, when I want to! No way I’m lame enough to let a bit of wind take me out!” Lyra just chittered some more. “Whatever,” Rainbow huffed, looking at me. “Can we go now, though, flyboy? I really want to shower before dinner. If you can’t tell by the smell, I had to sweat my way out of more of those stupid webs.” “Oh, we can tell alright.” Applejack grinned. “Right now, you stink worse than a skunk in a funk, and Ah swear Ah can almost see the stank lines rising from your wing pits, but you’ve smelled worse.” “It can’t be that bad, can it?” Rainbow craned her head beneath a wing and sniffed. “Oh! Eww! Nevermind! That is one first-ranked rank stank.” “Ve have dealt with far worse odors in the past.” I moved beside Rainbow and flicked a tongue out just to check. “Yep, it’s mostly just your usual salty tang. Sure, it’s stronger, but it’s really not that objectionable.” I shrugged. “Besides, even if it was, you get used to horrible sensations as an emotivore. It’s part and parcel with the whole tasting emotions thing.” “Eurgh!” Rainbow scrunched her face. “I smell like this all the time to you?!” “You’re worried about that more than the fact he just tasted the rainbow, sugarcube?” Applejack tsked. “Yes?” I tilted my head. “Well, yes to Rainbow. I believe I just told you that. You’re a little more earthy than usual, but Applejack smells earthy all the time.” “Did y’all just go and say I stink?” Applejack arched an eyebrow. “Not at all!” I shook my head. “You merely smell earthy. It’s an earth pony thing. Unicorns have a natural perfume. Pegasi sweat more. Earth ponies possess a certain earthy musk. It’s merely the way you evolved.” Applejack rolled her eyes. “And now yer saying all earth ponies stink in general. Ah suppose that’s just how the cookie crumbles for you, though.” She turned and started heading towards Sweet Apple Acres. “See ya later, Your Highness!” Rainbow stuck her tongue out at me. “Yeah! Later, flyboy! I got a hot, steamy date with a shower!” “You know I hate being called that!” I shook a hoof at them as they left. “And make sure the Echo triplets are done with their work before you start your ‘shower!’ It’s incredibly distracting, and I’m the one who has to deal with a disgruntled Big Mac when you screw with their work ethic like that!” Despite – or perhaps because of – my warning, the taste of cotton candy and leather wafted back to me as pegasus and earth pony headed back to the farm. Ve believe I’d do well to call it here for today. By this point, I have accurately summarized just what went into the training, and it would be impractical to needlessly continue. It took months, after all, to refine Rainbow Dash’s and Applejack’s techniques. It would be much better for you to look into the events that happened in the meantime for now. I know for a fact that Twilight was looking forward to telling you about Nightmare Night, and I’ve been looking forward to Hearth’s Warming myself. I’d just hate if ve accidentally spoiled anything going forward just by talking about training.