The sunflowers were not at all what Sundance expected, being no more than tiny, tender sprouts poking up out of the rich black soil. With his head down low, he rubbed his fuzzy chin against the stubby sprout and felt an odd sense of longing, but also a peculiar protectiveness. Could a pegasus be a farmer? Why not? Somebody had to water the plants and guard them from storms.
Moist black dirt squished into the crevices of his frogs and he was careful not to step on his precious sunflowers, which had been planted in neat little rows. Wickering with happiness, Sundance ignored the fact that he was being stared at and focused upon the profound sense of joy that he was experiencing. Lifting his head high, Sundance struck his best majestic pose and allowed the wind to tug at his ears.
“Cucumber! Cucumber!” A panting elderly mare came running up and she skidded to a halt on the wet grass.
“What is it, Sauerkraut?”
“It’s Lamp Black!”
“Aye, what’s he done now?” The old unicorn’s eyes rolled in anticipation of whatever it was the mare had to say.
The old mare, still panting, huffed out her reply, “He took his paints and painted a picture!”
“That don’t sound so bad… we could use a bit of refinement, so I say.”
“But it’s of Privy Pit’s backside! You can see her stink-wrinkle! It’s lewd!” The old mare sucked in a deep breath, her bright eyes bulging, and her head bobbed up and down. “Lamp Black and Hoe Hum keep staring at it and saying lewd things!”
“Aye, that’s terrible.” Cucumber nodded, sighed, and followed up with, “I should go have a look at that—”
“No! Don’t look! Avert your eyes! It must be scrubbed away! Do not look directly at the stench trench!”
“Oh, the stuff I have to deal with every day,” Cucumber sighed and he sounded oh-so-very tired.
“Milord, might you ban the lewd?” Sauerkraut asked, point blank.
With a turn of his head, Sundance faced the wrinkled mare and studied her. In the bright glare of the sun, he could see little more than grey on grey, but her eyes were kind, wise, and clear for her advanced age. She was imploring him with her eyes and the way her ears quivered was endearing. Something about her reminded him of his grandmother, but this mare was far, far older.
“I’ll not be banning anything until I have a better understanding of this place and how it works. If it bothers you, my best advice would be not to look at it.”
“But, Milord—”
“Sauerkraut, go bake a pie.” Cucumber cleared his throat and then waited for the mare’s reply.
“Aye, I can do that! That’s wholesome!” Then, without further ado, the mare took off, almost pronking, her knees popping with each jaunty step. “Must be on the lookout for lewd… lewd lurks everywhere! Beware the lewd!”
There was something almost foalish about the departing mare, and Sundance found himself smiling. He decided on the spot that he liked her, because the world needed more happy-go-lucky ponies. Looking about, he saw a number of faces studying him, all of them quite puzzled, no doubt judging him and his dealings with the nice old mare. Hopefully they saw his response as kind and fair.
“Sauerkraut Pie is a good mare and she’s our best cook. She keeps all of us fed, but she has a fear of the lewd, she does. I’ve been trying to get her beneath me for years… decades—”
“Cucumber… I… can’t even…”
“What? She wasn’t always this old, Milord. Why, at one point, my interest in her might’ve been seen as cradle robbing. I can remember her being born, though I can’t say when. After the war, so it was. She grew up into a fine thing, so she did. Sadly, all I’ve been able to get from her is extra slices of pie and not much else.”
“She’s never married or had foals?” Sundance asked, intrigued far too much for his own good.
“No, Milord. The previous Milord even tried to lure her in, but even he wasn’t cruel enough to do the deed. She’s just so innocent and foalish. He valued that, so he did, and so do the rest of us. When things get bleak, and things are often bleak, she’s always there to lift our spirits. She might just be the best of us. A real ray of sunshine, that one, so she is.”
“I’d like to keep having a look around, Cucumber.”
“Aye, right Milord. Right this way and keep an eye out for the lewd…”
The stone cottage was more roof than cottage, with only but a low wall made from rocks that was shorter than Sundance was tall. There were no windows, but the door had two sections that could be opened independently. The sod roof was a green, vibrant, living thing, and up near the peak there was a goat nibbling on some tall tender shoots that had sprouted. Although Cucumber had claimed that this cottage was falling into ruin, the door was in far better condition than the one on the tower, though there could be no doubt that the rusty iron hinges were in dire need of oiling.
Sundance tried to push the door open, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried again, throwing a little extra oomph into it, but the door remained firm. Then, feeling foolish, he pulled on the door and with a creak, it swung outwards. A musty, earthy smell struck him, but it wasn’t a bad smell, just not one he was used to. It was a little like walking through the farmer’s market on a warm day, but far stronger, more intense. Ducking his head down so he wouldn’t bonk it on the doorway, Sundance stepped inside, unsure of what he would find inside, but hopeful for the possibilities.
“Don’t mind the smell, Milord,” Cucumber said as he followed Sundance inside. “Once a fire is allowed to burn for a while, this place will be as dry as week old bread, so it will.”
The old retainer’s horn lit up and Sundance’s breath was taken away. Above him was a myriad of roots—an eldritch snarl of knobby, twisty, gnarled roots that clung to massive rough-hewn wooden rafters. Everything above him appeared to be alive and the rafters showed no sign of rot. In fact, upon closer inspection, some of them appeared to have grown together in places, which was baffling.
“I done reckon it has something to do with earth pony magic,” Cucumber remarked, his voice quiet and solemn. “Like I said, these ponies have a powerful connection to the land, which loves them and cherishes them in return, at least, I think it does. I’ve heard tales about strange things that happen when an earth pony lives on a patch of land long enough, and then there’s all that I’ve seen in my long life. Most might dismiss what I have to say as nonsense, but I’ve watched these earth ponies go from cradle to the grave my whole life.”
There was a rounded stone basin in the middle of the room, charred black with the remains of many fires. Above it was a small opening in the roof, which was almost overgrown and needed a trim. In the back there was a small loft of sorts, a curved wooden shelf that Sundance guessed was for sleeping. The floor was dirt and pebbles, hard packed. Nothing else of interest could be seen.
It was large, larger than both his bedroom and the living room in his mother’s apartment. Sundance could see how this could be a comfortable space, with a family gathered around the fire in the middle. This of course, called attention to the fact that he had no family of his own, but that was a real can of worms waiting to happen, due to the fact that there was some real confusion about what he wanted.
Now wasn’t the time to think about it.
“I’ll have this place aired out, cleaned up, and I’ll get a fire lit. Watch out for spiders, they’re bitey, so they are, and there might be other creepy crawlies up in the roots above. I’ll bomb this place with bug dust and keep the fire smokey for a while. Come away, Milord, the damp is starting to affect my cough.”
“Right. Where to next?”
The cave walls glistened with what appeared to be a thousand tiny diamonds, and when the condensation built up enough mass, the sparkling jewels rolled down the walls, which were somewhat yellowed with sulphur. Light was provided by simple torches dipped in sticky black tar. Water dripped from the ceiling into pools of water, some of which were boiling, while others merely steamed.
This was the bathhouse and the kitchen, with the boiling pools used to cook stuff and the hot pools used for bathing. A sulphurous musk permeated everything and the stench was strongest here, in this place. Along the far wall was a collection of crockeries, stone bowls, stone pots, clay pots, and even a few pieces of cast iron. Cooking utensils, most of which were carved wood but a few were made of metal, hung from a crude but solid rack mounted to the wall.
If there was something cooking, Sundance couldn’t smell anything.
“Cooked ponies make the finest, most delicious broth,” Cucumber deadpanned.
“Say what?” Sundance blinked, alarmed, and it took him several long seconds before he realised that his retainer had a black sense of humour. The warm sense of affection gushing up from within him caused him to smile, even as the Tartarus-born stench made his eyes water.
“The dining hall is the long building we passed outside. It has a wooden table and even a wooden floor, so it does, and Princess Celestia herself has eaten in there, so she has. That was a bloody long time ago, so it was, and not all of the dead had been buried yet. Just after the war, ya see. It was that long ago.” The old unicorn sighed, shook his head, and blinked his rheumy, bloodshot eyes a few times. “The previous Milord, I had to lug his food up to his tower. I suppose that you’ll be eating with us?”
“I would like that, yes.”
“Everypony’ll think it’s a holiday, so they will. Very good, Milord.”
Having lived in the city for the entirety of his life, Sundance had never seen a plough and seeing one now left him giddy. Farming! Tilling soil! Up to this point, vegetables had always been something that came in a carton, or a bin, or frozen, or tinned, with tinned vegetables being his least favourite food. Like so many other Equestrians, he hadn’t ever given much thought where his food had come from, it was just something that was sold at the farmer’s market or the grocery store. But to see it as it came to life from the land, it was a new and novel experience, a life changing event for Sundance.
The stallion pulling the plough was singing in a deep baritone that resonated through the general area. He did so without effort, pulling the heavy iron plough with such ease that he wasn’t at all breathless or unable to sing. If anything, singing seemed to aid his work, allowing him to breathe better. Behind him, the land parted in moist, fertile rows that glistened black.
A much smaller mare walked in front of the massive stallion, her eyes on the ground and her ruddy reddish tail flicking around behind her. She was plain, there was nothing remarkable about her visually, but she had aged well. When she lifted her head, Sundance saw that there was, in fact, something distinct about her that he had failed to notice before, and that was the fact that her eyes pointed in different directions.
“Milord, that’s Plowshare and Potato,” Cucumber began. “Plowshare is one of our strongest and Potato, she’s one of our most valuable. She’s our watcher.”
“Cucumber, are you having a go at me again?”
“No Milord, I’m not.” The old unicorn cleared his throat and his hooves shuffled about in the soft-tilled earth. “Right now, she’s keeping an eye out for rocks that might damage the plough. Potato has her Potato Sense and that mare sees all. She knows when danger is coming, she’s always the first to spot trouble, and she was the one that alerted me to yer arrival. A long time ago, another Milord came and tried to buy Potato… the previous Milord told him to fronk off.”
“I see.”
“No, Milord, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. She sees, and no doubt better than you do.”
“So, Sauerkraut protects us from the lewds and Potato protects us from other forms of danger. Got it.”
Potato’s eyes narrowed and her ears pivoted about while her head turned north-by-northwest. Several goats also stopped and each of them also turned their heads in the direction that Potato’s nose was facing. The mare stomped her left hind hoof, flicked her tail right, and then made a bleating sound that sent the goats running towards the barn.
“Griffon,” Potato announced as the goats all fled. “Goats don’t like griffon. Nope. Goats like Potato. Griffon good, but goats not know. Goats fear griffon.”
“It seems we have a visitor,” Cucumber announced as he squinted skywards. “Griffon incoming.”