He was soaking wet, cold, and practically deaf from the constant roar of heavy rain pounding against the motorcycle's windscreen and the skullcap helmet strapped to his head. The Ural's two-piston engine rumbled beneath him at barely more than an idle as Chicken Whiskers rode at a mere 30 kph into the gusting wind.
Muck was flung up from the road by the front tyre, spattering his numb, pink-furred face. He turned his head and spat, licked his flat front-teeth, and spat again. Pursing his mouth closed he hunched down behind the minimal shelter of the windscreen, but was soon grinning like a lunatic again.
Chick should have been miserable, but riding in crappy weather like this was exciting!
The Ural slithered around underneath him and his grin slipped a little as he fought to keep the heavy bike in the road's centre.
Maybe a little too exciting.
It had only been a steady drizzle when he'd left Fredericton at sun-up, but as he headed south on the 101 it had slowly gotten worse and worse. Even on a good day the deteriorating road surface would have made for a slow ride and taking an entire day to reach his destination: a communal farm down on the coast. With the rain blinding him and turning the crumbling, muck and leaf covered road into a slippery mess, he'd be lucky to make it halfway before having to stop for the night.
The last place he could have stopped, Wirral, was many kilometres behind him now, so he had no choice but to push on to Welsford. Sure, there were a few abandoned houses beside the road but none of them were maintained and Chick didn't feel like sleeping under a sagging roof and sharing his bed with spiders and raccoons. He would have been in Welsford already if not for having to perform his duty of stopping in each small town, honking the horn and waiting for any new Returnees to show themselves. Other scavs might skip that job under these conditions, but Chick was too dutiful for his own good sometimes. Plus you never knew when a fat bonus would come trotting out of the wilderness.
He sneezed and blew a spray of rain and watery mucous onto the Ural's minimalist instrument panel. Ugh. He shook his head, momentarily scattering beaded water off of the helmet's flip-down visor. No point in worrying about it, the rain would wash it off and the bike was a muddy mess anyway. A little snot wouldn't hurt it.
Leaning on the vibrating handlebars he raised his head up so he could see past the nearly opaque windscreen. There was a lake coming up on the left and a couple of abandoned houses on the right looked familiar. The next one should be a burned skeleton, just a few beams of black char reaching up out of the bush. He'd be in town in another, oh, half an hour or so.
A rivulet of cold water snuck inside his bright yellow poncho and ran down the back of his neck, under his leather jacket, and soaked into the fur on his withers. He shuddered but had to focus on controlling the bike as the front tire slithered around on a mass of rotting leaves and muck. The sidecar's tire lifted off the road but he quickly got it back down with a careful blip of the throttle and shift of his weight to the right. Once the bike was stable again he eased up a little on the fuel by rotating his right fore leg so that he wasn't leaning quite as hard on the paddle attached to the rotating throttle grip. The engine coughed and with his left forehoof he pressed the bodged-on clutch lever next to the fuel tank, then kicked it down a gear with his left hind hoof. All while carefully managing the throttle to keep the drive wheels of the bike and side-car from breaking traction.
Oh yes, riding in shitty weather was exciting alright.
He had to be gentle and smooth with the bike's controls or it would kick him in the ass and he'd be chewing pavement. Ugh. He wasn't going to make it to Welsford before dark after all. Merde!
Nearly a soggy hour later the motorcycle's headlight barely illuminated a set of rusting train tracks and then Highway 7's concrete bridge as he rode under it and into Welsford. He passed a dozen or so dark and abandoned houses on either side as he slowly rode to his overnight refuge from the storm. He vaguely saw something in the road — several somethings — at the 'T' intersection of the 101 and some nameless north-south road.
Chick grimaced and was grateful he'd spotted the hazard in time, though it didn't really matter since the driveway into the gas station came up first. He turned right, leaning his weight towards the sidecar to keep its wheel on the ground, and rode past an abandoned eighteen-wheeler truck that sagged in the parking lot. Its tires were deflated and rust was slowly eating the trailer. One of the rear doors hung open and wobbled a little in the wind, but it had rusted solid and wasn't likely to start banging in the wind and keep him awake. The truck's cargo had long since been scavenged for anything useful, as had the gas station. But it was dry and used frequently by other scavs, so it would do for a night.
He rode under the gas station's canopy and pulled up next to the useless pumps. Pressing down on the clutch he left it in gear and flicked the red kill switch on the handlebars. The engine coughed and rumbled to a clattering stop. Chick sat back on the sopping wet sponge of sheepskin that covered the saddle and relaxed for a few minutes, just quietly breathing and consciously relaxing his humming muscles. He reached up a hoof and clumsily pushed at the chinstrap buckle for his white skull-cap helmet and then carefully slid it off of his head. He knew that it would be pretty much useless in a crash, especially after he'd had notches cut out of each side for his ears, but it was better than nothing. He set it down on the fuel tank and then braced his right rear hoof on the sidecar, reached down to hook his fore hoof around the parking brake lever and yanked it up.
Satisfied that the bike wasn't going to roll away he swung his right leg over the saddle and hopped down to the damp concrete. After a solid day of riding in cold rain, his ears felt like they were frozen, his muscles ached, and his rump was tingling and numb. He spent a few minutes trotting back and forth beneath the canopy to get his blood moving again. The sound of his hooves clopping against the concrete was difficult to hear over the loud drumming of rain on the metal roof overhead. Or maybe that was just from hours of listening to the Ural's engine and the rain pounding on the windscreen. Too bad they didn't make ear plugs for ponies. Chick sat down and rubbed at his ears, then shook his head and slung a spray of water off the tip of his mucky pink ponytail.
He rooted around in one of the bike's ammo-can saddlebags for a headlight, slipped it on and scrambled part way back onto the Ural to flip off the headlight and retrieve his key from the ignition. He tucked it into a pocket in the leather jacket he wore under the plastic poncho, then set about checking over the small, two-wheeled trailer attached to the back of the bike. The blue tarp was still secure and the sealed boxes inside were probably still dry on the inside, despite the thin coat of road muck.
Satisfied that everything was okay with his ride and cargo, 'food' and 'sleep' were next on Chick's list of necessities. But he was curious about the lumps he'd seen on the road. He was used to dodging rock slides or branches that had blown down but there were no cliffs or trees nearby.
He grabbed a short, aluminium baseball bat from a holster on the side of the bike and trotted over to the intersection. The rain made him squint and blink but he tried to keep his eyes open and his ears up, wary of any threats. The baseball bat he held in his mouth wouldn't help against a determined attacker but it might convince an animal to look for easier prey or a desperate Returnee to talk rather than fight. Nothing said 'back off' quite like an earth pony swinging a baseball bat at your fragile bones.
The lumps turned out to be head-sized, round rocks. As he played the beam of his headlight over them he realised that they were arranged in the shape of an arrow, pointing at… He looked up. That was probably a house nestled in the trees, but it was too dark to tell and his light wasn't strong enough for him to see that far. He squinted and made out a rectangular orange glow that flickered a little. A window. And it looked like somepony was home and had a fire going.
He irritably kicked at one of the rocks and snorted some water out of his nose. All signs pointed to a Returnee who had set up this dangerous hazard to get attention. Well, best not disappoint them. Maybe he'd have somepony to talk to and somewhere warm and dry to sleep tonight, instead of a damp sleeping bag in the office of the Circle K.
After a short, soggy walk across an overgrown gravel driveway he could see more of the house. It had a long set of stairs at the front and shorter stairs on the south side going up to a covered porch. Chick reached up and switched off the LED light strapped to his head, then cautiously walked up the stairs, using his hoof tips to feel for each sagging step. He hoped that the rain drumming on the porch roof would cover any creaks. He stood up on his hind legs and hooked his hooves onto the glowing window's sill so that he could peer inside.
There was a small, black wood stove on the far side of the room with a fire burning behind its glass door. In the flickering light he saw two stuffed chairs and a long couch filling most of the room, with half-empty book shelves running along one of the walls. A very large screen TV hung from the wall in front of the couch, but it was of course not switched on. Television had long since ceased to be a thing.
Chick didn't see anypony in the room but he could only see the back of the couch and it was large enough for three ponies to lay on.
The house had a lot of other rooms too.
He slowly dropped back down to the wooden porch floor and tip-hooved over to the door. Hoping that he wasn't doing something he'd regret he flicked on his headlight, knocked three times and then quickly walked back to the end of the porch so he'd have a head start. Just in case.
His ears swivelled about but the rain beating down on the roof drowned out any sounds from inside, so Chick just had to wait patiently with no sign of anypony responding to his knock. He was thinking of knocking again when the door jerked open a centimetre, then slowly creaked opened as the resident nosed at the crack and then poked their head outside.
She was a grey pony, sans horn so at least he was probably safe from magical attacks. Her bright orange and red mane shone like a safety vest in the bright, white light of his headlight. She squinted in his direction and since she didn't seem to be threatening he turned his head to one side so he wasn't blinding her.
Chick coughed and said, "Bonjour. Hello."
Pink. Laura couldn't get over how so incredibly pink he was!
When she'd answered the door and had been blinded by his headlamp, his gravelly tenor greeting had brought to mind images of Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman. A very yummy-sounding man's man voice.
But when she'd invited him inside and he'd shed his bright yellow rain poncho, 'Hugh Jackman' turned out to be a little pink pony wearing a black leather jacket. Well, 'little' relative to a human. He was taller and more muscular than she was, though not by much.
Laura had asked him to wait in the entrance, dripping dirty water on the tile while she got him a couple of towels from the stack that she'd gathered from the nearby houses. They all smelled a bit musty but they were clean, at least until the new pony started wiping himself down and squeezing his darker pink mane and tail somewhat dry. He'd been filthy, coated with watery mud by the look of the towels after he was finished.
She noticed he was shivering and common courtesy dictated that she ask, "Would you like to warm yourself next to the fire?"
"Yes, please. Thank you for inviting me in."
He snatched up his discarded leather jacket from the floor and she gestured for him to enter the living room. The newcomer didn't seem to have any compunction about walking around naked but Laura was glad that she at least had her cardigan on. His nudity didn't really seem to bother her though, maybe because it would have been like being upset that a plush toy didn't have pants on. Or maybe it was just that she was chuffed at finally meeting someone after so many weeks alone!
He walked over to the stove, dropped his jacket on the floor, sat down and closed his eyes. A slow smile spread on his muzzle as he basked in the warmth. Laura stood in the doorway and had a good, long look at her first pony… other than herself of course. He was very pink underneath the grime that still clung to his matted fur. His colour reminded Laura of the pale roses that her mum grew in the back garden, while his long, wavy mane and tail were a darker, richer pink. Cerise, perhaps. His hooves matched his darker mane colour, whereas hers matched her grey coat. She imagined that it must be a natural colour variation — whatever 'natural' was for magically transformed pony people — unless ponies painted their hooves. It did look a bit like shiny nail polish.
She snuck a peek at his bum and saw that he had three oval blobs as a rump mark; one green, one tan and the third was a dark brown. She couldn't make out enough detail to figure out what they were supposed to be. The fire-light was rather dim and she'd found that her new, large eyes were not as good in low light as her human ones had been.
Laura wasn't certain how she felt about finally meeting someone after being alone for so many weeks. Excited, yes, but also some trepidation of inviting a stranger into what had become her home. She couldn't defend herself and there were no police to call. But he didn't seem threatening and had politely left his baseball bat outside, leaned up against the house's peeling white-painted siding.
She'd become more comfortable with her own body but seeing another pony gave her a new perspective on things. He looked so small, sitting there in front of the fire, but she knew that he was an adult. Baby ponies must be titchy little things.
She walked into the room and hopped up onto the couch. The twang of its springs brought her guest out of his warmth-absorbing stupor. He coughed and sniffled, stood up, turned around and wagged his tail in front of the fire to fluff up the long hair. Laura walked in a circle on one of the couch cushions before lying down, cat-style with her hooves tucked up under her chest. She wasn't sure when she'd gotten into the habit of turning circles like that but it felt right.
"Thank you for inviting me inside. It's great to get warm after being out in that-", he waved a hoof at the window, "-all day."
His incongruously deep and masculine voice made Laura smirk and shake her head. Minding her manners she replied, "You're very welcome. I'm Laura, by the way."
"I'm Chicken Whiskers but you can call me Chick."
The name was too much and Laura couldn't hold back her laughter. A cute, very pink pony named 'Chicken Whiskers' warming his bum by her fire? It was just too silly! After she'd reined in her laughter a little she saw that he was understandably annoyed by her laughing at his name. The grouchy expression on his cute pony face almost set her off again.
Once she'd calmed down a little she gasped, "I-I'm sorry, Chick. It's just that this is like something out of a children's picture-book."
Fortunately, he seemed to see the humour in it and chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it? Laura, right?"
She nodded.
"It's good that you're amused by how weird this is, Laura. Some folks get pissed off or really depressed when they Return. You just came back, right?"
She nodded again and said, "A few weeks ago, so I've had time to go through Denial, Anger and find a little Acceptance. Though yesterday I was sobbing and throwing pans."
He grinned, showing off a row of flat, white teeth. "I still sometimes slip into Denial. You're English, eh?"
"Yes. I was on vacation with my fiance when the Event happened. You're Canadian?"
"Oui, I'm from Montreal. I returned a little over three years ago. Woke up in bed and 'Merde, I'm a little, pink horse', you know?" He wagged his tail again and said, "I think I'm mostly dry now, do you mind if I sit down? I'm exhausted."
She slipped a hoof out from under her chest and waved towards one of the stuffed chairs and said, "Please do."
But he ignored the chair and hopped up onto the other end of the couch and flopped down into much the same belly-down pose but with his legs stretched out in front. He sighed happily and whinnied a little at the end. Laura wrinkled her muzzle at the reek of wet horse, dirt and musky sweat that rolled off of him. Not that she smelled fresh either. Farm fresh, maybe.
"This is nice! I wish I'd checked this house out before. Usually, I set up a sleeping bag in the back of the Circle K across the street. This is much better. Cozy." He wiggled his hooves and asked, "Are you planning on staying here?"
"Oh, no. I would have been on the road south already if it wasn't for the bloody wolves." Laura had heard them howling and had stumbled over the remains of a deer while out foraging. She shuddered at the memory, which was more about the horrifying smell and flies than the quick view of gnawed ribs she had seen before fleeing the scene.
Chick's ears perked up and he said, "I could help you with that if you want. Though there's bugger all in Saint John if that's where you were headed."
"I have to get to Boston. My fiance left me a letter saying to meet him there."
"Your fiance left you a letter? I left one for my parents and for Pépère… uh, my grandfather. But Boston is called Beantown now and I'm headed that way so I could give you a lift. I stay there over winter."
"Really?!" Laura felt a giddy surge of hope and asked, "Maybe you know my fiance then? His name is Thomas Davies, Doctor Thomas Davies."
Chick squinted one of his too-large eyes and his ears flicked to odd angles as he thought for a moment, but he shook his head. "No, never heard of him but he might be going by a pony name now. Do you know when he Returned?"
Frustrated, Laura sighed and shook her head. "No, he didn't say in his letter. Hey, what year is it? And what do you mean by a 'pony name'?"
"It's 2038 and mid-September." Laura gasped but he didn't seem to notice her shock, or didn't care. He tapped a hoof against his chest and said, "My real name, the one I had as a man before the Event, was Félix Landry. But it's kind of a thing that folks take a new name after they Return, or somepony gives them one. I don't know how that started but I heard that it's an 'Equestria' thing. You, ah, seem to know about all of that, right? About the Event, Equestria and stuff?"
Laura wasn't paying attention. All she could think about was the date. Twenty-three years! She'd lost twenty-three years in the blink of an eye. Suddenly her worry that Thomas wouldn't even recognise her and that she wouldn't be able to see the man she loved in a pretty, little unicorn, seemed like such a small thing. She'd frequently worried about the date during the weeks she'd been trapped in this empty town. Worried herself sick wondering how many years Thomas had been out there, living a life and maybe forgetting all about her. Despite the rusty evidence of the caravan she'd hoped it wasn't more than a three or four years. But twenty-three?!
"Laura?"
She sniffled and rubbed a folded leg over her eyes before the tears had a chance to trickle out.
"Are you okay?" His warm voice sounded concerned, which Laura appreciated even if it did nothing to help. He wasn't Thomas. She needed him, right here and right bloody now!
Squeezing her trembling lips together she looked at the strange, pink pony and shook her head. Her voice was tightly controlled but still quavered as she said, "No, no I'm not ok." She swallowed heavily. "S-sorry… about this."
Chick nodded and looked away, plainly uncomfortable with sitting near an emotional woman… mare. Laura sniffled again while he stared intently at the fireplace and his ears slowly rose back up. One twitched and rotated towards her sniffling. She realised that her own ears were pinned right back, an obvious telegraph of her distress but she couldn't get them to rise.
Laura stood up and wobbled slightly on the springy couch cushion. A cup of tea would help. Tea always helped, even if she didn't have any milk, shugar or biscuits to with it. "I'm going to brew up. Would you like a cup?"
Chick jumped to his hooves and shouted, "Merde! You have coffee?!"
His sudden movement and yell startled her and she stumbled off the couch, just barely catching herself before going nose first into the floor. Chick hopped down while she gathered her legs back under herself.
"S-sorry, sorry." He did a nervous little dance while he apologised. "I… Sorry, I just… Please, please tell me you have coffee."
Laura sniffed and shook her head. Men were such excitable children, even when they were little ponies. "Tea. I have tea if you'd like some."
Chick's excited dance abruptly crashed to an end and his expression turned so sad that Laura couldn't help smiling a little. He reminded her of a mopey puppy with those droopy ears.
"Mmm… I also have a little food if you're hungry." She'd mostly been eating what she could forage from a field that used to be a golf course, so there was a little of the camping grub left. The Circle K and all of the houses in town had been picked clean of anything that ponies could eat and what was left was so far gone that a proper human would regret opening the tin.
"Ehh… Sure, please. I have some food but I don't want to go back out to get it." Chick smiled and said, "If you're okay with me crashing here for the night I can fix you breakfast. I have some fresh eggs and bread that's only a couple of days old."
Laura's depression lightened a little at the thought of eggs and toast. "Oh, that would be splendid! Though I'm not sure you'll like what I have on offer." She adjusted her cardigan so it was hanging straighter over her rump and then trotted over to her saddlebags. After nosing around for a moment she pulled out the last two dried meal bags and plopped them down onto the floor. "I have a vegetarian chili, which honestly isn't very good, and lasagna noodles with aubergines."
An odd thought popped into her head while she watched Chick investigate the mylar packages.
"We can eat eggs?"
"Mmhmm. We can eat eggs, milk and cheese." He tapped one of the bags with a hoof and said, "I'll have the not-very-good chili, please. I didn't like eggplant as a man and I'd rather not risk it as a pony. It smells like you have fresh greens too?"
"Oh, yes." With her mouth, she picked up a large wicker basket that was on the floor next to her saddlebags and placed it in front of him. "Salad, if you want some. It's a little damp and wilted but should still be good." It was the remains of her dinner of broad blades of grass, some shrub leaves and a few flowers for garnish. It was surprisingly tasty but Laura had found that it took a lot of it to satisfy her hunger and after weeks of dressing-less salad she was looking forward to Chick's breakfast.
Laura dragged out her cook pot and got a bottle of river water from her saddlebag. She poured the whole bottle into the pot so that there would be some for the chili and probably four small cups of tea. Two for now and some heavily steeped ones in the morning. She slid the lid on and then bit onto the pot's folding, rubber coated handle. Struggling to lift it a few inches from the floor she tottered towards the wood stove. It wasn't so much that it was heavy, just really awkward and her unsure steps made the water slosh alarmingly.
Chick raised his muzzle from the basket, watched her for a moment, swallowed and then walked over. "Here, let me do that."
Laura set the pot down on the floor near the stove. She huffed and said, "I can do it, thank you."
"I'm not saying you can't but it'd be easier for me." He stepped in close, too close and lowered his head down next to hers. "Look, you're walking really well for somepony who's just Returned but I've been on these hooves for a few years, eh?"
She stepped back, as much to get away from his invasion of her personal space as to give up control of the pot. "Alright. Let me get a towel to wipe down the handle for-"
But he'd already grabbed it in his mouth and, much to her surprise, he stood up on his hind legs. Chick walked a stiff but controlled step closer to the stove and, using both fore hooves to steady it, he slid the pot onto its flat top without spilling a drop. Unfortunately, his impressive athletic display also gave Laura an eye-full of what he had between his hind legs. They were also very, very pink. As was Laura's face as she quickly looked away.
There was a loud 'clop clop' as he dropped back down onto all fours. "There we go. See, I bet you can't stand up on- Oh! Crisse! Euh… Sorry about that."
Laura snorted, brushed past him and walked over to the mylar bag of chili lying on the floor.
It wasn't like she hadn't seen stallion bits before. She and a pair of the girls at riding classes had stared and giggled and embarrassed one another about it for hours. But this was a person, not a dumb lump of horseflesh. A cute and abruptly anatomically correct plush toy. Ugh! She tore the mylar bag open with a furious jerk of her neck and almost spilt its contents all over the floor.
Chick pawed at his still sopping wet leather jacket and said, "I'll, ah, go and put my poncho on. It might be dry by now." Though he didn't sound at all hopeful about it or like he was looking forward to putting on a cold and wet poncho. Laura wouldn't have.
"No. No, it's alright." She sighed, unconsciously tugged on her cardigan and asked, "Unless you'd maybe like a towel to wrap around yourself?"
He shrugged and said, "I will if it would make you happy. I'm used to not wearing clothing after living with other ponies for so long. Clothing is optional in most places because it's uncomfortable and mostly pointless. Well, except when somepony does something stupid like I just did. Right in front of a new Returnee too." He sighed, rubbed a hoof across his face. "I'm sorry, Laura. I get stupid when I'm tired but I should have remembered that everypony's a bit body-shy when they Return. I knew a stallion who insisted on wearing pants for like a year after he came back, even though he looked pretty damn uncomfortable and goofy." He chuckled and gave her a hopeful smile.
Laura was grateful that the hacked remains of her poor capri pants were safely hidden away in a trash bin behind the house. She had clumsily tried to alter them using the multi-tool but after one trial fitting, it was obvious that it would never work. Chick was right that it would have looked silly and been a pain to wear.
Chick slowly walked over to the salad basket and kept a wary eye on her as he nibbled up the last of the grass and leaves with his mobile lips. It was kind of pointless to badger him into wearing a towel after she'd already seen the goodies and there was little to see when he wasn't up on two-legs, waving it about.
She sighed and shook her head, "No, it's fine. I shouldn't let something like that upset me if, as you say, no one really wears much any more. So… You've lived with other ponies since you Returned? In Beantown?"
He snuffled around in the basket, chasing after a few flower petals and behaving so much like a simple horse that for a moment Laura felt a strange confusion over if he was really a person or not.
After licking his lips he spoke, which shattered that momentary impression. "Sometimes, yeah. I usually spend the summer in Grand-Sault" — it sounded like he said 'Ground Saw' — "which is a couple of days north. It's the biggest town in Nouvelle Acadie, a region that's parts of what used to be New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It's a nice place and they've kept the hydro dam running, so they have electricity all year throughout the whole town. Nouvelle Acadie and Beantown hired me as what they call a 'Scavenger', though there's a lot more to the job now than just taking abandoned stuff." He waved a hoof at her and with a touch of pride he said, "Like finding and helping Returnees. Mostly I visit the small holdings all over the Maritimes and bring them mail, news, media and I do a little trading."
Laura shook her head and said, "It sounds positively medieval."
"You're not far off. Nouvelle Acadie has something like a police force and they protect the local farmers in exchange for food. Which is a bit like medieval lords and serfs, though a lot more égalitariste. The big towns stay in touch with one another for trade and they have an agreement to be just and civil to their citizens and one another." He grimaced, "I heard that it was pretty rough the first few years with gangs, violence and even slavery in some places. Ponies trying to take instead of make, you know? Things are better now."
"The water's boiling." Laura nodded at the stove.
"Oh, right!"
Between them, they managed to get the bag of chili filled with hot water, with Chick pouring and Laura letting him know when it was enough. She carefully kept her eyes down and on the bag while he did his two-legged pot handling. She had to admit that he was at least trying to avoid flashing her again, keeping his side towards her as much as he could. He was much more in control of his bigger, more muscular body than what little she had managed so far. Walking and trotting had taken some experimenting and skinned knees to learn, but she'd felt proud of teaching herself how to do it with just her memories of horse riding to go by. Lord help her if she had to flee from a wolf or something! Chick could probably canter and gallop, and she hoped that maybe he'd be willing to teach her. Walking was so slow and if the thrill of speed from mere trotting was anything to go by, galloping must be quite a rush.
Fishing out her third-to-last tea bag, Laura tossed it into the pot and a mix of spice, onions, bean and tea scents filled the room. It was no floral potpourri, but she enjoyed the homey smell of food and tea that overwhelmed the stink of musty furniture and wet horse. While they waited she went to the small woodpile in the corner of the room and grabbed a couple of pieces of wood that she'd laboriously chopped using the multi-tool. Chick graciously opened the stove's door so she could carefully stuff them in. They sat down in front of the fire while waiting for the tea and food to steep.
"If I understand this correctly, the towns pay you to help Returnees?" It seemed a bit weird to Laura that they would finance rescuing people out in the middle of nowhere when they were probably struggling to get by themselves. She'd been imagining a rough, Mad Max or Wild West kind of world where the strong ruled and the weak struggled to get by.
Chick nodded and stared into the flames. "They do, yes. But I'd do it even if they didn't pay me. I'd probably be dead if somepony hadn't helped me at the start, as I came back in the middle of winter. Dead for sure if they hadn't found me!"
Despite the heat coming from the stove, Laura shivered at the thought of what could have happened if she'd Returned mid-winter. She would likely have frozen to death on that cliff!
"The towns need Returnees. They need all the hooves they can get to keep things running, you know? To keep the light of civilisation burning. So they pay me and other scavs when we bring somepony new home. Not in money. There are these plastic chit things that are sort of like money, but mostly we trade. Barter."
Laura snorted, "What? So there's a bounty on us?"
He laughed and stood up. "No, not like that. Not like slavery or anything. It's just a bonus, though we do get paid more if we bring somepony with really useful skills to a town. Like a doctor or engineer." He walked over to the steaming bag of chili and nosed it open to take a sniff.
"I afraid you won't get much of a bonus for fetching me to a town. I doubt they'll have any use for a dabbler in The Arts." She stood up and busied herself with getting her two camp mugs set up to pour tea into.
Chick blew into the bag a few times and said, "You'd be surprised what they need out there. Some ponies in Grand-Sault shoot TV shows so they're always happy to meet somepony who's into acting or has film-making experience."
Choking out a short, disbelieving laugh Laura asked, "TV shows? Really?"
"I have the latest seasons on thumb drives to trade with. Folks watch them on laptops, iPads, and cell phones. They love it."
He stuffed his muzzle into the bag to tentatively scoop up a little of the chili with his tongue and Laura had a quick flash of a horse munching on a feed bag again. She shook her head and bit down on the pot's handle so she could pour the tea. A little of the precious liquid ended up on the floor, but it was better than her first attempts had been. She placed the pan on the floor next to the stove.
"May I ask what mark you have on your rump?" Chick asked, glancing at her cardigan-covered backside.
With a hoof she gently shoved one of the steaming mugs towards Chick and said, "I have a flower cutie mark, so I imagine that I'll end up farming."
Chick looked thoughtful as he chewed. He swallowed, grimaced and said, "You're right, this is pretty awful. And, yes, we earth ponies usually end up doing the farm work. You know about cutie marks and the three different tribes of pony?"
She slurped a bit of tea from her mug, which she left on the floor rather than trying to pick up. It was undignified but much safer. "Oh, yes. Thomas left me a binder of helpful information that included a guide about what had happened."
"'Why The Fuck Am I A Pony?'"
Laura chuckled and said, "Yes. It said that 'cutie marks' show off what a pony's special talents are? I don't know why mine is a flower as I had a brown thumb when I still had thumbs."
Chick swallowed another mouthful and said, "It could be metaphorical. Maybe you'd be a great teacher? Helping young minds bloom, kind of thing? At least you didn't end up with a dud cutie mark like this mare I knew whose special talent was search engine optimisation."
"What's your mark?"
He frowned and glanced at his rump, then turned a little so that the light of the fire fell on it. "I have three coffee beans. Before the Event, I owned and ran a small café in Montreal. I imported green beans, roasted them myself, and our coffee was the freshest in town. The best. I like to think so anyway. But now, well, nopony's importing coffee anymore." He shrugged and reached for his mug with both hooves, picked it up and held it to his muzzle in a very human-like way that Laura envied. Perhaps he could teach her that too.
He gulped it down in a few swallows, set the mug down next to the pot and said, "Ahhh… that was good! Thank you, Laura. It's not coffee but it's been a long time since I've had actual tea!"
"You're welcome." Laura took another slurping sip from her own cup. The familiar scent and taste were soothing her frazzled nerves.
"If you don't mind, I'm going to crash out. Is it okay if I sleep in here near the fire?"
"Please do."
She was going to suggest he take the couch as she was smaller and could more easily curl up on one of the chairs. But he was already making his way to the one closest to the fire, which meant she'd have her usual spot on the couch.
He started to snore pretty much the moment he laid down.
Laura smirked and tried not to make too much slurping noise as she struggled to drink the last of her tea. She was tempted to try his double-hoof grip on the mug but had visions of spilling hot tea all over herself. It was past her usual bedtime and she was wrung out from a day of gathering food, practising her walking gaits, and of course, worrying. At least there was less to worry about now. She'd been found and would soon be on the road to… Beantown.
She yawned, not bothering to hide it behind a hoof. She spent a few moments clearing the empty bag and mugs, just nosing them to the wall so nopony would step on them, and then walked out into the hallway. Groping around in the near-dark she got one of the larger towels onto her back and returned to the living room to spread it out over Chick's sleeping form.
It was difficult and she was sure he would wake up as she struggled to get it spread out, but he was dead to the world. With her guest taken care of she bit into her sleeping bag, hauled it up onto the couch and crawled inside.
Chick's rumbling snores were rather comforting as she drifted off.