Cropduster
Admiral Biscuit
I looked over at the pony who'd nosed up to the bar next to me. She was a pegasus with a light green coat and a brownish mane and tail.
It always felt a bit impolite to look down at a pony's flank to see their cutie mark, but that was just my human upbringing. The ponies didn't mind; they did it to each other all the time. Sometimes I'd even see them turn so that the other pony could get a clearer look.
Just the same, I waited until she was distracted before glancing down. Like a lot of pegasi, she had a cloud-themed cutie mark, which didn't really tell me much of anything.
I waited until she'd had a few drinks of her beer before speaking. Maybe I didn't have to, but I thought she looked kind of tense when she sat next to me, and I thought I'd give her a little bit of time to look me over.
Once she wiggled her rump a little bit on the seat and slouched forward just slightly, I thought she was probably as relaxed as she was going to get, and it was time to introduce myself.
“I'm Joe,” I said, sticking my fist out.
“Cropduster.” She bumped my fist politely and then took another sip of her drink.
“Cropduster, huh?” I had an image in my mind of her gliding low over fields, dispensing fertilizer or some kind of insect poison from jars tied around her barrel, and I took a quick look but I didn't see any markings on her fur. Back on Earth, you could tell the horses who wore harnesses a lot.
I mentally slapped my forehead. For all I knew, she carried sacks in her hooves or something like that. Or maybe pony harnesses were designed with more care than the ones we put on Earth horses. “Do you fertilize?”
“Do I what?”
I took a moment to consider what I'd said, and decided that I probably could have found a worse way to ask if I'd really thought about it. “Crops. Like, back on Earth, there are airplanes that fly low over fields and put down fertilizer or insect poison.”
“Poison?” She narrowed her eyes. “You humans poison your crops?”
“Ah, well.” I took a drink of my beer to give me a second to think. “We put things on them that the insects won't eat. Things that make the crops taste bad.”
“Oh.” She scratched her chin with a hoof. “No, that's not it.” She shifted on her seat and turned her rump towards me. “Pull my tail.”
And like a fool, I did.